Business Central September 2021

60 | Turning point drives new direction T T Richard Loader Kajavala Forestry is sought after as quality and grading experts, Kawerau: Kajavala Forestry “I used to focus intensely on money and customers. I don’t any more. I watch it but I focus intensely on the workers because that’s where happy customers come from.” REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT I n 2018, Jacob Kajavala had a crisis. For- ty-eight years earlier, in fact the very day of Jacob’s entry into the world, Jacob’s father established Kajavala Forestry, which was at that time was a logging company. Jacob had worked in the business during school holidays and then after completing a Science degree majoring in computing and had been instrumental in evolving the busi- ness from logging contractor to embracing technology and becoming a central processing yard for logs and stems. Holding the reins of the business since the late ’90s Jacob had been religiously following his father’s view of the world that ‘Work is hard, money is tight, and workers don’t want to’. On the twentieth anniversary of running the company on that belief Jacob realised if you believed it, then that is how it would be. Looking towards the next 20 years Jacob wasn’t excited about the prospects and that was the crisis point, the turning point. “So I had a thought. Companies exist to make money, we make money by having customers, and you satisfy those customers by having a lot of workers, right? “I had another thought — what if my work- ers had everything they needed and most everything they wanted. “What if their well-being was maximised, what if team work was maximised, what if everything about my workers was superb. What would the work be like? And what would the customer experience be like? And what would the money be like?” And that was the point that Jacob officially changed his title to ‘Chief Servant’, whose job it is to make sure his people had everything they needed and wanted — particularly as a team, the training and the support; and cast aside his father’s belief. “I used to focus intensely on money and customers. I don’t any more. I watch it but I focus intensely on the workers because that’s where happy customers come from. “Our mantra is make the work easy. I need to hear from my staff what that is, what the issues are — I am Chief Servant. “We’re still learning but I believe this stuff from the bones out and now every metric about this company is amazing — the work isn’t hard, money isn’t tight and the workers are on fire; and that’s what makes us great today.” Employing a team of 40 local people, Kaja- vala Forestry is based in Kawerau and has a 60km catchment radius from which logs and stems are brought to the yards, handling 1.5 million tonnes a year. “We haven’t cut down a tree for money in twelve years,” says Jacob. “We’re the best in the country at maximising value out of a forest and I can say that very clearly. We’re a central processing yard where stems trucked to me are turned into the best combination of product for export or use in the local mills. We’re also a logistics compa- ny. The logging yard has a rail siding and we connect to the Port of Tauranga. “Logs also come to us from other business- es and along with the logs we make, are load- ed to our railhead. So instead of clogging up the road with a hundred logging trucks a day going to the Port we send three trains a day. “We also run log movements inside saw- mills. We take delivery of their logs from log- ging contractors, unload those logs, look after the logs and feed them into the sawmills.” As a logistics company Kajavala Forestry is the central nervous system of where logs go, what has been made, what ships are arriving, what sawmills and pulp mills are needing, coordinating the dispatch of logs and stems. Kajavala Forestry is also sought after as quality and grading experts, providing audits on the effectiveness of other people’s log grading, quality and safety. Jacob could not imagine a better place to base his business than Kawerau. “The work ethic is the best I’ve come across and in my twenty-three years I’ve hired 1500 people. It’s an industrial town and I’m an industrial business. “The quality of engineering and fabrication in this town is unparalleled. “We also have a rail line into it and cheap geothermal power. Kawerau is the world’s biggest user of direct geothermal heat.” 0800 848 267 / transdiesel.com VOLVO FORESTRY CARRIERS DESIGNED & PURPOSE BUILT FOR NEW ZEALAND FORESTRY SPECIALIST 0800 55 54 53 | www.sweeneytownsend.co.nz | info@stib.co.nz The team at Sweeney Townsend know that, when looking at your insurances, you need to make sure your coverage is fit-for-purpose and that it is specifically designed to cater to your business. Policies should be targeted to support your business in the most beneficial way — depending on whether you have a hauler crew or have ground-based operations, your needs may differ significantly. For most in the forestry and logging sector insurance is a major component of your annual operating costs, so please don’t hesitate to call us for an insurance “warrant of fitness check”. It will cost you nothing to have Sweeney Townsend review what you currently have in place and provide a second opinion.