22 entrepreneurs The history makers driving success
A passion for business and a rage against social injustice form the backbone of Simon Biltcliffe’s success. As founder of print services specialist Webmart, he has blended capitalism and Marxism to create a £30 million turnover business and, true to his upbringing, he ensures the profit is shared among his team and further afield via The Webmart Charitable Trust. A combination of innovator and history buff, his quirky approach is never more evident than in the wood-panelled 'boardroom' complete with faux fire and portraits of famous explorers – each with their faces replaced by management team members. It clearly works, as along the way both Biltcliffe and the business have garnered a raft of titles and awards, including IoD Director of the Year 2010 and Future Champion in the 2013 National Business Awards. With global ambitions and an Ironman to train for in his 'spare time', he is a man in a hurry. Alison Dewar went along to meet him
Now 48, Biltcliffe’s early years were spent in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, where many of his peers were destined for a life in the pits until what he calls the “systematic disembowelling” of the mining industry by the Thatcher government. Blessed with a father in education and an inherited love of books, he knew there had to be a better way of “beating the system” and won a place at Newcastle University, where he gained a degree in agriculture and economics. With a bleak horizon on the local jobs front, he headed south and joined the print industry, a role that was to set him on the path to future fortune. Married with two daughters, he is still passionate about Barnsley and last year took on a voluntary role with Barnsley Economic Partnership, with the aim of attracting new businesses and bringing economic growth to the region.
better solution to whatever the customer wants and by whatever technology they want to use. In the same way that the Clubcard changed the way Tesco operates, we have changed the print industry from “dumb print” to “smart print”. The West might see print as a legacy media, but in China the magazine market is doubling every three years as living standards go up, the global market for print is £800 billion and it’s growing all the time. We’re very proud in that we’ve never borrowed money, we self-invest and we expect to continue to grow significantly, especially in overseas markets, which is something we’re working on now.
Have you ever been afraid of failure? Where did your career start?
I fell into a job in the print industry working in sales, it was dynamic, fast moving and I really enjoyed it. In 1993 my work took me to Japan and I saw the equivalent of a Kindle, it was the first time I’d seen electronic content. We had some major clients and a multi-million pound turnover and when I came back I had great ideas for starting a new media division. It was such a fantastic opportunity, but after a year they decided they didn’t want to go down that route, so I left and started Webmart with the aim of doing things differently. The money was still in print, but it was about using new technology to do things differently, understanding the power of being able to leverage data to gain efficiencies.
Tell us about Webmart
We consult, buy, manage, print and deliver all types of printed products for customers both in the UK and overseas. We have the biggest database of print specifications and prices and believe we know more about the print marketplace than anyone else in the world. It allows us to offer a
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If you want a sustainable competitive advantage you have to stay away from convention, be counter intuitive and different. Having no external investors allows us to do that, we can do stupid things – as long as it’s for the right reasons. If something fails, then we try something else and every time we are successful then that increases the distance between us and our rivals.
What’s your business mantra?
Always be honest and straight with people, always be true to yourself and always look after people.
Tell us how you put that last point into practice
I think the key role of business should be to create and disseminate wealth, before the government gets hold of it. Marx said in an ideal world, surplus value should go back to the people who created it. If you blend a world class capitalist business with world class Marxist views, then I believe you have the best of both worlds, which is what I try to achieve and that includes looking after my team.
We employ 45 people across our three offices in Bicester, Barnsley and East Kilbride and I think you have to be able to offer three things:
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – FEBRUARY 2014
• maximise emotional return, in other words you employ nice people
• maximise intellectual value, people who take pride in their work and have a desire to constantly learn and improve
• maximise their financial return.
If you can get the alignment perfect on those three things then you take any friction out and won’t have a problem. It also means you are bound to attract the right people, develop their skills and reward them properly.
It’s the same with customers and suppliers, work with them as one, find the most efficient way of working. You usually find the good people come to the top, it’s about mutual respect. The highest form of business relationship is trust.
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