Page 33 - Australasian Paint & Panel May-June 2021

WWW.PAINTANDPANEL.COM.AU
BELOW:
DSI Blackburn workshop.
FAR LEFT: Samantha and Darren Xuereb.
LEFT: David and Clarissa Iacobucci
DSI MELBOURNE
Joints as calm as DSI Panels take a lot of work. Owners of the two-site business Clarissa and David Iacobucci are young, ambitious, focused, and ready to create their own multi-site kingdom. By taking part in Paint & Panel’s Business Trans- formation program, they hope to transi- tion from a small family business to a small-to-medium enterprise.
In this coming year, the couple are looking to explore options for a third DSI outlet as well as trying to make that dif- ficult change from managers to direc- tors. It is not an easy transition.
After buying the business from Dave’s parents, Clarissa immersed herself in the bodyshop industry. Previously she’d been working in an entirely different field, Singapore Airlines, which gave her a fresh set of eyes.
“Singapore Airlines, obviously, is a much larger corporation, so it had more structure, more organizational systems and policies,” said Clarissa. “Dave is very operationally hands on and has previously been able to over- see and manage all aspects. Now that we have grown, he’s not able to be eve- rything to everyone.”
Since 2014, it has been the Iacobuc- ci’s mission to bring some of the corpo- rate world experience Clarissa gained from Singapore Airlines to DSI. So far, it has worked well. DSI has grown from its original site in Blackburn to a sec- ond award winning location in nearby Croydon South. Both workshops are light and airy, beautifully presented and well equipped.
Implementing systems and creating a great team culture has helped attract great employees, forged strong relation-
ships with insurers while earning the high-profile OEM badge, Tesla.
With all of this forward momentum, Clarissa and Dave should perhaps be giving advice, rather than receiving it. However, Dave has always been adap- tive while navigating the path to suc- cess: “Learning really is the most impor- tant thing in this business. I’m willing to listen to anything anyone tells me, as- sess it, and change something if it’s use- ful. Otherwise you get left behind.”
From Clarissa’s point of view, they’re looking to find ways to disentangle Dave’s expertise from the running of the business. While teams do their jobs just great, they do rely on a certain kind of knowledge held only by Dave. “We’re at the point now that for more growth, we need the structure in place to empower existing staff and make it possible.”
Obviously, scalability like this gives the Iacobucci’s opportunity to grow, but it also enables them to do things like go the gym and have more downtime. After years of going hell-for-leather, Clarissa and Dave want a bit of that mysterious ‘work-life balance.’
COACH WHITAKER
Catch Whitaker says: “In the initial coach- ing sessions it is apparent that these two businesses are at different stages of devel- opment although they share similar chal- lenges. DSI is looking to grow but admit that they need to work on leadership skills and people management to improve team performance. I’ll be assisting them on mo- tivating different personality profiles. We’ll be working on tools and strategies to manage diverse people better.
For Darren at PCCR it’s about letting go and working on the business not on the tools. We need to change the mind- set from managing a business to that of a business owner – two very different outlooks. The skills shortage is chal- lenging and we’ll also be working on how to attract people to your business and creating the culture that retains people. We have around six months to do this before the new facility opens up when recruitment will be vital,”
33