Ecoscape planting the seeds of success

IT was 20 years ago, during a bicycle tour of Australia, that David Kaesehagen recognised finding solutions to the many challenges facing Australia would require input from environmental scientists.

Upon his return, he decided to hone his botanical skills; then, after speaking on the topic of saving bushland at a local political event, which obviously went well, Mr Kaesehagen was asked to develop an environmental management plan.

“It was through serendipity at some level. I got involved in a local organisation and then I got politically involved in trying to save a piece of bushland, it was through that, a radical thing and appearing on television, a local council asked me, ‘do you do environmental management plans’,” he said.

His business, Ecoscape, now has three main divisions – environmental science, landscape architecture and spatial planning – and uses a collaboration of science and design in its work in the areas of natural resource management, land conservation, urban development, infrastructure, mining resource development and tourism.

He now works to bring a cultural understanding to the three divisions and industries he works in, with his team of 25.

Not coming from a business background and not having family business experience, Mr Kaesehagen formed his business around his environmental passions, not his business acumen.

“Developing a business and trying to learn how to run a business has been an ongoing journey,” he said.

In the business’s early days, Mr Kaesehagen said, the work seemed to find him, rather than the other way around – the growth of the business was organic.

As soon as he needed more hands on deck, he managed to find the staff he required.

It was when the organic staff growth reached 12 that he recognised the need to implement systems in his business to help it continue to grow organically.

“At some point a few years ago it got much bigger and I had to learn about systems, really good systems. It was really a size related issue … not working in the business but working on the business and how best to do that,” Mr Kaesehagen said.

He identified key areas where he needed to focus on developing systems.

“The first thing was just tracking projects, tracking time sheets, those internal systems of tracking time and where money has been spent, how effective we have been in our budgeting, that was the first basic thing so we can see where people are performing and not performing rather than guess work,” Mr Kaesehagen told WA Business News.

“It is broader, it’s about analysing how your proposals go, getting feedback from your clients, why didn’t we win this one, when we do jobs getting analysis back on that, what was good about it, were we innovative, what were the key things, would you use us again.

“All our reviews are now linked to balance cards which are about people, processes and financial outcomes, we are trying to link it and integrate it a lot more.”

Mr Kaesehagen gained the knowledge in these systems from business coaching, after first trying a more traditional method of education in business – learning from the self-proclaimed experts.

“I had read a lot of books, the gospels of business if you like, and they tell you ideas but they don’t help you implement them in your own business,” he said.

Mr Kaesehagen then joined executive coaching group The Executive Connection and said the empathetic relationship with other members of his TEC group had helped him to develop the Ecoscape systems.

“Since I have been a member of TEC, that has helped a lot; you meet a lot of other business owners that aren’t necessarily struggling with their business, but are struggling with ideas and processes and similar problems I had. It was good to talk to them and think about how I can do it better,” he said.

“It is really taking those good ideas and then relating them back to your business. Other people in the group are good because they understand my business, the issues are similar to theirs and they give me a lot of good advice.”

Mr Kaesehagen is moving away from organic growth, pushing the company to grow in order to extend the work opportunities.

“Why is growth so good? Because it means change, diversity, people come people go, you can get more resilience in your business I believe, if you only have one zoologist and that person leaves you have to start from scratch, if you have three or four, if one leaves it doesn’t stuff your business up,” he said.

“We are building for resilience and diversity. It means we can get larger projects and do more diverse work, we are pretty diverse anyway, but if there is a much larger project that runs for a longer time, if you are larger sometimes they will give it to you but if you are too small, they can say you won’t be able to service this properly.”