(Newswire.net — December 16, 2014) Salem, UT — South Jordan, UT— LANDESK, a global leader delivering user-oriented IT solutions, manages more than 250 million desktops, servers and mobile devices. Between the acquisition of of Wavelink, Shavlik and LetMobile, and the recent announcement to enter the enterprise mobility space, this privately-held company is successfully expanding.
Leading the company since 2007, CEO Steve Daly is no stranger to enterprise and personal growth. In a recent interview with Utahbusinesstalk.com Daly shared his story including his colorful career path, advice for aspiring leaders and advice for sustainable company growth.
“I liked rock. I was going to be a rock star,” Daly joked, poking fun at his high school career plans. “I didn’t have the talent but I had the desire at the time. That was in the ‘80s, so I had the hair for it and everything.”
Daly floated in and out of majors before settling on an internship.
“I was going to go into business. I was going to go into psychology. I was going to go into computer science. And then I decided I was going to go away for a little while,” Daly said. “So, a friend and I moved to Israel to live on a kibbutz.”
The experience proved to be a defining moment in his career. Kibbutzim are Jewish communes established in Israel after World War II. Between earning college credit, Daly learned Hebrew, took field trips to Jerusalem and Galilee, and worked odd jobs.
“We didn’t get the good jobs. We got dish washing, picking cotton, picking avocados. When I first started there, I just looked at it as ‘This is a horrible job. I hate my job.’ People noticed, and it was kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Daly said. “But at one point I decided that I was just going to enjoy my time. So, I started whistling. The reaction I would get from people was so different than before. What I found was that attitude has a huge impact on the opportunities that come your way. It was a huge lesson for me personally.”
Upon his return, Daly transferred to Brigham Young University (BYU) in Utah, earning his degree in engineering and pursuing an MBA with an emphasis on finance and strategy. His first big job didn’t come easily, but he is glad he had the patience and persistence to secure a job that gave him experience in a large company.
“I think I applied at Intel like seven times. I got rejected six, and then I finally got the job.” Said Daly. “My advice to anybody that’s just getting out of school is: get some big company experience. Intel rotated us every two years,” Daly said. “I started out doing construction cost and ended up going into a budgets and planning role. Then I came to Utah and started doing pricing, and I got involved with OEM Sales. Next, I went to Brazil and got international experience helping establish sales offices in Latin America. When I came back, got into marketing, and started doing project management. Because the size of the company, and the sophistication of their systems, you get such great experience. I ended up getting a very well-rounded education.”
Daly kept a close relationship with Intel, though he left for a time to start his own company, then to pursue another opportunity. He didn’t expect to come back to the company, but landed back at Intel-owned LANDESK due to what he calls a “gravitational pull.”
Since becoming CEO in 2007, Daly has nearly tripled the value of LANDESK. He describes it as a learning experience that has required him to evolve and adapt.
“When I took over running the company in 2007, we were a $90 million something company. Getting from $90 to $250 million requires a whole new way of thinking about how you run the business,” Daly said. “The biggest challenge in growing that is that you’ve got to recognize that things that got you there as a leader won’t get you to that next level. You have to give up more, and you have to trust the people below you, and get good people into those positions. Getting the right people, getting the right processes in place, and then having a way to coach those people has probably been the biggest challenge. It’s also kind of the biggest key to our ability to make that leap from 100 million to quarter of a billion in size.”
Daly emphasized the importance of making business operations and information transparent , giving decision making autonomy to the people in the company. One such example is the company’s offices in Europe. Daly explained that in the past, decisions were generally made in Utah regarding how to approach the European market.
“There are a lot of nuances to how business is done in Europe. We’ve struggled with not needing to have all those decisions come back to Utah; to try to get some of that decision-making to happen in the geography. It’s been a multi-year process, but we’ve created a matrix organization in the geographies where they get together as management teams,” Daly said. “So, the sales people will be in the room with professional services, with customer support, with marketing, and they’ll discuss the issues that they have in that geography. We give them a budget, a P&L for that region and say ‘as long as you manage to that P&L, you can make whatever decisions you need to make’.”
As the company grows, Daly has his sights set on future challenges. He continually works with his team to set goals and keep a competitive advantage in the marketplace and in retaining talented people in the company.
“We believe that customer intimacy is our competitive advantage. One of the things I worry about as we start to get bigger is how do we maintain that customer intimacy? It’s easy to put processes in place that automate a lot of things and that can isolate you from the customer. As we’re scaling, our next goal is to get to 500 million, that’s probably the biggest challenge I have,” said Daly.
And as for maintaining a business in the state of Utah, Daly underscored his passion for creating jobs in the state recently ranked by Forbes as the “Best State for Business.”
“I love living in Utah. I love being here and I love the fact that we’re creating a company headquartered in Utah of a size and scale that provides opportunities for people who want a career. They don’t have to go to the Bay Area. They can come to a place that isn’t a five-person startup where they have to put their grocery money on the line while they’re working through it,” Daly said. “We create opportunities for people like me who want to stay in Utah.”
Read the full interview at http://www.utahbusinesstalk.com/customer-intimacy-landesk-steve-daly/
About LANDESK Software
LANDESK, the global authority on user-oriented IT, enables users to be their most productive while helping IT embrace the speed of change. Through the integration and automation of IT systems management, endpoint security management, service management, IT asset management, and mobile device management, LANDESK empowers IT to balance rapidly evolving user requirements with the need to secure critical assets and data. With offices located across the globe, LANDESK is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. For more information, visit www.landesk.com.
About Utah Business Talk
Utahbusinesstalk.com is an entrepreneur blog established in 2014 by the founders of Business Made Simple. The blog shares stories, leadership strategies and experiences of Utah business leaders that make Utah a top-ranked state for economic performance.