A continuous journey that has tested and defined this unique team

The LiTMUS Group (LiTMUS), now one of Australia’s leading specialist management consultancies, was grown from humble beginnings.

The organisation’s journey through the past eleven years has been filled with highs and lows. The highs have helped to build an amazing team across three states in Australia and now in Singapore, but it has been the low times that have really defined the true spirit of LiTMUS.

LiTMUS was established with guiding principles to encourage and cultivate an organisation with a supportive and open culture. These principles included:

• Transparency
• Trust and honesty
• Valuing our people and their knowledge
• Equity and profit sharing
• Structuring the business as a going concern with a long term future

The provision of four weeks sabbatical leave every three years for all employees is unique as are the firm’s transparent systems for the staffs’ performance recognition and reward. LiTMUS also prides itself on the transparent reporting of the firm’s financial performance and the number of staff who hold equity in the business.

Today LiTMUS is a successful, tight-knit team of expert consultants truly capable of delivering big consulting firm sophistication while still offering small firm innovation and service.


1998: The LiTMUS story begins

The vision
LiTMUS was founded in May in Brisbane, Australia by Don Blair. Prior to this Don spent more than 25 years at Ernst and Young, 12 of them as partner in their Management Consulting Division.

Don saw first hand how willing organisations were to invest in strategic planning, but how few then committed the resources or had the skills needed to implement these new directions.

LiTMUS was launched as a new breed of consultancy, specialising in this strategy execution phase. The Group was designed to be cost effective, flexible and experienced enough to drive the implementation process from within the organisation – acting as a dedicated resource to management teams.

LiTMUS quickly grew with some ex-Ernst & Young colleagues and an enthusiastic graduate joining Don in this exciting new venture. By July 1998 there were already six in the Brisbane team with ambitions to build on the firm’s early success.

Energex Retail was the first major client to engage LiTMUS to assist with the development of its strategic plan and associated business plans. This was followed by work around the development of more relevant Board reports for Energex Retail and a comprehensive Executive reporting system.

The name
In science the litmus test is used as an indicator of change. Since Don’s aim was to build a team who could make change happen in organisations – the name “LiTMUS” seemed a fitting choice.
The dot on the small ‘i’ in the LiTMUS logo was highlighted in red to signify many of the qualities the Group strive to achieve for their clients, such as innovation, intelligence, integrity, ideas, involvement, integration and independence.


1999: The market’s response

The first two years of trading were strong with blue chip clients such as Energex Retail, Telecom New Zealand, Queensland Treasury Corporation, Optus, Suncorp, and RACQ Insurance engaging the firm for important projects. Many of these clients reinforced the firm’s belief that large organisations were struggling to execute their strategic plans and to implement reporting systems which reflected their strategic priorities.

Graduate recruitment program begins
LiTMUS held its first graduate recruitment campaign at the major universities in Brisbane and was successful in attracting excellent new talent into the firm. This was the beginning of special relationships LiTMUS has established with the universities and their career advisory groups. These relationships and the firm’s graduate recruitment program continue to be a cornerstone of the way LiTMUS has approached organic growth; building upon the enthusiasm of graduates who have joined the firm.

The first annual strategic conference
LiTMUS had regularly held local strategy meetings with its staff in various venues around Brisbane. In November 1999 the first of the firm’s annual strategy conferences was held on the Gold Coast and the tradition of these events has continued each year.


2000: Rapid expansion leads to Sydney launch

LiTMUS enjoyed steady growth, expanding into New South Wales when it secured further work within Optus in North Sydney. The Bank of Queensland and AAPT Cellular One also became clients later that year and the LiTMUS team was now 20 people strong.

With consultants in both Brisbane and Sydney it was important to maintain the firm’s values and culture. During this year LiTMUS experimented with many concepts to deal with the group’s planned expansion. Separate sets of accounts were established and LiTMUS talked about franchise type arrangements but the firm eventually found that operating as one national business was clearly the right direction to take.

LiTMUS also commenced holding meetings with an advisory board comprised of the chief executives of major clients. This was a unique initiative that provided valuable input to the leaders of LiTMUS about its strategic direction. It also reinforced the special relationships that were in place with these client executives.


2001: Market collapses with GST, Y2K repercussions and September 11

GST, Y2K, the collapse of Ansett and HIH and the September 11 terrorist attacks combined to throw the economy into a mini recession. Consulting projects were few and far between. While most consultancies shed staff, the strategic minds of LiTMUS went into overdrive to find a way to keep the company, with all staff, afloat. The result involved personal sacrifice and initiative:

The benchmarking initiative
Instead of cutting overheads, the team invested their own capital in developing an on-line benchmarking system for a robust market segment – the gaming industry. Once complete, organisations with gaming machines such as leagues clubs, golf and bowls clubs and RSL clubs could track their performance against their industry peers. The system was a success and is now being used by hundreds of clubs through NSW and Queensland. Another benchmarking system was also developed for the franchise industry.

A team approach to survival
Instead of jumping ship, each member of LiTMUS accepted a pay cut, which was subsequently repaid in full together with a bonus when the business regained momentum in 2002 and 2003. New clients for the firm during this period were Ergon Energy and One Steel.


2002: Business confidence recovers and LiTMUS lays foundations for growth

LiTMUS emerged from this tough time stronger than ever. Unlike many consultancies, it retained key staff which meant it was perfectly positioned to hit the ground running when the economy recovered.

The experience during this period provided some invaluable business lessons the Group have built on:

• The experience unified the team beyond all expectations, highlighting the benefits of team members being involved in the firm’s key decisions and having a stake in the business;
• It reinforced the need to deliver a high quality and flexible range of products that could adapt to changing economic cycles; and
• The importance of geographic diversity was recognised, prompting plans to open a Melbourne office.

The time was right to once again harness the enthusiasm and loyalty of the team, but this time through an innovative employee share plan. Overnight all staff, old and new, became proud owners of the services they were providing.

Ergon Energy continued to use more LiTMUS consultants to help drive their integration and process improvement programs. New clients during this recovery period included Golden Casket Lotteries and Voxson.


2003: The LiTMUS Board is formed

The market continued to rebound from the lows of 2001 and LiTMUS was regaining momentum. The service relationship with Ergon Energy was expanding while Enertrade followed by Queensland Health became additions to the firm’s client base.

2003 saw the first Melbourne based project, and the beginning of a major client relationship with Australia Post.

Following the expansion of the number of shareholders in the business, the team believed the time was right to appoint a non-executive chairman for the firm. As part of this process a Board was formed to provide the systems, governance and transparency needed to protect the interests of the shareholders.

An initial priority of the Board with management was to develop a strategic plan that included growth aspirations to double the size and profitability of the business over the next three years and establish a Melbourne business – all of which were ultimately achieved.


2004: Melbourne office opens

Following more than twelve months of planning LiTMUS expanded into Melbourne after securing work with Australia Post and then National Australia Bank and Tabcorp. This new work provided the catalyst to appoint a partner and to establish a consulting team in Melbourne. The Sydney office also began working for Alcatel, developing performance reporting solutions for Alcatel, initially in Australia, then across the Alcatel global organisation,. The LiTMUS team was once again 20 people strong with a presence in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.


2005: Laying foundations for new major projects

LiTMUS secured major projects with Sydney Water and Energex with the implementation of major strategic initiatives focused on Field Workforce Automation. This work was facilitated through our relationship with TUSC (part of the Ericsson Group of companies) and Mobile Data Solutions Inc. (MDSI), now Ventyx, from Canada who became strategic alliance partners with LiTMUS. The reputation of LiTMUS in the Utility Industry was enhanced through these projects. As a result of the team’s strong performance in project and change management, Ergon Energy appointed LiTMUS to improve process performance management, including the provision of clearer accountability and improved performance reporting.

Late in 2005 a new LiTMUS initiative in thought leadership started to take shape. LiTMUS investigated ways of conducting and communicating innovative research and development that could be used to establish best management practice standards. This resulted in the launch of special interest Executive Forums that were held to promote the discussion of topical management issues and the dissemination of knowledge and best practices to the participants.


2006: Achieving a sustainable employee owned company

LiTMUS achieved the 2003 aspirations of doubling the size of the business. This growth was delivered with continued consulting engagements with our key clients, some major projects with Skilled Engineering and the Department of Defence and the addition of Guild Insurance, Powercor and CS Energy as new clients.

The company set about investing significantly in the LiTMUS senior leadership team to ensure the business growth aspirations would continue to be realised and sustained in the future. The number of staff had increased to 33 with 50% taking up the opportunity to own shares in the company.

It was during this year that LiTMUS also investigated various opportunities to grow through potential mergers with other professional service organisations. This was a very useful experience for the firm and showed the importance of always maintaining sufficient independence for LiTMUS to manage its future direction, its operations and, most importantly, its culture and values.

During 2006, the staff and partners in conjunction with the Board developed and adopted a new strategic plan for the three years to June 2009.


2007: Partners appointed to drive growth and LiTMUS in the Community (LiNC) formed

The firm was committed to executing the new strategic plan which planned for further growth, the consolidation of a structured professional development program for all the staff and the investigation of alliances with similar overseas management consulting businesses. These were three of the many important strategic initiatives planned for execution by the firm in the three years to June 2009. Two staff members were recognised for outstanding performance and were promoted to partner level. LiTMUS also hired a new partner for the Sydney practice and two new Melbourne office partners. The total team now comprised of 44 consulting staff.

One of the significant initiatives to be introduced during the year was LiTMUS in the Community (LiNC). The LiNC programme is a workplace giving initiative which was developed with the Australian Charities Foundation and provides a framework for LiTMUS staff to make financial donations from their salaries to selected charities. The firm also matches the staff donations and places these funds into a reserve for more spontaneous donations to various charities and disaster relief funds.

The group continued to achieve excellence for their clients, while constantly developing innovative ways to make a difference. A significant new client for the firm was Queensland Rail (QR) with LiTMUS being engaged to help with Board and Executive Reporting systems. Telstra, Rio Tinto Coal, Harvey Norman and John Sands were also new clients for the firm.


2008: A year of celebration, leadership transition and continued growth

LiTMUS continued to grow with the Melbourne office committing to expand its skills and resources to support the market. Harvey Norman, Rio Tinto Coal and QR continued to engage LiTMUS for further work along with the firm’s longer standing clients Australia Post, Sydney Water and Energex. New clients include Queensland Gas Corporation, NSW Fire Brigade and AGL. The staff numbers were edging to the 50 mark despite the early indicators of an economic slowdown.

In April, the firm celebrated its 10 year anniversary with a strategy conference held in Vanuatu. All staff attended and in many cases their families and partners also attended to participate in the celebrations. The conference was also a key transition event for the leadership of the firm given the planned July handover of the Managing Partner role from the founder, Don Blair, to Brad Miller. Brad had been selected by the Board in late 2007 to take on this critical role for LiTMUS and guide the firm into a new phase of its development and growth. This transition also involved the move of The LiTMUS Group’s main office from Brisbane to Melbourne.

Under Brad’s new leadership, LiTMUS continued with significant growth, despite the dire economic environment. The focus was on delivering value to our long standing and loyal clients while adopting tighter sales and resource management disciplines during these difficult times.


2009: LiTMUS goes global and is recognised as one of the BRW Best Companies to Work

Following the formal signing of agreements in January, LiTMUS became the first Asia-Pacific member of Highland Worldwide, an international business consulting partnership with more than 2,000 consultants in 40 offices worldwide. Not long after this event, LiTMUS expanded its operations into South-East Asia with the opening of an office in Singapore.

The move to the global stage is providing great opportunities for LiTMUS. These include the potential to leverage global client relationships and consulting service delivery opportunities, access to thought leadership materials and knowledge transfer, staff development through working on international projects and overseas secondments and access to leading practice information from other Highland Worldwide member firms.

The transparent and trust based culture that LiTMUS has established was recognised when the firm was ranked 17th in the BRW Best Companies to Work 2009 list. BRW in conjunction with the Great Places to Work survey ranks the best 50 workplaces in Australia, based on research carried out by the Great Places to Work Institute Australia. The award formally recognised the initiatives and actions taken by the firm to invest in the development and support of its young and dynamic workforce as well as the open and trusting culture apparent in LiTMUS.

LiTMUS continued to grow through tough economic times. The recession made it harder to bring in the results – but while other consulting firms were reducing headcount, LiTMUS managed to increase its staff numbers to 60, achieving its revenue targets and obtaining 38% business growth.

The strategy has been refined to position LiTMUS as a provider of measurable business outcomes tied to client strategy and the leadership team has set a new plan and course for LiTMUS which clearly articulates the growth aspirations for a sustainable future for the next decade and beyond.


2010: LiTMUS continues to build brand awareness and assist clients with executing their strategies

The foundations for the future growth for LiTMUS have continued to be strengthened this year with new offices established in Sydney and Brisbane. These offices represent the firm’s evolution into a company that has matured and entered the next phase of its life cycle.

The capabilities within LiTMUS have broadened with the introduction of the Financial Services group of specialists as well as deep expertise in Procurement. In addition to this, LiTMUS is proud to include amongst its people, an internationally recognised thought leader in Business Process Management (BPM).  LiTMUS is further able to offer best in class thinking for clients with these capabilities to ensure great success in executing clients’ strategies.

In a show of team work and commitment to results, this year has seen six teams of four come together to raise money and walk 100km for Oxfam.  The group of 24 dedicated employees started and finished the journey together and made Oxfam history in doing so.  This achievement highlights how focussing on a goal can lead to excellent results.

To demonstrate commitment to a balanced and rich cultural life at LiTMUS, LATTE which stands for LiTMUS, Arts, Theatre, Thinking and Epicure, has become firmly embedded amongst the values and character of the firm.  The team are enjoying cooking classes, attending theatre productions and having the opportunity to share in some art appreciation. LATTE began as the anti-thesis to FiTMUS, which is the endurance or adventure element of LiTMUS.