By Stuart Condie
SYDNEY–Australian job advertiser Seek completed its multiyear migration to a centralized tech platform ahead of schedule and on budget. Chief Executive Ian Narev gives a lot of the credit to his old boss at Commonwealth Bank.
Narev was head of private and business at Australia’s largest bank when then-CEO Ralph Norris oversaw a similar transition to its operations, replacing decades-old core systems in an overhaul that cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Narev, who succeeded Norris as chief executive at Commonwealth in 2011 before becoming Seek’s CEO 10 years later, freely acknowledged that he copied Norris’s approach. Key to Seek’s so-called platform unification, which it completed in the December half, was unswerving focus, Narev said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
“The single-minded approach we took to unification, the alignment of the organization behind it, I copied what I learnt from Ralph Norris. I’m not proud: it was cut and paste,” Narev said Tuesday.
Seek shares slipped Tuesday after it cut its full-year earnings guidance. Nonetheless, Narev said that Seek’s reinvestment, which should simplify its processes and lower its costs, positioned the company well for future growth.
“I’m not a big believer in CEOs talking about their legacies because 1,000 people were involved in this. Now it’s a matter of extracting every benefit we possibly can over years,” he said.
Write to Stuart Condie at [email protected]
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