growth spotlight


Chris Way, Lloyds Bank, area director for SME & mid corporates division


term success. That said, I see three principle areas that must be adhered to in enabling sustainable business growth.


Innovation: “The speed of change in society continues to accelerate. It’s unlikely to lessen and today may be the slowest pace of change ever experienced in your lifetime.


“Product consumption,


Based in Hemel Hempstead, Way has been supporting and advising on SME and mid-corporate business growth in the Thames Valley and South East for over 18 years, helping clients achieve their business goals. His leadership of relationship-based commercial banking teams is built on integrity, honesty, hard work, and exceptional customer service.


“All businesses are unique, so extensive variables may impact upon a business’s short, medium and long-


manufacturing, access to services and products are all going through unprecedented change. This will affect different sectors at different times, in different ways. Ultimately, every business needs to stand ready to adapt and innovate.


“In order to innovate, businesses need to be able to take ‘time out’ to ‘step back’ from normal business operations and consider how their market is changing.


“What disruptive technologies might impact their model? What environmental issues (such as plastics


usage) or disruptions in other sectors, might lead them to enforced change?


“Being aware of these changes – not panicking or constantly changing direction, but making small modifications to refine what you do; taking potential threats into account when planning capital projects – are critical business behaviours.


Cashflow: “Manage the cash available in your business; it is its lifeblood. Cash is king, not profitability. Many big and famous brands had significant periods of loss-making while becoming established.


“Care for your cash; plan its use with reasonable event horizons. Prepare sensible cash forecasts and monitor them well.”


Outstanding client service and compliance: Most businesses aim for the first, and HMRC plus our commercial world’s legal regulations demand the latter, but these two aspects remain core fundamentals for a sustainable business.


Alex Tatham, UK MD of Westcoast


management and it has to be at the heart of a business strategy. “Hope’ is not a strategy,” said Tatham.


Founded in Reading in 1984, the IT full-service distributor Westcoast is the epitome of a highly successful Thames Valley business. Now Theale-based and headed by Tatham, it has grown steadily and impressively, achieving £2.2 billion in revenue in 2017.


“When does growth stop? When you want it to.” Commitment to growth must come from the owners and senior


“At Westcoast, we set out our stall to grow fast – without losing our flexibility and speed of execution. Having made that decision, we needed the fuel to make it happen – access to finance to fund investments and working capital; appropriately incentivised people actioning our plan; access to credit both for Westcoast suppliers and to offer to customers; and finally a ruthless focus on the one thing that you can control – costs. It is the latter that makes growth sustainable.


“With increased pressure on gross margins, growth provides an opportunity to spread fixed costs ever more thinly, but ensuring that you are super competitive is critical to long- term sustainable growth. Growth attracts more customers, new recruits and suppliers. It’s an upward spiral


which makes us so much more attractive to deal with, and fun to work within.”


Tatham admits being within the fast- changing IT industry has helped Westcoast enormously. “As companies digitally transform, automate and move to the cloud – there are an ever- increasing number of opportunities for Westcoast to get involved in”


Staying adaptable helps manage the inevitable market changes. “Rather than running away, Westcoast runs towards such potential opportunities; making the investments required and sticking with them for a longer term – the joy of being privately owned.”


For instance, cloud had every potential to be disruptive, but Westcoast invested in a dedicated team and systems and has become one of the largest cloud partners for Microsoft in the UK and Ireland. “Cloud is now part of our growth story.”


continued overleaf ..... THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2018 businessmag.co.uk 13


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