Page 50 - Australian Defence Magazine July 2019

FROM THE SOURCE
KATHERINE ZIESING | CANBERRA
ADF uniforms literally touch every soldier, sailor and airman everyday. With hundreds of thousands of individual products fitting thousands of people across the globe, ADA has been making uniforms for over a century. But the business is changing rapidly as ADM Managing Editor Katherine Ziesing found out speaking to ADA CEO Chris Dixon recently.
Chris Dixon
CEO of Australian Defence Apparel (ADA)
uniform and equipment through our intel- ligent online systems to front line users in high-risk industries.
ADM: When you say you’re a far bigger organisation than five years ago, what is your workforce headcount at the moment? DIXON: ADA employs around 280 people in Australia. I say around because due to fluctuation in demand in manufacturing our staffing needs regularly change. We’re proud that our management team is almost 50 per cent female and across the entire or- ganisation women make up around 80 per- cent of our employees.
At our Bendigo facility we employ around 130 people; this is the largest garment manufacturing facility in Aus- tralia. There are a further 130 staff at our Thomastown head office. Our design team of 30 people is the largest in the country and continues to grow with the hiring of specialists. The IT side of our business has gone from a single person to a team of 16, reflecting our commitment to excellence in logistics, data security, entitlement management and our customisable order- ing systems. We have plans for further growth to ensure that we meet and exceed our client’s digital expectations.
We’ve expanded significantly across Aus- tralia and NZ in recent years, with offices now in Townsville, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sydney, Canberra, Adelaide and Auckland. This includes two retail stores for LEGE- AR, a division of ADA.
ADM: How has the purchase of LEGE- AR in 2016 grown the business? What’s the split between Defence and other sec- tors of your business such as health and emergency services?
DIXON: The LEGEAR purchase was a perfect fit for our strategic plan. The ac- quisition has allowed us to align ourselves more closely with adjacent law enforcement and emergency services first responder markets. Most of the organisations in this space are looking for far more than just uni- forms these days, leaning more towards a complete solution from one supplier, a true prime vendor.
LEGEAR’s suite of brands has allowed ADA to immediately be a more holistic so- lution provider. We’ve been able to strength- en our online capability and provide access to around 200 of the world’s best brands in law enforcement and first responder.
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CHRIS DIXON
PROFILE
CEO of ADA
General Manager of Sales ADA
Business Development Manager ADA
National Brand Manager – FR and Performance Textiles Charles Parsons
Asset Manager ANZ Finance Lexus Australia
Sourcing & Business Development Manager
– Corporate Clothing & Uniforms at Charles Parsons
Business Development Manager – Fabrics & Outerwear at Charles Parsons
Textile Technology Cadetship Charles Parsons
ADM: Can you give us an overview of what the ADA business looks like at the moment in terms of structures and capa- bilities?
DIXON: ADA has evolved considerably over recent years, building on the founda- tion of over 100 years of business. Serving Defence remains our core business, but we have broadened from a manufacturing busi- ness that focuses on defence procurement to a provider of integrated uniform and equipment solutions.
We’re a far bigger organisation than we were even five years ago. We are now oper- ating in markets vastly different to that of Defence and using our Defence heritage as a key differentiator in the way that we ap- proach these new markets and opportuni- ties. We are then leveraging technological advancements from these other markets, like emergency and health services, to im- prove our offerings to Defence.
ADA now provides complete asset and inventory management solutions to more than 30 organisations and their 300,000 plus Australian staff within various sectors from health care through to law enforce- ment and utilities. This year alone, we will deliver some 3 million items of protective
50 | July 2019 | www.australiandefence.com.au
ADA