BQ2 Scotland Special Report

In association with

SPECIAL REPORT: SME BREAKTHROUGH CALLED TO THE BAR A Swedish success in Edinburgh A JEWEL IN SCOTLAND’S CROWN Managing Edinburgh Castle A LIFT TO WORK Clydesdale Community Initiative

CONTENTS

CONTACTS

04 EXPORTING DEMYSTIFIED

ROOM501 LTD Bryan Hoare Managing Director e: bryan@bqlive.co.uk t: 0191 389 8468

Santander’s Trade Portal gives a window on the world

EDITORIAL Ken Symon e: ken@symonmedia.com

10 CALLED TO THE BAR A touch of Scandinavia for Ediburgh’s leisure scene

14 PREPARING FOR WORK Transforming the way schools do business

20 JEWEL IN THE CROWN More than a tourist attraction Edinburgh’s famous landmark

26 COMMUNITY COMMITMENT Santander’s SEDA awards and staff giving back

28 A LIFT TO WORK Case Study

30 AMERICAN FANTASY FanDuel sees huge growth across the pond

32 AS I SEE IT Councillor Frank Ross on Edinburgh’s thriving SMEs

36 AN APPETITE TO SELL Scottish Food & Drink prepares for lift offs

42 CUP THAT CHEERS

DESIGN & PRODUCTION room501 e: studio@bqlive.co.uk

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BREAKTHROUGH TO SUCCESS

WELCOME There is a new wave of entrepreneurial spirit running through Scotland. Many different types of businesses are launching and many are seeking to sell to the world and not just domestic markets.

Santander is keen to help businesses to be founded, to grow and create jobs and thus underpin the recovery in the economy of Scotland and beyond.

In this magazine, with Santander’s help, we focus in on growing firms and hear their stories, their challenges and their successes.

We talk to those running enterprises ranging from Edinburgh Castle to an expanding Swedish bar business in the capital.

I hope this will inform you of some of the players in today’s market. But most of all I hope these pages will inspire you, challenge you or provide you with a few nuggets of business wisdom that might just change the way you are doing things for the better.

Getting business success down to a tea

BEER’S LOOKING AT YOU

38 SME BREAKTHROUGH

KEN SYMON Editor, BQ2 Scotland

In association with

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PHOTOGRAPHY KG Photography e: info@kgphotography.co.uk SALES Contact Publicity e: info@contactpublicity.co.uk t: 0141 204 2042 Alan Dickinson Associate publisher e: alan@bqlive.co.uk t: 07917 733 047 David Townsley Account Director e: dave@bqlive.co.uk t: 0191 389 8513

room501 Publishing Ltd, Spectrum 6, Spectrum Business Park, Seaham, SR7 7TT www.bqlive.co.uk Business Quarter (BQ) is a leading business to business brand recognised for celebrating entrepreneurship and corporate success. The multi-platform brand currently reaches entrepreneurs and senior business executives across Scotland, the North East, Yorkshire and the West Midlands. BQ has established a UK wide regional approach to business engagement reaching a highly targeted audience of entrepreneurs and senior executives in high growth businesses both in-print, online and through branded events.

All contents copyright © 2015 room501 Ltd. All rights reserved.

While every effort is made to ensure accuracy, no responsibility can be accepted for inaccuracies, howsoever caused. No liability can be accepted for illustrations, photographs, artwork or advertising materials while in transmission or with the publisher or their agents. All company profiles are paid for advertising.

All information is correct at time of going to print, June 2015.

room501 Publishing Ltd is part of BE Group, the UK’s market leading business improvement specialists. www.be-group.co.uk

BQ Magazine is published quarterly by room501 Ltd.

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OPENING COMMENT

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OPENING COMMENT

HELPING SCOTLAND’S BUSINESSES BREAK THROUGH Over the last few years Scotland’s business landscape has changed greatly but SMEs continue to be the lifeblood of our economy. We know only too well from our customers that running your own business is a tough job so we need to ensure that we are giving Scotland’s businesses all of the help and support we can so that they can be successful.

Earlier this year we expanded the reach of our Breakthrough programme to do just that.

Breakthrough is how we look to support businesses in ways that go beyond conventional banking.

To coincide with this, during May, we held a week long ‘Breakthrough Moments’ business festival in St Andrew Square in Edinburgh that consisted of over 20 events with speakers from a range of sectors including Food and Drink, Technology and Hospitality. They shared inspiring stories with audiences consisting of SME business owners and their advisors and provided useful input on how to tackle the issues faced by ambitious businesses.

Over the past few years our Breakthrough programme has already been helping fast growth businesses see great results, they were growing their workforce, launching new products and entering new markets. But we came to realise that not all ambitious businesses are necessarily fast growth. Ambitious businesses come in many guises and we wanted our Breakthrough programme to be available to help them to achieve their goals, whatever stage they may be at.

With this in mind, we have now added new elements to the programme which can be categorised under the five pillars of knowledge, talent, international, connections and finance – developed to address the different ambitions we hear business owners talk about most often. Not only are we bringing entrepreneurs together at various face-to-face events but also online via our LinkedIn communities, which are already encouraging some great debates and knowledge sharing. We have increased the number of subsidised graduate interns that we can provide SMEs with access to, recognising that finding and retaining high quality people is a key hurdle for many firms. And as more businesses look abroad to new markets, we’re here to help them find the right one, by adding even more countries and contacts to our trade portal which is available to all of our Corporate and Commercial online banking customers.

We are continually working closely with SMEs, listening to their business challenges and looking at ways in which we can help them be more successful. I hope that you enjoy reading this supplement and please don’t hesitate to get in touch should you require any additional information or would like to talk to us about your business. n

Not all ambitious businesses are necessarily fast growth. Ambitious businesses come in many guises and we wanted our Breakthrough programme to be available to help them to achieve their goals

Kevin Boyd, Divisional Managing Director, 0131 524 3051 Email: kevin.boyd@santander.co.uk

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NEWS

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Whitespace on the move, Edinburgh’s £2m conference win, travel business recruiting, and Scottish businesses make it to UK award finals >> Conference boost

>> Our Edinburgh quizzes staff A new training module has been launched to help frontline staff in Edinburgh tourist businesses build their knowledge of the Scottish capital in an interactive and engaging way.

Called Our Edinburgh, it aims to meet one of the key elements identified in the Edinburgh 2020 Strategy, which was the need to strengthen Edinburgh’s competitive position by improving frontline staff’s destination knowledge.

It was developed directly in response to that need through the Destination Leaders Programme led by a group made up of Neil Ellis (The Place Hotel), Karen Robertson (JAC Travel) and Ali Bowden (City of Literature Trust) and is supported by the Edinburgh Tourism Action Group (ETAG).

The content for Our Edinburgh was generated by many of the leading organisations and experts in the Edinburgh tourism sector and requires participants to answer correctly a series of quizzes relating to Edinburgh.

Once frontline staff have completed the module they are encouraged to download regularlyupdated PDFs, register with the Our Edinburgh Facebook page and attend the annual Edinburgh Tourism Showcase so they can keep up to date with the latest in Edinburgh tourism.

>> Whitespace finds home Whitespace, the fast growing creative agency, is moving into new offices in Edinburgh, ending a two-year search for new premises.

It is moving into the recently refurbished Norloch House in King’s Stables Road, in the shadow of Edinburgh Caste to the west end of the city centre. Whitespace will relocate from nearby Randolph Place to lease the whole of the classic Victorian C-Listed property.

Norloch House was built in 1893 as a church hall for St Cuthbert’s Church and converted

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into offices in the late 1980s to form the Edinburgh office of Hill Samuel Investment Bank. It was acquired by Millard Estates who have refurbished it and leased it to the agency.

Iain Valentine, joint managing partner of Whitespace said: “We searched and searched for a new home for Whitespace, for somewhere that would provide us and our clients with the best base to continue delivering great creative work. We’ll be really excited to be moving in to Norloch House, at the foot of Edinburgh Castle, towards the end of the summer.”

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Edinburgh’s business tourism sector has been boosted by winning a major world conference to the city in 2016.

The Rehabilitation 23rd International Congress will come to the Edinburgh International Conference Centre next October bringing with it an expected 1,000 delegates.

The four-day event, which is likely to mean more than £2 million of an economic boost for the capital, is expected to play a crucial role in cementing Edinburgh’s reputation as an accessible destination that welcomes disabled and disadvantaged visitors.

Jointly led by Convention Edinburgh and host venue, the Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC), the winning bid not only showcased the city’s strong business tourism offering, but also focused on Edinburgh’s accessible credentials.

From Edinburgh’s transport providers and its compact size, to the considered approach to accessibility by the EICC and city businesses, Rehabilitation International leaders agreed Edinburgh was the best fit for its conference and delegates’ needs.

The organisers hope that preparation for the congress will also provide the perfect opportunity for tourism leaders to work with Edinburgh businesses to enable greater understanding of the small changes and considerations, often easily implemented, that can have a dramatic impact on the accessibility of a venue or attraction.

Roy O’Shaughnessy, chief executive of Shaw Trust and organisers of the congress, said: “As a country, Scotland is committed to equality, tackling social exclusion head on. Edinburgh was the natural choice to hold an international conference which promotes the inclusion of people with disabilities. For example, Edinburgh’s Trams and easy access buses offer accessible transport links will make it easier for delegates with limited mobility to attend the congress.

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NEWS

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COMPANY COMPANY PROFILE PROFILE

Take the Strathclyde route to a top MBA Strathclyde Business School’s MBA programme is highly-regarded. The business school is triple accredited by the three international accrediting bodies, AMBA, EQUIS and AACSB – and it was one of the first to gain this accolade. EQUIS and AACSB assess the business school as a whole while AMBA accredits the MBA programmes.

Students who choose our MBA programme can opt for full-time, part-time or flexible learning study options. Our full time programme is studied over 12 months in Glasgow amongst a group of international peers and involves nine months of participation in classes, group work and personal development processes and three months for the MBA project.

Our part time programme is ideal for anyone who

>> Travel firm grows Reed & Mackay, the corporate travel management specialist, is expanding its Scottish operation and is recruiting a network of homeworkers to support businesses in Scotland’s Central Belt.

The company, which had mainly served the City of London, opened its Scottish HQ in Aberdeen in October 2013 to service the oil and gas and professional services sectors.

The turnover of the Scottish operation has already hit £10m and it moved to larger premises at the start of 2015.

The recruitment of homeworkers is to support further business expansion, with turnover predicted to hit £50m by 2020.

The company said that inbound and outbound deal activity increased in 2014, and is expected to increase further which is likely to drive higher travel volumes this year.

The company was launched in 1962 to service professional services such as law, insurance and finance and has expanded into the energy and media sectors. Reed & Mackay now has a turnover of £220m, £10m of which is driven by the Aberdeen office.

through workshops and seminars which gives those on the programme the opportunity to meet with their peers.

Whichever route you choose, there is a range of scholarships available. To find out more, visit www.strath.ac.uk/mba/scholarships/ This summer we are hosting a series of MBA information sessions, visit the website for full details or contact us directly on 0141 553 6118/6119, email sbs.admissions@strath.ac.uk

>> Scots firms make the finals Five growing Scottish businesses have been recognised for their entrepreneurial spirit by reaching the finals of the 2015 Private Business Awards.

In its fifth year, the Private Business Awards has attracted more than 2,000 high quality submissions from across the UK, with the Scottish finalists represented in five out of the10 award categories.

The five are Glencraft (Aberdeen) in the Social Enterprise of the Year category, BenRiach Distillery in the High Growth Business of the Year, BrewDog in the Private Business of the Year, Peak Scientific in the International Business of the Year and Mike Wilson of Ecosse Subsea Systems in the Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year category.

Martin Cowie, head of private business in Scotland of award sponsors PwC, said: “Over the last year, these businesses have clearly demonstrated their ability to forge fantastic opportunities for themselves and those they employ, and it’s particularly great to see them represented in hotly contested categories such as export, high growth and social enterprise.

“The shortlist not only reflects these organisation’s tenacity, innovation and drive to succeed but is a remarkable testimony to the resilience and performance of the local economy, particularly in a buoyant North East of Scotland marketplace, where three of our finalists are based.

“Our private businesses form the backbone of the UK and Scottish economy and it’s vital that these enterprises continue to get the recognition they deserve. I look forward to hearing how our shortlisted Scottish businesses get on in the final Private Business Awards in September.”

Our private businesses form the backbone of the UK and Scottish economy and it’s vital that these enterprises continue to get the recognition they deserve

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wants to fit the MBA programme around their career and the part–time MBA is offered mainly through evening class, twice weekly with four compulsory weekend schools spread over the period of study. Typically part timers complete their degree in around three years. A major strength of the part time route is that course members can investigate issues at work through the various classes and put what they learn on the MBA into practice immediately.

We also offer a flexible learning option which allows individuals to direct the pace of their own studies while providing the level of support that an internationally recognised school can offer.

The Flexible Learning MBA offers a balance between self-study and group interaction, and we encourage peer interaction and group learning

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SME BREAKTHROUGH

A triple-accredited business school that’s around the corner… and around the world Summer MBA open evening – 5.30pm 15 July, 12 August and 9 September Strathclyde Business School’s triple accreditation status and international rankings place it in the top echelons of global business schools. To learn more about our flagship MBA which can be studied on a fulltime, part-time or flexible learning basis, we invite you to attend one of our early evening preview sessions.

To register for any of the evenings visit:

www.sbs.strath.ac.uk/apps/previews

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University of Strathclyde is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, number sc015263

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INTERVIEW

CALLED TO THE BAR - IF THE ATTITUDE’S RIGHT Anna and Mike Christopherson came to Edinburgh from Sweden to take a year out and planned to finance themselves with a wine trade venture. Fast forward a decade or so and the couple have five bars and are just opening their sixth

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The Swedish Bars, as they are popularly known, have become a really notable part of Edinburgh’s bar scene, catering for a growing number of people across a bigger slice of the city.

The idea for the business started when the couple just couldn’t find the kind of bar they wanted to be in anywhere around and certainly not in Leith which is where they were based.

They were looking for a relaxed kind of ambience they were familiar with from Swedish coffee shops. “It’s very relaxed,” says Mike Christopherson. “You didn’t really have much of that here. There was either a traditional pub or a really high-end type of bar.”

Instead they have created fresh and airy places with light décor where there is that very laid-back feeling. Mike says: “People should feel at home. You can relax – you can dress up, you can dress down. You have good products, you have everything you want but it is still this relaxed atmosphere.“ It was an ambience that was set from the opening of their first outlet, Boda Bar on Leith Walk in 2004. That was followed by Sofi’s in Henderson Street, Leith a year later, Victoria’s just up the road from Boda a year later, then Joseph Pearce’s at the top of Leith Walk a year after that and Hemma Bar in Holyrood near the Scottish Parliament in 2012.

The couple have developed their own style of bar which people recognise as one of theirs although that style has changed slightly with their changing life. “They’ve kind of developed with us,” says Anna. “We’ve now got kids so

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when we opened Pearce’s the kids were tiny so we had this baby corner. Here [Hemma Bar] has also got a kids corner and we’ve got a microwave so parents can heat up their food for the kids but it’s also got pool tables so parents can play with the kids. It’s also for very old kids – people from Citibank like to come and play on Friday at lunchtime,” she laughs.

“It’s developed but I think everyone will recognise our style,” Anna says.

It’s like you come into someone’s home, that type of feeling Mike picks up the thought: “It’s still the same ambience. We have this living room feeling with mixed furniture. We don’t like to have all the tables the same, all the chairs the same it’s like a living room. It’s like you come into someone’s home, that type of feeling.”

Anna says: “People usually laugh when they come into our own home and they kind of recognise it because it’s the style that we have.”

She enthuses about Hemma where we are sitting: “I like working here. It’s so light and so airy it’s also got its own mezzanine for big

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parties, for weddings and the like; last week we had a parents’ evening. It’s so relaxed so even if people don’t know each other before it creates an atmosphere where you can be relaxed.”

Part of that style is that it changes at different times of the day. So during the day it can host families with young children but the Christophersons also want it to be the place those customers will want to come with their friends of an evening.

A key part of the Swedish bar approach is to have many and varied types of events on in the evenings. Some like singles nights and Nineties nights you might get in a range of places but many you will not. For example there are language cafes where each table is given over to speaking a particular language – attracting many native Spanish speakers, for example, glad to speak to others in their own tongue plus happy to converse with those learning the language.

They try many themed nights and events to bring people in on a night when they might otherwise be quiet. They also have exhibitions of the work of local artists, regularly changing the pieces hanging on the walls. “We don’t make money from it,” Mike says “but we get this nice, lively change in the interior.”

The couple continually encourage staff to come up with their own ideas for themed nights and events. Anna says: “We always ask them what kind of hobbies they have because if they could combine working with bringing their hobbies to work they will enjoy their work and hopefully they will stay longer and they will >>

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We won’t fill Boda Bar with sand again

contribute more. You say what you’re going to do is serve pints, take orders and clear up plates but there might be lots of other things they can do.”

She continues: “Over the 10 years there’s lots of stuff that’s been tried, hasn’t worked out and then a new member of staff comes in and says “I would like to do this.’ And I say ‘Oh, really we’re going to do that again.’ But maybe they have a way of doing it that is different from the way it was done before. So you can’t say ‘No, we tried that, we’re not going to do that again.’ “ But she does draw the line at one idea: “We won’t fill Boda Bar with sand again. We won’t do that. We had a beach party. It was fun but we won’t do that again.”

The amount of time it took to clear up all the sand that got everywhere means that is a beach too far for the innovative couple.

All this highlights the need to recruit the right staff, which, the couple say is central to the success of their business. “Absolutely the key,” says Anna. “The recruiting in our trade is the most important part and it is something that we will always do ourselves. Meeting them, seeing the first impression you get…because the first impression is also what the customer gets so it’s so important that you like the people. Their personality is way more important than their experience because they can learn how to work in a bar. But you can’t learn to have the right personality for liking customer service and liking to be friendly.”

Mike says: “Almost all of them have been to university, they may not have done [completed] degrees, but almost all of them have been– it’s not that we have that as a criterion but that ends up being the type of people we have. We need people that can take the initiative; solve the problems that come up, being creative.

“It’s about getting them to do things they like

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to do and then the job becomes fun, even if you have a lot of not-as-fun things to do,” says Mike. “Also the experience they get from dealing with people, they can use that with the other things they go and do with their lives.”

Anna says: “My new question now to everyone is ‘have you ever failed?” That’s quite interesting to ask people. It’s a very different attitude how people see it. Some people say ‘yes, of course, I’ve failed lots.’

But some people, young people, don’t dare to say they have.

“We say ‘it’s part of life, it’s normal if you don’t fail that means you never tried anything.’ But that’s also the culture that we would like to have that people take initiative – it’s better that you take initiative.

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“If it doesn’t work out then we can maybe help you out to do better next time, but if you don’t try nothing happens,” Mike says.

When the interview took place the couple were finalising plans for the re-opening of the former Cargo bar in Fountainbridge as Akva – the Swedish word for water, with the name being chosen because of the bar’s canal side location.

A key part of the makeover will be making the large space softer and more comfortable with eclectic Swedish-style furniture with longer kitchen tables and cosy sofas and armchairs.

Anna says that they had only just got the keys to Akva when they started having bookings coming in, approaches from local businesses and messages saying that people were delighted that they would be having their style

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of bar in that part of town.

“When we see the opportunity to improve something, something that didn’t work out there’s no point in taking over something that’s working well - I think that’s our driver: we like to do new things, new challenges,” Anna says.

“It’s not like a growth plan to have 20 bars or anything like that. It’s more like when opportunities arise we’ll have a look and if we think they’re right we’ll go for it,” says Mike whose background is as a management consultant.

From that experience Mike learned to get to the heart of a business and see where it will fail or succeed. He says: “It’s all about understanding what’s important in the bar business. You have to move with the times.

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The effect of that is that we’re not static – we’re always moving so we change bits all the time instead of doing a big refurb once a year.

“The biggest thing is to understand that market and the change in the marketplace.

You can see what people live in an area and you can quite easily see ‘will this work?’

Mike stresses how important it is to get a real sense of the community in which a bar is based and change things to fit in with that. Most of the Swedish bars are very close together, which means that they can share staff and resources and cooperate between the establishments.

Another important element of the couple’s approach to the bar business is that they do not believe it should be brand-driven. “We think it should be customer led, it should be a meeting

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INTERVIEW

place for drinks, maybe for a bit of food – that’s the whole reason people come out,” says Mike.

“For pubs to survive you have to change that attitude. Yes, it’s good to have good drinks but at the end of the day you have to create the atmosphere, you have to create reasons for people to be there.”

Anna says: “We always take over bars that have been lost causes for the brewers so they give you the freedom to do what you want.”

And they have “tagged on” to all of the trends in the business – the craft beer revolution and now the latest craze for different types of gin.

“If you are flexible you can do that. But at the end of the day people won’t come because you have a different type of gin, people will come because you can change to keep up with what’s current.”

One change that hit many other pub businesses badly was good for the Christophersons: the smoking ban. “For us it was brilliant,” Mike, says.

“People didn’t want to stink of smoke anymore,” Anna says. “They were happy to go outside, you meet lots of people when you’re standing out smoking.”

There were advantages in recruiting staff and in keeping the bars clean and in attracting some customers, particularly women. “We like our bars quite light,” Anna says, “but we had to repaint every three months.”

With that change as with others, the couple were determined to seize on it and make the best of it. Just as they did when they heard through contacts in the wine trade that what would become the Boda Bar was on the market. Given that the couple now have five well-established bars and a sixth just opening it is amazing to reflect on their whole business empire not being planned and that they stumbled into it.

Mike says: “We did not plan to set up bars in Edinburgh. We only planned to be here for one year, have the wine trade business and then go back to Sweden. The bar thing came up because we saw the first bar, made an offer and we got it. But it was still like ‘maybe we’ll do it for a year and go back.’ But we enjoyed it, we liked the people we met.”

It is clear from the numbers that spend time in the Swedish bars and return often that the feeling is mutual. n

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INTERVIEW

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PREPARING FOR A WORLD OF WORK

Steve Ross is planning a revolution. The energetic, softly spoken head of Craigroyston Community High School in Edinburgh is seeking to transform the way that schools prepare their pupils for entering the world of work

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“For too long secondary education has been a bit of a silo – you know we teach what we teach and then it’s up to the kids to do what they do,” he says. “If we take this to where it could go we could be transforming Scotland.“ Craigroyston’s vision for education can be very simply put: to deliver a curriculum that meets the needs of all young people – not just the academic ones – and one that results in employment.

Ross is in the vanguard of a new approach

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that is being developed across Scotland in response to calls from the Commission on Developing Scotland’s Young Workforce chaired by veteran energy businessman Sir Ian Wood.

“It’s an egalitarian approach where this school should be for everybody no matter your level of ability,” Ross says.

So Ross and his colleagues have sought to extend the range of subjects taught by the school from the traditional academic subjects adding those of a much more vocational bent

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and which will be of interest to the students.

More than 30 courses have been added to the curriculum in the last year.

“We said to our teachers, our staff and partners what can you offer that is broader than National Five History or Higher English,” he says while stressing that those traditional subjects are very much still part of the curriculum.

This has led to a range of courses with a vocational aspect to them, such as Sports and Recreation, which is taught in the school via >>

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The Santander Business Breakthrough event’s Red Box in St Andrew Square in Edinburgh.

Morphsuit T-shirt Design competition winner Lauren Whitaker (14) and runner up Andrew Murphy (also 14), both pupils at St Thomas of Aquins Roman Catholic High School, Edinburgh.

a partnership with Edinburgh College.

In addition to input from partners it has meant diversification for school staff with, for example, a media course taught by a French teacher and a dance course taught by an art teacher.

“So some of our fourth year boys were doing Sports Leadership, then they were nipping down to the college to do Automotive Skills and they’d come back in the afternoon to do the mountain bike course,” Ross says.

“They were choosing courses that didn’t have them sitting behind a desk, doing paperwork, they actually had hands-on things that they enjoyed. And you could see a direct link from what they were doing to employment, but also getting them the skills to allow them to go into employment.”

The mountain bike skills and maintenance course for example, taken by 16 pupils in the 2014-15 session includes a City and Guilds qualification in the subject plus an industryrecognised first aid qualification.

“They’re actually developing entrepreneurial skills because they’re given a wreck of a bike, they do it up, they add components that they’ve actually budgeted for and then the idea is that they sell it and they make a profit,” Ross says.

“The qualification that they get at the end of it is the minimum requirement to be a bike mechanic in a bike shop, so if they go say to the Edinburgh Bike Co-op up the road they could get a job there because they’ve done that course.”

Other classes include subjects like boatbuilding, with another popular if very different course being cake craft. Says Ross: “There are so many boutique cake shops that have sprung up, certainly in Edinburgh, I think due to the popularity of programmes like the Great British Bake Off. It’s not even really a niche market any more is it? It’s really quite mainstream. So there is a National Five course out in practical cake craft which the kids have done.”

This approach has been running for one year and Ross and his colleagues are already planning to expand it for its second year of operation.

“That was really where our pre-apprenticeship model came from,” Ross says. “I liked the

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idea that in the senior years rather than say going to the college to do a course on a Tuesday or a Thursday afternoon, why can’t you go out to work? Why can’t you team up with a business or a company?”

The first pre-apprenticeship the school is offering is with the hotel trade following a meeting between Ross and Robert Allan, the Edinburgh-based HR director of Apex Hotels. Together with another HR Manager and Craigroyston home economics teacher Elaine Gray they brought the entry-level requirements of the hotel business into a course that would fit into the school year.

Over the school year the students have been taught the basics of working in the hotel industry, spending the first couple of months dealing with customers and then moving on to food and beverage.

Ross says: “Apex are saying that if they do well over the course of the year they will get a job. It’s a bit like work experience but more than that - so that’s why we came up with the term hotel industry pre-apprenticeship.”

The school is now taking the model they have developed and taking it to other hotel groups.

“Eventually what I want is for every teacher to be linked up with businesses and companies,” Ross says. “Why not?”

A contact at Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce led to Craigroyston third year students being involved in the Santander Big Red Box event at St Andrew Square.

Emma Ward, a business studies teacher at Craigroyston says: ”It gave our pupils hands on experience of what is involved in organising a big event. It gave our kids the opportunity to go through planning the

INTERVIEW

event, speaking to caterers, speaking to business representatives who were going to be presenting at the Red Box. “Then our pupils went down and helped in the running of the event on the day, helping with teas and coffees, speaking to business men and women who were there. It was a huge confidence boost for them and they seemed to get an awful lot from it.”

Ward says: “What was particularly good about the Santander link was that pupils got to go out and experience a real life business event and they were networking with people from lots of different professions and they had their eyes opened to lots of different businesses or careers – technology for example. And one of our pupils networked very well with a lawyer and that’s the kind of industry she would like to go into.

So they’ve already started building up connections by getting out there and meeting real businesses as opposed to just listening to us.”

Part of Steve Ross’s approach is to get his school’s pupils thinking about the world of work and what part they might play in it from their earliest years in the school. They are encouraged to think about what they are good at and what that might mean for the career they seek to follow.

For example third year pupils have a World of Work Day looking at possible career choices and then the next day they made their choices on what subjects to take in fourth year.

Ross says: “We’re making it absolutely overt to the young people that their fourth, fifth and sixth year should be an employment pathway – it’s all about getting the >>

They will make a mess of things – that’s what young people do – but the school will be there to support them through that

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INTERVIEW

necessary qualifications and experiences that’s going to get them either a job or a college course or a university course or indeed an apprenticeship. Rather than choosing what they might like we are making it as an overarching theme - their employment.”

One of the ways they do that is Steve Ross’s ‘five a day.’ He meets with five pupils individually every day so that every pupil meets with the head once a year where he talks about whether they feel safe, their attendance and what they are thinking about future employment.

“Some of them know exactly what they want to do and some of them haven’t even thought about it but it is just broaching that subject.

I meet them once a year and they know that’s coming. With staff, employability is again an overarching theme.”

It is an approach that is clearly already paying dividends as Ross illustrates from the day this interview took place at the school. “When I was doing duty in the dining hall just this lunchtime I walked past Elaine Gray, the teacher that deals with the hotel links and she was saying: ‘But that’s how things work in business, we’ve got to adapt.’ And I thought ‘Yeah we’re getting there.’

“When would you normally hear that in a school? People would normally say ‘What has teaching got to do with business?’ But for me it would be absolutely central.

“Part of what we need to do is almost retrain teachers as well or broaden our knowledge.

If you look at your stereotypical teacher who leaves university, sometimes they then go back to university to train as a teacher and then they go to a school. What knowledge, what experience do they have of the business world, of employment outside of education?

“How can I advise a kid who wants to set up his own joinery business? I have no idea how to do that – I can talk about it in a sort of abstract way but I think it’s important to get businesses into schools and networking with teachers as well to really up-skill us.

“Through all these events I’ve been involved in, there are jobs out there that I didn’t have any idea existed.

“We will still always have the young people who come in and do their five Highers and their route is university and you’ll have some

SPECIAL REPORT | SUMMER 15

THE UK’S INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LEAGUE

SUMMER 15

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Pupils from St Thomas of Aquins RC High School in Edinburgh, who, like the students of Craigroyston Community High School, took part in the Santander Red Box event in St Andrew Square.

who maybe get two or three Highers and their route is college. For the other ones I really want it to become the norm that whatever they are interested in they can use our pre-apprenticeship route and then they leave school and get a job with that company that supported them through.”

Ross also highlights the benefits to the businesses that get involved. “Apex for example are offering three places in their three hotels in Edinburgh. They are going to get three members of staff they have basically trained for a whole year but trained with the support of the school. These kids know they are onto a really good thing here, they had to apply, they were interviewed – there were 10 kids that applied for it and only three of them got it. The kids already receive a positive boost from being accepted and a bit of high profile.

“They will make a mess of things – that’s what young people do – but the school will be there to support them through that. At the end of the year my hope is that these three guys will start with Apex and that’s them, they’re in their company, they’ve started their career.”

Key to the approach is teaching the young people the ‘soft skills’ – ability to deal with people, eye contact, turning up for work on time and a lot that is fundamental to the world of work but which employers say are all to too rare in young people.

Ross says: “If you look at a lot of young people they’re glued to their phone. A lot of their chat is not done face-to-face so maybe

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it’s a worsening picture because of that.

“If a young person is on this preapprenticeship route their teacher will be telling them about the soft skills and actually teaching them. And then they are to go out on a Tuesday and Thursday and practise it.“ All this is having a marked effect on Craigroyston pupils’ relationship with the school. In the previous year 56% of fourth year students stayed on into fifth year. This session the figure was 86%. This turnaround was highlighted in an HM Inspectors report on the school following an inspection in November. Ross says: “HMI said ‘the kids, they all get it, they know they have to stay on to sixth year. That’s quite heartening and humbling.”

Ross says that key to this success has been the response of Edinburgh businesses, and that that is helping to break down a divide between education and the private sector.

“The business people we’ve approached have all been very open, have been very welcoming and want to help because it also helps them.

From a teacher’s perspective we always thought that private industry was cutthroat.

“To break down that divide and to get us working together can only be a good thing.

The thing is when you speak to business men and women a lot of them have got sons and daughters who are in schools – it’s not them and us. A lot of them are parents and they really do care and they love the fact that they could positively influence what’s going on in schools for the good of all young people.” n

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INTERVIEW

SUMMER 15

SUMMER 15

A JEWEL IN SCOTLAND’S CROWN Edinburgh Castle is more than a tourist attraction, it’s a venue, an icon and a record breaker, according to executive manager Nick Finnigan

SPECIAL REPORT | SUMMER 15

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The executive manager of Edinburgh Castle is focused on keeping the jewel in Historic Scotland’s crown not only in the international tourist spotlight but also in making it somewhere to which people in the capital and in Scotland generally have an emotional connection. “There are a lot of people that make the mistaken premise that Edinburgh Castle markets itself,” Finnigan says, “If you said that as a logical premise you are facing up to a massive reputational risk.”

He sets out what he believes is a vital role for Edinburgh Castle at the heart of the city’s tourism drive. “One of the things that I’ve been very much trying to do in my time at Edinburgh Castle is to try and ensure that the Castle has, for a lot of people a contemporary relevance.

“Not that its history is necessarily well known – there will be some people who do their research in advance – but once people come on to the site it’s our job through our guides to inform them in greater depth about the history of Edinburgh Castle. But I think for the local population of Scotland who have an important ambassadorial role we want to get over the fact that Edinburgh Castle is not just a visitor attraction.”

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He says ruefully: “If I had £10 for everybody locally who says I haven’t been up to Edinburgh Castle since I was on a school trip…. I’m trying to point out to them that it’s a lot different, there’s a lot going on.

“When I speak to the business community in particular there’s not many of them who know that you can bring your child up and get him or her Christened in Edinburgh’s oldest building, St Margaret’s Chapel which was built in the 1100s. You can have a surprise romantic proposal package from the Minstrel Gallery overlooking the Great Hall. We have a very wonderful setting for an Afternoon Tea offer.

You can get married in three or four different locations in Edinburgh Castle.

“People know the Tattoo but there’s pop and rock concerts in advance of the Tattoo; there’s a whole number of promotional things and that’s before we talk about some of the big ticket items such as watching the fireworks and a lot of the events at Hogmany.”

He stresses: “The Castle is not a time capsule; it’s a living, vibrant site with a lot going on today which has got a lot of relevance for people around.”

It is an iconic building, shown on TV news

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film around the world from the Edinburgh Hogmany celebrations, the arrival of the Commonwealth Games Baton Relay and the special service they held to mark the start of the World War One commemorations, which attracted more than 5,000 people.

“We are the most popular paying visitor attraction outside London and we broke all records last year,” Finnigan says in his gentle burr. “The last 12 months of the financial year, every single month was a record, so clearly we’re doing something right. We were 1,500 short of 1.5m and when you compare that with some of our figures from years ago we’re not that far off 400,000 additional visitors to the Castle over that period.”

Around 70% of daytime visitors are international and roughly 30% from Britain – roughly 20% England and 10% domestic Scots. Finnigan says that is a visitor profile that is very different from all other sites in the Historic Scotland estate.

This compares with Stirling Castle, the next biggest site that has a 40% local market.

“So it definitely has a bigger international reach but 30% of 1.5m is still a lot of more local people coming.” >>

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Finnigan has been General Manager at Edinburgh Castle since February 2011.

Edinburgh Castle is the largest building in Historic Scotland’s portfolio by some way. It generates about 56-57% of all of Historic Scotland’s income and about 43% of all its visitor numbers. “It’s that old adage, if Edinburgh Castle sneezes, Historic Scotland as a business catches a cold,” he says.

Marketing this historic site means being consistently good at modern communications, he says. “We have particularly embraced social media as a fantastic avenue to make a direct connection with as many people as we can.

We have over 100,000 Facebook likes now and we answer a lot of people on Twitter so that’s quite an important avenue as well as the information we have on our website.”

He adds: “We realised like a lot of businesses that social media was a fantastic, not only cost effective, option but actually a much more immediate option on a practical level to be able to give people information.”

An example is the last showing of the Colours that were flown at Waterloo. “While we had great media coverage with BBC, STV, radio – they were all up and we had some excellent coverage but social media is a great way to promote some of the stuff we did. We did a really great time-lapse film from the morning, which showed all the cabinets being set up from 7 o’clock in the morning. That ran on our Facebook page and that’s the kind of thing that is popular.”

Key to this is Finnigan and his team at the Castle working closely with Historic Scotland headquarters staff that are based nearby in Edinburgh. Historic Scotland has a digital and marketing team who are responsible for monitoring and responding to that while liaising with Edinburgh Castle staff.

“They are people who at a national level are driving forward a whole series of commercial undertakings,” he says. “We are the people who are managing from a daytime and operational basis.

“We work very closely with colleagues on a whole series of initiatives which will hopefully drive forward the business and that’s covering everything including the number of people coming up, the retail offer – we have three retail outlets here – and we’re driving forward

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ecommerce business as well where you can buy a ticket online, we’re driving forward the purchase of people buying our audio guides when they come and also improving things like the catering offer here. We’ve got a daytime café but we’ve also got a higher quality tearoom. So there is a whole pivotal series of things that are part of the business operation.”

The commercial and marketing drive has to be placed in the wider context of the organisation, says Finnigan who is a 25-year veteran of Historic Scotland. “It’s probably worth remembering that Historic Scotland is a conservation organisation – they are there to protect and preserve the properties because, without wishing to be too clichéd, they’re going to be here a lot longer than all of us are here.

“So the primary purpose is not running them as a business, the primary purpose is to make them available so people can come and enjoy them. But the Government only has a certain amount of money it can give us and our responsibility is to raise as much money as we can as well, to make sure we can make these places as up to date and to have the infrastructure working as well as we can.”

Nick Finnigan stresses that the other key factor in the success of Edinburgh Castle is the increasing ‘Team Edinburgh’ approach among all the major tourism players in the city. He underlines the growth in visitor numbers at the Castle following an increase of international air routes to Edinburgh Airport.

He says that Edinburgh Castle gains from this wider effort but also means that it has a key part to play in that effort. “Edinburgh Castle, based on the research that I’ve read, is not only an attractive proposition to encourage people to come to the city in advance but it also stresses the importance that we have in getting it right. If you are here internationally on a short break, the latest I read is that you are 73% likely to visit Edinburgh Castle on that short break. If that is the case then they’re likely to come to Edinburgh Castle quite early on that visit so in my view if that is not a good experience that’s obviously going to cover their whole view of the city.

“So I think that Edinburgh Castle has a massive responsibility as a partner in the city to make sure that we are giving visitors the best

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experience because that’s going to probably be quite a big springboard. But equally what I think has been fortunate for the city is that I think everybody else has ramped their game up.

“There is wider accommodation provision, food and drink has improved, look at the burgeoning Edinburgh Festivals. I think the whole offer overall has increased so I think we’re all benefiting from the work that everybody else is doing.”

Finnigan says that this collaboration is now much more prevalent. “I think a lot of people would have felt that maybe 10, 15 years ago there was a bit more of a ‘what’s in it for me?’

Wearing a bit of a set of horse’s blinkers and mainly being concerned about driving forward their business. I think people are aware now – and I think a lot of it has been personality driven by some people in key positions in the city – where you can lift up a phone and make something happen.”

He cites the example of the phone call he received from the head of Marketing Edinburgh at the time of the Independence referendum result who asked Finnigan if the lights could

INTERVIEW

prevalent 10 years ago.”

So Finnigan’s approach will be to constantly develop Edinburgh Castle’s offering, something that he sees as being in no way contradictory to the history of the building.

“If you look at the Castle itself as a building it isn’t stuck in one period; St Margaret’s Chapel is Eleventh Century, you’ve got the Renaissance part in the middle and then all the front of the Castle is Victorian. That means that generationby-generation, each of them felt that the Castle had to evolve – I don’t see why then we should be different. Now, we’re clearly not going to start building big modern parts onto it, I don’t mean it like that, but it’s that kind of thing where we’ve not suddenly picked a date and everything has revolved round that date.”

Finnigan sees all this as about developing a new culture for the building, not solely revolving around events but with events as an important element to “cement Edinburgh Castle’s iconic place.” He cites the fact that the then First Minister Alex Salmond chose to make the announcement of the Independence Referendum in the Great Hall at Edinburgh Castle and it was chosen as the place for arrival

Generation-by-generation, each of them felt that the Castle had to evolve – I don’t see why then we should be different remain on all night at Edinburgh Castle to give a striking backdrop to the TV crews covering the event from a hotel in the nearby Grassmarket district.

“I was able to get that arranged. It’s an example of something when a few years ago we might have said no. It was benefiting the city and I think there’s a lot of that going on now,” he says.

“People are now thinking that it’s not their individual business that’s the sell, it’s Edinburgh that’s the sell, or Scotland that’s the sell. When I’m talking to you now it doesn’t seem like rocket science, it’s pretty straightforward, but I am absolutely sure that that wasn’t so

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for the Olympic Torch.

“For me it’s about continuing to embrace that and make sure that it’s not only a city where people from all around the world will want to come and visit and see it like that but clearly the local population. I want them to feel not only proud of it, be delighted it’s iconic but to feel a part of it.

“When I see people coming up whether they’re coming up for a ticket giveaway weekend, whether they’re coming up for somebody’s wedding or coming up for afternoon tea or they’ve joined our membership scheme, I think that means that we as Historic Scotland are doing our job.” n

SPECIAL REPORT | SUMMER 15

INSIGHT

SUMMER 15

INSIDE THE RED BOX Young would-be entrepreneurs found inspiration and invaluable business advice at the Santander-backed Breakthrough Box festival in Edinburgh

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COMMITTED TO THE COMMUNITY

Graham Silcock tells us about the tough task he has had on his hands.

Santander’s Regional Director for Scotland has recently been busy judging the entries for this year’s SEDA awards SEDA, or the Social Enterprise Development Awards, is a £1 million business programme that is the flagship of Santander’s support for social entrepreneurs and social ventures aimed at helping the whole sector prosper.

Last year SEDA awarded cash grants to 30 social enterprises in Scotland working on everything from regeneration to residential conference centres and from community arts to comedy workshops.

The greatest range of the awards, announced in November, went to the Glasgow area where 15 social enterprises shared cash awards totalling £110,000.

These include Open Gates, which works to restore the lives of prisoners and ex-offenders, Eco Drama which does shows and workshops for young children on environmental issues and Universal Glasgow which delivers comedy workshops for people who experience ill health, depression or anxiety.

Grants totalling £35,000 went to five social enterprises from the Highlands while three

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social enterprises from Edinburgh have won cash awards of £5,000 including Space Artworks that helps promote artwork from adults with long-term health issues including physical and learning disabilities.

Three social enterprises from Perth have won cash awards totalling £20,000 and two social enterprises in Dumfries and Galloway were each awarded grants of £10,000. Grab Trust, which addresses waste and recycling issues in North Argyll and Bute, was also awarded £10,000.

Alongside the prize money, the winning social enterprises received a business support package from Santander that includes business webinars, fully-funded internships, consultancy days and the opportunity to network with other social entrepreneurs and small business owners.

Another key element of Santander’s community commitment is the Santander Foundation, which has contributed more than £28m to UK charities since its creation

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in 1990. The money is distributed through three grants programmes that have helped disadvantaged people throughout the UK. The Foundation’s awards included a £5,000 grant to the Aberdeen Play Forum to fund play sessions for children living in deprived areas of the city. The grant is being used to buy ‘Play Kits’ – a range of outdoor playing resources – for the charity’s team of play rangers to run sessions in schools across the city.

In addition to financial grants Santander employees contribute directly to the community by taking days out to volunteer on a local project. For example, employees from Santander’s Glasgow office spent a day at Parkview Primary in the north of the city helping to redecorate and reorganise the school library.

Two volunteers reorganised the books and other resources to allow easier access to them for the children and two others helped to redecorate one of the school’s classrooms that

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is earmarked for children who suffer from severe sensitivity to loud noises, bright colours and lots of activity.

Fiona Steel, relationship director at Santander Corporate and Commercial in Glasgow, said: “Before the Community Day, we were unaware of how much is expected of teachers above and beyond their teaching remit.”

The volunteers were part of more than 2,500 employees who every year support around 200 projects across the country ranging from conservation and regeneration projects to educational schemes with schools.

Santander also has a Matched Donation fund which supports bank colleagues in their fundraising efforts and every year more than 1,500 charities benefit from Santander people’s time, energy and efforts raising money for good causes.

This included a team from Santander

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Edinburgh taking part in a mammoth 250-mile challenge for NSPCC Scotland.

The ‘Tour de NINES’ (Northern Ireland, North East [England] and Scotland) involved participants tackling a challenging route from Inverness to Aberdeen and on to Edinburgh in just 24 hours.

The team included Kevin Boyd, Santander’s divisional managing director, who says the event involved a personal challenge as well as pulling the team together in support

of a great charity.

The contribution enables NSPCC to keep providing vital therapeutic services to families struggling with substance misuse, support young and vulnerable new mums, and provide a listening ear for children in need.

Santander’s MoneyWise programme provides workshops that help increase young people’s understanding of banking and everyday financial issues such as earning, spending and saving. n

Before the Community Day, we were unaware of how much is expected of teachers above and beyond their teaching remit

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CASE STUDY

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A LIFT TO WORK Clydesdale Community Initiative is a fine example of the type of project with a strong social impact and economic benefit that Santander seeks to support

Clydesdale Community Initiative (CCI) works with NHS Lanarkshire and South Lanarkshire Council Social Work Department to provide job training opportunities for those who find entry or re-entry into the world of work difficult. These are mainly young care leavers, those in the youth justice system and adults with mental health issues.

The project provides landscaping, woodworking and building services thus enabling their trainees to learn valuable vocational skills on commercial projects.

It was initially set-up in 2002 to enable young people at risk and adults with mental health issues to develop a derelict site in Lanark, South Lanarkshire. However, this original project was so successful, with both groups gaining exceptional skills and confidence from their involvement, that it was decided they would undertake further projects.

Since then CCI has worked on a wide range of projects, all of which have had community or client input. By incorporating the principle that no one should be defined in terms of their support needs but rather they should be recognised for the contribution they are able to offer, CCI says its trainees have gained invaluable experience of vocational and social skills and as a result their self-confidence has increased, often reducing long term demands on mainstream services as a result.

To ensure CCI could continue to provide as many placements as possible to vulnerable adults and children alike, they set up a trading side to the business – CCI Trading. This business offers a full landscape construction and design service but ensures that their key guiding principles are at the forefront of everything they do. With a variety of projects from driveways, patios, walling (which includes restoration of stone walling and dyking) lawns, fencing, decking, grounds maintenance and

soft landscaping, CCI says its clients have been able to take part and help to promote social inclusion in the workplace. CCI also boasts a woodwork workshop onsite that, it says, has been extremely beneficial to all that attend.

It continues to work with a variety of community groups, schools, development trusts, and public sector and private homes and has a vision to expand its customer base in the near future. All profits are channelled back into CCI to help improve, develop and expand its programmes so that it can continue to support individuals with support needs in what its says are often life changing placements. CCI was recognised for its work with an award of £30,000 under the Santander Social Enterprise Development Award (SEDA) scheme. SEDA is part of the bank’s commitment to supporting small businesses and local communities.

CCI was recognised for its contribution in meeting two of three impact area that SEDA aims to address, namely supporting skills,

No one should be defined in terms of their support needs but rather they should be recognised for the contribution they are able to offer

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CASE STUDY

training and employment and improving social inclusion.

The award win enabled CCI to buy vehicles, tools and equipment to increase the training options they can offer to their trainees.

The two new vehicles have allowed them to grow both the business and the social impact of the organisation. The commercial vehicle helped them to increase their capacity to deliver commercial landscaping contracts, which in turn helped to increase the number of individuals engaged in positive work placements.

They were also able to increase the range of projects they could deliver and take on larger contracts such as deer fencing, woodland planting, path building and natural play areas.

The minibus has enabled them to transport people with a range of support needs to these sites, using the commercial contracts as platforms to engage them in supported work placements to achieve their training and personal development goals.

They also developed a partnership with Routes to Work South, South Lanarkshire’s employment campaign, which has led to an increase in the number of people moving through the organisation into formal employment.

CCI says it always aims to produce the highest possible quality work to please its customers and provide the best possible training for those it takes on. n

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INTERVIEW

Right from the kick off Nigel Eccles has been focused on America.

When he and his four co-founders launched FanDuel it was a play to capture a slice of a massive American fantasy sports market that has around 40 million players

TAKING THE US FANTASY SPORTS MARKET BY STORM SPECIAL REPORT | SUMMER 15

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“We saw that there was this big market and that the people playing it were passionate but there hadn’t been much innovation in the last 10 years and it hadn’t been reaching the younger players and we felt we could make it faster and more exciting,” says Eccles speaking in relaxed tones in a Northern Irish accent.

So there was a prospect of the Edinburghbased FanDuel capturing players of fantasy American football, basketball and baseball, many of whom were going into their 40s plus bringing in younger players and those on mobile devices.

FanDuel players create an account, enter a league and then put together a virtual team of real world players and those players score points based on their actual performance on the pitch. You add up the total of the players to give a team total that is then measured against other players in the same league and the winner scoops a prize.

FanDuel has some free leagues but the real action is ones with cash prizes. “If you talk to players free leagues get boring very quickly because if you’re going to invest time and effort in something then you kind of want everybody else to do the same. There is not a lot of satisfaction in winning a free league because you didn’t win anything but also because you know nobody else really cares that much.”

Prizes range from a couple of dollars upward.

“The winner of our World Fantasy Football Championship last December…the first prize was US$2m, second prize was US$1m.”

So winning a fantasy league can make a

Everything the customer sees is developed in Scotland

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very real world difference to people.

Little wonder then that the popularity of the fantasy games company has rocketed in recent times. In 2013 FanDuel had just under 200,000 players and last year went over a million paid active players. In 2013 it paid out US$150m in prizes and last year US$550m.

The trade may all be in dollars but it is based on technology developed in Edinburgh.

“Everything the customer sees is developed in Scotland; more of the marketing and customer service will be done in New York. The product itself is designed and developed in Scotland,” Eccles says.

And the sports ‘invasion’ of the US has been achieved by a real UK-wide team – along with Eccles, are his wife Lesley, the EVP for Marketing, who is from Forfar, two from Wales and the fifth from Staffordshire in England.

But has a UK team had a struggle to make a success of a consumer business in an American market? “There definitely is a cultural difference and it was a challenge in the early days,” Eccles admits. “We worked hard to bridge it.

In the very early stages we were very conscious of listening to our players because they were the experts over trying to solve things ourselves.

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Then once we got to a bit of scale we started to hire people in New York who really knew the space.”

Being a success in this business means that you need to know American Football, baseball and basketball at a very detailed level. “So we have people on the team who are really very deep and detailed sports fans,” Eccles says.

You should not expect to win the sports section of the pub quiz against the FanDuel team.

“It’s grown much faster than we expected.

Last year it quadrupled year on year which is breathtakingly fast,” he says. At the end of 2013, FanDuel had 15 staff and now it has more than 225 spread across the office in Edinburgh, a new office opening in Glasgow, and offices in Orlando and Los Angeles.

“In less than 18 months it’s pretty phenomenal growth. From here we believe we’re going to stay on a very fast growth path. While we have more than a million paid active users, there’s 40 million fantasy sports fans in North America and there are 200 million sports fans worldwide.

“So even just within North America there’s a much, much bigger opportunity and that’s without looking at the international opportunity.” n

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AS I SEE IT

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support to businesses, one of which is owned by the council.

“Creative Exchange in Leith has been so successful that we are expanding it to provide more than 50 new spaces,” he says.

One of the areas of growth is that the city is becoming a technology hotspot. The council is seeking to encourage this by working with technology companies on a scheme called StartEdin.

Ross says: “This is a collaborative programme we are doing with the tech sector to try and attract more talent here.

“Two of the guys who were involved in the launch relocated from the Bay area in San Francisco to Edinburgh because the buzz in the tech sector is such that Edinburgh is where you need to be.”

Ross says that these initiatives are being run against the backdrop of an improving Edinburgh economy. “I think the tone has changed in the last year or so.

“We no longer talk about recovery. “We are either back onto sustained growth or talk about growth in the normal context, which is probably something we have not spoken about for eight or nine years.

“Nobody talks about exiting recession and in business that is a big change in tone.”

Sue Bruce, the chief executive of City of Edinburgh Council says: “Securing greater numbers of SMEs to become high-growth

Two of the guys who were involved in the launch relocated from the Bay area in San Francisco to Edinburgh

EDINBURGH, WHERE SMES THRIVE Edinburgh as a city has a real focus on supporting small and medium businesses and helping them to grow, according to its council leaders Councillor Frank Ross who is Convener of the Edinburgh City Council economy Committee says he is convinced that SMEs are fundamental to the city’s economy.

“We offer extensive support so SMEs through Business Gateway,” Ross says and cites recent

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research showing that 82% of firms assisted

by Business Gateway were still trading after three years compared with 65.5% across the rest of Scotland.

He says that there are at least 15 incubators in the Scottish capital providing early stage

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AS I SEE IT

companies helps all sectors of the economy. It provides additional employment opportunities, which are of particular benefit to the Edinburgh Guarantee, which promotes the city’s vision to help our young people into jobs. The Edinburgh Guarantee has been a huge success since its launch three years ago in helping over 750 young people into jobs and contributing around £30m to Scotland’s economy.”

Independent research by Santander backs up the Edinburgh Council’s claims about the success of the SME sector in the Scottish capital. The research shows that Edinburgh saw the fourth largest increase in SMEs in Scotland with growth of 5.6%, representing an increase of 890 SMEs with an increase in employment of 2,830 and an annual increase in turnover of £885m.

Overall, Edinburgh retained its place as having the most SMEs in total, in Scotland at 16,875, slightly more than 16,570 in Glasgow and 13,970 in Aberdeenshire. Glasgow’s SMEs employ the most people at 111,400 compared to 94,610 in Edinburgh.

The Edinburgh figures for growing businesses are part of an improving Scottish picture with the number of Scottish SMEs having grown by 4.1% in 2014 compared with 2013.

The three fastest-growing local authorities for SMEs were Clackmannanshire (up 6.7%), East Renfrewshire (up 6%) and East Dunbartonshire (up 5.7%).

The Santander analysis found that, overall, turnover for the SME sector in Scotland rose by 5.7%, equivalent to an extra £5.34bn in revenue in 2014.

Kevin Boyd, divisional managing director – Scotland, Santander Corporate & Commercial, says: “It is great to see Scotland’s SMEs growing, hiring and investing for the future.

Scotland has a strong base of small businesses with some exceptional firms increasing their presence locally, across the UK and globally.

“Santander has been growing its own presence in the Scottish market and believes that with services such as our new Breakthrough programme and our Growth Capital lending programme we are offering a highly differentiated service for businesses.” n Lending is subject to status and lending criteria

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SELLING ABROAD? PREPARATION IS KEY Before seeking customers overseas, do your homework advises Suzanne Sosna of Scottish Development International

Scotland is home to many exporting companies, of all sizes and from virtually every sector. These companies benefit on average from higher profits, a larger and more diversified customer base, faster growth, often lower unit production costs, increased competitiveness, more innovation through access to new ideas and best practice from partners and customers overseas, access to new skills and the ability to attract and retain high performing staff. It’s quite a list of benefits that attract hundreds of businesses every year to start trading outside the UK for the first time, or to grow their export sales.

For many busy companies, however, selling overseas does seem a daunting, timeconsuming and difficult task. Not knowing where and how to start, how to protect the business from costly mistakes and achieve success in the most efficient and effective way possible can put a company’s decision-maker off despite seeing the potential benefits. This is understandable and is part of the reason why there is so much public and private sector support available to businesses in Scotland to help them manage these concerns and plan for, and achieve, business growth through international sales.

Scottish Development International (SDI) is Scotland’s agency supporting businesses in their exporting journey. With offices and staff throughout Scotland and 28 offices in overseas markets, SDI helps businesses seek out and realise sales abroad, some for the first time, and many in new markets building on their already substantial overseas sales revenues.

So, with all this experience gained across supporting thousands of exporting companies, what are the main dos and don’ts?

The first one which seems obvious, but can so easily be skipped, is to do the right research.

This doesn’t have to be done by the business itself – research can be commissioned at very low or subsidised rates through government agencies – but it does need to be done, and be done well.

One of the opportunities of the digital age is the email contacts many businesses receive from a potential overseas customer who’s found the company online and wants to buy.

These approaches can offer the first step to export sales and the chance to find out

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about a potential market, and shouldn’t be dismissed. However, this might not mean that this market is the best one for the company either in terms of potential volume, margins or long-term profitability. To avoid accidentally stumbling into a lot of expensive and timeconsuming effort, research should be done to show what the potential market is, its maturity, the possible partners and the types of intermediaries required, the regulatory environment and, of course, the competition.

And do check out the potential customer: credit checks can be done across businesses in almost all markets – just as we do at home.

For each new market – and sometimes each new product type – a company plans to enter, it needs to think about the best route to market. Sometimes, this will be similar to the market structure in the UK (especially in those with similar business infrastructures, for example in Europe), at other times it will be quite different. It might involve finding a distributor or an agent, or direct customers, but it might be by finding a partner in the sector who could offer a Scottish company’s products or services complementary to their own, through a joint venture, a licensing agreement or even by employing staff in the overseas country. It’s very important to get the right legal advice on the market and to avoid any agreements that the Scottish company could later find difficult to get out of.

If this already sounds daunting – don’t forget that help is at hand in identifying advisors and partners and that hundreds of local businesses succeed in this every year.

Just the same as in the UK, all normal aspects related to marketing need to be thought through, from packaging to pricing to promotion. This is often where having the

INSIGHT

right partner (and the right research of course) can be a huge help. The importance of ‘localising’ the product or service will vary depending on the sector and the route to market, business to business, business to public sector or business to consumer. The logistics of transport for physical goods and the regulatory requirements need to be understood, but here again, expert advice supports companies as they find their way through this. SDI offers guidance to individual companies, but also provides training courses to make companies aware of what they need to know and to upskill their staff.

Lastly, for some businesses, international revenue is their lifeblood right from the start; technology companies, for example, frequently achieve their first sales outside the UK. It is absolutely possible to grow a business in Scotland without ever achieving a Scottish – or UK – customer. If the product or service a business offers is most likely to succeed elsewhere, there is no reason to doggedly focus on the UK when success would be more easily achieved in another market. Thinking internationally, preparing as well as possible, being prepared to learn from partners and customers overseas, being flexible and ready to adapt as required – all these attributes help Scottish companies every day grow through international trade. n If you’d like to know more about how SDI can help, see: www.scottish-enterprise.com services/dobusiness-outside-scotland or, if you’re in the Highlands and Islands: www.hie.co.uk/business-support/exporting Suzanne Sosna, Head of Trade and Investment Services, Scottish Development International

For some businesses, international revenue is their lifeblood right from the start

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Then we’re going to have to do things differently and do things better than we’ve done them before

AN APPETITE TO SELL SCOTS FOOD AND DRINK Scottish Food and Drink is ready to take on the world. The sector aided by a unique partnership with government - is approaching lift-off on a major drive for more international trade

James Withers, chief executive of Scottish Food and Drink, the industry trade body, says: “We are viewing the international opportunities as transformational for food and drink in Scotland.

“Some sectors have clearly been doing it for a long time – whisky has conquered the globe, really cornered the market for premium spirits, and put Scotland on the map and presented the opportunity really for other sectors to follow on that footpath.

“In many ways whisky has built the runway

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and presented the opportunity for other companies to land a whole range of other products on it.”

Scottish Food and Drink has identified the top seven markets where it will focus its export drive, namely: North America; France; Germany; Middle East; Singapore; Japan; and China - Hong Kong and Mainland China.

The trade body is recruiting export trade specialists in each of these markets to mount the international drive. The specialists will be employed by Scottish

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Development International, the government agency, and funded jointly by Scottish Food and Drink, industry partners and the Scottish Government.

Nine out of the 10 posts have now been filled and Scottish Food and Drink gathered them together for an event in Scotland at the start of June to focus on the food and drink offering, drill down to what the unique selling points are and give them the opportunity to meet Scottish companies seeking to expand their exports.

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“In most case they’re local hires,” says Withers, “so we’re buying in that market knowledge and expertise from people who’ll have the local networks there that Scottish food and drink companies can tap into.”

This is a significant private/public bet on the potential of the sector with the investment of £4.5m in people costs alone. Withers says: “But that four and half million pales into insignificance compared to what we think the scale of the opportunity is. Take whisky out of the equation, just in food exports we reckon

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there is somewhere between £350m and £400m in opportunity between now and 2017.

“But it is a big investment, we’ve never done anything on this scale before and it is a genuine partnership between SDI, the Scottish Government and the industry bodies.

“These local experts know their markets and the opportunities that exist within these markets and we have the products so if we can bring that together it will make a massive difference to the food industry and the economy as a whole.”

Their recruitment is a key part of Scottish Food and Drink’s plan to boost the sector from the £10bn in exports it achieved in 2007 to £16.5bn over the decade to 2017.

“We’re at just under £14bn at the moment and if we want to get that extra £2.5bn of growth - of which we reckon £1.5bn to £2bn will come from exports - then we’re going to have to do things differently and do things better than we’ve done them before.”

A key part of doing things differently is to export a much wider range of products than Scotland currently does. Withers says: “Scotland may be a small country but we have an unbelievable diversity of products – even if you look beyond salmon we have about 60 other different species around our waters and there will be few other countries of our size that will have that range of products on their doorstep.”

Scottish Beef and Lamb are rebuilding their export markets and the dairy sector – Scottish cheeses and butter – Withers describes as “a sleeping giant”. “We have been really poor at exporting Scottish dairy products and there is still loads of opportunity in the domestic market for them but there are real opportunities overseas as well. Global demand for dairy products, premium dairy products which is our market, is rising.”

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He says there are also significant opportunities in the craft beer sector: “This whole BrewDog generation which doubled the number of breweries in Scotland in the last four or five years – there is a real opportunity there in terms of international demand.”

And the new opportunities are not just in beer but craft spirits, in gin and vodka.

A new Craft Spirits Association has been formed in Scotland to look at what all these opportunities might be. “We have something in the region of 30 new whisky distilleries either in planning or just going into production and those distilleries before they have whisky to sell – it has to mature for three years before it can be called Scotch – can be taking some of the spirit they’re producing and putting it into gin and vodkas and other craft spirits.

“The gin market is flying at the moment and some of the best innovations we are seeing is in that market.”

All this effort is going towards hitting that target of £16.5bn but will it be reached? “I’m confident – it is a stretch target, a deliberately stretch target because we wanted to put out a statement of ambition.

“It will be challenging but there is lots of potential in the UK market despite what we hear about a price war between the big retailers, the emergence of discounters and the change of shopping habits. Sales of Scottish brands and Scottish products continue to grow year on year.

“Whisky, for the first time in 10 years they haven’t grown year on year, so they’re facing challenges in China and North America but I’m still confident that the opportunities are out there for Scotland. Yes maybe we’ve grabbed some of the easiest opportunities but with the investment going in, both in new UK market activity and this new export team, I think that will be key in hitting the target for 2017.” n

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GOOD BEER BREAKS DOWN BARRIERS Innis & Gunn has achieved international success by focusing on its markets, as Dougal Sharp explains

The revelation that led Dougal Sharp to set up a strikingly successful Edinburgh-based business with a remarkable export footprint came by accident. It started with a taste. “I discovered in 2002 quite by accident when you mature beer in a bourbon barrel it leads to the most amazing flavour in the resulting beer,” Sharp says.

The master brewer knew he was onto something special and so he left his job and set up the business to bring this oak-aged beer to market. “We launched it in the UK with quite some degree of success but we always felt there would be an opportunity for Innis & Gunn internationally because of its unique flavour. “

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The business was initially part of a joint venture with distillers William Grant & Sons, which proved to be key. “There was an international business mindset throughout that organisation and I just learned from it.

I worked with some very talented people who taught me what they knew about doing international business, so that was really the cornerstone of the business we have today, which is as we speak 75% international.”

Innis & Gunn’s international success saw it export 1.3 million cases of beer in 2014 and it has won the Queen’s Award for exports twice.

Their export drive has been based on a clear strategy that saw it focusing on three

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markets, Scandinavia, the US and Canada.

“What we decided early on was not to have lots and lots of markets and manage them all poorly but actually we wanted to have only a few markets and actually try and become big in each of those markets and really concentrate on developing our relationships.”

Exports to the key markets of Sweden and Canada came about after beer buyers contacted them after hearing the publicity about the beer in the UK market. The Swedes and the Canadians both loved the taste of the beer, which meant that Sharp and his team could approach distributors. “That gave us the edge – we were able to find good distributors to work with on the fact that >>

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I call it the land of the middleman; everyone’s taking a cut.

You need to fight really hard to have success in the US

we already had a retail customer with the scale that they had.”

It has led to amazing success; Innis & Gunn is the number one imported beer brand in both Sweden and Canada. “Obviously lager is bigger,” Sharp says, “but if you look at beer or ale, we’re the number one in both those markets. It’s astonishing – we have just overtaken Peroni and in fact yesterday we were voted the Liquor Control Board of Ontario - the biggest liquor retailer in the world - beer supplier of the year. So this tiny little company from Scotland is the biggest liquor in the world’s preferred beer supply partner. Unbelievable.”

Innis & Gunn has chosen markets where there is a real depth of interest in craft beer, Sharp says “products with a real depth of flavour and a story to tell” with craft beers making up 20% of the beer market in the US. But getting established in that market has been a real struggle for Innis & Gunn. “It was a complete and utter nightmare. It’s a regulatory complicated market to set up in; it is a tough place to do business. I call it the land of the middleman; everyone’s taking a cut. You need to fight really hard to have success in the US.” “It is a difficult market particularly for alcohol beverage. There is a three-tier system there – you have importers, distributors and retailers, one sells to the next one in the chain. They’re each taking margin and holding on to your cash. It prevents us having the sorts of relationships with the distributors and our customers – i.e. the retailers – that we want.”

So Innis & Gunn set up its own business in the US, Innis & Gunn USA or Igusa, in 2010, which provides a route to market on the

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East Coast not only for Innis & Gunn’s beers but also for fellow independent Thatcher Cider and Hobgoblin Beer from Marston’s.

“It took us four years to turn a profit. It’s cost us a lot of money but the long-term view of the business – and I’m the biggest shareholder so I can take this view – is that the US will be one of the biggest markets in the world for us, but like anything in business there are no quick fixes. It takes many years to become an overnight success.

“It’s certainly taken a lot of nerve because it’s cost us a lot of money to do it. But it’s beginning now to pay dividends and our business is growing now in the US really well, but it took a long time we had to make a lot of mistakes to get to this point.”

I&G has recently gone into France, Spain, Italy, Russia, launched in South Africa, Brazil and into South Korea and is looking at other Far Eastern markets as well.

Sharp says: “We have now built the team and infrastructure within the business to go out to market and go in to what we believe will be the next group of core markets; the ones which we believe have the potential, like another Canada or another Sweden.”

They key to all this, Sharp stresses, is the quality of the product. “Good beer is the absolute cornerstone of this business.

That is what we do first and foremost and all the other good things that we do are in support of that. I feel very lucky in that I love what I do and this new chapter that we’re in at the moment is every bit as challenging and exciting as the others have been.” n

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A model to follow James Withers, chief executive of Scottish Food and Drink praises Innis & Gunn as a “great example of one of the new generation of brewers. The brand is good; it talks about quality and provenance so it’s the same attributes that are applied to so many of our sectors. They are innovative and they’re investing – the new crowdfunding approach to the new brewery is smart and innovative in itself.

“Them, alongside all the other craft brewers, are looking strong for the years ahead. They have a good balance between customers at home and then a strong presence in markets like Canada and a building presence in North America and Scandinavia, so having that spread of markets will be a good model for other businesses to follow.”

“They are relatively new, they are eight to 10 years old and there are businesses that have passed through generations but in terms of embracing innovation and building a brand and building lots of different markets in different places it’s a good model for any business to follow.”

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CASE STUDY

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SELLING TEA TO CHINA Having made it this far through the magazine is it time for a cuppa? Erica Moore of eteaket would certainly hope so. The founder of the Edinburgh-based loose-leaf tea company is evangelistic about her trade

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“Tea is an amazing industry to be in,” Moore says. And it is her love of the beverage that is helping to drive forward a business that sells a remarkable diversity of teas to more and more places in the world.

She is joined by brand manager Sarah Chanter and general manager Angela Lyons in helping the continuing expansion of the enterprise, which involves them running the eteaket Tea Room, the wholesale and the online sales business stream.

Launching into overseas markets has taken the team far from Edinburgh’s Frederick Street where eteaket is based. The export side of the business really began when Hankyu Department Store in Japan approached eteaket to create two pop-up tearooms.

The tearooms in Fukoka and Osaka were an amazing success with queues of up to three hours long. While there they met with a number of potential distributors, found one who shared the same values as them and their regular Japanese trade was born.

Moore says: “It can be daunting getting to grips with everything that goes with exporting, especially important areas such as legal and customs requirements which can differ greatly from country to country. However, we’ve found SDI’s [Scottish Development International’s] support to be incredibly useful.

“Initially we went on a number of exporting workshops which were really good at giving us a thorough overview of the process. Together with a dedicated mentor, we’ve also brainstormed the >>

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It can be daunting getting to grips with everything that goes with exporting, especially important areas such as legal and customs requirements

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international trade side of our business and produced a three-year action plan.” eteaket’s international trade now includes supplying its teas to PARKnSHOP in Hong Kong. “It is so exciting to be able to supply our teas to Hong Kong,” says Erica. “After our success in the Japanese market we felt that there was a lot of opportunity for eteaket in Hong Kong.” eteaket have found real interest from PARKnSHOP in the more innovative flavours in their range and the potential of how their teas can be used.

Key to the success of the brand internationally is well designed packaging that stands out in their marketplace – it is a style, which once you have seen it, you will know that you are looking at an eteaket tea packet. The design is the work of Melissa Wood, then a fourth year student at Edinburgh College of Art – Sarah Chanter’s alma mater – who won a completion with the look.

Chanter says: “The reason our brand works so well in Asia is the British heritage but also the design and packaging. It is a strong product on the shelf and it looks different.”

But while she stresses the quality of the brand and the look, she says that it is the quality of the tea that ultimately drives the growth of the business. She says of business founder Erica Moore: “Erica always seems to instinctively know which teas will be great before even tasting them.”

Key to maintaining the quality of the product, Moore says, is knowing where the tea comes from and sourcing the best. They are selling to a discerning market that eschews the mass-market teabag brew.

It is not just the Earl Grey, Assam, Darjeeling and Lapsang Souchong; there is an amazing array of teas whether black, green or herbal.

Through them Edinburgh tea drinkers have become familiar with the likes of Gunpowder tea from China, Gen Mai Cha from Japan and green Yerba Mate from Latin America.

Notable are their speciality teas that are unique to eteaket, Blooming Marvellous, a mix of green sencha leaves with mallow and sunflower leaves with vanilla, and their own blend of Chilli Rooibos.

It is an approach that saw a 220% increase

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|in wholesale turnover over a two year period, taking total turnover to nearly £500,000.

The growth includes an impressive range of top restaurants and outlets including Tom Kitchin’s Michelin starred restaurant, The Kitchin.

CASE STUDY The brand’s presence in places like that leads people to assume that it is an arm of a multinational food business rather than a small, Edinburgh-based independent that is punching well above its weight. n

Erica always seems to instinctively know which teas will be great before even tasting them

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CASE STUDY But how many casual first time customers would be surprised to learn that Social Bite is in fact a social enterprise with a quarter of its workforce having been homeless and quite a number having been Big Issue sellers?

It is central to the whole ethos of the business that its social nature and the causes it supports do not ever mean compromising the quality of its food, beverages, service nor the fact that it delivers value for money for its customers.

To ensure that is the case Social Bite makes its food every day from fresh and healthy local produce and its menu was created by Michael Mathieson, a Michelin star chef and consultant to Michel Roux.

That ethos is the vision of entrepreneur Josh Littlejohn (profiled in the main magazine) who at 28 is a truly outstanding example of a social entrepreneur. The vision was inspired by Muhammed Yunus’s book Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism.

Littlejohn and partner Alice Thomson travelled to Dhaka in Bangladesh to see some of the businesses Yunus has created and that fired them up to sell the events business they then had and set up Social Bite.

It is an enterprise that has made a real difference to the lives of people like Pete who went form selling the Big Issue outside one of the Social Bite Edinburgh shops to working inside the soup, sandwiches and baguette outlet.

“Social enterprises have a crucial role to play in pulling people who are otherwise excluded and hauling them in to the system,” says Littlejohn.

It is in effect a practical way of providing social mobility to a group whose normal chances of ‘climbing the social ladder’ are very limited.

But the enterprise’s contribution to the homeless does not end there: 100% of its profits, around £4,000 a month, go to charitable causes.

In addition Social Bite offers ‘Suspended Coffee and Food’ – this means that customers coming in for their own meals and drinks can pay in advance for any item on the menu which

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BUILDING LIVES, WHILE BUILDING A BUSINESS Many people walking into a Social Bite café in the city centres of Edinburgh and Glasgow will enjoy the pleasant décor, decent coffee and good food and rate it along with its major high street rival chains a local homeless person can then come in and claim. This means that an average of 30 homeless people per shop receive a nutritious sandwich and a hot bowl or soup or coffee courtesy of Social Bite customers.

It is a well thought out approach by Littlejohn and Alice that has already seen it expand into four shops, in Rose Street and Shandwick Place in Edinburgh and St Vincent Street and Bothwell Street in Glasgow. In addition it has a main kitchen in a unit in an industrial estate in Livingston, which also does corporate catering of dinners, lunches and breakfasts for a whole range of customers.

Now the social enterprise is poised for further growth, expanding into two new outlets opening in Aberdeen and Dundee.

Littlejohn’s vision is to create a major business empire but with the aim of leaving a lasting social benefit rather than making him rich.

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It is a vision that is already inspiring others including hopefully some future young social entrepreneurs. When Littlejohn talked about his experience in founding the social enterprise at the Santander Red Box event in St Andrews Square in Edinburgh he earned the rapt attention of a group of school students.

Emma Ward, a business studies teacher at Craigroyston Community High School says of the group of her students who attended the event: “One of the entrepreneurs who spoke at the Red Box event was from a social enterprise and that really opened their eyes.

The pupils absolutely loved that and they came away saying ‘Oh so it’s not all about making money’ which was a real eye opener for them.”

Littlejohn’s vision could end up taking a very big bite indeed out of our social problems. n

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HOW TO AVOID THE MARKETING ‘IF ONLYS’ Being honest with yourself and with others is the key to good marketing

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‘It seemed like a good idea at the time but if only we’d stopped and taken a second opinion.’ Those are exactly the kind of rueful feelings after the event that businesses should take care to avoid according to Bryan Garvie of the Big Partnership, the largest independent PR company outside of London.

Garvie highlights a range of examples that underline his point including a few social media hashtags that didn’t work out quite as planned. When a new Susan Boyle record was being promoted with a particular event it seemed like a good idea to have the hashtag #susanalbumparty. But when you run the words together like that they can be separated in a way other than that which the record label’s agency wanted them to be read.

In a similar way British Gas got more than it bargained for when it started an open question and answer session on Twitter.

Cue a flurry of Tweets complete with the #AskBG hashtag which included: “@BritishGas I can only fit 2 jumpers on at a time do you have any idea how I could put more on?” and “When my elderly relative dies from being unable to heat their home. Will you dispose of the body?”

The key says Garvie is to ‘Know Thyself’ – to have a very clear idea of what your standing with your customers actually is – something that, he says, was clearly not the case with British Gas. “It may have hoped for a robust, constructive discussion but it just opened itself up to a torrent that it didn’t expect.

What it actually did was open itself up to a very public humiliation.” >>

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That’s such a brilliant idea. It was a really effective campaign

The second key rule about a business’s communications Garvie says is: “Don’t Lie. Ever.”

“If you have done something wrong, if you have done something that really was not up to the standards you would want to meet then you should admit it right away,” Garvie says.

Referring to the recent Thomas Cook case where two youngsters had died on a holiday the company ran, Garvie says: “In that case it wasn’t a lack of truth but it took years for the company to admit its responsibility and give a full apology. If they had done that from the word go it would have had a less damaging effect on their business.”

Bryan Garvie’s third golden rule of marketing is: ‘Tread Lightly’. He warns against businesses trying to over-control people – particularly journalists.

He cites the example of a PR agency inviting journalists to the Brit Awards on behalf of MasterCard. Invitation would be granted in exchange for the journalist Tweeting positive things about the event from both their work and their personal Twitter accounts under the hashtag #PricelessSurprises.

The journalist in question, Tim Walker of the Telegraph, took umbrage at the suggestion and sent the industry magazine, the UK Press Gazette, a copy of the email detailing the requirements, which also included a guarantee

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of MasterCard’s inclusion in any write-ups of the event. It was not the surprise that the MasterCard PR people were hoping for.

What made matters worse for the agency was that Jon Snow of Channel 4 News picked up the story and Tweeted about it to his 678,000 Twitter followers and so it became an embarrassing Twitter storm for the agency and the company.

“You have to have the right sort of approach that seeks to influence people rather than try to control them,” Garvie says.

His fourth ‘golden rule’ is ‘Take Advantage’ – latch on to something that is already in the news when you are trying to promote something.

Here he cites the example of a brilliant Salvation Army campaign that seized on the then current online sensation about what colour people saw a dress as being – whether it was gold and white or black and blue.

A striking image of a woman with a black eye and bruises on her legs was featured with the words: “Why is it so hard to see Black and Blue?”

‘That’s such a brilliant idea. It was a really effective campaign, one of those things that sticks in your mind,” Garvie says.

Another similar example of pouncing on what is already in the news came after a Sainsbury employee mistakenly put a poster intended

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for staff only areas in a public area of one of their stores. It read: “Fifty pence challenge.

Let’s encourage every customer to spend an additional 50p during each shopping trip between now and the year end.” It was inevitably photographed by a member of the public and spread online.

An agency working for rival retailer Lidl seized on the idea and issued posters to all their stores with the picture of a purse and the words: “Fifty pence challenge. Let’s encourage every one of our lovely customers to save as many 50ps as possible.”

Bryan Garvie’s fifth rule about marketing is that it should have clear objectives. “Any business starting a marketing or PR campaign should have a very clear idea of what it wants to achieve.

“Vanity publicity just does not do a business any good – everything should be linked to clear business aims and objectives,” Garvie says. “People should know from the outset what they’re trying to achieve. Are you trying to enhance a business’s reputation or are you trying to increase sales. Who are you trying to target and is your activity effective in reaching those targets?”

Employing this kind of approach, much of which is common sense, will save you from the subsequent regrets and the inevitable comments that begin “If only…” n

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