“People management is a challenging but rewarding aspect of business. Going from being a sales person in the sales team, and working as a peer, to working as a manager to those people, was quite different,” he said. “ Just because you’re good at sales, it doesn’t mean you’ll be a good manager. I think that was one of my highlights – to take on a responsibility bigger than just the job you have to do, and understanding that there are a lot of other tools that need to be used like influencing and team building.
“I remember it well, because firstly, I find it very rewarding, but secondly, I have been quite successful at it. Prior to that, it was all about what I did and my effort, whereas in the end, a lot of real achievement comes from being a part of a team, achieving and sharing things with other people.”
During his time, Cochrane has witnessed technology go from being an unknown and computers a mystery to the greater population, to today, where technology is used in every kind of business.
“Who could imagine running a business today without technology? We are now mostly driven by consumers and users do things at home and wanting that in the office as well,” he said.
Another rewarding element to the IT industry was its ability to provide high growth and opportunity without excessive barriers to entry, Cochrane said.
“People have been able to move around a lot and do a lot of things. Fifteen years ago, it was rare to see older people in the IT industry because they would have had to come into it late in life and it wasn’t a profession they considered. Today there are people who have been in it for 25 or 30 years and it is still providing new challenges,” he said.
Looking back at his years as managing director at Express Data, Cochrane said one of the most enjoyable things was that it a small enough organisation to get to know everybody and control the balance sheet, cash flow and all the aspects not available to those running vendor subsidiaries in Australia.
But it wasn’t always smooth sailing. After the Shein brothers opted to split the Com Tech business into the integration arm and the Express Data distribution division, there was a lot of hostility in the market. Cochrane said it was a tough call, but one that had to be made.
“There are tough calls every day, and that’s why the people management side is so rewarding, because you take chances on people and give them responsibility and it’s very rewarding to see people grow and overcome obstacles to be successful,” he said.
