roundtable: building on success 51


The Business Magazine joined with Blandy & Blandy, Grant Thornton and HSBC, – sponsors of the TV250 listings of top private independent companies in the Thames Valley region – to invite some of the most vibrant TV250 performers to gather at The Vineyard at Stockcross, near Newbury in order to reveal:


How to build on success Participants


Bob Alsop: Director, corporate finance, Grant Thornton


David Bloxham: Managing director, GCS


Sue Dowling: Employment partner, Blandy & Blandy


Neil Grundon: Deputy chairman, Grundon Waste Management


Tim Jones: Chairman, CH&Co


Andrew Stanley: Chief executive, Golfbreaks


Jon Stradling: Head of corporate banking, Thames Valley, HSBC Bank Plc


Alex Tatham: Sales and marketing director, Westcoast


Lined up to debate: our Roundtable team Journalist John Burbedge reports the Roundtable highlights


OK, so give us the key ingredients


David Murray started proceedings by asking the opening question of the prime TV250 companies represented at the Roundtable: “What’s made your businesses so successful?”


“Passion!” came the immediate response from David Bloxham of recruitment specialists GCS. Unsurprisingly perhaps, GCS consider passion a key factor in their own recruitment process to both attract and engage the best of Thames Valley talent.


“We feel very passionate about what we do and want to hire people who are equally passionate about supplying outstanding talent to the best businesses. To succeed in recruitment you have to believe in the worth of what you are doing. Having passion for what you do means the role becomes much more than just a job.”


GCS, a company that has maintained its headquarters in Reading since 1992 has grown from a staff of three to a skilled team of 83 and a turnover in excess of £34 million.


“Naturally, as a recruitment company, we have SPONSORS


worked with numerous growing businesses over the past two decades, and we have observed that the most successful companies buy into those that are most passionate about their business. If a company doesn’t employ the best, they risk slower growth. Setting higher standards sets them apart from competitors.


Tim Jones of catering business CH&Co employs just over 2,500 staff and totally agreed with Bloxham. “You have to have people with passion. Our growth has been all about our people. One other key is getting your company message all the way down to the lower levels of your business, and that can be difficult with part-time working and lower paid roles.”


To overcome this CH&Co has invested heavily in training programmes and internal communications embracing industry-relevant knowledge and awareness of what is going on in the company.


“For us a major ingredient of success is maintaining our high level of service delivery – such as work standards and keeping promises. We all know how tough such things can be in business and there are always bigger


John Wilkinson: Area commercial director, Thames Valley & North Hampshire HSBC Bank Plc


David Murray: Managing editor and publisher of The Business Magazine, chaired the discussion


Alex Tatham


competitors who can compete very hard on price, but you have to find different ways of battling against that.”


“We are a food company, but it is how we deliver our overall offering that matters.”


Continued overleaf ...


THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – NOVEMBER 2013


www.businessmag.co.uk


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60