Business Enquirer Issue 116 | Argon & Co | August 2023

CHANGE MAKERS FROM THE INSIDE OUT ARGON

& CO

CHANGE MAKERS FROM THE INSIDE OUT

ARGON & CO

PROJECT

DIRECTED BY:

LEE NEWTON

ARTICLE

WRITTEN BY: LAURA WATLING

Formed by a growing “federation of entrepreneurs” who all believe in the power of building a worldwide consulting business, Argon & Co implement global best practices into its client’s operations.

Working with its clients across a wide spectrum of industries, Argon & Co supports them in building and implementing an operations strategy, ensuring to stay until transformation is delivered.

Argon & Co transforms the operations of its clients using its unique Assess Design Embed® approach, applied at each stage of a project to reduce risk and achieve better results, faster, and in a sustainable way.

“The whole team is passionate about adding value for our clients and seeing real change, whether that’s in a client's logistics, manufacturing, planning, procurement or sustainability measures,” explained Paul Eastwood, Managing Partner at Argon & Co.

Paul, who joined the business in 2022, in partnership with his consultancy firm, Pollen Consultancy Group, is helping Argon & Co to drive growth in the APAC region.

On joining Argon & Co, Paul said “Both Pollen and Argon & Co have the same company culture and values, and it means together we can turbo-charge our resources, capability and vision to build a leading global management consultancy specialising in operations strategy and transformation.”

Combining deep technical expertise, operational experience and broad business knowledge, Argon & Co are transforming businesses across the globe.

When it comes to growth, Paul is well experienced, taking Pollen from zero employees to 50 in five years, gaining recognition in the industry.

Now, with 500 people across 16 offices at Argon & Co, the consultancy has an ambition to grow to 1600 staff of changemakers by 2030.

“Part of our growth strategy is to widen our footprint. There is huge potential for us in the Middle East, where they are at the forefront of the cutting edge,” shared Paul, “It’s vital for us to be able to learn from innovations in burgeoning markets, which we can then implement to clients across the globe”.

Whilst Paul sees opportunities for growth in the Middle East and Asia Pacific, he also highlighted that the business will nurture its more mature markets in the UK, France and Australia.

“We have the opportunity for organic growth in these regions,” he said, “the pandemic and inflation pressure has created opportunities too, where clients have either built up a cash reserve to invest, or are looking for ways to reduce costs to ensure business longevity”.

Argon & Co consider themselves as an extension of their client’s teams.

“It’s important for us to challenge our clients when needed, but ultimately we strive to be engaging and enjoyable to work with,” shared Paul, “as an employer we give colleagues an environment where they can take big bets, enjoy what they do, and find success in failure. It’s not about the destination but how we get there”.

Growing through partnerships with global consultancies, Argon & Co is rigorous in ensuring new partners match the business’ values both internally and externally.

Paul Eastwood, Managing Partner at Argon & Co.

“When we find great people we love to get them on board, helping to protect and grow our culture,” said Paul.

Social Responsibility forms a core part of Argon & Co’s culture, utilising the business’ expertise to undertake charitable work.

“We’ve recently done some pro bono work for Red Nose Australia where one of our colleagues redesigned their clothes recycling process. This has allowed them to reinvest the money saved into other measures,” said Paul.

In Australia, Paul and his team have implemented several sustainable measures, which has helped them on the way to gaining its B Corp certification.

As well as creating a paperless office, providing reusable cups to staff, and utilising green energy, the Australian enterprise has offset all of its carbon by planting 5,500 trees to date.

“We aim to lead by example, so by implementing measures internally we set an example for clients,” explained Paul, “we’ve recently launched an iniatitive in measuring the sustainable impacts of all the projects we complete”.

Paul believes that AI and digitisation will have a positive impact on the business’ operations and growth, enabling it to cover more ground in the same or less time, whilst allowing easy access to knowledge sharing across the business.

“AI will enable us to add more value for clients, as well as accelerate data collection and cleansing. This will allow us more time to focus on people, as well as increase the speed of learning,” said Paul.

Most recently in Paul’s domain of ANZ, the business has launched a new service offering, Intralogistics, in partnership with Fuzzy LogX.

Intralogistics refers to the optimisation, integration, automation and management of the information and material flows within the four walls of a fulfilment or distribution centre.

Launched in June 2023, the new service offering will cover a number of subservices including: concept to go-live management, advanced analytics, process excellence benchmarking, warehouse management and control systems, and automation health check and rescue.

“The launch of Intralogistics as an additional service offering in APAC will add deep technical expertise to an area which is becoming increasingly relevant for our clients,” commented Paul.

He continued: “The addition of Fuzzy LogX and the recruitment of the Studio Logistics team in New Zealand brings an amazing depth of expertise in intralogistics. Combined with our own logistics, operations, and supply chain capabilities it means together we can turbo-charge our end-to-end offering, meeting our clients’ needs with market leading solutions”.

www.argonandco.com