21. National Crime Check

Revenue: $6.7 million
Growth: 171.7%
Founders: Martin Lazarevic, 36
Head office: Norwood, South Australia
Year founded: 2009
Employees: 12
Industry: Property and business services
Website: www.nationalcrimecheck.com.au

Martin Lazarevic is a Smart50 veteran, placing in the awards three times over the past three years at positions 47, 39, and 21 respectively.

This year has been the best yet for his business, National Crime Check’s, thanks to a revenue increase of over $2.5 million and expansion on the horizon.

National Crime Check allows businesses to obtain police checks on potential employees in a “quick, easy and straightforward” manner. Lazarevic has strived to employ that mantra in all aspects of the business, saying he tries to “make every experience a reflection of this mantra”.

Last year, Lazarevic told SmartCompany convincing customers about the legitimacy of the business was his biggest struggle, but the founder has somewhat overcome this challenge, thanks to a number of large corporate partners integrating his platform into their existing human resources, on-boarding, and applicant tracking systems.

He still finds it hard to convince customers about the legitimacy of his business, saying acceptance is growing but “not 100% widespread”.

“Educating customers that police checks could be done by private accredited agencies has been our biggest challenge,” Lazarevic says.

“We are continuously educating the market through broad-based radio advertising as well as through social media. We have learned that it’s persistence that is required and acknowledgement that it will be an ongoing challenge.”

Prior to September 2014, National Crime Check incorporated paper-based lodgements in all its identification systems, which Lazarevic noted was “good, but not great” for his customers. He says a switch to a purely online lodgement system with real-time facial authentication was difficult to implement, but the company has benefitted from the switch.

“We have pioneered this [online] approach within the industry and have noticed several competitors emulate our system which is the biggest form of flattery,” Lazarevic says.

To stay ahead of the competition, Lazarevic is in the process of adding more types of checks to the company’s offering, such as bankruptcy and international police checks. International expansion is also on the cards, with the business looking at Asia and the Pacific region as potential areas for growth

The business has also been looking at different marketing angles, with a recent campaign on Triple M radio “really working” despite targeting an alternative demographic to that being pursued by its competitors.

“We noticed that competitors were concentrating on a specific demographic, so, we decided to look at alternatives and our radio partner came up with a different campaign,” Lazarevic says.

“So far it’s really working, we monitor lodgements from that demographic on a weekly basis and we have noticed gradual uptake.”

Lazarevic believes any good business must have an exit plan, but says he has a variety of scenarios developed and “the time we exit is when/if we get the ultimate exit”.

“Being agile is vital to success,” he says.