roundtable
The Business Magazine and several leading southern entrepreneurs were hosted by campaign sponsors Barclays and law firm Osborne Clarke at its Forbury Place offices in Reading for this discussion on ...
Scaling up your business Participants
Bob Atkinson: MD, In Cloud Solutions Paul Boswell: Relationship manager, Barclays
Michael Dunne: Commercial director, Aap3
Claire Edmunds: CEO and founder, Clarify
The Roundtable team Journalist John Burbedge reports the highlights
Scale-ups and growth by acquisition: How successful? How difficult?
Successful serial entrepreneur David Sanger admitted scaling- up by acquisition can be “a tough, energy-sapping and long-winded trail”, particularly for small businesses with inexperienced management attempting the acquisitions route.
He cited customers taking flight, cultural differences when bedding-in new teams, the need to make profit to recoup the acquisition investment – but the rewards of success can be very big “for those who become good at it.
“You have to be very focused and really know what you are acquiring and what you are doing. We always did our home-work, went into it with our eyes open, knew what we were trying to achieve, and even then it was hard.”
Graeme Freeman felt that acquisitions often do not achieve their true objectives, even within established companies, yet may be presented as successful. Too many professional reputations and bonuses are involved to allow such projects to be seen as
failing, he suggested. “The ‘big secret’ is sometimes they are not working.”
Lawyer Sara Valentine said that in her experience the key to scale-up success is where the post-completion integration is considered in advance of the acquisition deal being signed.
“But, not every company has the luxury of a big team to do that, and so it can be a challenge, particularly for a first scale- up.”
The ambition to grow and run a large business was a key factor, suggested Freeman. Many serial entrepreneurs simply enjoyed the buzz of building and selling a business rather than running one. Some businessmen with lower ambition thresholds don’t necessarily fail to scale-up – “it’s just not what they want to do.”
Mark Evans suggested scale-up challenges tend to occur at similar business-cycle growth stages – 10- 12 staff “when the founder needs to begin to delegate”; 30 people “when a management team is needed”; and 70- 100 people “when you need two levels of management. “If you can’t make suitable process and management approach changes at those stages you will fail.”
Mark Evans: CEO and co-founder, Adaptix
Matt Franklin: MD, Roc Technologies
Graeme Freeman: Co-founder, Freeman Clarke
David Sanger: NED and serial entrepreneur
Jurek Sikorski: Executive director, Henley Centre for Entrepreneurship
Sara Valentine: Corporate law partner, Osborne Clarke
Tamsin Napier-Munn: Campaigns manager, The Business Magazine, chaired the discussion
SOUTHERN entrepreneurs
Highlighting the Scale-up Report on UK Economic Growth produced by Sherry Coutu CBE in 2014 (
scaleupreport.org) Jurek Sikorski quoted the key scaling challenges:
• acquiring and maintaining the right skills
• leadership to align purpose
• attracting, winning, retaining customers
• accessing finance of all types
• managing infrastructure from premises to partnerships.
On the road to success . . . or an ego-trip?
Michael Dunne questioned the underlying assumption that scaling-up was the right option.
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businessmag.co.uk THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018
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