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Speaker 1: Great key success story. Refreshed Renovations has grown to be

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Speaker 1: one of the largest home renaud companies in the world.

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Speaker 1: So they're generating one hundred million annually currently they're aiming

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Speaker 1: to make a billion with international expansion. They're already in

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Speaker 1: Australia currently looking to crack the UK and the US.

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Speaker 1: The founder and director John Bridges with us on this John,

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Speaker 1: very good morning to you.

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Speaker 2: Hi Mike, how are you very well?

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Speaker 1: Indeed, thank you? So you reno at scale? Is that

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Speaker 1: how it works?

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Speaker 2: Well, we're a franchised home renovation company, a bit like

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Speaker 2: the new home builders are franchised like DJ Gardner and

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Speaker 2: those sorts of companies. So we have about one hundred

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Speaker 2: and seventy franchises, multiple brands refresh Renovations. We've got a

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Speaker 2: landscape and company, a maintenance company as well. We do

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Speaker 2: our renovation company. We do all types of renovations, so bathrooms, kitchen,

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Speaker 2: small projects up to full house renovations.

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Speaker 1: And you simply saw in the house building market or

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Speaker 1: the housing market in general, there's a whole lot of

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Speaker 1: people at scale who do different things. No one does

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Speaker 1: renolds at scale, so off you went asolutely.

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Speaker 2: No one does ringos at scale, and I think we

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Speaker 2: all know there's a major problem in the renovation market

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Speaker 2: with customer service and budget blowouts. There's been researched on

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Speaker 2: which indicates about thirty percent of the money that's spent

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Speaker 2: on renovation is wasted and about twenty to thirty percent

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Speaker 2: of projects end in disputes. Now, that's a huge problem

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Speaker 2: given the industry right now in New zealand's about twelve

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Speaker 2: billion dollars a year, so maybe four billion being wasted.

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Speaker 2: The reason for that is because the poor project planning,

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Speaker 2: project management, and communication. Most businesses are really small renovation

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Speaker 2: businesses and they focus on the trade side of things.

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Speaker 2: Harvard University has actually done quite a bit of research

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Speaker 2: on it, and they've identified the renovation market as the

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Speaker 2: most fragmented sector of the entire US economy. That's about

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Speaker 2: about six hundred and fifty thousand renovation builders over there,

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Speaker 2: and about ninety percent of them have one to three

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Speaker 2: people in them. And the issue is that those businesses

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Speaker 2: just don't have the resources to invest in that layer

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Speaker 2: of project planning, project management, communication, that layer of things

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Speaker 2: above the trade that actually makes the projects once run smoothly.

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Speaker 1: Okay, well, I'll ask you this hold on because I've

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Speaker 1: renovated a lot in my life, and you're right, you've

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Speaker 1: got to piece this thing together. Or you can get

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Speaker 1: a project manager, and you've got to have faith in

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Speaker 1: the project manager, et cetera. Do you buy franchising run

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Speaker 1: a risk that not he buys the franchise, but not,

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Speaker 1: he's an idiot and he's going to let you down.

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Speaker 2: Well, you do, but we have really type process control.

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Speaker 2: So what we've done is invested in our own IT

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Speaker 2: systems and we've built our own development company in India.

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Speaker 2: And the key is that we've got all that process

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Speaker 2: control built into the IT system and we can see

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Speaker 2: what's going on in all of those businesses.

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Speaker 1: Okay, next question, Then do you lose by going to

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Speaker 1: a major scaled player individuality? So I come in with

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Speaker 1: all my creativity and all my ideas because this is

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Speaker 1: my dream home, my dream project, and you go, no,

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Speaker 1: We've we've got four of those, six of those and

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Speaker 1: five of those, and that's what you choose from.

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Speaker 2: No, Because in renovations, we can't have standard plans. So

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Speaker 2: it's not like a new home dorder we have a

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Speaker 2: standard process. It's all about stage gates and checklists. And

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Speaker 2: making sure everything's done at the right stage and not

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Speaker 2: too late. If you make decisions too late in the process,

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Speaker 2: they end up costing you more. So it's about making

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Speaker 2: those decisions early on and making your cost trade off

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Speaker 2: decisions early on. But no, we don't have any restriction

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Speaker 2: on the type of project you can design.

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Speaker 1: Well. I wish you all the very best with your expansion,

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Speaker 1: and we'll get you back home when you've cracked a billion.

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Speaker 1: John Bridge, Refresh Renovations founder and director. For more from

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Speaker 1: the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks that'd

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