Case Studies
Issue No. 6 - July/September 2002
Tagara Builders
Building Quality Profit
One client recently observed to Tullio Tagliaferri that his company’s signage “is everywhere!”. Tagara Builders Pty Ltd, which ‘Tag’ owns jointly with partner John Kassara, is indeed one of the most active medium-sized building firms in South Australia.
Tag and John were senior managers of another large building firm where both had worked for 16 years by 1992. The decision to launch Tagara stemmed from a list Tag drew up of “reasons to start a business in 1992” despite the gloomy economic climate. Tagara went from a garage base to commercial premises by 1994. The partners exceeded budget by 30% in their first year of operations and outran their four-year business plan within 18 months. Tagara did not remain a residential builder for long.
“Now we are focused more on commercial and industrial rather than residential, which is where we began in the early years,” Tag says. “We started doing residential extensions because we didn’t have a choice, and progressed to doing work for the State Government.”
By 1995 the partners had a management team of seven including themselves and the company achieved ISO 9001 accreditation in 1996. This was an important milestone, as was being licensed in 1997 to undertake contracts over $10 million, but the partners are in no hurry to crack the big time.
Instead, Tagara has “small to medium” preferred working envelope for jobs ranging from hundreds of dollars to something above $3 million. The company has been extremely busy with upwards of 12 projects on the go at any given time.
Recent Construction Division projects include a $2 million office building refurbishment and extension at the corner of Hutt and Wakefield streets in the city; refurbishments on four public and private schools totalling about $6 million and—most importantly—a $4 million project in Magill at the intersection of St Bernards and Magill roads which the partners are developing themselves.
