Top 100 CEO Interviews
Issue No. 39 - February/March 2008
Passion pays as Bianco expands
The Bianco Group is synonymous with building in Adelaide and the emphatically family business has harnessed people power to drive its expansion.
Bianco has tripled in size during the past five years and now employs 450 full-time staff, about 420 of them in Adelaide. The rest are employed interstate, where the Queensland office is doing the biggest business at the moment.
Group CEO Dario Fontanarosa says becoming a manufacturer, the big change for Bianco in recent times, has gone largely unnoticed.
The group’s new 36 acre site at Gepps Cross opened in December 2007 and is now working three shifts a day. The new facility specialises in structural steel but Bianco makes equipment as well as building materiel. Diamond tools, cutting implements for brickwork and bitumen, come in many configurations and Bianco now makes its own brand after spending 18 months trialling blades.
“A lot of people still think Bianco operates out of a tin shed and sells bricks,” Dario says.
He expects expansion will continue apace.
“Building is a good game to be in at the moment,” he says, noting there’s “a lot of work out there” in the housing and mining sectors.
Interstate expansion has created a need for more polished business systems which Dario says are “not there yet”. The company is improving its IT sophistication and does a lot of staff training to upgrade skills.
“We fly staff from interstate to Adelaide to do their training. We have invested a lot of money in training,” Dario says.
But what’s interesting about Bianco’s staffing approach is what it has always done.
The level of trust and participation is impressive – to the point where management let workers lead the Gepps Cross initiative.
“When we made the decision to expand we went to the staff to decide what was going to be done,” Dario says.
“We told them to design their ultimate workshop. They picke...
