Impos was born out of a two car garage in Flemington, Melbourne in 2005. Despite its humble origins – the company was entirely funded through bootstrapping we managed to rapidly build a strong footprint with our responsive and reliable POS system that suits the fast-paced hospitality industry.
Despite our success – by our 10th birthday our system was being used by 23 of the top 100 restaurants in Australia, including household names MoVida, Tonka and Domaine Chandon – we felt we needed to better articulate our expertise and unique offering to Australian hospitality as the industry was being disrupted by overseas tech giants such as Square and Vend.
New office that echoes the hospitality scene
An important part of this rebrand and transformation was moving to our new head office in Melbourne in September 2015. As well as a space to support significant employee growth, the new office complements our overall brand vision: a friend and trusted partner to the hospitality industry. It echoes a unique ‘Melbourne hospitality’ feel, featuring a modern break-out area, graffitied feature walls and filing cabinet, beer and sparkling bubbles on tap, and – most notably – a replica of the iconic route 16 St Kilda tram which is used as an informal meeting space for employees.
We spent more than $250,000 to completely overhaul the space, engaging Melbourne-based interior designer Katrina Hooker from KHID, and Mat Rowse from Rocket Science events to bring its vision to life.
Our COO, Ben Fuller, said, ‘Impos is a true player in the hospitality scene, and we needed to ensure our head office reflected this. Further, being established in Melbourne – arguably the food, coffee and drink hub of Australia – we wanted to ensure that we included iconic elements of the city, hence the inclusion of the tram number 16.’
Impact on staff, business productivity and sales
The new office has been instrumental to increased staff collaboration, engagement and improved productivity. We use various tools to measure productivity and employee happiness, and all employee engagement metrics saw a sharp uptick when they moved into the new office.
Overall staff are happier, they take advantage of the ping pong table and beer and cider taps after work, – increasing collaboration between departments – and they feel more inspired to come to work each day and are genuinely proud of the brand they work for.
We have also realised commercial benefits. Since the office revamp and overall business rebrand, we have signed 150+ new hospitality industry clients, and plan to install more than 700 venues in 2016, double the amount installed in 2015.
We have certainly achieved a number of milestones in the last six months, and the company has come a long way from the two-car garage it was born from. We look forward to what’s to come in the next phase.
CEO, Sean O’Meara, Impos
