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CORPORATE RECOVERY
surface. Looking into how it was run, he management changes too, and a reduction and told managers that if they made excess
found it “chaotic and disorganised”: the in head count – from 250 to 210, achieved profits they’d be rewarded.”
manufacturing process was “a collection mainly without redundancies.
of fiefdoms” and there was “a lot of work The result was that turnover increased DEEP BREATH
in progress” with no one taking from £17.5 million in 2007 to £20 million Viewed with hindsight, the solutions
responsibility for it. Underlying these in 2008, with an operating loss of to a company’s problems may look obvious.
problems was the autocratic management £500,000 transformed to a profit of £1.1 But when you’re at your lowest ebb, those
style of the previous MD, who had been million. Most notably, that was achieved troubles can seem insurmountable.
“asked to leave”. by gaining only one major new customer Plaschke, an ex-employee of consultancy
“One of the first meetings I had with and simply serving the others better so the firm McKinsey, says that if he had applied
management, I asked people for their company won more work and, in some the principles he learned there to Sonim,
thoughts and it was like tumbleweed. It was cases, could justify raising prices which there would have been no option but to
so obvious they had never been asked that had not been adjusted in years. liquidate the company as quickly as possible.
kind of question before,” Brighton reveals. In a similar vein, RCapital’s Constable “There are lots of folks who told me to shut
The changes were radical but they were states that Little Chef’s problems boiled [Sonim] down and get another job,” he recalls.
operational rather than strategic. Brighton down to the fact that outlet managers “And if you looked at the business in any
created five “mini-MDs”, each of whom was had no sense of accountability, and staff rational way, I should have done just that.
given responsibility for a number of were demoralised. “But entrepreneurs defy logic. At times
customers. Work for each customer was to “It was about giving ownership back to like these you’ve got to trust your gut
be managed in a separate, U-shaped area, so the people running the restaurants. We conviction and follow it, even if it leads
that progress was clearly visible. There were improved the food but kept prices the same, to failure.” ■
9
Wednesday 10th June 2009
Barbican Exhibition Centre, London
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