roundtable
SOUTHERN entrepreneurs
How do you manage your business through its various life cycles? Who better to turn to for practical advice than a select group of southern entrepreneurs, who gathered together recently at the elegant country venue of Lainston House, just outside of Winchester. In this business roundtable, sponsored by UBS, self- made business owners and industry experts shared their insights into .....
The challenges of growing, managing, and exiting businesses
Participants
Ed Bates: Chairman, Aish Technologies Chris Garrett: Managing director, Selwood
Susi Lennox: Co-founder and CEO, The YES YES Company
Kevin Gaskell: CEO, The Inspiring Leaders’ Group
Martyn Begbour: Executive director, UBS
Alan Gasser: Director, PwC
Lined up to debate: the Roundtable team
Matt Wright reports the roundtable highlights
What do you need to start thinking about when setting up a business?
It may sound rather counter-intuitive, but the time to start thinking about a business exit is often when the business is first set up.
Kevin Gaskell (CEO of The Inspiring Leaders’ Group) elaborates: “I think it’s vital to have an exit strategy as early on as possible.
“For example, I’m currently working with the CEO of a small, but fast-growing technology company. He’d previously found it difficult to articulate his vision for the company when pitching it to investors, largely because he didn’t know how he would ultimately be leaving it. By sitting down together, we worked out an exit strategy which would involve his business being bought out by one of the large multinationals who we know are targeting the space. Then, we set about positioning our sales, marketing, and delivery strategies accordingly, to make his business indispensable to them. He’s now fantastically energised with a clear
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vision because he has that goal, and that exit strategy, in mind.”
Alan Gasser (director, PwC) agrees: “You can plan day to day, but you have to have a longer-term vision for your business.”
Chairperson Tamsin Napier-Munn asked the group whether they thought there was an optimal planning period; ie should you plan five years ahead?
Ed Bates (chairman, Aish Technologies) stressed the need for flexibility in this respect, along with the importance of being agile and responsive to customers’ needs and requirements, illustrating this with a story about how a previous management had imposed an arbitrarily low annual CAPEX spend, which subsequently cost millions to put right.
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – SOLENT & SOUTH COAST – FEBRUARY 2017
Tamsin Napier-Munn: Campaigns manager at The Business Magazine, and chairperson for this discussion
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