Quote - I've fallen in love with Vault and I'm pretty certain you will too
Published on Published onFebruary 27, 2018
Vault's a business you won't have heard of even thou it's listed on the ASX and protects over a million people.
Vault is an environmental, health and safety (EHS) SaaS provider based out of Christchurch and is the only ASX listed company of its kind.
I could have never imagined myself after building a pretty good career over thirty years, ending up in the health and safety space but zoom forward less than twelve months after joining Vault, and I have just proudly updated my job title to Vault’s Vice President on LinkedIn.
This is the best role I have ever had and I love it passionately.
So, who is Vault?
We know that all businesses have important responsibilities in managing risk, health and safety plus reporting these days. Bring up the words “health & safety” with any business owner or CEO and it’s a sure bet, you will receive a tirade back at you about how hard their lives are due to trying to comply with the legislation.
Vault makes this easy.
Vault supports organizations so that they can manage all of their obligations from one place, efficiently and in a way that looks after staff, assets and the business. After bringing Vault on board, clients will never feel overwhelmed again by compliance intricacies.
You need to know about Vault because as it turns out we have every potential and likelihood be a global leading SaaS business and not just compared to EHS companies, but compared to businesses like Xero, LinkedIn, DocuSign and even Facebook.
….yes, that’s quite an bold statement on the face of it, but persevere with me here.
Firstly, we are selling in a compliance market which always is a good starter. Us sales guys like a market where the customer is obligated by law to buy something.
Then there is the benefit of the global movement by governments to protect workers, hence why nearly every country has gone health and safety nuts.
Governments are rushing through legislation to mandate health and safety practices.
Even the world's biggest economy, China has tough laws which actually say that businesses must implement health and safety solutions. The Chinese government is so serious about EHS, they have teams of people checking that businesses are implementing EHS solutions, 41,000 teams no less.
The penalties for failing to comply are harsh. Hefty fines, jail time and even executions are the norm there.
We will return to talk about China later.
So, we have both compliance and a focus by governments on worker safety. A good start. I can only imagine how hard it must have been for Xero in the beginning as they had neither of these things, in fact they were taking on an industry in accounting has the distinct possibility of being less interesting then health and safety which once I might have said is hard to imagine but look at Xero now, I can only take my hat off to them. Bravo!
But this isn't a compliance nor a comparison tale, this is a story about how Vault saw an opportunity to make health and safety….dare I say it….fun, and with the added bonus of delivering actual measurable benefits to the organization, while also satisfying its health and safety requirements.
To know Vault is to know the founder and CEO David Moylan.
David is an Australian whose initial claim to fame, at just 34 years-of-age, was to become the Australian Army’s youngest Lieutenant Colonel ever. Vault Intelligence has its roots in David’s twenty years of army service, where he developed and implemented the Australian Army risk, health and safety process.
Following his retirement, David consulted to some of the world biggest companies all over the globe on all things health and safety, before settling in Christchurch as a consequence of falling for a good Kiwi girl.
David subsequently established Vault Intelligence, now coming close to celebrating its tenth anniversary.
Vault cares for over one million subscribers, spread over 860+ companies, in New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia and yes, China.
In early 2017 Vault’s story really started to get interesting oddly enough, when they lost the tender to provide health and safety for Linfox based out of Melbourne.
Truth be told, Vault never expected to win that tender - winning such large deals was still a rarity.
During that time Vault had recently recruited me and I sat in on the tender meeting. It was plainly obvious to me that we lost because we were trying to sell an all-singing-and-dancing complicated Vault solution - instead of solving the issues that were facing Linfox in the EHS space.
Sometimes losing provides the best learning, and the Linfox tender loss, became the catalyst for change and evolution at Vault Intelligence.
After commissioning an external review, “The Blueprint” was delivered, comprising thirteen major changes Vault would need to undertake, if the group was to realize David's ambition of being a global SaaS business
First and foremost, a decision was made to make Vault’s software attractive and easy to use. Not in comparison to other EHS companies but compared to Netflix, CNN, and my banking app from ASB. It had to be intuitive and a breeze to learn to use.
Vault’s hero product is the all singing, all dancing platform, simply known as Vault 2. Vault 2 is a sophisticated health and safety standard's compliance tool. It is this product that our 860+ customers use now.
It's a great product if you are a rocket scientist. It was built in such a way to cover every possible scenario and it certainly does that. If earth was to suddenly invaded by aliens, you could find a process in Vault 2 on how to manage it.
So, it was decided to greatly simplify Vault 2 and one year later, Vault 3 is here and it is beautiful. It's simple and easy to use. It comes standard with customizable dashboards and a bunch of great apps for the team in the field. Vault did a soft launch for V3 which promptly saw NZ Post, Restaurant Brands, Compass and StateCover Mutual (121 local councils in New South Wales) sign up for it.
The next box we needed to tick was recruiting a highly experienced enterprise sales team to overlay the existing health and safety team.
I'm pleased to say that we well down that path and have consequently opened offices in Perth, Auckland, Sydney and Shanghai to add to the existing offices in Melbourne and Christchurch.
We are not finished by a long shot - there are currently nine brand new sales roles that being recruited for, including the Head of Channel position, to establish and run a partner network across APAC.
Perhaps the best reason to want to get to know Vault Intelligence is because of our focus on EHS innovation and what’s coming off the assembly line next – Vault Solo.
Vault Solo has all the hallmarks of being the game changer in the world of Lone Worker.
Solo utilizes Samsung's new 3G watch which by itself is a hell of a product – add to that, the ability to proactively provide round the clock safety for the wearer on Vault’s own range of watch faces and you’re on to a winner. As said, it’s a great reason for you to know more about Vault Intelligence.
In the real world, a use-case could look like this….
Verdy’s Plumbing has 56 plumbers on its payroll (business is good!).
Solo allows the office team to see every one of their workers on one screen in real time.
Geo-fencing is utilized to accurately measure the time spent on a job site which is going to be very handy for job invoicing. In the event of a plumber having an accident, Solo is going to know in one of four ways
He/She fell down
His/Her heart stopped
He/She didn't check in when the watch asked him to or
He/Her pressed the help button.
A preprogramed series of events then take place, using geo-fencing and nearby colleagues are notified and the office is notified via txt and/or email.
His or her location is automatically provided together with the travel history.
Vault Solo comes with its own standalone dashboard which like Vault 3, is fully customizable.
Plus, with it being open source, Vault Solo can integrate with other health and safety systems if need be - plus the big boys like SAP.
But what happens if there is no phone coverage?
Well if you have a RT in the truck, it is going to default via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi to the RT. Yes, that is seriously cool.
Solo even comes with an in-built broadcast messaging service so that the boss at Verdy’s Plumbing can swiftly and efficiently get a message to all of the team advising them to knock off at 3pm as a storm is coming and to meet him at the pub.
Another great reason to know more about Vault is the Samsung partnership.
I worked with Samsung as their director, responsible for both innovation and business-to- business.
So, I know first-hand that Samsung loves to partner with software manufacturers that are going to make their products sell faster.
Vault Solo does just that.
Samsung’s business-to-business sales teams in over seventy countries will be beside themselves when they see Vault Solo - because it is going to drive significant sales of their Gear eSim Connected Watches.
The Samsung partnership gives us a ready-made global sales and marketing force that will promote the heck out of Vault Solo as the consequence is significant watch sales.
Now let’s pop back to China….
….China can make or break you….more often than not, it’s the latter, so we at Vault are treading carefully with a soft entry in to China, working through established partners, rather than conducting direct transactions.
Within a few weeks of arriving in town, our team signed up Shanghai City Council.
This was helped along by our Mandarin version of Vault, just released, and helping to create enormous interest there.
So back then to our good friends at Linfox, since we lost that opportunity we have built a brand-new platform, translated it into Mandarin, opened offices in four new cities, recruited seasoned enterprise sellers, built a partnership with Samsung, won our first major customers in China, Kuala Lumpur and as of very recently, won Compass Group in New Zealand. Add this to the 121 Councils in NSW, NZ Post, GUD and Restaurant Brands that Vault also won in 2017, you will no doubt agree, we are on a roll.
Then there is the ever-improving website that is generating nearly fifty marketing qualified leads every month and is about to have ecommerce facilities to sell Vault Solo.
When you bring all of this together, you might get a sense of why a seasoned enterprise campaigner like myself, has fallen head over heels for Vault.
But here's the best part of all, the big announcements are still to come.
Stay tuned as I can't wait to tell you about them.
Vault facts and cool stuff
New Zealand’s Coastguard relies on Vault for health and safety
In Australia and New Zealand 147 local councils are Vault customers
As are 192 supermarkets
And 30 construction companies
And eight universities
Seventeen forestry companies use Vault
Every Pizza Hut, KFC, Carl’s Jr and Starbucks Coffee rely on Vault
And 32 power generating and reselling businesses
Vault’s software is so far available in English and Mandarin
VLT Price at posting:
1.9¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held