The Altis Story

Altis was founded in 1998 by Gavin Cooke and Hyun Choi with a vision to build a business that was focused on customer and staff success, and had the stability to last more than 100 years. At the time it was a courageous decision to be starting a consulting firm in the emerging market of data warehousing and business intelligence, but thirteen years on, they’ve shown it was the right decision.

The original idea came after they successfully designed and delivered a new reporting environment for Optus. It was innovative for the time and a resounding success, and it made them realise there was an opportunity for a specialist consultancy.

They used the book The Living Company as a framework for the organisation, with a focus of building a business firm that would last more than 100 years. They weren’t building the business to sell it, they wanted to build a culture that would outlast them, which is quite unique. That meant being a financially robust business, so they had more flexibility during difficult times, as well as having a strong emphasis on internal staff development.

As Altis grew, it was important to formalise the core values of the business. After a process of extensive staff and customer research, we introduced “Connecting with Courage, Heart, and Insight” as a framework for the business. In simple terms it meant a commitment to building strong relationships with our clients, and sharing the responsibility of delivering their outcomes.

We also introduced the concept of the Service Profit Chain, so there was a stronger focus on our staff, instead of focusing on profit first and foremost. We knew that happy, engaged staff would equate to happy, engaged, long-term customers, and the by-product of this would be increased profit. A recent accolade acknowledging the benefits of this approach was Altis’s recent selection as one of the top 50 companies to work for in Australia.

During this time, the business has also evolved beyond its beginnings as an implementation partner, to have a greater focus on designing and delivering tangible business outcomes. When applied correctly, information and data can be key levers to drive competitive advantage for any organisation, however there’s a shortage of people with the skills and experience capable of doing that.

Our commitment to staff has resulted in increased staff loyalty, and allowed us to maintain and grow our skills and experience, despite the general marketplace. And it means we have a large pool of experienced team members that understand how to leverage data and information analytics for competitive advantage.

The combined result is we’re able to help our clients maximise their business performance with confidence because they’ve got the right information at their fingertips, so they can make the right decisions.

In thirteen years, Altis has grown to more than 80 staff in four offices in Australia and New Zealand working across a range of industries including telecommunications, health, transport and logistics, insurance and wealth management, higher education and Government. In terms of the original goal, we’re only a tenth of the way there, but we’re well placed to succeed. And at the core of the business we’ll continue to focus on our employees, and the strong relationships they build with our loyal customers.