Ian Cattanach is a Director, Business Advisory at the AMTIL corporate partner William Buck Chartered Accountants and Advisors. He spoke to William Poole.
AMT: Tell us firstly about your background and how you ended up in your role with William Buck.
Ian Cattanach: I’ve been in practice for more than 30 years. I started off at a firm called Bell Partners, which had the original connection with AMTIL. Indeed I’ve continued to act for the family of Bob Corbett, who was the founding chair of AMTIL, and we’ve been AMTIL’s auditor right the way through. In 2013, Bell Partners merged into William Buck, and we brought the AMTIL relationship with us. Since then AMTIL’s corporate partnership has morphed into what it is today, a much more structured, organised, symbiotic relationship. AMTIL staff will often refer members to William Buck representatives within our space, and likewise, we’re here to support the broader AMTIL membership, even though they may not be our clients.
AMT: And what does William Buck do?
IC: William Buck is an accounting and advisory firm with offices across Australia and New Zealand. We are over 125 years old and have tax, audit, corporate advisory, wealth advisory, insolvency, and business advisory services lines. I personally sit in the business advisory space, and in the manufacturing team in Melbourne. Our manufacturing specialist team have representatives of all those divisions, to bring a complete picture to any client’s needs.
We have a strong contingent of representatives nationally that work most of their time in the manufacturing space, though they’ll also work with other clients, to give a more rounded understanding and experience. None of the directors within William Buck are exclusively in manufacturing but we’ve always had a strong percentage of clients in manufacturing space. And relationships like our partnership with AMTIL, which dates back to its establishment 22 years ago, underpin that.
AMT: In what ways does William Buck routinely end up assisting manufacturers?
IC: That’s a very broad question. There are elements of servicing manufacturing that are quite unique. We don’t always need to have a deep, nitty-gritty understanding of their business, but we often get involved in assisting them running their businesses more efficiently, product costing, things like that.
John Spender in our Sydney office has developed an introductory program that we’re now launching nationally, called the William Buck Hour. With the William Buck Hour, we basically spend a bit of time with the owners or operators of a business We try and do a bit of a dive into a client’s business, looking at their employees, their accounting system, whether they have a strategic plan or not. Looking at wealth management, corporate taxes, all those things, making sure they’re online. We take an overall holistic view, but also try and drill down in different areas, so we know what’s going on and where their strengths and weaknesses are, so we can help them improve their businesses. We work off pre-set questions, as well as the anecdotes that come up in the conversation – often the session goes longer than an hour.
Most of our manufacturing clients are family-owned businesses, and as a result we offer services for the family members involved in leading these businesses. We understand the complexities that come with having business and family so closely tied together, and we support business owners with family issues, estate planning, succession planning, wealth management, or individual taxes – as opposed to corporate taxes advice. So whilst we’re focused towards manufacturing clients, the actual manufacturing element is only a component of a larger picture. That’s why we find it important for our directors, particularly our business advisory directors, to have a broader knowledge even though we call ourselves manufacturing specialists. Because most of our clients have income tax issues, or maybe land tax issues, structural issues, asset protection issues, and so forth.
I also want to add that we often act in an advisory capacity. If you think about family-owned manufacturing businesses, who do they get to talk to about their business? Who do they have as a sounding board? We try to fulfill that role for a business. For example they might talk to us and say “Look, we’re buying a piece of machinery.” Not often but occasionally, clients buy a new piece of equipment because it’s sexy, not because there’s necessarily a return on investment (RoI) or a business case being prepared for it. So we normally would ask them “What’s the business case? What’s it going to do for the business, to add value? Is it going to create cost efficiency? What’s the payback?” In some cases that might be in a more formal advisory board, or in some cases it’s simply as a trusted advisor. It’s really just helping with those types of decisions for a business owner, being a bit of a partner with them, and a supporter.
AMT: From your dealings with Australian manufacturers, what do you see as the greatest challenges they’re facing at the moment?
IC: I would suggest there’s a lack of understanding in government as to where they should throw their money, which leads to a fairly confused environment as to how well supported manufacturers are going to be. And one would suggest they haven’t been supported particularly well in a broad sense up until now.
You only need to look at research & development (R&D) for example. One never knows from one year to the next what an R&D program is going to look like, and how much benefit you’re going to get out of that. The Government announced $1.6m in grants to the manufacturing space months ago, but up until very recently no one had any real certainty as to how that was going to be delivered, whereas manufacturers are crying out for support.
Also, for a lot of the manufacturing clients I’m dealing with, finding skilled employees in the workforce is a real struggle. I’ve got clients who are looking to buy machinery, and they’re basically saying to the people supplying the machine “I’m happy to buy the machinery, but you need to supply a person that can come with it and operate it for me.” That’s a real challenge.
AMT: So what’s needed to help resolve these challenges?
IC: I don’t think it’s necessarily unique to manufacturing, but instability in government, and by that I mean governments that are not prepared to set in place a 10-year-plus timeframe, and secure a bilateral commitment to that plan. There’s too much in the legislative environment that is partisan, and therefore doesn’t give manufacturing, or industry full-stop, the certainty to commit to the longer term. Many manufacturing projects won’t give you an RoI in a two- or three-year timeframe. I’ll come back to the R&D scenario – if you don’t know what the R&D framework looks like in five years, how can you put in place a project that spans that period of time?
AMT: What do you think are Australian manufacturing’s strengths?
IC: I think one aspect that has kind of emerged as a positive of the closure of the automotive industry has been the fluidity with which some manufacturers have been able to reinvent themselves. It has been rapid, to say the least. Maybe that’s out of necessity, people needing to reinvent themselves almost overnight to ensure they’ve still got a business, but that flexibility I think is a real positive.
Australian manufacturing is also often very niche. When we talk about manufacturing today, it’s not Ford-factory type businesses; it’s made up of a lot of smaller businesses now. It’s niche and it’s bespoke, which is probably why the industry has held out well despite COVID.
COVID shed a light on manufacturing and why we should become more self-sufficient. During that period, it was interesting – a lot of manufacturers were reviewing their supply chains. They needed to get jobs done and they had to look at where their supplies and materials could come from, because the usual sources were starting to dry out. I think historically there had already been the start of a move back to Australia to some extent. You throw into the mix the uncertainty around supply chains, and it gives us a much greater argument for localised manufacturing.
AMT: Where do you see the industry going in the next few years?
IC: I believe the industry will look to grow, because there are growth plans for it now. In New South Wales, the State Government is putting a lot of focus on Western Sydney and looking to pump a lot more money into manufacturing. It’s investing in manufacturing because it obviously believes there’s an opportunity there where it can stand out. There’s a similar argument in Victoria as well. The automotive closures obviously had a large impact there, and as a result they’ve wanted to throw a large amount of money at it.
I think there’s a lot of confidence in where manufacturing can get to in Australia provided it has the appropriate framework to work within. I think there’s a general desire to make manufacturing work in Australia.
AMT: What does your corporate partnership with AMTIL involve and what do you bring to its members?
IC: We provide what I’d call a “go-to” resource for the AMTIL staff to find solutions for the members. On some occasions that may be of financial benefit to William Buck, but more often than not it’s us finding a solution for AMTIL members through our broader associate network. For example, by no stretch of the imagination do we specialise in People & Culture, or Human Resources, but we’ve got very good affiliations in that space. IT is another one. Having the contacts, whether it’s accounting systems or ERP systems and so forth, we would outsource that work and work with that organisation to ensure the AMTIL member gets the best solution.
The William Buck network is very broad and deep, so we can generally find a trusted individual or organisation to refer someone to, to get the solution. If an AMTIL member gets directed to us – and we tend to be the first port of call – either we can help them internally, or more often we can direct them to a trusted associate who can help with that issue, whether it be finance, law … We could probably direct someone to a plumber, for example.
AMT: Finally, what’s the most satisfying part of your job?
IC: I have a pretty good job because more often than not I turn up to work and really have very little idea what I’ll be doing on that particular day. I don’t know what the next phone call is going to be. I don’t know how many emails are going to be awaiting me from overnight. And I think that reflects the manufacturing space. Many of the managers and families that run manufacturing businesses spend all day running their business. And when they turn off for a night, if they ever turn off, that’s when they focus on liaising with their external consultants, bouncing ideas off them.
The satisfying part is in bringing client solutions. That can be referring them to someone so that they’re getting the right outcome, or it can be us delivering a solution internally, whether it be helping them buy a business, sell a business, restructure a business, run a business more efficiently. It’s a multifaceted role that most of the staff at William Buck working in the manufacturing space have.