Port City Roofing is a Townsville-based business specialising in residential and commercial roofing and cyclonic roofing upgrades across North Queensland — a region where storms, cyclones and the replacement cycle drive steady demand for quality and reliable roofing.

When we acquired the business, the first priority was simple: keep what already worked. The local reputation, the trade expertise, the crews and the customer trust are the business. Key operators stayed on and obtained equity alongside us, to align their interests with ours.

From there we went to work on the platform:

• Strategy & governance — a clear strategy and business plan for the business articulated with monthly board meeting cadence, including a non-exec director, to track progress and enable quick decision-making.

• Sharper operational visibility — a new general ledger (Xero), and CRM, workflow and customer billing platform (ServiceM8) stood up to digitise the core of the business and enable significant back office efficiencies - automated customer communications, real-time job updates with photographic evidence, clearer reporting and improved financial control and traceability.

• Safety and compliance discipline — development of standard operating procedures across the business, including incident recording and the documentation a modern trade business needs. This has been extended to digitised Safe Work Method Statements enabling key on-site compliance activity to be completed digitally. New HR platform (Employment Hero) improves HR compliance and automated tracking of employee credentials.

• A modernised front end — a brand re-fresh including new logos and corporate identity, updated signage, a new website with enhanced SEO, digital marketing and lead tracking.

• Increased capacity — investment deployed into equipment, vehicles and new hires enabling a ~80%+ increase in weekly work throughput as compared to when the business was acquired.

The result is a business that keeps doing what it's always done well for its customers — now with the systems, reporting and governance to do it more reliably and to do it for more of them. It's the template for how we will work with every business we buy.