ADAPT was founded from discoveries made building an SME (small to medium enterprise) called acQuire. acQuire was, at its peak, 140 people with seven offices in five countries. Both companies were founded by Bill Withers, a ‘tech entrepreneur’ with a passion for (among many other things) systems thinking and the importance of data-driven decision making.

Over the 22 years that Bill was the owner of acQuire, he encountered the many unique problems that SME businesses face. When he went out to find support to overcome them, he struggled. He found that most business advice in the market was geared towards larger ‘corporate’ organisations and nothing seemed to exist to support the growth and resilience of smaller businesses.

The advice was also disjointed; having a bias towards a specific part of the business without looking at the total system.

80% of people are employed in the SME sector – so why are they so underserved in our community?

So Bill began work to developing these capabilities himself inside acQuire, to such success that in 2012, he sold acQuire to bring these same capabilities to the rest of the SME sector in Australia.

Bill launched ADAPT in 2012 and has spent years working with the team to develop a framework and coach-led program that supports business owners to build solid foundations of a truly resilient business.