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The Ant and Dec of the business world
For The Business Magazine, Antonia Taylor caught up with the 2015 winners of the Haines Watt Young Entrepreneur competition, Nick Coleman and Udhi Silva, founders of the multi-award-winning Medical Supermarket
The self-confessed “Ant and Dec of the business world”, they founded Medical Supermarket in 2010, providing medical supplies to GP surgeries and primary care centres across the UK, with a vision to cut costs for the NHS. Medical Supermarket has quickly grown to a team of 15 and is based in Aylesbury.
Can you tell us how you started Medical Supermarket?
Coleman: Udhi and I met as buyers for BMI Healthcare. We both came from a buying background, working across the country with major hospitals. The 2010 whitepaper was a transitional point for anyone connected to the NHS, putting the sector under unprecedented pressure to cut costs. We wanted to find a way to help GPs and other care providers save money on procurement so they could re- focus resource on patients.
Medical Supermarket was started with a £7,000 credit card from Udhi’s spare bedroom. Within the first year we’d built a customer base of 250 and within18 months had hit a £1 million turnover.
What do you attribute your early success to?
Silva: We took a calculated risk starting the business, at a time when the sector was crying out for innovative ways to cut costs. We’ve always stuck to what we're good at and we know that the dynamics between Nick and me as a leadership team works.
Because we started with no money, we adopted a dropship model initially which helped massively but as we’ve grown, wanted more control. Taking on our own warehouse last year was a major milestone – we have more ownership and it makes us more competitive. We’re sourcing from
the UK and Far East so it opens up new platforms for diversification.
What was your vision when you started the business?
Coleman: In all honesty, it’s changed. We built a vision that we thought customers wanted to hear: creating a one-stop shop for customers to save money to reinvest in patient care.
It was
about building a place where healthcare companies unite. As the business evolved, though, we found we didn’t believe it. Because we’re still an agile business we could ask whether we really thought this was what our vision was all about and realised it had moved on. Now, it’s to generate wealth for our customers, suppliers and business. By wealth we mean financial but richness in knowledge and experience too.
Silva: We’re really clear about our values too. Neither of us likes to over-complicate things so we keep things intentionally simple. Be different, be amazing, be smart, be trustworthy, be human. We recruit on these and Nick and I try to lead by example on them. Keeping it simple means we can make decisions very quickly. The day we realised our vision was wrong, we changed it in two hours.
What’s the biggest challenge you face as business owners?
Silva: Recruiting good people. Over time we’ve developed a process that’s increasingly robust but we don’t always get it right. Cultural fit is big for us and we employ for personality – you can teach everything else. We tend to recruit outside the healthcare sector to make sure we get a great talent mix. Good interpersonal skills are imperative as it means our team can do so many more things. We’re a fast- growing business so our people
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – FEBRUARY 2016 HWYE finalists, judges and speakers with winners Udhi Silva and Nick Coleman
know the sky’s the limit and we recognise and reward success; our youngest member of staff is now our operations manager.
What do you wish you'd known when you were starting out?
Coleman: Everything takes three times as long as you think. We’re also understanding the power of networking and how every conversation leads to something. It’s not about selling but building relationships with like-minded individuals, having a beer and learning something – about them or about me or our business. Don’t go in with the mindset of expecting something.
How do you balance your professional ambition as an entrepreneur with your personal life?
Coleman: You don’t. It’s all completely integrated and if you separate the personal from the professional, you're set up to fail. As an entrepreneur you don’t switch off; you’re always thinking, always wanting to improve and one affects the other. If you disassociate them, I don’t think you’re going to enjoy life.
What’s next for Medical Supermarket?
Silva: Our main aim is to focus on what the business is good at. We want to keep expanding on its current proposition but we feel there’s still so much for us to do. We’re very aware of our own skill sets so we know that
growth is about surrounding ourselves with people who are better than us in key areas, freeing us up to concentrate on the bigger picture stuff. We both love the startup phase so we’re also starting up logistics and pharmacy businesses, enabled by our warehouse, as well as a super exciting brand called Snaffling Pig.
What does the region need to do to help more businesses like yours thrive and grow?
Coleman: There’s a lot of support out there with initiatives like Bucks Business First. We do see many younger entrepreneurs move out to London so keeping that energy and talent is key. We’re looking at building a network this year; a little support group to help other people on the ladder. We passionately believe in giving back to local business and support any programmes to work with young entrepreneurs in schools and colleges too. Businesses like ours should always invest back.
For further details on Haines Watts Young Entrepreneur competition:
www.hwye.co.uk
For further information about Haines Watts visit the website.
Details:
www.hwca.com www.medical-supermarket.com
www.businessmag.co.uk
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