Geoffrey Davies was genuinely happy to have travelled halfway around the world to deliver a lecture at the University of Otago this week.
The managing director of the Alamo Group Europe Ltd, vice-president of the international Alamo Group Inc and United Kingdom Chambers of Commerce 2007 entrepreneur of the year was back in Dunedin, a city for which he obviously retains fond memories.
There was nothing about his impeccably-tailored demeanour and his clipped accent to suggest the British businessman had spent his formative years first on a farm in Otautau and then in the city attending John McGlashan College and Otago Boys High School.
But he said in an interview that those years spent in the city were instrumental in equipping him to build the business he now ran.
"The strengths and skills that this region gave me have been fundamental in my approach to life."
The Davies family came to Dunedin on the 10 immigration package from England.
While many of the contemporaries of Mr Davies' father settled happily in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, Mr Davies senior chose to head much further south.
"He was on a quest for a business opportunity but I don't think he knew where to find it or, at that stage of his life, what that opportunity was."
The family settled in Otautau, which 50 or so years ago was a lot smaller than it was now, with the infrastructure much poorer and transport a good deal slower.
It was tiny, but it was home, Mr Davies said.
"My father started New Zealand life working on a spread that was indeed Footrot Flats territory. Wal and the Dog could have been my constant companions."
The family had very little, but life on the sheep farm led Mr Davies to appreciate the value of agriculture and the processes that good farming entailed.
That realisation stayed with him and had proved to be a cornerstone of the businesses he now ran.
The Otautau experience ended when the Davies family decided to move to Dunedin and it was in that city that his father's entrepreneurial spark turned into a flame.
At that time, it was customary for families to buy from a series of specialist shops.
Mr Davies senior had the vision to try to make shopping easier for families by bringing things together under one roof.
He bought a grocery shop in Caversham, added a dairy and then a bakery.
Then, he progressed to self service - a revolutionary approach back then, Mr Davies said.
"The store was probably rightly regarded as Dunedin's first supermarket. Dad was up at five and did not finish until 10 at night or later. He ran the place seven-days-a-week.
"I could see how energised the business made my father. He got a huge buzz from establishing and growing that retail outlet.
"The experience was fundamental in sparking the spirit of the entrepreneur in me and it's something that burns as fiercely as ever in me."
Dunedin had given Mr Davies plenty but he realised the opportunities in Otago were limited so he returned to Britain, obtaining a BSc in nautical studies from the University of Liverpool.
Having qualified as a navigation officer, he spent most of the next decade travelling the world.
Again, that experience gave him some lessons that he applied to his later business life.
They included discipline, rational decision-making under pressure, a rigid, recognised chain of command and delegation, responsibility, accountability and training.
After leaving the Royal Navy, Mr Davies added a diploma in management studies from Keele University to his qualifications.
With his interest piqued by the vast size of one of the buildings owned by Rubery Owen Group - the largest privately-owned business in the UK - Mr Davies fired off a cheeky job application that proved successful.
At the time, Rubery Owen had 93 operating companies within the group.
"I reasoned that something that big must hold potential for a bright young would-be manager. The letter worked. I was granted an interview and somehow talked my way into being given a job."
Rubery Owen gave him a management project to work on.
He was asked to go to France to assess whether the group should acquire a manufacturer of agricultural balers.
Touching again his agricultural roots, he made the confident recommendation that the board buy the French company.
It was at that point that Mr Davies entrepreneurial spirit kicked in.
Realising that various parts of the group made random pieces of machinery, he suggested that all the manufacturers of agricultural products should be brought to form an agricultural machinery division.
The Rubery directors gave him the task of acquiring the French company and forming an agricultural division.
"I loved every minute of it. Within a few years, I had been able to structure the new division and turn it into the most profitable of all of Rubery Owen's diverse operations.
"The fact I was able to talk my way into the initial project - an important one for them - with basically only my naval experience to go on, demonstrates that self-confidence pays."
After Rubery Owen, Mr Davies spent five years as a managing director of a company specialising in precision engineering.
But he wanted his own company, not one he was running for someone else.
Researching the wider land management machinery market, he found one.
In the 1980s, there was a growing market in Britain for machinery to manicure golf courses, groom sports fields and cut other parks and public open spaces within towns.
The entrepreneurial dream was realised when he formed Dabro International in 1985.
Judging that Dabro was a calculated risk, he remortgaged his house to underpin the start-up costs.
He presented a business plan and financial scenarios to the bank, which loaned him the money and provided an overdraft facility.
In three years, Mr Davies had developed the company to the point of where it was attracting suitors.
The turnover was 3 million and it was profitable.
Three companies came calling to buy his company and he decided to accept the offer of the highest bidder, Wolseley Plc, known for its Plumb Centres and activities in the American bathroom and kitchen markets.
In 1988, Wolseley also had a UK agricultural division and Dabro was assigned to the McConnel operating company.
Part of the deal was that Mr Davies stayed on to integrate the companies, something he now describes as similar to a prison sentence as he ended up solving problems for McConnel, which was a moribund company that was lumbering along.
McConnel and the other agricultural machinery companies within the division were very obviously a poor fit for Wolseley's main interests of building industry plumbing.
It surprised no-one when Wolseley decided to sell the agricultural companies, which were bought by Alamo Group, an agriculture-to-road maintenance business which was set on expanding outside North America.
Again, Mr Davies went along with the companies.
"The Texans soon discovered they had bought trouble.
McConnel had an outdated management outlook.
It also had manufacturing methods to match.
"With my track record at Rubery Owen, Alamo gave me the opportunity to sort out the ailing firm."
When he became managing director, McConnel was losing significantly more than a $NZ1 million a year on turnover of around $NZ12.5 million.
Year-on-year sales were down 50%.
Mr Davies wanted to make McConnel the bridgehead for a push into Europe so he had to turn the company around as quickly as possible.
Two years later, the company was making good profits and he established Alamo Group Europe, a holding company.
He then went on to successfully acquire McConnel's main competitor, Bomford Turner (another turnaround), followed quickly by SMA, his first French acquisition.
By the start of the fourth year, Alamo chairman Don Douglass and Mr Davies did a financial road show through the major cities of Europe and some major US cities to attract investors.
Alamo Incorporated was then floated on the New York Stock Exchange.
The key to making the company successful was to change the culture, he said.
When he brought Dabro, it was an old-fashioned, metal-bashing English company which had lost its way.
But it was cheaper to buy than a company making money.
The company was led by engineers who designed products and passed them on to a sales team to sell.
The problem was that what the company made, no-one wanted.
"In my companies, marketing is king. Market research finds out what a customer wants. We have these products fully specified by engineers. We know the margins we need and that sets the selling price for the product. It is easy to decide what the manufacturing cost should be."
A report is handed to the engineers, who go and design the product to the cost specified.
The product is taken to the market in confidence it can be sold at a competitive price and it was something the market was looking for.
One of the other major changes was introducing cell-based manufacturing principles - manufacturing in short order only those machines that were on order.
The whole production became locked into the pre-sold production schedules contained within the business plan.
Manufacturing employers were contracted on an annual hours basis and it was the responsibility of one cell to ensure the next cell in the line had sufficient supply for tomorrow, the next week or the next month.
The control on hours was the demand of workmates in the next cell.
"Peer group pressure underpinned by generous bonus payments is more powerful than any manager.
From the top down and bottom up, everyone is geared to hitting targets contained with the business plan and when they hit the targets, reward bonuses are triggered."
In tandem, Alamo introduced the "just in time" stockholding of raw materials.
The inventory shrank to targeted levels, freeing up large amounts of working capital.
The company also invested in the latest CAD design and introduced reliable software to enable it to eliminate the prototype stage.
"I share monthly results with everyone in the company. A lot of businesses talk to the lower echelons only when the company is in trouble. Everybody we employ is geared to the business being successful."
Asked how he juggled all of his work and travel commitments with those of his family, Mr Davies said he had always got away with sleeping about five hours a night.
"I never need more rest than that. I have a lot of energy. It becomes more than a profit motive. There is a buzz from turning a company around, particularly in a rural area that really needs the jobs."
