BQ Scotland Summer 2016

BUSINESS QUARTER

Mr Motivator

Picking the brains of Bob Keiller head of Scottish Enterprise

Space Odyssey

How Emma Little grew her business ExecSpace

Brewing up a storm

BUSINESS QUARTER

Samantha Faircliff is bottling a successful formula in the Cairngorms

Scotland: Summer 2016

Celebrating and inspiring entrepreneurship £4.95 Business Quarter Magazine

Scotland: Summer 2016

Outside the box

Magnus and Fiona Houston scale up their business

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BUSINESS UPDATE bqlive.co.uk

EDITOR’S VIEW SCOTLAND ISSUE 24 Everything has changed. As I write these words this morning, the UK has just voted to leave the European Union (EU). The pound is plummeting. The politicians are screaming. The commentators are scratching their heads.

It’s a morning full of questions. Will Scotland hold a second independence referendum? Will it take two years for the UK to leave the EU? Will the UK remain in the European free trade area – and at what cost? Could Scotland remain in both the UK and EU as Professor Sionaidh Douglas-Scott has suggested, in what the media has called a “reverse Greenland”?

Those are questions that will take months and indeed years to answers.

But one thing is for sure – whatever the future holds for Scotland, it will be our entrepreneurs who are at the very heart of innovation and job creation.

That’s because entrepreneurs are amazing people. They’re the ones who spot a gap in the market. They’re the ones who come up with innovations that will disrupt their competitors. They’re the ones who lead, not follow. But what about the rest of us? What about those of us who will never create our own company or launch our own product or innovate in the services sector?

That’s were scale-ups come in. Scale-ups are companies that create employment, providing jobs for those of us who will never become entrepreneurs. Scotland has an enviable track-record when it comes to supporting start-ups. But, as entrepreneur and philanthropist Sir Tom Hunter is so fond of reminding audiences, “Start-ups are good, but scale-ups are great”.

In this issue of BQ Scotland – which was written before the EU referendum – we explore the scale-up landscape. What ingredients are needed to develop a successful scale-up ecosystem?

When it comes to growing businesses, Bob Keiller has “been-there, done-that, got the T-shirt”. As chief executive at Production Services Network, Keiller swelled his headcount from 6,000 to 9,000 workers before selling to Wood Group; he’s now sharing his expertise as a mentor and chairman of economic development agency Scottish Enterprise. Over lunch with journalist Karen Peattie, Entrepreneurial Scotland chief executive Sandy Kennedy reflects on his time running Klick Photopoint and Max Spielmann.

We also track entrepreneurs at different stages in their scale-up journey. Emma Little, chief executive at events booking firm ExecSpace, comments on the importance of staff and highlights the challenges of securing finance. As they prepare to scale-up their Fishbox brand, Magnus and Fiona Houston have used expertise from the University of Stirling thanks to match-making agency Interface. And by installing a bottling line at the Cairngorm Brewery, managing director Samantha Faircliff not only helped her own business to grow but boosted brewing throughout the North of Scotland.

One of the key pieces of the puzzle is to secure funding and so Sinclair Dunlop, managing partner at Epidarex, one of the few venture capital funds to call Scotland home, shares his views on what can be done to attract further finance. Sandy Finlayson from law firm MBM Commercial reflects on working with fund managers already based here.

Training is another important element, with John Anderson giving an insight into the Growth Advantage Programme at the University of Strathclyde. And finally Iain Scott, director of Can Do Places, offers an alternative view – shouldn’t we support our large number of small businesses rather than focusing on a small number of large companies?

Peter Ranscombe, Editor, BQ Scotland

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Business Quarter, Spectrum 6, Spectrum Business Park, Seaham, SR7 7TT. www.bqlive.co.uk. Business Quarter (BQ) is a leading national business brand recognised for celebrating and inspiring entrepreneurship. The multi-platform brand currently reaches entrepreneurs and senior business executives across Scotland, the North East and Cumbria, the North West, Yorkshire, the West Midlands and London and the South. 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 © 2016 Business Quarter.

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 content marked ‘Profile’ and ‘Special Feature’ is paid for advertising. All information is correct at time of going to print, June 2016.

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bqlive.co.uk

CONTENTS 20

Summer 16

SCALING UP WITH FISH

Magnus and Fiona Houston think outside a fish box to build a business

74 MORE THAN GOLF

Peter Ranscombe finds eagles as well as birdies at a world famous hotel

68 PLUGGED IN

Wendy Pring casts an informed eye over Mitsubishi’s latest hybrid

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V I VA E S PA N A Wayne Lawrence improves his barbecue with two Spanish wines

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MR MO TIVAT OR Bob Keiller, new chair of Scottish Enterprise, explains how businesses can be helped to grow

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Celebrating and inspir ing entrepreneurship

FEATURES

REGULARS

20

BOX CLEVER Magnus and Fiona Houston are scaling up a successful business

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ON THE RECORD How can thriving businesses find the finance to scale up?

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MR MO TIVAT OR Bob Keiller, new chair of Scottish Enterprise, explains how businesses can be helped to grow

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BUSINESS UPDATE The latest news from Scotland’s business community

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FILLING THE GAP Sinclair Dunlop explains how more venture capital can be attracted to Scotland

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AS I SEE IT Iain Scott spins a yarn to show that big isn’t necessarily best

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A LITTLE BIT OF MAGIC Emma Little has grown her business even during recession

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COMMERCIAL PROPERT Y Who’s building what, where and when

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BUSINESS LUNCH Sandy Kennedy sees value in learning the hard way

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ON WINE Wayne Lawrence samples two spanish offerings

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MOTORING Featuring Mitsubishi’s latest hybrid

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BREWING UP A STORM How to bottle success in the Cairngorms

SPECIAL FEATURE BQ focuses on International Trade

72 WATCHES FOR OUR TIME Swiss watches find new ways to make a statement

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TAKES A LO T OF BO TTLE Samantha Faircliff took a Cairngorm brewer to a new level

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ON THE RECORD bqlive.co.uk

Finding finance for scale-ups Scotland’s start-up ecosystem is thriving, with many sources of investment and advice for new companies. But how can finance be found for scale-ups? BQ Scotland editor Peter Ranscombe goes on the hunt Engage Invest Exploit (EIE) has become one of the highlights in the Scottish tech calendar.

The annual events in Edinburgh and London – which are organised by technology accelerator Informatics Ventures – bring together start-up companies that need funding and investors looking for the next ‘unicorn’ or billion-dollar company. But where can later-stage companies go when they need investment? Could Scotland’s massive asset management sector invest more in our nation’s high-growth companies?

Sandy Finlayson, a partner at law firm MBM Commercial and one of the father figures in the Scottish technology community, says: “There are about £750 bn of assets being managed on the north side of Princes Street and a thriving tech community on the south side of Princes Street – and we’ve built a tram line in between them to make sure the two never meet.

“We need to take the conversation from being ‘whether’ asset managers can invest in tech companies to ‘how’ asset managers can invest in tech companies. If they can take that decision then we can show them how.”

While asset managers are unlikely to be able to invest directly in companies, Finlayson highlights the possibility of using “funds of funds”. He points to The Supply of Growth Capital for

Emerging High-Potential Companies in Scotland, a report published in June 2014 by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS), the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) and trade body Scottish Financial Enterprise (SFE).

The report’s recommendations included using the UK Government’s Enterprise Capital Funds model and Venture Capital Trust vehicles to invest in high-growth companies. “These could raise funds on the scale of £100m or more rather than the smaller amounts currently being raised,” Finlayson says. The report also recommended building on the success of the Scottish Co-investment Fund. “If business angels invest one pound and the Scottish Investment Bank invests one pound then the asset managers could invest perhaps five pounds,” Finlayson explains. “There’s also a lack of locally-based strategic corporate finance advice for scale-ups, especially those that want to access investment from overseas.

“The advisory community needs to stop thinking about what they can get out of young companies through billable hours and more about what they can put into them to help then to succeed – that way everyone will win.”

Some fund managers are already investing in Scotland’s scale-up companies. In January,

Edinburgh-based duo Artemis and Baillie Gifford took part in a £192m fund raising for flight comparison website Skyscanner.

Strathclyde Pension Fund launched its New Opportunities Portfolio in 2009 and last year rebranded it as its Direct Investment Portfolio.

Sinclair Dunlop, chief executive at life science investor Epidarex Capital, says: “You have to be able to demonstrate to the more traditional asset managers that you can generate a competitive rate of return – you can’t just play the local card to try to guilt them into doing something for the home team. Asset managers, like any fund manager, have a legal and fiduciary responsibility to maximise returns for their investors and the vast majority of their investors are not looking for venture-type risk or venture-type returns.

“That said, there are doubtless some large asset managers in Edinburgh as in any geography that will have an alternative assets allocation in their portfolio. The question that the entrepreneurial and venture communities in Scotland should be asking is ‘How can we best convey – locally – Scotland’s home-grown potential to generate competitive returns from alternative assets, equivalent to that which asset managers would be expecting from their investments in California, for example?’.” n

A world leading business school A world leading on your doorstep business school on your doorstep

Our MBA and Masters programmes are consistently ranked among the best in the UK – and around the world. As part of a leading technological University and Scotland’s number one business school, we understand Our MBA and Masters programmes are the importance of global thinking. consistently ranked among the best in the UK – and around the world. As part of a We are celebrating 50 years of our pioneering leading technological University and Scotland’s MBA this year. We introduced the first one year number one business school, we understand full time MBA to the UK in 1966 and we continue the importance of global thinking. to introduce innovative business programmes to suit the demands of an evolving business world, We are celebrating 50 years of our pioneering extending our academic reach with centres in MBA this year. We introduced the first one year Europe, Asia and the Gulf. full time MBA to the UK in 1966 and we continue to introduce innovative business programmes to Our acclaimed MBA programme can be studied suit the demands of an evolving business world, on a full time, part time or flexible learning basis extending ouryou academic reach in job which means don’t have towith give centres up the day Europe, Asia – or travel farand – tothe getGulf. a world class MBA.

Our acclaimed MBA programme can be studied Make Strathclyde your destination. on a full time, part time or flexible learning basis which means you don’t have to give up the day job www.strath.ac.uk/business – or travel far – to get a world class MBA. Make Strathclyde your destination.

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ON THE RECORD bqlive.co.uk

Entrepreneurs aren’t known for sitting in classrooms. Most would prefer to be working at winning contracts and controlling costs so they can grow their profits.

Yet entrepreneurs are often faced with tough questions. How can I scale-up my business? How can I grow my company while keeping a tight rein on costs? How many staff should I recruit?

How can I raise investment?

John Anderson aims to answer those questions. The former chief executive of The Entrepreneurial Exchange – now rebranded as Entrepreneurial Scotland – joined the University of Strathclyde in March 2014 as head of small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) engagement at Strathclyde Business School and director of the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship.

One of Anderson’s most high-profile roles since taking up his posts has been as course leader for the Growth Advantage Programme (GAP), a tenmonth business accelerator scheme supported

by Santander’s corporate and commercial banking division.

The course is aimed at entrepreneurs with ambitions to grow their companies, which are already turning over at least £1m and have at least ten staff. It’s the first programme of its kind from a business school in Scotland and offers training that’s normally only available south of the Border or overseas.

When designing the course, the Hunter Centre team noted the feedback from Scottish participants on the growth accelerator programme run by Cranfield University, who wished a similar course had been available in Scotland. When it comes to assessing the first cohort, the numbers speak for themselves.

“The 20 companies that took part in GAP in 2015 had an average turnover of about £2.5m when they started the course and they’re now projecting average sales of £5m within three years – and that’s really just the start,” explains Professor Jonathan Levie, from the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship.

“Most of the people in the cohort had built their business to a certain level but weren’t quite sure how to get it to the next level or what it might look like or what their role might be. That’s what this programme is about.

“Entrepreneurs on the course were with us on the Friday and Saturday and then would walk into their office on Monday morning and be able to implement what they’d learned.

Their teams would be asking them what

Gaining an advantage The University of Strathclyde is celebrating the success of its inaugural Growth Advantage Programme. Peter Ranscombe finds out more they had learned and they would be teaching their teams.”

Anderson adds: “We’re not talking about earlystage growth; we’re not talking about three people in an incubation centre who want to grow. There are already great programmes for companies at that stage.

“The companies that have taken part in the first GAP now have average annualised growth in employment and sales that exceed the high-growth threshold of 20% laid down by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD) and which is used to define scale-ups.”

Following a one-day orientation, the programme consisted of four, two-day workshops. The workshops covered ‘market advantage’, ‘operations advantage’, ‘resourcing the growth advantage’ and ‘leadership advantage’.

Entrepreneurs in the initial GAP cohort included:

David Frame, managing director at protective case maker Barum & Dewar; Jane WylieRoberts, chief executive at recruitment agency Stafffinders; and Joyce Onuonga, managing director at weighing specialist John White & Son. Around two-thirds of participants had founded their own businesses, while the rest had either bought their companies or were part of a family business. Entrepreneurs also learned from each other and from ‘role models’ who spoke about their experiences. Guest speakers during last year’s course included: serial entrepreneur Sir Tom Hunter; Entrepreneurial Scotland chairman Chris van der Kuyl and University of Strathclyde principal Sir Jim McDonald. Recruitment is already underway for the 2016 intake, with participants also being able to tap into research at the University of Strathclyde, along with knowledge transfer partnerships and Santander’s Trade Portal service. n

PROFILE Scott-Moncrieff

OMBs: Owners mean business Owner managed businesses are the backbone of the UK business sector, and as such, their success is paramount to the health of the entire UK economy. So, when we undertook a survey of ‘OMBs’ across the UK, the results gave us a valuable insight into the future We uncovered OMBs’ expectations for strategic change and growth, their willingness to invest and the issues they see as creating the biggest risks to their businesses. Encouraging from the start was the growth in optimism – with 85% of OMBs in the UK expecting to have a better year than last, hitting revenue and profit targets.

Expectation and optimism aside, growth has always been a key issue for OMBs, particularly how to achieve it and sustain it. Over the recent ‘dark’ years businesses viewed success as managing to stand still, but growth is once again at the top of the agenda, albeit with a new slant. Growth is far less likely to be connected to acquisition, aggressive business development or squeezing margins. With 85% of Scottish businesses in our survey reporting that staff training is their highest priority within the growth context, the shift from hard to soft growth strategies is clear.

This demonstrates that a strong internal culture is now recognised as a key driver of business growth.

Most business objectives used to be hard targets like turnover and gross profit, but softer targets like people development are now just as important. There is a growing recognition that by recruiting the right people and training them properly, you can win their loyalty and engagement. Add to that good leadership, and your business will grow. Focus on the people, and the turnover and profit will come.

In terms of growing the customer base, our survey shows that it’s no longer the case that any new business will do. Business owners are telling us that they are being more discerning, and are thinking strategically about which clients they target so that they can focus their efforts on building relationships with customers who may go on to be a future acquirer, investor or strategic partner.

Innovation and investment also feature as key drivers of growth, with investment in new technologies allowing businesses to free up resource, or development of new products or processes allowing businesses to diversify. Over half of OMBs surveyed expect to introduce new production techniques or undertake some other form of innovation in their business operations, such as investing in new client relationship management systems to deliver more sophisticated analysis of their customer base.

Whichever approach owners are pinning their future strategies on, it’s clear that growth is once more a realistic target, which is an encouraging sign.

Our full survey results, including our helpful ‘15 ways to build a successful business in 2016’, can be viewed at www.scott-moncrieff.com, under the ‘Publications’ section.

"Focus on the people, and the turnover and profit will come"

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Scott-Moncrieff Owner Managed Business Survey: Highlights •

38% of OMBs said their business performed better than expected in 2015

•

73% are confident about meeting revenue targets this year, with a slightly lower

•

68% confident of achieving profit targets

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85% are likely or certain to invest in staff training

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81% are likely or certain to try to expand their UK customer base, with 27% intending to open new offices or sites

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67% are likely or certain to invest in new technology or IT systems

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55% expect to introduce new production techniques

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66% intend to launch new products

•

57% are likely or certain to seek out cost reductions

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34% intend to expand overseas

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Competition, the strength of the UK economy and skills shortages are the three biggest concerns

Gareth Magee is a partner and head of business development at Scott-Moncrieff, leading accountants and business advisers in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Inverness. gareth.magee@scott-moncrieff.com www.scott-moncrieff.com

BUSINESS UPDATE Cocktail queen receives 1,000th Transmit loan Kirsty Gurr, a 23-tear-old entrepreneur from Dunbar who serves cocktails from a customised 1979 Renault Estafette van, has become the recipient of the 1,000th loan from Gatesheadbased Transmit Start-Ups. Gurr – whose father, Ronnie, was recruited by Sir Richard Branson to help setup his V2 record label, where he discovered and signed the Stereophonics – worked in Pret a Manger before spotting a gap in the market for a mobile cocktail bar for large events such as weddings. Her loan has been used to fund insurance, a generator, worktops, fridge and bespoke decorations.

Transmit Start-Ups lends money on behalf of the UK Government’s Start-Up Loans Company.

Gurr said: “I literally couldn’t have launched The Alchemist Cocktails without Transmit StartUps’ support. Business Gateway recommended them to me and it was a really easy sign-up process so I was able to hit the ground running in no time at all”. Richard Myers, commercial director at Transmit Start-Ups, said: “We are delighted to reach this landmark of supporting 1,000 entrepreneurs under the Start-Up Loans programme. Transmit Start-Ups has been delivering this programme for three years now and we have seen some incredible people with great business ideas in that time.”

Richard Myers, Transmit Start-Ups, and Kirsty Gurr celebrate hers being the 1,000th loan awarded by the company with a Transmit inspired cocktail

Double RSA success for brewers

Arrayjet launches consultancy

Two Scottish craft breweries have been awarded Regional Selective Assistance (RSA) by economic development agency Scottish Enterprise.

Dundee-based 71 Brewing has been awarded RSA funding of £90,000 towards a total investment of £446,000, which will create eight jobs, while Fierce Beer, based in Aberdeen, will receive RSA worth £30,000 towards a total investment of £166,500, which will create three jobs. News of the funding came as 14 craft breweries attended a trade mission to Hong Kong run by Scottish Development International. Danny Cusick, sector portfolio director of food and drink at Scottish Enterprise, said: “Scotland has a long heritage of success in food and drink and it is now one of Scotland’s most important sectors, generating exports of almost £5 bn annually.

“The craft brewing industry in Scotland has been a huge success story in recent years, providing opportunities for companies to produce a wide range of distinctive and innovative products that are exported all over the world.

“Both this latest funding announcement and the trade mission show how the industry is being supported by Scottish Enterprise and its partners to take advantage of growing consumer demand for craft beer across the globe.”

Arrayjet, an Edinburgh-based scientific instrument company, has launched an in-house consultancy service for life science companies and research laboratories. The company uses non-contact, inkjet printing to produce microarrays that can contain tiny samples of material used for experiments. Iain McWilliam, chief executive at Arrayjet, said: “We understand that the life sciences and healthcare industries need high-end, high-quality, fast-paced research and that microarrays are one of the key tools used to get accurate results. We believe by developing our strategy to become a complete solutions provider through the creation of Arrayjet Advance, we are better placed to help our customers achieve good-quality data on which to make decisions, by either providing an instrument, printed slides or a full microarray service with data analysis. We are seeing an increasing number of research laboratories looking to adopt microarray technology and as Arrayjet has accumulated considerable experience in helping purchasers of our instrumentation technology to prepare microarrays, this trend provided us with an opportunity to start an unrivalled, outsourced contract service for printing microarrays to customer specifications”.

Arrayjet was founded in 2000 and has received investment from Archangels business angels and Scottish Enterprise.

BUSINESS UPDATE

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QUOTE OF THE QUARTER “People shouldn’t be too depressed about some of the more pessimistic estimations of the global economy, and there’s much to cheer in the renaissance of Scottish entrepreneurs. There was a time when Scots sailed off and created wealth all around the world, then it became almost frowned about to start and build your own business. But there are more pupils coming through school now who might want to work for someone else for a while, but who really want to start their own businesses” – Justin Urquhart-Stewart, co-founder of Seven Investment Management, speaking at an event organised by accountancy firm Johnston Carmichael

TOP TWEETS @BQLive congratulations to @Think_ Dynamics and all the other winners #ScotExport – @ScotEntNews Enjoyed the #Misconceptions event last night – thanks to @AlexLamley and @ ConnectionsScot for putting it together. – @ accagordonsmith Happy 5th Birthday to our corporate partner @BGF_team who created a film to celebrate it https://youtu.be/kcrHmZHpcKU !!

– @EntrepScot Record number of #startups enter #ConvergeC 16 from Scotland’s Universities #entrepreneur http://bit.ly/22O3m6F – @ConvergeC Did you catch our announcement of the #ScottishEDGE8 Young EDGE winners? Read it here: http://buff.ly/1U3c2nv – @ScottishEDGE Are you an #entrepreneur in #Scotland looking to scale your #business? #SCALE16 may be just what you’re looking for: http://bit.ly/1NTaPuv – @SCALEscotland

Smillie named sports entrepreneur of the year Television presenter-turned-entrepreneur Carol Smillie has been named “Sports Entrepreneur of The Year” at Sporting Chance Initiative’s Sports Business Innovation Awards in Glasgow.

Smillie, who founded Diary Doll to make underwear that enables women to take part in sport while menstruating, said: “I am delighted to win this award, which recognises my effort to develop a new product to make life easier for women.

“It means a great deal to receive this award. Having tackled setting up a business from scratch, I was really surprised at the amount of different skills you need to run a business, not least determination to succeed, against all odds.

“This award will acknowledge my entrepreneurial approach to design, manufacture, marketing and business and talking about a taboo subject.”

Diary Doll’s pants have also proved popular with women who have stress incontinence.

The products are being stocked by Alliance Healthcare, Boots and Debenhams.

The other winners at the awards were: Commando Spirit for sports business of the year; Trust Rugby International for best innovation in community sport; The Experience for transformative innovation; and Sports Lab for best new sports product or service.

Interested in taking part in our Meet the Expert programme? Spaces are still available so get in touch http://ow.ly/4nuDcB #VFestScot – @VenturefestScot What’s so special about #SpecialistFacilities? Read today’s blog to find out: http://bit.ly/1VaJD1q – @InterfaceOnline Thankful for the help we have had from @SirTomhunter @ESparkGlobal @ Gormanley @tomcairnsphoto time to #payitforward UofG ranked top university in prestigious @BBSRC Excellence with Impact competition http://ow.ly/ FGNx300tqyd – @UofGlasgow

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MOVERS AND SHAKERS

Martin Gilbert and colleagues tread the boards

Newly re-elected First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has named her new cabinet.

Former finance secretary John Swinney has become education secretary, with his previous portfolio split between cabinet secretary for finance and the constitution Derek Mackay and cabinet secretary for economy, jobs and fair work Keith Brown.

Former economy minister Fergus Ewing becomes cabinet secretary for the rural economy and connectivity, while former cabinet secretary for fair work, skills and training Roseanna Cunningham is named as cabinet secretary for the environment, climate change and land reform.

Lucy-Rose Walker has been appointed as the new chief executive at Entrepreneurial Spark, the world’s largest free business accelerator scheme. Walker has named Gayle Mann as her new head of enablement. Former “chief executive optimist” Jim Duffy will take on the new role of “head of #cando”.

The Blue Parrot Events Company has named Sarah Crossley as its regional director of business development. Crossley joins from Hilton Hotels and will be responsible for Blue Parrot’s push into the East of Scotland.

Ross Oliphant has been assumed as a partner at EQ Accountants, which has 15 partners and more than 100 staff in Cupar, Dundee, Forfar and Glenrothes. He joins the firm from Thomson Cooper.

Sarah Hardy has joined business angel syndicate Archangels as its new chief investment officer. Hardy, who moves from the Wellcome Trust, will oversee investment strategy and will have specific responsibility for liaison with several companies in which Archangels has invested.

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Gilbert grabs paint brush for Global Volunteering Day Aberdeen Asset Management (AAM) chief executive Martin Gilbert rolled up his sleeves and grabbed his paint brush to take part in Global Volunteering Day, part of the firm’s Give & Gain project.

Gilbert joined seven colleagues at the Tivoli Theatre in Aberdeen, where they painted the upper bar and restored and repainted furniture.

Gilbert said: “I’m delighted to be lending a hand to bring The Tivoli – which is described by the Theatres Trust as ‘one of Britain’s most important theatres’ – back to some of its former glory.”

Staff from AAM’s offices throughout the world took part in Global Volunteering Day on 20 May, with workers from Aberdeen assisting at a food bank on Poynernook Road and taking part in the Dee Trust’s tree survey.

Colleagues from the Edinburgh office volunteered at the Scottish Association for Mental Health’s Redhall walled garden.

The firm operated a ‘volunteering relay’, which began at its Sydney office in Australia before moving to Taipei and Singapore and finishing the day in Toronto, Philadelphia, New York and Sao Paulo. In total, 300 AAM employees from 18 offices took part.

Sustainably prepares charity app A mother-and-daughter team based in Edinburgh is preparing to launch Sustainably, an app that allows customers to donate to charity by ‘rounding-up’ the amount they spent through transactions on their debit and credit cards. The app will monitor customers’ transactions, round them up to the nearest pound and donate the difference to a charity of the user’s choice.

Sustainably is taking part in the Entrepreneurial Spark accelerator programme and has entered the Virgin Media Business Voom competition

WEBSITE OF THE QUARTER www.x-forces.com Provides loans, mentoring and support to ex-forces personnel and their families to start businesses

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to pitch for funding and advice from Sir Richard Branson. In April, Sustainably won the Edinburgh Finance Hackathon held at accountancy firm Deloitte’s offices, which was organised by Edinburgh-based app developer The Infinite Kind.

Loral, who was previously head of digital strategy and insight at Aberdeen Asset Management, said: “We are bringing the convenience of mobile and cashless transactions together to create a conscious living and giving ecosystem where everyone from individuals to big brands can all get involved in supporting good causes.

“It’s about solving the world’s problems, bringing communities together and making people feel good about what they’re doing in the process. We’re retailer agnostic, so you donate no matter where you buy, as long as you have added your cards to our app, as we recognise each card transaction.”

NCTech secures £500,000 Barclays finance NCTech, the Edinburgh-based imaging systems maker, has secured a £500,000 finance package from Barclays’ innovation finance scheme.

The company, which was founded in 2010, develops systems that can produce 360-degree images and works with clients including Apple and Google. One of NCTech’s cameras was used by television programme Top Gear USA to record 22 miles of the Rubicon Trail through California’s Sierra Nevada mountains.

The loan has been guaranteed through the European Investment Fund (EIF). Jamie Grant, head of business and corporate banking at Barclays, said: “Barclays is well placed to support high-growth businesses and entrepreneurs, from start-up, to scale up, to initial public offering.

“Lending to small and medium-sized enterprises

“Lending to small and mediumsized enterprises is core to our offering and our joint-venture agreement with the EIF is now another way that our business customers can access funding when they need it most”

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is core to our offering and our joint-venture agreement with the EIF is now another way that our business customers can access funding when they need it most.”

Cameron Ure, chief executive of NCTech, said: “We are in a fortunate position to be able to announce this credit facility with Barclays Innovation Finance.

“It is encouraging to work with an organisation that understands our needs as a fast-growing technology business.

“I’m confident this is the first step in an ongoing and growing relationship.”

£1.2m investment for Optoscribe Optoscribe, a spin-out from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, has secured an initial investment of £1.2 million.

Business angel syndicate Archangels provided £825,000, with Par Equity investing £325,000 and Scottish Enterprise’s Scottish Investment Bank contributing £50,000.

The company was launched in 2010 to make components that connect optical fibres to receivers or emitters in confined spaces. Nicholas Psaila, chief executive at Optoscribe, said: “This investment round will enable a significant transformation of Optoscribe, allowing the company to substantially increase its capabilities through hiring further experienced staff and expanding our manufacturing facilities.

“The investment is a tremendous boost to the company, and we are excited to be embarking on a new phase of growth.”

Robert Higginson, a partner at Par Equity, added: “Optoscribe is selling into a very large and fast-growing market, and one that is quick to adopt new technologies that reduce costs or increase capacity.

“Although Optoscribe is still a young company, the route to commercialisation in its sector is accelerated by strong customer pull for technological progress.

“When combined with the development agreements the company has with banner names in its industry and the quality of the people involved, we are excited to play a part in the company’s future.”

Elevator and KPMG join forces Elevator – the social enterprise that runs business support services in the former Grampian and Tayside regions – has formed an alliance with accountancy firm KPMG. Under the deal, KPMG will offer substantial free advice to company founders, including those taking part in Elevator’s Accelerator Programme.

Elevator deputy chief executive Graham Morgan said: “The relationship with KPMG was forged following the opening of Elevator’s £1m Centre for Entrepreneurship in Aberdeen 18 months ago.

“It was very clear from the outset that both Elevator and KPMG have a lot in common in that we both share a very keen interest in helping businesses and start-ups in a region that is increasingly showing itself to be entrepreneurial and innovative.”

Morgan expects the deal with KPMG will be the first in a series of partnerships.

Moray Barber, a partner at KPMG, added: “The Accelerator Programme provides a much needed support network and structure to growing businesses – the world of the entrepreneur can be a lonely place at times and so it is important to have the team at Elevator and KPMG on hand to turn to for support, for constructive challenge when required and for innovative thinking to solve complex business challenges.”

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FACT OF THE QUARTER Debit card payments are expected to overtake cash in 2021, according to Payments UK.

Sunamp shines with £3.2m fundraising Battery maker Sunamp has secured £3.2 million in a funding round led by an unnamed international private investor.

The company’s existing investors – Equity Gap, Highland Venture Capital, Old College Capital, Par Equity and Scottish Enterprise’s Scottish Investment Bank – also took part in the funding round.

Sunamp, which is based at Macmerry in East Lothian, makes batteries that store energy as heat.

The company was founded by veteran technology entrepreneur Andrew Bissell, who sold his previous company, the 3D medical imaging business Voxar, for €39m to Barco in 2004.

Bissell said: “We are grateful to our investors for their vote of confidence in our products and our business model.

“Our team’s mission is to grow the business nationally and internationally, making Sunamp heat batteries the ‘go-to’ solution for heat energy storage.

“Sunamp photo-voltaic heat batteries are now helping to cut carbon emissions and lower fuel bills in more than 700 homes thanks, in part, to a competitivelywon £3.2m grant from the Local Energy Challenge Fund, and we have proved our abilities as a volume manufacturer.”

Jock Millican, a director at Equity Gap, added: “I believe this latest investment will allow the company to focus on achieving real commercial traction while continuing to develop applications for its products.”

Palmer opens distillery in Fife Whisky industry veteran Ian Palmer has created 10 jobs by opening the InchDairnie distillery on the outskirts of Kinglassie in Fife. Palmer, who is managing director of John Fergus & Co, the business he founded in 2011, said that he will produce his own single malt for bottling and will also sell whisky to blenders, including Glasgow-based partner MacDuff International.

He said: “We are fortunate not to be under any commercial pressure to release our whisky so we will wait until the whisky is at its absolute best, which could be in 10, 12 or 15 years’ time – only time will tell.”

MacDuff International was launched in 1992 by Stewart MacDuff, Charles Murray and Ted Thomson and owns whisky brands including Cumbrae Castle, Grand Macnish, Islay Mist, Lauder’s, Regent, and Strathbeag, along with Lambeths Gin and Stravinsky Vodka.

Construction work on the distillery began in August 2014 and there are currently no plans to open a visitors’ centre on the site. When the project was first mooted in 2013, the price tag for the distillery was £8 million. The distillery will initially make two million litres of spirit during its first year in production, but could ramp up its output to four million litres.

Crowdfunding campaign for Sansooz Susan Chirino, a former part-time lecturer at North East Scotland College, has been running a fundraising campaign on Crowdfunder to finance SanSooz, a clothing company that aims to produce reflective garments to allow pedestrians and cyclists to “be safe, be seen, be stylish”.

Chirino worked with experts at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design at the University of Dundee on the research and development of the fabric and the design.

She was put in touch with the academics by Interface, the Edinburgh-based public agency

that matches universities to businesses that need help with projects. She also received a £5,000 innovation voucher from the Scottish Funding Council to finance the project. Chirino led one of the workshops at the Scottish Knowledge Exchange Awards in February. Alina Uberman, marketing executive at Interface, said: “Sansooz’s presentation was absolutely fantastic and I am delighted to have received such positive feedback from the attendees.

“Sansooz products are designed to save lives worldwide and we are thrilled to be working with small and medium-sized enterprises that develop such innovative products, which could have a big impact on society”.

Making a difference in Scotland The National Autistic Society’s Prospects Service

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AS I SEE IT bqlive.co.uk

Many a mickle maks a muckle Iain Scott, director of Can Do Places, thinks it’s better to have a large number of small companies than to worry about scaling-up a small number of large companies – and he uses an economic fable to explain why nce upon a time there were two places separated by a green hill and a deep blue river. Both places made and sold things because that was how the people that lived there were able to feed, clothe and house themselves.

They built beautiful places to play in after they made the things they sold. Some people in each of the places made lots of money and, partly to proudly show off and partly to pay back to their community, they built impressive libraries and leafy parks. Then the residents in one place decided they wanted to change.

“We have had enough of this small thinking, small business, ‘many a mickle maks a muckle’ malarkey,” they moaned. “We want to think big and we want to be big. What is the point of having lots of small businesses? We need big.

We need impact.”

O

So they carried out a worldwide search for a great global thinker who could help them become global too. The successful candidate wore an expensive suit and confidently told the people in the place with global ambition: “We can attract big people, big bankers, and big investors to this wee little place.”

“Of course,” he continued authoritatively, “these people will want big fees too – but it will be worth it. They will create lots of jobs for us and the TV and press will get very excited and come with cameras, lights and microphones to talk about us. That never happens to our dull neighbours across the hill.”

The winning candidate proudly announced that the place with global aspiration would identify evidence and metrics that facilitated a pan-economic development community. Nobody really knew what that meant – but it didn’t matter as they were happy that people from other exciting places were

AS I SEE IT

going to come into their little place and transform it. The people that were going to come had flashy cars and were winners.

Across the hill the other place got worried.

“We are being left behind and are being seen as small and outdated. We need to be like the people over the hill.”

But a local accountant asked: “Can we look at the figures here? I like figures because I understand them. We are small and we are a bit outdated but I have noticed that collectively our small businesses are worth a lot to our economy. I have ten clients turning over £50,000 a year, which is actually equivalent to a business worth half a million to the local area. Also, every time one of our local companies spends a pound it goes round and round four times. Thus, I know these businesses are worth £2.5m to our economy. Sadly, nobody talks about them like that. These businesses also give part-time jobs to our young people and many of them buy from each other. This actually makes us secure.

“That’s not very glamorous,” mocked some of the accountant’s clients. “We are off over the hill because that is the future.”

“Over the hill is the future,” boasted the economists and media too. They found it great that they could be doing stories on big glamorous companies.

“Big is great for us,” cooed the big accountants, “because we can get one big fee from one source as opposed to going round and round lots of small people for small fees.”

“Big is great for us too,” rejoiced the media moguls, “because we get one story from one place.”

So some people left, but the local accountant said: “I like this ‘many a mickle maks a muckle’ approach as it has always made sound economic sense – not that we noticed – and also ‘the times they are a changing’.”

“Silly old fool,” guffawed the people over the hill and valley with global ambition as they partied

their way into 2008. By 2009, they were not partying any more. And the point of this fable?

Well, the combination of the financial collapse of 2008 and the relentless rise of artificial intelligence and the web has created a new economy – or a return to the old economy of our accountant in the fable. An economy where ‘many a mickle’ does not just mak a muckle’… but it is the future.

The UK now has its highest proportion of people working for themselves than ever before. Some have done this by choice, some by accident and some by necessity. Yet this group’s importance to the economy is simply not being acknowledged.

Just take a look around at how our media has been discussing the economy over the past few years. Business is big and involves share prices going up and down and the latest news from global corporations. Employment is covered in the same way it was in the 1970s; you are either in employment or out of it. When it comes to smallbusiness, Mary Portas is wheeled out to save our small shops. Hotels and family businesses are given the same treatment. The message is clear; small is lifestyle and business is big, corporate and serious.

There is no small business editor on the BBC or ITV. There is no regular coverage of small businesses on the morning, mid-day or evening news either. This is what I would call ‘missing a market opportunity’.

We need to change not just our economic thinking but also the way we cover it. So I would now like to advance a new economic theory: ‘Many a mickle maks a muckle’.

Or, to put it another way, start understanding the importance to the economy of the sole-trader, the family-business, the mum-preneur, the craftbrewer, craft-baker, artisan coffee roaster, jeweller, print-maker, web-designer, and personal-trainer.

As our transatlantic friends might put it “do the math(s)” and let us start by having small business editors on the BBC, ITV and Channel 4. Let us start by totalling the value of small business to the economy, not just because we need to, but because there is going to be a lot more of it. n

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Box clever More than 1,000 customers have already signed up to Fishbox, the fish and seafood subscription service. Peter Ranscombe catches up with Magnus and Fiona Houston, the couple behind the brand, as they prepare to scale-up their business

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Life-changing moments can happen in the blink of an eye. For Magnus Houston, managing director of Coast & Glen, the wholesaler behind the fast-growing Fishbox brand, two of those life-changing events came within just a couple of years of each other.

The first moment was at the Snetterton motor racing track near Norwich, when a bad accident ended his dream of becoming a motorbike champion. Magnus spent seven years racing bikes, including the final two riding professionally for Suzuki in the GSX-R Cup, a support racing series for the Superbike World Championship. Having finished second at Silverstone, he was about to go to Italy to test for another team, but his accident put pay to his plans.

The second moment was in Bikes of Inverness, where Magnus was working as he continued to recover from his accident and work out what to do next with his life. A Volvo C70 convertible pulled up outside, casually parked on the double-yellow lines in front of the shop, and in walked a tall blonde woman asking for a bike.

And so Fiona Hogg entered Magnus’s life.

Fiona was working as the club physiotherapist for Inverness Caledonian Thistle – the team with the longest name in British football – but was at a loose end because her side had just been

relegated from the premiership and so she was left facing a longer-than-usual summer holiday.

A friend recommended taking up cycling and recommended visiting the shop in Merkinch area of the city.

That chance encounter created a partnership in both life and business. The pair – who married in November 2015 – soon started dating and took a trip around the North of Scotland in a friend’s converted Mercedes campervan.

That’s when fish began to enter their lives. One of their friend’s husbands had a lobster boat at Kylesku in Sutherland and, after Magnus went out fishing with him a few times, he became hooked. He bought his own boat – a 19-foot Orkney creel hauler, with 25 creels – and started fishing from Cromarty harbour on the Black Isle. Magnus had taken up skydiving after his accident to try to recapture the thrill of motorbike racing and he sold his parachute for £500 to buy more creels for the boat.

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Magnus was working long hours and became frustrated that his catches were being loaded onto lorries and shipped out of the Highlands, often to markets in Europe. Having tasted the lobster Magnus was catching and the produce being landed by his fellow Highland fishermen, the pair knew that there would be greater local demand for fish and seafood if only people could try it.

“One night we did a taste test between some fish from the boat and some supermarket fish,” explains Fiona. “There was no comparison – the fish from the boat was far fresher and tastier.”

“Supermarket fish could spend a week on a boat before it’s landed, then another week being processed, and a week on the supermarket shelf,” adds Magnus. “By the time it gets to the reduce-to-clear section, it could have been sitting about for three weeks. At the most, the fish off the boats has been caught 48 hours earlier.”

“One night we did a taste test between some fish from the boat and some supermarket fish. There was no comparison”

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“Whenever you went to open the fridge, there would be all of these crabs and lobsters in there and you’d hear them talking to each other with all their clicks and whistles”

Instead of having his lobsters shipped off to Europe, Magnus and Fiona began to look for local customers. Their first, Norman MacDonald’s Café 1 in Inverness, taught them about the size of the lobsters that a restaurant would need and when it would need them delivered. The second, Albert Roux’s Chez Roux restaurant at Inverness’s Rocpool Reserve Hotel, taught them about the importance of provenance and quality. “Get me the best,” Roux told them.

The Kingsmills Hotel in Inverness soon signed up too and, from those first three customers, Magnus and Fiona began to build Coast & Glen, their fish and seafood wholesale business.

Having been impressed with the quality of their produce, customers began asking for mussels, smoked salmon and other seafood.

Stories from the early days of the business still bring a smile to their faces. “When we started the business, we didn’t have premises and so we were running it from our house in Hilton in Inverness – whenever you went to open the fridge, there would be all of these crabs and lobsters in there and you’d hear them talking to each other with all their clicks and whistles,” Fiona laughs.

“We’d heard about the seafood show in Brussels and we knew that was an important place to go to find new customers,” Magnus adds. “The show is spread out over nine aircraft hangers – it’s massive. I was humming and hawing over whether to go, but eventually Fiona convinced me that I should just go for it. But I didn’t have anything I could wear to it – so I

ended up going down to Tesco and buying my first suit for £15.”

Magnus started Coast & Glen in 2011 and he took on Andy, his first member of staff, as a van driver the following March. Fiona started working in the business over the following summer, initially doing the accounts. “I was the worst accountant ever,” she laughs. “So that only lasted about eight months. Our friend, Anna, from Ernst & Young, who had given us advice when we were starting the business, took over doing the accounts and I switched to helping to build the infrastructure instead.”

From their flat in Hilton, the business moved into premises on the Longman industrial estate rented from Gary Williamson, who runs wholesaler Williamson Foodservice and the Corner on the Square delicatessen and coffee shop chain with his wife, Jacqui. Magnus had originally wanted to supply Williamson, but instead Gary saw the potential for the business to grow and rented Coast & Glen a space in his warehouse that had previously been kitted out to handle cheese.

From selling fish and seafood to hotels and restaurants, the Fishbox brand was born out of demand from customers. “We had people contacting us after trying our fish in restaurants,” Fiona explains. “They’d ask if we had a shop where they could buy our fish.

“We would always have a wee bit of fish and seafood spare after making our deliveries and so we started to explore whether we could sell that produce to members of the public. We’d ask

people what they wanted and they would say ‘We don’t care – just give us whatever’s good and whatever’s fresh. You’re the experts – you tell us.’

“We already had our vans out making deliveries to the restaurants and so we could start delivering fish boxes too. And that’s where the name came from – customers would tell us that they were looking forward to getting their ‘fish box’, just like their ‘veg box’ and so that’s how Fishbox was born.”

“The first fish in those first boxes was vacuum packed, but the packets didn’t even have any labels on them,” adds Magnus. “We had people phoning us up asking what the fish was and what they could do with it. So we started writing on the names of the fish in marker pen.”

Today, Fishbox is a much more sophisticated operation. Subscribers can pick small, medium or large boxes and can choose to receive them weekly, fortnightly or monthly. The boxes are sent out via couriers on Mondays through to Thursdays, with free delivery throughout the UK. Each polystyrene box contains a dry ice pack to keep the vacuum-packed fish cool for up to 48 hours, avoiding leaks and smells. The fish is filleted and cut into portions that are ready to be cooked, chilled or frozen.

“We had this concept of people in the City of London being able to have their Fishbox delivered to their office and then carry it home with them on the Tube,” explains Magnus. “So each box comes packed in a bag with a handle so you can carry it home from the office.”

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The fish is sourced from five markets – the large ones at Peterhead and Fraserburgh and then smaller operations at Scrabster, Kinlochbervie and Shetland – and go from boat to customer in 48 hours. Working with a large selection of Scottish fishermen allows Fishbox to offer its customers more than 80 species, from familiar favourites like cod, haddock, salmon and trout all the way through to lesser-known delicacies such as fork-beard, ling, tusk and rock turbot, also known as wolf-fish due to the fangs it uses to crush shellfish.

Listing unusual species isn’t just for show though – by buying what fish is available from the market instead of just relying on mainstream cod and haddock means that Fishbox is giving fishermen an outlet for all of the produce they land. With the introduction of the landing obligations – which mean fishermen must land all the fish they catch instead of discarding some species overboard – creating outlets for all species is becoming even more important.

When they sign-up to the service, subscribers answer a series of questions about their preferences, which allows Fiona and Magnus to provide them not only with the fish they know they like but also with some “surprises” – species that have similar flavours and textures to their customer’s existing favourites but which are less familiar, easing the pressure on fishing stocks and providing a market for other unloved species. Recipes cards in the boxes give clients an idea of what to do with their new-found fishy friends.

Fishbox’s concept certainly appears to have struck a chord with consumers. More than 1,200 people have subscribed to the service, pushing Coast & Glen’s revenues up to £1.1m last year from £690,000 during the previous year, with HSBC providing a £29,000 overdraft to help fuel expansion. Restaurants and hotels – including Gordon Ramsay and the Wright brothers – still account for about 60% of the wholesaler’s turnover, but Fishbox is quickly catching up.

“The tipping point for us came when I told Fiona that I was having to buy extra fish for her boxes, instead of just using what was spare from Coast & Glen,” Magnus remembers. “That’s when we realised we were onto something.”

Fiona joined Coast & Glen full-time as marketing director in 2013 and continues to run Physio

“The challenge now is to turn Fishbox into a national brand.

We already have customers throughout the UK and there’s a real community feeling to it – people use the Facebook page to tell each other what they got in their boxes” Inverness, a clinic that she launched in 2011 during her evenings away from her day job at Caley. “The challenge now is to turn Fishbox into a national brand,” she explains. “We already have customers throughout the UK and there’s a real community feeling to it – people use the Facebook page to tell each other what they got in their boxes.”

Magnus and Fiona are now on the cusp of scaling-up the business. They are continuing to work with the University of Stirling to refine the algorithm that underpins Fishbox. The software – known as ‘Adrian’ or the ‘Aquatic Distribution Robot In A Nutshell’ – is designed to look at what customers have ordered, what preferences those customers have expressed and what fish and seafood is available in the markets. It will then produce a shopping list for the fish buyers in the market, which will be updated in real-time, and will also produce the packing instructions for staff at Fishbox head office so they know which portions to put in which packages.

“It’s turning into a technology business instead of a food business,” adds Fiona. “We are now working with a chief technical officer and a

user experience designer.”

The next step is for Fishbox to be spun-out from Coast & Glen into its own company and to move to larger premises. Magnus and Fiona have their eyes on the former Young’s Seafood factory at Grantown-on-Spey, which is owned

by Highlands & Islands Enterprise. To develop his own business skills, Magnus also undertook the ‘disciplined entrepreneurship’ course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US. Seeking investment is also on the to-do list. “On a conservative estimate, the total addressable market is 1.1 million customers,” explains Magnus. “We’d be looking for an investor who has experience of rolling out a similar internetbased business. It’s not just about money; it’s about experience.

“The algorithm could have applications in other areas too,” he adds. “We’ve been working with Seafish, the trade body, to develop it for use in the wider industry. It could also be used to plan menus for a company supplying ready-made meals to customers. Or maybe supermarkets could use it for working out grocery deliveries.” n

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Mr Motivator Having scaled-up Production Services Network before selling it to Wood Group, Bob Keiller is now sharing his expertise as a mentor and as the new chair of Scottish Enterprise. BQ Scotland editor Peter Ranscombe picked his brains on what can be done to help scale-ups

INTERVIEW bqlive.co.uk

Bob Keiller has achieved a lot in his career: he led the management buyout of Production Services Network (PSN) from Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR); he became the chief executive at FTSE 100 constituent Wood Group; and at the start of the year he took over as the chair of Scottish Enterprise. Along the way, he was the chair of the Entrepreneurial Exchange and he led the Helicopter Task Group to improve safety in the North Sea. Yet in among all of those senior appointments and accolades, Keiller also managed to chalk-up a more off-beat achievement – his words were once dubbed by a Russian voice-over actress.

“Now that was a strange experience,” laughs Keiller as he leans back in his seat at Scottish Enterprise’s office at Haymarket in Edinburgh.

“We had just completed the deal to buy PSN from KBR back in 2006 and we needed to introduce ourselves and our strategy to our 6,000 members of staff around the world. Most of our workers were based out in the field, not in offices, so we couldn’t simply send out an email. Instead, we recorded a video to be shown to staff out on site.

“But not everyone speaks with the same broad Borders accent as I do, and so it had to be dubbed into Arabic, French, Russian and Spanish. The only voice over artist that they could get at short notice to record it in Russian was a woman, and so my introduction to many of our members of staff came through a female voice.”

Clear communication – in English or Russian – has played an important part in Keiller’s career.

At PSN, clear communication was needed to instil an ethos and a set of values that helped Keiller and his team to grow the company’s value from US$280m to US$1bn in the space of five years and increase its headcount from 6,000 to 9,000 workers. At Wood Group, clear communication was needed when working with customers, staff, trade unions, shareholders, City analysts and other stakeholders. Now, at Scottish Enterprise, clear communication is going to be just as important.

“A lot of people have an outdated view of Scottish Enterprise,” says the new chair. “They may rave about Scottish Enterprise because of something good that it did for them six years ago, or they may criticise it for not being able to help them twelve years ago. But that’s not the whole picture. In addition to the company support it offers, Scottish Enterprise has an enormously strategic remit for sustainably developing the whole economy, in real time. It is tasked with industry oversight, attracting inward investment, supporting government strategy and developing Scottish commerce throughout the world.

“Yes, there are still things that we can do to improve the service that the agency offers to companies. Scottish Enterprise has been criticised

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the help it can offer. We need to tell even more stories.”

One of those stories is about Can Do Scale, a programme to help Scottish entrepreneurs who have the potential to scale-up their business.

The course includes a summer school and online training devised by Bill Aulet, a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and managing director of the Martin Trust Centre of MIT Entrepreneurship.

Last summer, 70 entrepreneurs took part in the pilot summer school in Stirling including: Kristine Moody, founder of Perth-based outdoor gear supplier Team Magnus; Jim Law, chief executive of sporting social network app Find A Player; and Michelle Ferguson, managing director of Glasgow-based St Andrew’s First Aid Training &

“The only voice over artist that they could get at short notice to record it in Russian was a woman, and so my introduction to many of our members of staff came through a female voice” for being cumbersome, bureaucratic and slow, and perhaps in some instances it has been guilty of this. But where that has been the case, it’s being addressed.

“What I’ve been most surprised by since I joined back in January is the sheer breadth of the support that Scottish Enterprise offers to businesses. The agency’s account managers work with more than 2,000 companies each year and there are more than 1,000 instances of financial support and grant aid being awarded each year too.

“Scottish Enterprise is also involved in so many situations – whether it’s when businesses are set up or when businesses are saved – where it won’t get a mention in the end credits. All you’ll hear about is the politician who was involved and the angel investor. Often in those situations, Scottish Enterprise has been the glue that has held the deal together.

“So what we need to do is raise awareness about the work that Scottish Enterprise does and

Supplies.

Keiller is keen to stoke the debate about what constitutes a “scale-up” and has been discussing the topics with fellow members of Entrepreneurial Scotland during its annual meeting at The Gleneagles Hotel back in April.

“If a dog-grooming business in Dundee goes from one member of staff to two members of staff then it’s scaling up,” explains Keiller. “But that kind of expansion isn’t going to move the needle when it comes to creating inclusive economic growth.

“Scottish Enterprise’s account managers are working with companies that have the potential to scale-up enough to make meaningful economic impact. Most of these will be businesses that are already turning over £10£20m a year and have the potential to grow so that their revenues exceed £100m and they will have a global footprint.

“Those businesses need to have the potential to grow – that’s not something that you can

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create from scratch. They need to have the right leadership team and the right strategy, and it will also involve elements like exporting and financing.”

One example that Keiller points to is Browns Food Group, which started as a small family butcher in 1885 and has steadily scaled up to become one of Scotland’s largest cooked meat producers. Scottish Enterprise account-manages the company, providing strategic advice, training and support to help it achieve its commercial ambitions.

The agency has already identified 50 companies for its scale-up support. These firms will receive help and advice over the next 18 to 24 months, and the scheme is expected to expand to around 100 businesses by the end of the year.

Taking over as chair of the board of Scottish Enterprise appears to be something of a departure for Keiller, who has spent his whole career in the oil and gas sector. He left Jedburgh Grammar School after his fifth year to study engineering at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, graduating with a master of science degree in electronic engineering, which included a nine-month industry placement.

He joined BP in 1986 and six years later moved to Amerada Hess to work as a loss prevention supervisor on the Scott project.

Keiller joined American conglomerate Haliburton – best known for its involvement with BP in the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster and for its former chief executive and chairman, Dick Cheney, serving as defence secretary under United States President George Bush Jr – in 2002, initially working in its energy services division before switching to KBR, its engineering and construction arm, to run its UK operations from Aberdeen. In 2004, he took over KBR’s global production services businesses.

Within a few months, he and partner-in-crime and colleague Duncan Skinner hatched their cunning plan to lead a management buyout of the business. Haliburton was already looking to sell KBR and so Keiller and Skinner approached their US parent in early 2005 with the idea of

spinning-out the production services unit as part of the process.

Over the course of the next 15 months, they agreed a US$400m funding package from Halifax Bank of Scotland to buy the business for US$280m and provide the working capital needed to set their newly-independent company off in the right direction. The process was complex because the management team wasn’t buying a single legal entity but was instead purchasing a range of business units spread throughout 20 countries. But, when the deal was signed on 30 April 2006, PSN was born.

“We had a five-year plan for the business,” remembers Keiller. “We bought it on 30 April, 2006, and we sold it to Wood Group almost exactly five years later, to the very day. In that time, we scaled-up the size of the business from 6,000 staff to 9,000 staff and increased its value from US$280m to US$1bn, which created a good return for our management team and our shareholders. That came despite the credit crunch and the global financial crisis in 2008.

“At the end of those five years, we had the choice of refinancing the business, but there wasn’t the appetite for that among the shareholders. It was felt that we’d completed our five-year plan and that the time had come for an exit. We had been approached a number of times over the years by potential buyers but – having trumpeted the benefits of spinning out the business from a large American owner – I would have felt like a bit of a hypocrite to have then sold it back to another large global corporation.

“In the end, we had two offers on the table and both buyers were prepared to pay the same amount for the business. We decided to sell to Wood Group because the idea of selling to a Scottish business really appealed to us.”

Wood Group bought PSN in December 2010 for US$955m, with Keiller remaining with the business as chief executive of the combined production services unit and joining the London-listed company’s main board. In 2012, Keiller stepped up to the top job, becoming

“In that time, we scaled-up the size of the business from 6,000 staff to 9,000 staff and increased its value from US$280m to US$1bn”

chief executive of Wood Group as part of the succession plan that involved chairman Sir Ian Wood stepping down and being replaced by out-going chief executive Allister Langlands.

Wood had been chairman of his eponymous company since 1982 and had served as chief executive between 1967 and 2006.

“When I joined Wood Group, part of the deal was that I would stay for five years,” explains Keiller. “It wasn’t written into my contract, but that was the agreement that myself and Sir Ian Wood had reached and we shook hands on it.

It was very important for me to honour that agreement.”

Stepping up from PSN to Wood Group saw a change in the scale of Keiller’s responsibilities.

He went from overseeing 9,000 staff – a high enough number in most entrepreneurs’ books – to supervising 45,000 staff in 60 countries. The nature of the job meant spending a lot of time in airports, travelling around the world to speak to customers, staff, trade unions, investors and other stakeholders.

“I’m looking forward to less international travel now,” laughs Keiller. “A typical trip for Wood Group would involve flying into Perth in Western Australia for a day of meetings and then moving on to Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Then I’d fly home to spend perhaps a week in the office before going out to do the same thing in North America, in South America, in Africa and around the Caspian Sea. I was working six days a week and I’m now looking forward to bringing that down to four days a week so I can spend more time with my family.”

So after fulfilling so many high-profile roles in the oil and gas industry, what attracted Keiller to become chair of Scottish Enterprise? “Everything I’m doing now is all about giving something back,” he explains. “I’m interested in inspiring other people so that they can be the best that they can be in business. I’m lucky because I don’t have to worry about having to go out and earn a living now.”

Keiller’s remuneration for his final year at Wood Group – including his salary, bonus and incentives – stood at £1.1m, while he also received a payment of £477,346 in lieu of notice as a ‘good leaver’. As chair of Scottish Enterprise, he will receive a fee of £38,721 a year, according to the Scottish Government’s public appointments website. But Keiller has a very specific purpose in mind for the cash.

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“I sold all of my shares in individual companies and put the cash into tracker funds before taking up my role as chair, it’s about doing the right thing but also being seen to do the right thing”

“I’m using my fee from Scottish Enterprise to run a small office in Aberdeen,” he explains.

His AB15 outfit will allow him to operate as a business advisor and management consultant, which will include acting as a mentor to around ten entrepreneurs at a time and providing help to social enterprises in partnership with Steve McCreadie.

“Steve McCreadie is a force of nature,” smiles Keiller. “He did amazing things with the Aberlour Trust and now he’s running The Lens, a programme that brings together charities, funders, the government and the private sector.

I’ve been helping to teach charities how to pitch for investment.”

Social enterprise is a topic that’s close to Keiller’s heart. Back in 2009, he and Skinner, who was his finance director at PSN, organised the rescue

of Glencraft, a charity that employed blind and partially-sighted people to make mattresses and beds. “We helped to put Glencraft on a solid financial footing by introducing them to customers in the hotel and offshore industries,” he explains. “I’ve just bought a Glencraft mattress for my daughter’s bed.”

Keiller has clearly decided that “doing the right thing” should also extend into his business dealings during his three-year term as Scottish Enterprise chair. Over the past two years, The Herald newspaper ran stories about the agency investing in companies in which his predecessor, Crawford Gillies, held shares. While Scottish Enterprise made it clear that it has “robust systems” in place to avoid conflicts of interest, Keiller has gone one step further.

“I sold all of my shares in individual companies

and put the cash into tracker funds before taking up my role as chair,” he says. “That means that there can’t be any questions about Scottish Enterprise investing in companies in which I hold shares – it’s about doing the right thing but also being seen to do the right thing. That’s also fair to those companies in which I used to hold shares because it means they can now apply for support without any fear of a backlash.”

Ironically, selling his shares landed him with a large capital gains tax bill. “It’s cost me money to take up this post,” he laughs. Taking a step back from investing means that, for the time being, Keiller won’t follow in the footsteps of other North-East oil and gas entrepreneurs by becoming a business angel. “I think I can do more good at the moment as a mentor than a business angel,” he says. n

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CONVERGE CHALLENGE Media Partnership

‘Step change’ in entrepreneurship education Converge Challenge, Scottish Institute for Enterprise and Young Enterprise Scotland have joined forces to streamline entrepreneurship education, as education secretary John Swinney explained at a recent event More than 250 people gathered at Royal Bank of Scotland’s (RBS’s) head office at Gogarburn on the outskirts of Edinburgh on 2 June for ‘Educational Journey of an Entrepreneur’, an event to launch a partnership between Converge Challenge, Scottish Institute for Enterprise (SIE) and Young Enterprise Scotland (YES). Newly-appointed education secretary John Swinney told the event that the partnership will help to provide a “step change” in the quality and availability of enterprise and entrepreneurship education within tertiary education, covering all of the routes following secondary school, including further education colleges and universities.

“Our ambition is to be a world leading entrepreneurial and innovative nation – a ‘Can Do’ place for business,” explained Swinney. “There are excellent examples of how to encourage students to consider going into business for themselves but this innovative collaboration will increase these opportunities across Scotland.

“Together we can encourage greater entrepreneurial ambition and ensure that there is the practical enterprise support needed to properly nurture it.”

The event was the first of its kind to be run in partnership by the three organisations. Glasgowborn BBC home editor Mark Easton hosted the event, with BQ acting as the media partner.

Olga Kozlova, director of Converge Challenge, the annual business creation competition for students, recent graduates and staff at Scotland’s universities, said: “We know that it takes time for those in education to mature into the enterprise space and to reach the stage where they are ready to apply for programmes like Converge Challenge. By working collaboratively we can support those in education at every stage of their entrepreneurial journey and create an inclusive approach that complements the provisions of each of the partner organisations.”

The three partners have pledged to: “inspire all tertiary education students to begin an entrepreneurial journey and develop a mindset, behaviours and skills that can benefit them throughout their lives”; “encourage those students wishing to pursue an idea and assist in the

refinement of their concept and introduce them to the wider entrepreneurial network”; and “support those students aiming to start a venture with hands on help to enable the start-up of an ambitious, profitable and sustainable business”.

They aim to streamline the enterprise support within post-secondary school education and for the three organisations to work more efficiently together. They also aim to provide further support for universities and colleges in providing enterprise education for students and create a programme of joint events and case studies that highlight the diverse journeys taken by entrepreneurs.

At the event, it was announced that a pool of mentors will be created, drawing on the alumni of the three organisations. The event in Edinburgh showcased some exceptional young entrepreneurs who have benefited from support from all three organisations, including winners of SIE and Converge business competitions: Tom Walkinshaw, chief executive at PocketQube Shop, which is working to lower the cost of launching satellites; Rebecca Pick, founder of Pick Protection, which is producing the Personal Guardian, a lone detection worker and personal alarm; Adam Nichol, a furniture design student

who is in early stages of his business, Nichol Woodcraft; Christopher Leburn, managing director of Chromacity, a laser company that aims to provide biologists with a radical new light source for laserscanning microscopy; and fashion designer Siobhan Mackenzie who is setting up an eponymous business.

Other speakers at the event included James McIlroy, chief executive at EuroBiotix, a community interest company that is developing “poo transplants” to help patients suffering from symptoms caused by Clostridium difficile – better known as C.diff.

Geoff Leask, chief executive of YES, said: “The relationship between education and the business world is absolutely critical. It is no coincidence that one of the key recommendations of the ‘Developing the Young Workforce’ programme is that schools should have business partnerships. I think the key is to make it happen at all stages of education from primary to secondary and tertiary.” Fiona Godsman, chief executive of SIE, added: “Scottish universities and colleges are at the forefront of developing our ambitious and creative students. To be successful post education it is not just about having the knowledge of your chosen subject but to be able to demonstrate entrepreneurial behaviours whether

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CONVERGE CHALLENGE SHORTLIST (Name) (Title of the Project) Alasdair Mort MIME Technologies Alberto Negro 5Style Alexander Enoch Robotical Alistair McConnell ExoMotion Andrew Herbert H-Guard Anna Renouf Orrin Equestrian Products Brian Miller uFraction8 Bruce Ramsay Cyan Forensics Cheri Skivington SelfieNation Chris Hughes Estendio Claire-Gillian Watt Organic Assembly Colin Gray The Podcast Host Connor Mooney Clydescope Health Corien Staels WheelAir by Staels Design Dan Vo Sein Collections Deborah Wake MyDiabetesMyWay Gabriela Medero KENOTEQ Helen Hastie RobotAssure Laszlo Csetenyi InstaShift Leigh Cassidy ENREN Marc Desmulliez MicroSense Technologies Matthew Baker CLINSPECDx Michael Harkins Turtle Pack Michael Tougher Dots Omar Tufayl Nom Yap Peter Childs Nanokick Technologies Sarah Jones DMPonline Shreesh Agarwal PillTime Susanne Mitschke MindMate Tomasz Sadowski Opinew

(University name) University of Aberdeen University of Dundee University of Edinburgh Heriot-Watt University University of Edinburgh University of Highlands & Islands Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh Napier Glasgow Caledonian University University of Strathclyde Open University Abertay University University of the West of Scotland University of Glasgow Robert Gordon University University of Dundee Heriot-Watt University Heriot-Watt University University of Dundee University of Aberdeen Heriot-Watt University University of Strathclyde Heriot-Watt University Glasgow School of Art University of Glasgow University of the West of Scotland University of Glasgow Glasgow School of Art University of Glasgow University of Glasgow

KICKSTART AND SOCIAL ENTERPRISE SHORTLIST Name Andras Pal Danyi Atif Syed Ben Polhill Callum Russell Calum MacKinnon Carla Brown Catherine Truel Charlie Wetherill Christopher Mosedale Christopher Murray David Foley David Harris-Birtill Douglas Martin Erika Grant Fiona McIntyre Gilan Booker Glen McMurchy Heather Guyan Maja Slopiecka Martyna Petrlyte Paulina Trevina Pedro Santos Ravinder Dahiya Richard McAdam Ross Deuchar Salman Malik Surakat Kudehinbu Taranjit Singh Rai Valentin Radu Yuri Belotti

Title of the Project TAG Netrologix LockDock Mechanical Garden Kneeler OutLoud GAME DR Alegrant Tiorc Nutri-Fly The Comics Studio Elementary Therapeutics Beyond Medics MiAlgae Project Turnkey Greyhope Bay Benedict & Hott New Wind Tower Platform Classmate Horizon Healthy-go-lucky Flex-ESOL Re-Make SmArtLimb McAdam Technology Comeback Scotland μSpray Technologies e-Lit International SportsID Smartphones IoT revolution Automated Cell Stretcher

University name University of Strathclyde University of Edinburgh Edinburgh Napier University of Strathclyde University of Strathclyde University of Glasgow Glasgow Caledonian University University of Edinburgh University of Glasgow University of Dundee University of Dundee University of St Andrews University of Edinburgh University of Aberdeen University of Aberdeen Heriot-Watt University University of Strathclyde University of Strathclyde University of Strathclyde University of Aberdeen University of Glasgow Glasgow Caledonian University University of Glasgow Edinburgh Napier University of the W.Scotland University of Edinburgh University of Aberdeen University of the W.Scotland University of Edinburgh University of Dundee

Category Entered KickStart KickStart KickStart KickStart KickStart Social Enterprise KickStart KickStart KickStart Social Enterprise KickStart KickStart KickStart Social Enterprise Social Enterprise KickStart KickStart Social Enterprise KickStart KickStart Social Enterprise Social Enterprise KickStart KickStart Social Enterprise KickStart KickStart KickStart KickStart KickStart

running your own business or working within an organisation – this is what will deliver successful, profitable, sustainable companies.”

Following the morning’s speeches and questions and answers session with the panel, the afternoon began with the YES Inventor Challenge, during which six pupils from The Flora Stevenson Primary School in Edinburgh created four futuristic inventions and presented them to the audience using an advertisement, demonstrating the skills of the next generation of entrepreneurs. The day culminated with the annual Converge Challenge Elevator pitch competition featuring the contest’s 30 finalists. Each of the participants had only one minute to convince the judging panel that their idea could transform lives and kick-start a business. The Converge Challenge ‘Ready, Steady, Pitch’ event included keynote speeches from Susan Fouquier, regional managing director for business banking in Scotland at RBS, who provided an overview of different stages of company growth and development and outlined available support, and Chromacity’s Leburn, who spoke about his journey from being a laser physicist to becoming an entrepreneur. This year’s winner was Anna Reneouf, from the University of the Highlands & Islands, with a pioneering saddle that will offer superior fit and improvements for horse welfare.

Finalists announced for converge challenge Converge Challenge, the annual company creation competition open to students, staff and recent graduates from all of Scotland’s universities, has unveiled its finalists. A record 212 entries were received for the contest, with entries coming for the first time this year from 17 higher education institutions.

Thirty entrants have been shortlisted in the main Converge Challenge category, with another 30 finalists spread across its KickStart and Social Enterprise categories. The main Converge Challenge is open to participants with an established idea, while the KickStart category covers early-stage ideas and the Social Enterprise category is made up of ideas that could have a positive impact on social and environmental issues.

The finalists now have until 4 August to submit their detailed business plans, with the winners due to be announced at the awards ceremony at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh on 22 September.

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Mi nd

How can more venture capital funds be attracted to Scotland?

Peter Ranscombe meets up with Sinclair Dunlop, managing partner at Epidarex Capital, one of the country’s first funds, to find out his views

p a g e h t

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Scotland has an enviable reputation when it comes to supporting start-up and spin-out businesses. With a flourishing business angel community and an ecosystem full of incubators, accelerators and advice, there is no shortage of routes for entrepreneurs. The life sciences sector is slightly different though. If you want to develop a drug to treat a disease or come up with a technique for any other type of therapy then chances are you’re going to be measuring the investment you need in millions or tens of millions of pounds.

Step forward Sinclair Dunlop. In 2014, he raised £48m to launch a venture capital fund that is providing start-up funding for early-stage, highgrowth companies that target areas with an unmet medical need. Originally badged as Rock Spring Ventures, his company is now known as Epidarex Capital. When plans for the fund were unveiled in January 2013, initial investors included Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow universities, along with the European Investment Fund, Scottish Enterprise through the Scottish Investment Bank, and Strathclyde Pension Fund.

At the time, Dunlop and his team were praised for mobilising investment from one of the UK’s biggest local authority pension schemes.

When the fund closed in May 2014, the initial investors had been joined by King’s College London and Eli Lilly, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies.

So far, the European arm of Epidarex – which also runs a similar fund in the United States

“Venture capital funding is essential for early-stage drug developers and therapeutics companies because of the large sums of money involved in creating treatments”

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– has invested in six companies. Four are traditional spin-outs from universities: Edinburgh Molecular Imaging; Glasgow-based diabetes specialist Caldan Therapeutics; Clyde Biosciences of Glasgow, which is testing how drugs affect the heart; and Sirakoss, a synthetic bone graft developer from Aberdeen.

The other two portfolio companies have an interesting difference – they both emerged from industry rather than academia: Brightonbased drug developer Enterprise Therapeutics was founded in February 2015, while Topas Therapeutics of Hamburg was spun-out from Frankfurt-listed drug developer Evotec.

Venture capital funding is essential for early-stage drug developers and therapeutics companies because of the large sums of money involved in creating treatments – but it’s also important in many other parts of Scotland’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Once a technology company raises seed funding from business angels, it may well need private equity or venture capital to scale-up, providing the link in the chain before considering an initial public offering (IPO) to join the stock market or a trade sale.

Indeed, the so-called ‘venture capital gap’ has become an almost mystical feature in Scotland’s innovation landscape, a gaping chasm talked about in hushed-tones, into which businesses disappear if they can’t raise enough funding.

Over time, the gap has shifted, with business angel syndicates joining forces to fund bigger deals and lasso finance from first Scottish Enterprise’s and later the Scottish Investment Bank’s co-investment and venture funds.

Yet that venture capital gap has persisted. So how can Scotland attract more venture capital funds to help life science companies, technology businesses and other innovators?

“There are some cultural pieces to that answer and some economic pieces to that answer,” explains Dunlop, who left Scotland in 1994 to study in the US, before returning to launch Epidarex in 2013. “Culturally we need to continue to work harder to embrace risk and get comfortable with a more Americanised version of what risk is.

“Failure is not inherently a negative scenario.

Failure can be in many cases an extremely useful learning process. On many occasions, I would rather back a life sciences start-up chief executive when he or she had failed, in some

“Failure is not inherently a negative scenario. Failure can be in many cases an extremely useful learning process” cases for reasons beyond his or her control.

Someone who has gone through that process is often a more back-able proposition than a firsttime entrepreneur.

“Both the public and private sectors need to understand that if we’re going to build the ‘great Scottish biotech’, if we’re really going to have a US$1bn biotech company in Scotland one day, then we’re going to have to take a lot more risk – scalable risk – on the way between here and there.”

Dunlop points to the initial success of online fantasy gaming firm FanDuel and flight comparison website Skyscanner, the two Edinburgh-based technology ‘unicorns’, each with a valuation of US$1bn. He thinks the life

science industry could learn some lessons from them by studying their ‘tipping points’, the moments at which they were able to attract international and not just local investment.

“Economically, Scotland has to be very careful that it continues to send a message to the outside world that it’s open for business and that it is particularly open to entrepreneurs and those investors that wish to embrace risk and back entrepreneurs,” adds Dunlop. “That obviously touches on tax, it touches on research funding. It’s important Scotland keeps that at the foremost of its mind as it begins to gain control of more of its fiscal tax levers.”

Holyrood has had the ability to vary income tax ever since it was created in 1999. Since

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April 2016, the Scottish Government has been required to set a Scottish rate of income tax, with the ability to vary the final 10 percentage points of the UK rate across the basic, higher and additional bands, building on existing powers with the land and buildings transaction tax, which replaced stamp duty and MSPs will soon gain additional tax powers.

It’s not just the level of tax about which Dunlop is concerned. He chose to base Epidarex in Scotland – and he’s adamant that was a business decision and nothing to do with an emotional attachment to home – because of its world-class universities.

“Scotland needs to look very closely at how we sustain the global competitiveness of our universities because unless we allow our universities to resource themselves competitively then over time there’s a possibility that the quality of the research and the amount of fundable, commercialise-able research coming out of our universities could be at risk,” he warns. “The funding of post-doctoral posts is as much an issue as anything. Scotland needs to recognise that the top talent, particularly in the life sciences, is extremely mobile – so we’re trying to attract the very best researchers from any country. We have to acknowledge that our universities are competing with, frankly, much better-funded institutions, not just in North America but in some cases south of the Border.

“Our top universities have people based overseas whose job it is to recruit top talent, and I’m not talking about undergraduates here – I’m talking about the next generation of potential Noble prize winners. Are we asking our universities to fight to attract that talent with one arm tied behind their backs?”

When it comes to attracting venture capital to Scotland, Dunlop thinks further reforms are needed to the enterprise investment scheme (EIS) and the seed enterprise investment scheme (SEIS). At the moment, he recognises that it’s hard for venture capital funds to invest alongside business angels in the same funding round due to the some of the “structural complexities” surrounding SEIS and EIS. Accessing scalable funding in Scotland may be tricky, but it’s not a unique problem. “It remains a Europe-wide challenge,” admits Dunlop. “If you’re raising anything north of €10m in the life sciences for an early-stage company for example in the therapeutics area then other, than in

“I don’t think there’s anywhere in the world I’d rather be than Edinburgh in August.

The pleasure of the last three summers of introducing people to an amazing city that hosts a globally-significant cultural event – the Edinburgh festivals – is the best part of being here outside of work” the UK – or one or two sources in France and Germany and a few pockets in Scandinavia – then it’s going to be a much bigger challenge than in Massachusetts or California.

“The other big challenge is sector-specific experienced entrepreneurs. In many parts of Europe, including Scotland, we don’t have in the life sciences an abundance of experienced entrepreneurs who have built life science companies, exited life science companies and are then in the business of recycling their knowledge and indeed their capital in some cases back into the next wave.”

While Dunlop is “absolutely” convinced Scotland can create a bio-tech ‘unicorn’, he warns: “The creation of that $1bn market cap Scottish biotech should not be our number one measure of success. Too often we fall into the trap of thinking we need to have really big companies employing a lot of people on the ground in Scotland. While that is a very attractive and a very desirable goal, it shouldn’t be the only measure of success.

“On occasions in the past when we’ve seen an acquisition of a Scottish company, we are sometimes too quick to see that as a ‘glass half-empty’ result, when actually it could be a ‘glass half-full’ result. If we were in California or Massachusetts then there would be much less angst around those types of transactions. In fact, what we could do is see that as a ‘half-full’ outcome because it is in fact a validation of the quality of the fundamental, underlying research from which we’re building these companies and it’s a validation of our ability to build those companies to a point at which you can generate a positive return – in every sense – for all concerned. If you can’t demonstrate to the

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outside world – and in particular to those very same big institutional investors whose capital we need in Scotland – that you can make a profit by investing in Scottish companies then we’re not going to break out of this cycle of underrealising our immense potential.

“In the most-active hubs of technology and innovation, companies are changing hands and there’s merger and acquisition (M&A) activity every day of the week. That’s seen as a sign of success. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. The key is to get more private sector activity and specifically more venture-backed, technologydriven small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) private sector activity. That’s the key. From that, the broader economic benefits will flow.”

Dunlop points to the success of ProStrakan, the Galashiels-based and London-listed drug company that was bought by Japanese giant Kyowa Hakko Kirin in 2011, which has since grown its headcount by 55 staff to 516 workers.

“Now everyone in the life science sector in Japan and many of their shareholders will know that Scotland is capable of building and growing very successful companies in their sector,” he says.

Since returning to Scotland, Dunlop has become involved with Inspiring Scotland – an organisation that helps charities and other third-sector outfits to become more professional in the way they measure their impact in order to help them raise funding – and with Reform Scotland, an Edinburgh-based public policy think tank that sits independent from any political party. His work with Reform builds on his previous experience in public policy in the US before he became an investment manager.

Although he’s clearly passionate about his day job, Dunlop has been making the most of another perk of being back in Scotland. “I’ve really enjoyed hosting friends and visitors from around the world,” he says. “My partner and I have had lots of visitors from the States since moving here and the best time is in August. To be able to invite friends from around the world to come to Edinburgh in August is such a treat.

“I don’t think there’s anywhere in the world I’d rather be than Edinburgh in August.

The pleasure of the last three summers of introducing people to an amazing city that hosts a globally-significant cultural event – the Edinburgh festivals – is the best part of being here outside of work.” n

Forging strong links with China OPPORTUNITIES FOR BRAND SCOTLAND Ewan Grant, head of corporate finance in Scotland at RSM China is proving a big draw for Scottish companies looking for new investment channels and reciprocal trading opportunities. As China continues to make its mark on the global economic stage, the country’s burgeoning middle class is making new demands. Premium products with strong provenance credentials are increasingly sought after, providing big opportunities for Brand Scotland.

As a global network of audit, tax and consulting firms, RSM has front-row seats to how the China-Scotland relationship is developing. More than 50 Scottish businesses now have a physical presence in China while others have established strong export links with the market.

The food and drinks industry is one of the hottest growth prospects - China’s manufacturing growth rate in this sector is reportedly twice the UK average and global exports recently hit record levels. Scottish mainstays are already seizing the opportunity. Recent success stories include the award of an export health certificate to allow direct exports of salmon to China.

Chinese colleagues also report that capital outflow from China to European countries has increased significantly over the last two years, and is likely to continue. It’s not just traditional sectors like food and drink, textiles and quality premium brands that are benefiting either. Chinese investors are also eyeing property, health and medical equipment and other technology innovations as high priority areas.

Overall, the long-term prospects are healthy. There is increased support from the Scottish Government following the implementation of a five-year strategy for engagement between Scotland and China. Add this to the demand we are seeing across a range of sectors and it’s clear that the market will provide attractive trading and investment opportunities for Chinese and Scottish companies for years to come. Businesses should act now to fully reap the rewards.

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Little bit of magic

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Successful businesses can begin in the strangest of places – for Emma Little, chief executive at Leith-based venue finder ExecSpace, that place was a vending machine cupboard. “It really was where they used to keep the vending machines,” laughs Little. “I couldn’t afford to rent a whole office when I first started out and so I convinced the building manager to move the vending machines into a different room so I could rent the cupboard that they used to be kept in. The room was only big enough to take

two desks.”

But, as the old saying goes, from tiny acorns grow mighty oaks. ExecSpace has now expanded to employ 15 staff and is on course to turn over £7.2m this year. Little has presided over double-digit revenue growth each year since she founded the business in 2008, steering her company through the worst recession in living memory and collecting some big-name blue-chip clients along the way, including temporary power supplier Aggreko, oil and gas

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explorer Cairn Energy, and financial services giant Standard Life. Her website is littered with testimonials from other satisfied customers.

Late last year, ExecSpace picked up a contract that has the potential to transform the business. The firm won a place on the Scottish Government’s procurement framework, displacing FTSE100 outsourcing giant Capita.

Winning a space on the framework means that government departments, non-departmental public bodies, local councils and some education

Emma Little has grown ExecSpace, her venue booking business, through one of the worst recessions Britain has ever seen, as Peter Ranscombe discovers

institutions can use Little’s company. Since ExecSpace took over the contract in January, the firm has been four-times busier than it expected.

“We’ve had 36 organisations using us so far since January,” says Little. “They’ve been very positive about their experiences and they’ve commented that the service is ‘night and day’ compared with other agents and going direct.

ExecSpace’s services will be unfamiliar to the chief executives, managing directors and other senior figures who simply turn-up at meetings or other events without a second thought of how they were organised; but to the personal assistants (PAs), event planners and other companies, ExecSpace will have saved their bacon on more than one occasion. The agency finds venues for conferences and other events, promising to give its clients three quotes within 24 hours. Little cut her teeth in business by selling £1,500 vacuum cleaners door-to-door,

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she spent nearly five years with mobile phone giant Vodafone, culminating in being the corporate account manager for its relationship with Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).

“I was doing well at Vodafone and I spoke to my boss about the next step,” explains Little.

“That would have involved moving down to Vodafone’s head office in Newbury, but I didn’t want to leave Scotland. So I started looking at big companies that were based in Scotland, like RBS and HBOS, but back then there were rumours that perhaps even these big banks would be bought by American rivals and so I could end up moving down south or overseas.

“I knew that if I wanted to stay in Scotland but still be in charge of a large company then I needed to start my own business. I had lunch in Leeds with Simon Pollard, a telecoms entrepreneur who left BT and has built up his own business over about ten years to have £10m of turnover. I liked the look of his lifestyle and so, on the drive back up to Edinburgh, I deliberately put my thinking cap on about what kind of business I could start.

“While I was driving, I came up with the idea for ExecSpace. I’d seen the trouble that my PA had experienced in booking venues for meetings and other events. I genuinely thought I’d invented the concept. That was on the Friday night and so on the Saturday morning I got up at 4am and started doing my research. I soon realised that the market was already saturated, but none of the companies were receiving good feedback from their customers or the venues.”

Little knew she’d spotted a gap in the market.

She handed in her notice at Vodafone and drew up a list of all the things she would need to do.

“My list was 120 rows long on a spreadsheet,”

Little smiles. “When you sit down and type it all out like that then it looks like a mountain to climb and you’d always be putting it off because there’d be something good to watch on the telly.

“There was a lot to do and I still wanted to do a good job at Vodafone because that was important to me and I still wanted to see my family and friends. I had to give six months’ notice, so I broke it down and did five things from the list each week.”

Little started her business with £45,000 – her entire life savings. She admits freely to knowing nothing about the events market when she began her company. “Lindsay, my partner, says my best quality is that I’m not too proud to ask questions – if I don’t know how to do something then I’ve got no problem in asking someone who does,” says Little. The first client on the phone was Glasgow-based temporary power supplier Aggreko, the generator provider run for 11 years until 2014 by the colourful Rupert Soames, one of Sir Winston Churchill’s grandsons. Aggreko needed a venue for a financial conference and Little set to work.

But she had a wee bit of help along the way.

“My mum was approaching retirement and so I asked her to come and answer the phone for me,” Little laughs. “I got her to use her maiden name, Ann Scott, so that no-one would know she was my mum. I knew that if we were to get a ‘foot in the door’ with some of those large

corporates then, despite having zero reputation, we’d need to create the impression we were bigger than we were.”

Family is important to Little. Even during her busiest periods, when she has worked 16-hour days for six days a week, she’s always prioritised seeing her family on a Sunday. She describes her parents as her best friends and loves being an auntie to her ten-year-old niece and her nephews, who are six years old and four months old. She’s also excited at being a godparent for the first time after her best friend – who she’s known since they were teenagers – had a baby just a few weeks back. Photographs of family gatherings line the wall next to Little’s desk in her office in Leith, providing inspiration and a smile on the tougher days at work.

“This is more than a business for me,” admits Little. “This is what I believe I was built to do – build a bloody big business. But, at the end of the day, if it all ended tomorrow then my family would still be there for me. Business is business, but family trumps everything.”

The importance of maintaining family life is clearly one of the biggest lessons Little has learned while she’s been scaling-up the size of her business, but it’s not the only one. “Getting the right team around you is so important,” she says. “In the past I’ve hired too quickly and sacked too slowly. Now, it’s the other way around. If someone resigns or goes then instead of immediately picking up the phone to the

“I’m not too proud to ask questions – if I don’t know how to do something then I’ve got no problem in asking someone who does”

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“At ExecSpace the first commandment is that if you’re not growing the bottom line or you’re not doing something to make a customer happy then you’re just fannying around and you should stop it”

recruitment agency I’ll stop and ask ‘They were expensive – is there a smarter way of getting a better result?’

“Hiring the right staff is one of the hardest parts of running a business. You get people who walk through the door and think they’re hard workers and ambitious, but they’re really not. In a large company, they can gloss over that, but not in a small business. It’s important to recruit staff based on their attitude and their values. That’s always been how I’ve recruited junior staff, but it’s just as important for senior staff too.

“We have our ‘ten commandments’ at ExecSpace and the first commandment is that if you’re not growing the bottom line or you’re not doing something to make a customer happy then you’re just fannying around and you should stop it”. Those ‘ten commandments’ will make for interesting reading for any entrepreneur.

They consist of: listen to what your clients want and deliver it; always deliver what you promise; go the extra mile; be thoughtful; have manners; make sure you’re doing your best work; be punctual and well prepared; don’t take advantage of the venues; and a salutary lesson for a recruit to any business – ‘half-arsed is crap’.

Finding the right staff might be tough, but

Little rewards those who work hard. “Paying well and frequently above industry average has always been important to me for rewarding good people,” she says. “I’ve given pay rises during the recession that were far above what staff would have got in other companies in our sector. It’s important to look after your good guys. I see things like that as being very black and white – if you do right by me and my business then I’ll do right by you.”

Scaling-up the business has also meant bringing on board investment. In 2013, ExecSpace secured a six-figure investment from Bradenham Partners, the Buckinghamshire-based private equity firm founded by Keith Wilson, Ian Morrison and David Robb. Bradenham also holds investments in Edinburgh-based recyclable packaging maker Vegware and Dumbartonbased Advanced Display Solutions (ADS) Interactive. Little – who had previously turned down an investment from a business angel in 2011 – was introduced to Wilson by Paul Mason, founder of corporate finance firm Lomond Advisory and a former financier at Brewin Dolphin, Deutsche Bank and Quayle Munro.

Last March, Little also brought on board £700,000 of growth funding from the Scottish

Loan Fund, one of former First Minister Alex Salmond’s flagship ventures, which is managed

by Maven Capital Partners in Glasgow.

“Raising investment is hard work,” admits Little.

“You read about deals in the newspaper and you think it’s all really straight forward, but I know a lot of those deals would have been on their knees eight or nine times before they were finally signed. But if you’re going to grow your business then you need investment – I don’t know of any company with ambitions to grow that has managed it without finance.”

When Little founded ExecSpace, her dream was to build a FTSE100 company in Scotland. After eight years in business, that dream has quite naturally evolved. “I know that I’m not good enough yet but, when the time comes, I don’t think I could put up with the politics of running a PLC anyway,” she admits. “But I still want to grow a bloody big business here in Scotland.”

While recruiting the right staff and raising investment are among the growing pains for almost all growing businesses, there have been a few lighter lessons that Little has learned along the way too. “If you’ve only got £45,000 to start a business then don’t spend £17,000 on a launch party at Harvey Nichols,” she laughs. n

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COMMERCIAL PROPERTY Drambuie’s original home goes on sale The Broadford Hotel (above) on the Isle of Skye, the original home of whisky liqueur Drambuie, has been put on the market after being refurbished. Perle Hotels bought the 400-year-old site in 2013 but is selling it to fund the redevelopment of its two sister hotels in Portree, the Marmalade and the Bosville Hotel. Alistair Letham, a director in the UK hotels team at Colliers International, which is marketing the property, said: “While the Broadford Hotel can trace its origins as far back as the early 17th century, the current property, which does display the Scottish vernacular architecture with crow step gables, has been significantly upgraded and refurbished to create a stylish country-style hotel of appeal to the increasingly discerning 21st century traveller and visitor”. It is well located on the perennially popular Isle of Skye, adjacent to the main road that leads from the Skye Bridge to Portree. With its much improved and upgraded facilities, it has proved extremely popular and that is reflected in the excellent level of established turnover and profitability that the Broadford Hotel enjoys. Colliers added: “It is believed that it was at the hotel, in the 18th century, that the secret formula for an alcoholic elixir was passed to the owner, who developed would many years later become known to the world as Drambuie.”

Red Sky’s delight at office move Sports management agency Red Sky has moved from Edinburgh’s George Street into a newlyrefurbished office at 3-5 Melville Street.

Red Sky – which represents athletes including curler Eve Muirhead, swimmer Hannah Miley and Scotland rugby captain Greig Laidlaw – has signed a five-year lease for the 1,316sq ft lower

ground floor office with Knight Property Group.

JLL represented Knight, while Savills represented Red Sky. The offices at 3-5 Melville Street are now fully-let and so Knight is refurbishing a further two townhouses in the West End to cope with demand. Howard Crawshaw, director of Knight, said: “We are absolutely delighted that Red Sky is in Melville Street. The high levels of

interest in our Central Belt properties is testament to both the quality of the buildings themselves and an active market in the sector and size we are operating in.” Bruce Robertson, a chartered surveyor at JLL, added: “Melville Street is an ideal match for Red Sky’s requirements.

With accommodation that has been recently refurbished to a high standard, Red Sky’s new office in the heart of Edinburgh’s West End offers the firm an excellent base from which it can continue to grow its business in Scotland.”

H&M opens its biggest UK store Swedish clothing retailer Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) is to open its largest British store in Glasgow this winter. The fashion chain is relocating from the Buchanan Galleries shopping centre to a 65,000sq ft store at 185 Buchanan Street. The new shop will be double the size of the current unit, with an additional 30 jobs.

H&M, which was founded in 1947, opened its first branch in the UK in 1976 and now has 260 stores in Britain. Carlos Duarte, H&M’s UK country manager, said: “We are delighted to be relocating to 185 Buchanan Street. This is a very exciting opportunity to expand our brand.

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Atria sold for £105m

Brew Lab toasts Staran’s garage conversion Brew Lab, the coffee shop brand run by entrepreneurs Tom Hyde and Dave Law, has opened its second branch in Edinburgh in a converted garage on Queensferry Street Lane. The conversion was masterminded by Staran directors James Ferguson and Iain Shillady, the architects behind the recently-completed Waverley Arches project. Their practice takes its name from the Gaelic word for ‘pathway’. Brew Lab opened its first coffee shop on South College Street in September 2010. Law said: “When we first saw the lock-up we knew the location was good, but we weren’t sure if it was possible to convert the space into a coffee shop – the end result though is fantastic.” Hyde added: “There was an obvious synergy between Brew Lab and Staran Architects – it resulted in two ambitious young companies working together to create a unique business unit in the heart of Edinburgh.”

Shillady agreed: “We enjoyed working with Dave and Tom at Brew Lab and it’s exciting to think we’re part of a whole generation of business owners that can hopefully grow together.”

Current projects for the practice include converting the former Broughton High School into 74 flats.

Aldermore expands in Scotland Challenger bank Aldermore is targeting Scotland by offering bridging loans and property development finance. The lender – which already provides residential, buy-to-let and commercial mortgages – was founded in 2009 and is currently lending £6.1bn to customers, while looking after £5.9bn of deposits. Charles Haresnape, group managing director of mortgages at Aldermore, said: “We’re delighted to offer bridging and property development finance in Scotland at a time when the housing market north of the Border is starting to show signs of renewed confidence.

“Scotland is a key segment of the UK property market and one that is showing strong signs of growth with an estimated 465,000 new homes needed by 2035.

“Bridging and property development finance are both vital segments of the housing market and we are happy to help developers and investors by providing a selection of flexible finance options to get closer to this goal.

“Our new range of products will give brokers additional choice as well as personal service, it’s based on skilled underwriting rather than automated credit scoring and, will undoubtedly be a welcome development.”

Everything is Connected

Global property investor Deka Immobilien has bought the Atria office development from City of Edinburgh Council for £105 million.

Atria opened in May 2013 as part of efforts to help fund the redevelopment of the Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC) and create more Grade-A office space in the Scottish capital. Occupiers include computing giant IBM, accountancy firm PwC, the Law Society of Scotland and the UK Green Investment Bank.

Proceeds from the sale will be used to repay the loans used to fund the development, as well as bolstering the council’s strategic development fund and its transformation programme.

Gavin Barrie, convenor of the council’s economy committee, said: “This is a further endorsement of the council’s decision to create an innovative funding package to develop much needed Grade A office space in the city to attract new, and retain existing, businesses in the capital while also cross-subsidising the cost of an expansion to the EICC. The fact that we have been able to attract investment into Edinburgh from a major overseas real estate company is testament to the quality of the building and its occupiers. Our plan was always to sell Atria once the development was completed and the economic conditions were right to achieve the best possible return for the council’s investment and I believe we have achieved this.”

£2.3m Glasgow refurbishment completed Whiteburn and London & Scottish Investments have completed their £2.3m refurbishment of the former Royal Bank of Scotland offices at 100 West George Street in Glasgow. Colin McGhee, a senior survey at JLL, which is marketing the offices alongside Phil Reid Associates, said: “100 West George Street already benefited from a fantastic location, and with the extensive refurbishment it is now ready to welcome tenants to its impressive and contemporarily designed office space”. Byron Hamburgers has already leased the retail unit on the ground floor, marking the chain’s entry into the city.

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£2m fish feed investment at Grangemouth Forth Ports has opened a £2m warehouse at Grangemouth, Scotland’s largest container port, to help Bathgate-based fish feed pellet maker EWOS to expand.

The 50,000sq ft facility is 20 minutes from EWOS’s factory. The raw material for the pellets was previously landed at Perth, meaning that the lorries carrying the raw material will now have to travel fewer miles to the factory, lowering EWOS’s carbon dioxide emissions.

Derek Knox, port manager at Grangemouth, said: “This new long-term partnership with EWOS demonstrates how businesses can achieve cost and carbon footprint savings by basing themselves at our port.

“This is a great example of our ‘port-centric’ approach in action as EWOS now benefits from a purpose-built storage facility that is less than half an hour from its manufacturing business, with direct access to the quayside for importing its goods. This also displays our commitment to supporting the Scottish food and drink sector to provide it with more efficient supply chain solutions at lower cost.”

David Morrice, country director of CQN Scotland, which owns EWOS, added: “The opening of this warehouse at Grangemouth improves the flexibility in our supply chain and will greatly assist our service levels to our customers. This investment clearly illustrates our commitment to fish feed production in Scotland.”

RP Adam expands in Selkirk Cleaning and detergent manufacturer RP Adam has completed a £400,000 refurbishment of its UK head office at Selkirk.

The factory and warehouse have been reconfigured and can now store an extra 40% of stock.The company has invested £250,000 in equipment to fill smaller bottles and a racking system for its warehouse, along with £160,000 on a boiler that burns gas instead of oil to reduce both costs and carbon dioxide emissions.

Martin Carroll, group technical director, said:

Ground breaking commences at the Haymarket Edinburgh The Haymarket Edinburgh, the capital’s prestigious £200m joint venture commercial development by Tiger Developments & Interserve, has marked a major milestone in construction by ‘breaking ground’ as it progresses onto the next major development phase.

On track for completion of the first office H5 building in 2018, the development will consist of prime office, retail and leisure space including a hotel and apart-hotel. It is considered to be Edinburgh’s best-connected office location within minutes of the Haymarket Station and tram stop linking the city to Edinburgh Airport within 20 minutes. Welcomed by the City of Edinburgh Council, the development will not only transform a prime site in the city’s West End, which has been derelict for decades, but also create much-needed quality office space.

Graham Haydon-White, development director at Tiger Developments, said: “The importance of this milestone cannot be underestimated, not only are we starting the removal of original tunnel earthworks dating back as far as 1840; it also clearly demonstrates our full commitment behind this landmark scheme as it advances towards phase one delivery in 2018. With the stage one build contract now in place, we are uniquely placed ahead of any other major mixed-use development in the capital.”

“RP Adam moved into our current site in the 1970s, when our business was much smaller than it is today.

“At the time, we built a purpose-built facility that allowed room for growth – and now we have the right facilities in place to both sustain current and drive future growth, which matches the company’s ambition.”

Group sales and marketing director Max Adam,

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the fourth-generation of his family to be involved in the business, added: “We still have ample space in Selkirk for future expansion, and this current round of investments underlines our commitment to managing an efficient, environmentally responsible and successful operation here in this beautiful part of the Borders, where we have had a significant presence for the past 125 years.”

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WORTHY WINNER

Eddie Young of Think Analytics takes Scottish Exporter of the Year title

BUSINESS UPDATE United nations of whisky Diplomats based in Edinburgh met at whisky distiller Diageo’s office in the city to toast the launch of the biggest World Whisky Day. Diageo – the largest producer of Scotch and the owner of brands including Bell’s, Johnnie Walker and Talisker – invited 20 consular representatives from countries including France, India and the United States. David Cutter, Diageo’s president of global supply and procurement, who hosted the event, said: “Scotch is the world’s favourite whisky, sold in practically every country on the face of the earth and we are delighted to celebrate that as part of World Whisky Day. “Scotch is also massively important here in Scotland where it contributes enormously to the national economy as an export success, but also to the local communities across Scotland where it brings jobs and investment. The success of Scotch at home and abroad depends on strong partnership with governments around the world, which is why it has been such a great privilege to have so many Consular representatives from around the world with us this evening.”

Peter Hillier, honorary secretary of the Consular Corps in Edinburgh and Leith, added: “Scotch whisky is part of the fabric of Scottish life and it is also loved by people in countries all around the world.”

International Trade

Record year for inward investment in Scotland The number of foreign direct investment (FDI) projects in Scotland hit a record high of 119 in 2015, new figures have revealed.

Accountancy firm EY’s annual attractiveness survey found that the total had risen by 51% year-on-year, more than double the 20% rate of growth set by the UK as a whole.

Scotland leapfrogged the south-east of England to finish in second place behind London in EY’s UK regions and nations league table.

The software sector was responsible for 19 FDI projects, the largest total, with business services posting 12 and utilities credited with 10.

A total of 5,385 jobs were secured in 2015, the second-highest figure for the decade behind 2011, when 5,926 jobs were recorded.

Mark Harvey, EY senior partner in Scotland, said: “Importantly, the majority of FDI projects for Scotland in 2015 were new rather than expansions. This ability to attract a higher proportion of new, first-time investors signals a positive future for Scotland. The challenge now is to not only maintain performance, but also take it to the next level and excel against the competition. Scotland must look to build on its success and deliver the improvements in skills and infrastructure investors require.”

Polish tech hub for Web Foundry Web Foundry, an Edinburgh-based digital agency, has opened a technology development hub at Warsaw to provide services for its clients and consultancy for other agencies. Przemek Sargeant, who previously worked for the company in Edinburgh, has been appointed as the Polish office’s technical director. Phil Holt, managing director of Web Foundry, decided to open a branch in Poland after visiting a technology conference in Prague and seeing how Eastern Europe had “warmly embraced a digital entrepreneurial culture and was adaptable in keeping up with new trends across an industry sector that continuously evolves”.

Holt added: “Moving our technical support and development expertise to the Polish capital makes clear sense, given the political stability, excellent broadband and communications infrastructure and a strong, highly engaged English-speaking talent pool emerging from the country’s schools, colleges and universities that readily understands the changing trends and future challenges across the digi-tech spectrum.

“Whilst there is nothing new in outsourcing tech services ‘offshore’, we are a young Edinburgh company taking our business into a country when so many Polish businesses are creating opportunities here in the Scottish capital.”

INTERNATIONAL TRADE International Trade

Delta introduces New York to Edinburgh route American carrier Delta Air Lines [correct] has introduced a route between Edinburgh and New York’s JFK airport. The non-stop flight has been launched as part of Delta’s joint venture with Virgin Atlantic. Virgin already runs a thriceweekly service between Glasgow and Orlando in Florida during the summer. Delta has also begun flying directly between Heathrow in London and Salt Lake City in Utah. Nat Pieper, Delta’s senior vice president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said: “For the second summer in a row, Delta has launched new routes that give

customers more options when flying between the United States and the UK. “Delta and Virgin Atlantic are committed to offering an extensive network on the transAtlantic, and our new flights from London and Edinburgh will offer more connections to destinations throughout the United States and beyond.”

VisitScotland said: “Connecting Scotland to major hubs in the US is key for growth and with this new route we now have all three major airline alliances serving Edinburgh and Scotland, which will encourage visitors, including those members of airline loyalty schemes, to fly directly to the country.”

Sportswise expands after Intersport deal Online retailer Sportswise, which trades as Rugbystore.co.uk, has expanded its head office in Peebles after securing a major contract with international player Intersport. Under the deal, Sportswise will hold and distribute Intersport’s products throughout the UK and will develop a retail website. The Scottish company will also increase its product range to include football, swimming, running and fitness on behalf of Intersport. As well as growing the size of its warehouse, the Borders business will also expand its art design, online marketing and photography departments and create a further 15 jobs. The expansion has been funded with a £500,000 facility from Bank of Scotland and an £82,000 grant from Scottish Enterprise.

Sportswise was founded in 1974 as a high-street retailer but switched to online sales in 1997 and is now the largest independent online trader of rugby clothing and equipment in the world, shipping merchandise to locations including Australia, Canada, Continental Europe, Latvia, New Zealand, Russia and the United States.

Fraser Patterson, managing director of Rugbystore, said: “The expansion of our Peebles base and the amazing new facilities housed there will both continue to strengthen our relationship with Intersport and allow us to continue to build our reputation.”

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Innis & Gunn sets up French joint venture Innis & Gunn, the Edinburgh-based craft beer brand, has created a joint-venture with Spanish wine and liqueur maker Grupo Diego Zamora to distribute the company’s’ drinks in France.

Paris-based Sip Drinks will initially focus on the on-trade and ‘cavistes or independent bottle shops.

Innis & Gunn was founded in 2003 by Dougal Sharp, who featured in issue 21 of BQ Scotland, and his brother, Neil, who recently re-joined the business as general manager of its operation in the US. The Scottish company – which makes its beers at Tennent’s Wellpark brewery in Glasgow – also recently bought the Inveralmond Brewery in Perth, opting to purchase an existing business rather than build its own brewery.

Grupo Diego Zamora’s wine brands include Ramon Bilbao, Cruz de Alba and Palacio de la Vega, while its spirit brands include Licor 43, Villa Massa limoncello and Matusalem rum. Vincent Heavey, general manager of Sip Drinks, said: “With such terrific internationally renowned brands in our portfolio and the opportunity to add complementary premium brands over time”

“Our ambition is to become a key player in the craft beer, premium wine and spirits business”

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I N T E R N AT I O N A L T R A D E International Trade

Fourteen outstanding companies were recognised at the HSBC Scottish Export Awards, in association with Scottish Enterprise, with Mackays chairman Paul Grant inspiring many members of the audience to follow in their footsteps Exports are at the very heart of Scotland’s economy. Whether it’s salmon, soft fruit or whisky, there are few countries that don’t benefit in one way or another from the bounty that’s produced in our fields or our seas.

When it comes to heavy industry, our engineers have a proud history of cutting their teeth in the North Sea oil and gas sector before spreading out around the world, while our accountants, bankers and lawyers routinely travel the globe to sniff out the next big deal.

The strength of our nation’s international trade was celebrated on 23 March at the Hilton Hotel in Glasgow, when more than 400 guests gathered for the presentation of the 2016 HSBC Scottish Export Awards, in association with Scottish Enterprise. More than 100 companies entered the competition, which has now been running for the past three years, with the entrants turning over a combined £850m and exporting goods and services worth just under £500m in total.

Mark Easton, the BBC’s Glasgow-born home editor, highlighted some of the massive achievements that have been chalked up in recent years: a five-fold increase in the amount of cheese sold to France; a record £500m of salmon sold overseas; and the capturing of twothirds of the world’s langoustine market. “This is a country that sells a huge amount of fish – to the Japanese,” he said.

“This is a country that sells gallons of beer – to the Germans. And next year, after a ban that has lasted for four decades, Scottish haggis will be back on the plates of Americans.”

Food – and preserves in particular – were also the focus for keynote speaker Paul Grant, chairman of Mackays, the Arbroath-based jam and marmalade maker. Grant explained that Mackays had been launched by its eponymous founding family in 1938, but had eventually

2016 In association with

I N T E R N AT I O N A L T R A D E International Trade

“Encouraging more of this entrepreneurial spirit seen here tonight will help to rebalance the economy outside of London with direct benefits for Scotland.” passed into the hands of United Biscuits, where Grant was a senior executive.

Grant – who is no stranger to BQ Scotland, having featured in the magazine’s Business Lunch slot back in issue nine during autumn 2012 – bought Mackays from United Biscuits in 1995 and, over the past 20 years, has grown the company’s turnover from £1m to £17.5m. He explained that, when he bought the firm, half of its revenues came from a contract to supply the fruity centre for United’s Jammy Dodger biscuits and that he had to work hard to replace that business when it was inevitably moved elsewhere.

He told the audience how he had taken another

family-run business, Aberlour-based Walkers Shortbread, as his role model, playing on the traditional Scottish heritage of his product. Even after needing to expand his plant to a bigger site, Grant insisted that the company continue to make its marmalade using a time-honoured method in steam-heated copper pans.

Grant highlighted the sea-change in his business that came about in 2000 when he relaunched Mackays with see-through labels, allowing customers to admire the quality of the fruit in his products. The following year, he bought the Mrs Bridges brand, through which he sells preserves and marmalades to independent outlets, complementing the Mackays label,

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which is found in supermarkets and other multiple retailers.

Around 23% of Mackays’ revenues in 2015 came from exports, with about 23% of those sales coming from Northern Europe, 20% from Scandinavia, another 20% from North America, a further 20% from Asia, 7% from Southern Europe, and 5% from Australasia.

Mackays’ prowess with exports has been acknowledged twice with the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in International Trade, both in 2004 and again in 2012. Grant highlighted the benefits of being able to use the Queen’s Award logo on his marketing materials, especially overseas.

The business is now run by his son, Martin, who has ambitious plans to grow his turnover to £40m by 2025. Grant, meanwhile, has been involved with efforts to develop a national dairy brand for Scotland, which aims to help boost

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I N T E R N AT I O N A L T R A D E International Trade

sales both at home and abroad.

This year’s judging panel included: Neil Francis, director of international trade and investment operations at Scottish Enterprise; David Scott, deputy head of corporate at HSBC Scotland; and Jonathan Golby, sales and marketing director at last year’s Scottish Exporter of the Year, Peak Scientific. All of the judges commented on how impressed they were by the high standard of the entries and the sheer breadth and depth of the quality of the businesses that entered the competition.

Congratulating this year’s overall winner, Glasgow-based Think Analytics, Bryan Hoare, managing director of BQ, said: “Think Analytics is just one of a whole bunch of entrepreneurial Scottish exporters that we have seen enter the awards this year.

“We’ve been surprised by the depth and breadth of the entries and, in Think, we have found another first-class exporter that Scotland can hold high in its regard amongst many other businesses trading successfully overseas. These awards are all about inspiration – saying to businesses across Scotland you can do it too.”

Speaking after the event, Alison McGregor, chief executive of HSBC Scotland, added: “Tonight has been a celebration of some of our most talented businesses that are connecting Scotland to international opportunities.

“Encouraging more of this entrepreneurial spirit seen here tonight will help to rebalance the economy outside of London with direct benefits for Scotland. Think Analytics has a very bright future ahead and we hope more businesses will follow suit and expand internationally.” n

“Encouraging more of this entrepreneurial spirit seen here tonight will help to rebalance the economy outside of London with direct benefits for Scotland”

Winners of the Scottish Export Awards 2016 Sponsored By

Scottish Exporter of the year

WINNER: ThinkAnalytics

Large Exporter of the year Small Exporter of the year

Sponsored By

WINNER: Alba Power

John McGavigan – Highly Commended Sponsored By

Emerging Start-Up Exporter of the year Ecommerce Exporter of the year Scottish Export Team of the year Professional Service Adviser of the year Logistics Partner of the Year Most Entrepreneurial Exporter of the year

WINNER: Merlin ERD

Fathom Systems – Highly Commended

Sponsored By

in association with

Sponsored By

WINNER: Cheeky Chompers Chocolate and Love – Highly Commended

WINNER: SST Sensing TRTL – Highly Commended

Sponsored By

WINNER: Loch Duart Sports Labs – Highly Commended

Sponsored By

WINNER: Genoa Black

Sponsored By

WINNER: Bullet Express Sponsored By

WINNER: ThinkAnalytics

Highlander International – Highly Commended

WEDNESDAY 22 MARCH 2017

BQ is delighted to announce the fourth consecutive Scottish Export Awards and International Trade Campaign in association with Scottish Enterprise The Scottish Export Awards and International Trade Campaign in association with Scottish Enterprise bring together businesses from across Scotland to recognise and celebrate their entrepreneurial exporting achievements as well as encourage others to increase their export potential.

Exporting and international trade remain central to the Scottish government’s economic growth agenda and this campaign and export awards are about recognising those entrepreneurial, wealth creating companies that are selling their products, services and expertise in scores of overseas markets. It is vital that we appreciate and recognise those exporters who have made the transition from great local companies to potentially world class exporting businesses based in Scotland.

Exporting continues to present an opportunity for Scotland to bring immediate and sustainable growth to its economy and with this in mind we need to pass the baton to SMEs across

the country to consider exporting as a realistic opportunity for growth.

The event in 2016 generated 185 nominations from 102 Scottish exporters with 45 exporters shortlisted representing £500 million of export turnover from Scotland. The 2017 campaign will culminate with the awards evening to be held on 22nd March 2017 at the Glasgow Hilton.

The event will be the highlight of the international trade campaign that will see BQ promote exporting across its entire audience in Scotland, in print, online and across social media. Forthcoming editions of BQ magazine in Scotland will carry lead feature sections on international trade and the BQ Breakfast daily digital business update service will also reach out to Scotland’s exporters with a range of international trade initiatives including the regular “Around the World in 80 Trades” feature, showcasing the best of Scottish export activity online.

Nominations for the 2017 Scottish Export Awards in association with Scottish Enterprise are now open and you can enter FREE online at www.bqlive.co.uk/ScotExportAwards17

C AT E G O R I E S ECOMMERCE E X P O RT E R O F T H E Y E A R MOST ENTREPRENEURIAL E X P O RT E R O F T H E Y E A R M I C R O E X P O RT E R OF THE YEAR S M A L L E X P O RT E R OF THE YEAR L A R G E E X P O RT E R OF THE YEAR E X P O RT T E A M OF THE YEAR P R O F E S S I O N A L S E RV I C E ADVISER OF THE YEAR L O G I S T I C S PA RT N E R OF THE YEAR H I G H G R OW T H M A R K E T E X P O RT E R O F T H E Y E A R S C OT T I S H E X P O RT E R OF THE YEAR

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INTERNATIONAL TRADE bqlive.co.uk

The Celtic connection Ireland and Scotland share an extensive range of cultural ties and many Scottish companies are already making the most of the close trading links between the two nations Scotland’s cultural links with the Republic of Ireland run deep. From kilts, tartan and bagpipes to Gaelic, shinty and hurling, the two Celtic nations share common threads stretching back through many parts of their histories.

Those close links continue to this day. The latest statistics from the Scottish Government reveal that just over 4 per cent of all of Scotland’s exports – or £1.1 billion of goods and services – is exported to Ireland, making the country Scotland’s sixthlargest market behind only the United States, the distribution hub in the Netherlands, France, Germany and Norway.

Economic ties between the two nations look set to be strengthened by the launch at Edinburgh Castle in June of the Irish Business Network Scotland (IBNS), which aims to build relationships between individuals and companies within the two countries.

“Scottish exports to Ireland are worth around £1.1bn, while the turnover of Irish businesses here in Scotland is over £2.5bn, supporting nearly 6,000 jobs,” said Fiona Hyslop, Scotland’s cabinet secretary for culture, tourism and external affairs.

“The Scottish Government is pleased to welcome the development of the IBNS ‎to provide a way for

Robin Worsnop Rabbie’s businesses wanting to expand to tap into companies with experience already located in Scotland.”

The launch of the network came just a few months after the Scottish Government opened an innovation and investment hub at the British embassy in Dublin, back in January. Experienced diplomat John Webster has been appointed as the head of the new hub.

“We also welcome the close collaboration that has already begun between the IBNS and the Scottish Innovation and Investment Hub in Ireland, to ensure opportunities are developed for Scottish companies wanting to trade or invest in Ireland,” Hyslop added.

“It all made logical sense. It’s been very successful so we’ve grown it from there. Last year we got about 75 per cent growth in Ireland and this year we’re expecting a further 60-70 per cent”

One firm that’s already making the most of the close links with Ireland is Rabbie’s, the Edinburghbased mini-coach tour operator. The company began running trips in Ireland in 2011 as a pilot programme, with its Irish business having now grown to account for 5 per cent of its total turnover last year and a predicted 7 per cent this year.

“We started operating in Ireland because our customers kept asking us too,” explained chief executive Robin Worsnop, who founded Rabbie’s in 1993 and has grown the business to encompass 60 tour coaches that together bring in £9 million of revenues. “It was the Celtic connection – we have a lot of customers from the United States and Canada, and when they come over to Europe they will often want to visit both Scotland and Ireland.

“A lot of the tour operators that we work with sell trips to both Scotland and Ireland and so we could see an opportunity to offer them tours in both countries. Due to the 2008 global crisis – which affected the Eurozone’s tourism industry much more than the UK, because of the value of Sterling falling – we also found that there was an enormous hunger in Ireland from operators to work with us.

“The suppliers in Ireland were incredibly

INTERNATIONAL TRADE bqlive.co.uk

accommodating to us and so it was all straight forward. There had been an awful lot of investment in hotel stock in Ireland during the Noughties and so the prices we were getting on hotels of a similar quality to Scotland were fantastic.

“So it all made logical sense. It’s been very successful so we’ve grown it from there. Last year we got about 75 per cent growth in Ireland and this year we’re expecting a further 60-70 per cent.”

Worsnop – who is also chair of the Edinburgh Tourism Action Group and chairman of Edinburghbased food company Mara Seaweed – is now mulling over plans to open a permanent office in Ireland to help grow his business in the market. Rabbie’s works with a partner in Ireland, which delivers its programme of tours.

“One of the great things about doing business in Ireland is that we share a common language,” says Worsnop. “There’s also a lot of commonality with the legislation. The tax regime is similar. You can look at companies on the Irish version of Companies House.

So there’s lots of familiar ways of doing things.

“I think the Irish have a lot more of a ‘can do’ attitude when it comes to working with us – often more than we find when we’re looking for partners in the UK. There’s a sense of appreciation of tourism in Ireland that’s deeply-rooted in their culture of offering welcome and friendliness. We find working in Ireland is a fantastic experience.”

Worsnop’s top tip for companies that are thinking about trading in Ireland is to go and visit potential

partners. “You can’t beat meeting the people you’re going to be doing business with face-to-face and getting to know them,” he says. “You need to get over there and understand the way they tick.

“I think that doing business in Ireland is closer to doing business in the UK than in any other country.

In the past, I set up in Barcelona and that was incredibly complex and really hard work getting my head around all the differences and the way they operate – some of them downright disruptive.

That’s not the case in Ireland.” n

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Business opportunities in Ireland Ireland is an ideal first step market for Scottish firms looking to grow beyond the domestic market. Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise will be hosting a series of free events to help Scottish small and mediumsized enterprises (SMEs) explore trade opportunities with Ireland – providing the right connections, market insight and expert advice. Learn how the new Scottish innovation and investment hub, launched in Dublin earlier this year, can support your business. Plus meet market experts including export advisers, Enterprise Europe Network, GlobalScot and like-minded Scottish firms already trading successfully in Ireland.

WHEN? Inverness 13 September – Book now at www.hie.co.uk/about-hie/events Glasgow 14 September – Book now at www.scottish-enterprise.com/events

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INTERNATIONAL TRADE International Trade

Sometimes the very thing that you’re looking for is right under your nose. For Eddie Young, that thing was Think Analytics, the Glasgow-based technology developer that has provided real-time personalised content recommendations for Sky, Virgin Media and other big-name television companies.

But Think Analytics looked completely different when Young came across it. The business had been founded in 1995 by University of Strathclyde graduates focused on real-time predictive analytics and embedding intelligence into applications. It was way ahead of the time.

When Young discovered the company, it was part of Gentia, an American technology outfit. But Young could see that Gentia was in financial difficulties and so he spotted an opportunity.

“We’d come across Think Analytics and we liked what the company was doing,” remembers Young. “We thought it was an American company at first because we were dealing with its staff in Boston.

“But then we found out that its development team – the beating heart of the business – was based here in Glasgow. Its developers were sitting in an office just a few streets away from us in Charing Cross.

“Along with the management team, I made an offer for Think Analytics and took the business private in 2001.”

Young was no stranger to the world of computing. He left IBM in 1990 to establish ACS, an information technology (IT) consultancy that he grew over the following 16 years to become one of the largest independent

(l-r) Neil Francis, Scottish Enterprise, Alison McGregor, HSBC Scotland and BQ’s Scottish Exporter of the Year, Eddie Young, Think Analytics

Microsoft partners in the UK and Europe. He sold the business to Dell in 2006.

During its first incarnation under Young’s leadership, Think Analytics provided software for call centres, helping mobile phone companies like Orange, T-Mobile, Virgin and Vodafone to offer their customers the right deals.

“Our software would look at the customer’s value and usage and interpret from the interaction on the call and determine the next best or optimum action to keep that customer loyal. It would show the call centre operative which deal to offer the customer. This was at the height of the mobile phone boom and it saved companies tens of millions of pounds by enabling them to offer the right handsets at the right offer to the right customers.”

From telecommunications, Think Analytics then moved into the fledgling media market for personalised content in 2005, with television companies Sky and Virgin Media among its first customers. The company’s software can look at a customer’s viewing habits and then come-up with recommendations for other programmes that the customer may enjoy. There is now a wealth of content from multiple sources but it is difficult for the viewer to find it easily.

“We’re like Google but for television,” smiles Young. “If you go on the internet then you begin by searching for something, but watching TV is much more passive, laid-back experience – in effect you’re sitting there and saying ‘Show me something that I’m going to enjoy’. We can do that in a very subtle and effective, nonintrusive way.”

The technology works across a wide variety of platforms, from set-top boxes and internet catch-up services all the way through to tablet computers and smart phones. The software is now available in more than 40 countries and in 32 languages, including Hindi and Mandarin.

More than 70 companies now use Think Analytics’ technology, with in excess of 170 million subscribers worldwide benefiting from its recommendations. Last year the firm signed-up a further 12 clients, including Astro Malaysia, New York-listed CenturyLink, and PCCW in Hong Kong. The business has grown to have around 80 staff spread across its sites in Glasgow, London, Los Angeles in the United States, Pune in India, Sao Paulo in Brazil, and Singapore. “Our revenues grew by 50% last year and are now measured in the tens of millions,” says Young.

The sun always shines on TV Think Analytics was crowned Scottish Exporter of the Year at the HSBC Scottish Export Awards in association with Scottish Enterprise.

BQ Scotland editor Peter Ranscombe caught up with chairman Eddie Young to find out what the prize means to the company

INTERNATIONAL TRADE International Trade

“We’re not going to be the next Scottish unicorn, but we’ve continually grown the business profitably and that’s been very important to us. With the decision to be a private company with no venture capital funding, the first four-to-six years were really tough and there were two or three times when the business could have gone bust. But we’re experienced business people as well as technical and we know how to ride out the tough times and manage the cash.

“In the next two or three years, I think we’ll have grown the company into a $100m-plus business.

I could see us floating the business on the stock market – probably in London rather than on the Nasdaq in New York because its costs have risen so much in recent years.”

Think Analytics won both the ‘Most Entrepreneurial Exporter of the Year’ title and the overall prize for ‘Scottish Exporter of the Year’ during the HSBC Scottish Export Awards

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in association with Scottish Enterprise. But those aren’t the only pieces of silverware in the company’s trophy cabinet.

Back in 2014, the company was presented with an ‘Emmy Award for Technology & Engineering’ from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. In his acceptance speech, Young told his American audience that the US did not invent the television, but that Scottish innovator John Logie Baird had created the mechanical television and so it was high-time that a trophy was heading back over to his side of the Atlantic.

When he’s not flying around the world to visit Think Analytics’ far-flung offices, Young is a music fan and enjoys Led Zeppelin, AC/ DC, and Foo Fighters, “I’ve benefited from our technology as much as anyone else – the TV lets me know where and when they are on,” he laughs.

“There was a Neil Young concert on Sky Arts and our technology told me about it. I’d never even heard of Sky Arts – it’s two or three pages further on in the TV guide than the sports channels that I usually watch. When you’ve got 500 or 600 channels to choose from then you need that sort of help to find things. Simple really.” n

“In effect you’re sitting there and saying ‘Show me something that I’m going to enjoy’. We can do that in a very subtle and effective, non-intrusive way”

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E N T R E P R E N E U R I A L S PA R K Media Partnership

Igniting the spark in India Entrepreneurial Spark will soon have 13 incubation centres in the UK, but the organisation has also been spreading its wings further afield to India, as founder Jim Duffy explains

Since it was launched in 2011, Entrepreneurial Spark has grown to become the world’s largest free business accelerator programme. When the organisation opens its base in London in February 2017, it will have swelled to encompass 13 incubation centres – or ‘hatcheries’ – spread throughout the UK. By the start of this year, a total of 660 businesses had been supported by the scheme, with 88% of them still trading. Between them, they’ve raised £45m of investment, have combined revenues of £85m and employ just over 1,800 people.

While the expansion from its heartland in Scotland to locations south of the Border has grabbed all of the headlines, founder Jim Duffy and his team have been very quietly mounting an international expansion too. In June 2015, the scheme took its first tentative steps into India.

So far, the organisation has hatcheries in the city of Gandhinagar in the state of Gujarat and in the city of Greater Noida on the outskirts of New Delhi, with plans for a third site that could open later this year.

Options include the city of Bangalore, which Duffy describes as a hotbed for start-ups, or a location in the north of the country.

The expansion into India has been conducted in partnership with Viridian Ventures, the investment arm of the eponymous New Delhi-based property

group. “Viridian looked around the world for an accelerator programme that they could bring to India,” explains Duffy.

“PWC, which was one of Viridian’s advisors in Singapore, suggested that they should speak to us, because PWC had been involved with Entrepreneurial Spark in Scotland. So our partnership with Viridian in India is similar to our partnership with Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Group and its RBS and NatWest brands in the UK. “We’re taking things slow and refining the model in India to make sure that we get it right. We use a slightly different model in India – whereas we take 80 companies or ‘chiclets’ at a time in the UK on courses that last for up to 18 months, in India we’re taking 10 to 15 companies during each in-take.

“Our model is very different to anything that the Indians have experienced. In India, business is very hierarchical – you don’t question your boss. So when me or one of the advisors is sitting down with an Indian entrepreneur and questioning them about their idea then it’s very alien to them.

“So we’re testing to see how far we can push it. Some of the companies just don’t like it because they’re being questioned on their leadership and they’re being questioned on their emotional intelligence.

“The way Indian entrepreneurs are at the moment, they all think that if they come up with a tech or

“If you don’t have the right partner to work with in India then you’re just going to get tied-up in knots and get lost in all of the red tape. The bureaucracy is phenomenal” ecommerce idea then it’s immediately going to have a valuation of $3m,” Duffy adds. “So we have to explain to them that those ideas are pie-in-the-sky.

“You can build a business in the Indian market for Indian investors and Indian consumers – there are 1.2 billion of them and at least a couple of hundred million with access to wifi, so that’s four-times the UK population – or you can build a business with a view to getting early traction in India but then growing it in other countries.”

Duffy points to the example of Flipkart, the online shopping portal, which has been compared to American giant Amazon. “All of the Indian entrepreneurs that we speak to want to build the next Flipkart,” he laughs.

Starting a business in India also involves much more formal non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) than in the UK, highlighting another way in which Entrepreneurial Spark has had to tailor its

E N T R E P R E N E U R I A L S PA R K Media Partnership

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EMC signs up as latest Entrepreneurial Spark partner

operations to suit the local market. The scale of the operation in India is also a key difference.

“We currently have nine hatcheries in the UK and we’ll have 13 by next spring,” says Duffy. “I’m based in Glasgow, which is only an hour from Ayrshire, an hour from Edinburgh, or a two-and-a-half hour drive to Leeds, and I can jump on a plane and be in London in, say, an hour.

“So if something goes wrong in one of the hatcheries then I can get there quickly. In India, the hatcheries are 400 miles away from each other – so that’s a day’s travel.”

Other differences between the hatcheries in the UK and India include the number of male entrepreneurs on the sub-continent. While the gender split is about 50-50 in the UK, in India around 80% of the entrepreneurs are male.

“There’s also a difference in the type of businesses that people want to start in India,” adds Duffy.

“There’s a big emphasis on technology businesses and so the entrepreneurs are heavily geared towards securing investment. In the UK, it’s a much wider spread.”

One of the big similarities between the two cultures is the number of grass-roots entrepreneurs who want their businesses to have a social as well as an economic impact. Duffy says Viridian was attracted to working with Entrepreneurial Spark because the

organisation is structured as a social enterprise and has always placed a heavy emphasis on the social impact of its chiclets.

Duffy and his team – who have been approached about opening hatcheries in other countries too – have also been learning lessons about the business culture in India, which will help any of his British chiclets that want to trade with the sub-continent.

“If you want to do business in India then you need the right partner on the ground,” he says.

“If you don’t have the right partner to work with in India then you’re just going to get tied-up in knots and get lost in all of the red tape. The bureaucracy is phenomenal.

“But, as a nation, they are naturally entrepreneurial.

They have no welfare state so they have to create their own jobs. You still see the chai wallahs on the streets selling tea. As a country, over the next ten years, if they get the structures right then they could be a powerhouse. They have the appetite for it, so just watch them go.” n

For further information visit www.entrepreneurial-spark.com

EMC, the New York-listed information technology (IT) company, has become the latest partner for Entrepreneurial Spark, the world’s largest free business accelerator programme.

The company joins Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Group’s RBS and Natwest brands and accountancy firm KPMG as partners for the scheme.

EMC will offer coaching, mentoring and training about technology to help entrepreneurs start and scale-up their businesses.

“This is a great opportunity to combine the talent from established companies like EMC and new start-ups to help encourage business growth and innovation in the UK,” says Ross Fraser, vice president and managing director of EMC’s operations in the UK and Ireland.

“We want to help share advice which we’ve learnt over the past 35 years, and inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs.

“This is particularly key in an environment where digital technology is forming the life-blood of a new generation of businesses.

“We look forward to the further expansion of the partnership across the UK over the course of this year.”

Jim Duffy, founder and chief executive optimist at Entrepreneurial Spark, added: “I’m ecstatic to have EMC on board as we create the UK’s largest tech accelerator.

“Our focus is on building the mindset and behaviours of an entrepreneur by focusing their mind, putting them into an environment that pushes their comfort zone, and providing sessions that challenge their thinking.

“EMC’s resources and insights will be incredibly valuable to the start-up and entrepreneur community in the months and years ahead.”

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BUSINESS LUNCH bqlive.co.uk

It’s a sunny day in Glasgow and Sandy Kennedy, chief executive of Entrepreneurial Scotland, has a spring in his step. Barely has he sat down to lunch in The Finnieston – one of his members’, Kained Holdings’, outlets – and he’s using words like “positive”, “innovative”, “inspirational” and “exciting” to describe the world of business north of the Border.

“Take this place as an example,” he says.

“Kained Holdings is securing a niche for itself in the hospitality industry through its focus on quality, great customer service and great food – seafood in the case of The Finnieston. The owners have done their market research and created a great concept that adds interest and something a little different in a busy marketplace – and they’re helping put the Finnieston area itself back on the map.”

Kennedy chooses hand-dived Tarbert scallops – which he insists on sharing because “they’re so good” – followed by fish and chips featuring coley, the market fish of day. Kained Holdings operations director Scott Arnot, a member of Entrepreneurial Scotland’s Exchange network, then pops over to say hello, talking about the previous week’s Entrepreneurial Scotland annual conference at Gleneagles – he admits to being “hugely inspired” by the experience.

The conference attracted 280-plus delegates and was Entrepreneurial Scotland’s biggest for 10 years. Big-hitting speakers included former professional basketball player Bill Aulet, now senior lecturer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and managing director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, plus a raft of top business leaders ranging from Brian Duffy, past-president of Ralph Lauren Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA), through to Jim McColl of Clyde Blowers and Entrepreneurial Scotland chairman Chris van der Kuyl of 4J Studios.

It’s not often that such a stellar line-up of entrepreneurs gathers under the same roof but the support for the event was indicative of the confidence in Entrepreneurial Scotland, which has continued to evolve since its creation following the merger of two of Scotland’s driving forces in talent creation and entrepreneurship, the Saltire Foundation and the Entrepreneurial Exchange. It was the perfect environment for an ambitious company like Kained Holdings.

“What it has given us is an organisation with

Learning from each other’s mistakes As chief executive at membership body Entrepreneurial Scotland, Sandy Kennedy knows a thing or two about scale-ups.

Journalist Karen Peattie picked his brains over lunch at The Finnieston in Glasgow

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“Kained Holdings is securing a niche for itself in the hospitality industry through its focus on quality, great customer service and great food�

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more than 1,000 members – our Exchange network alone has around 400 members – representing in excess of £17bn of turnover and employing around 150,000 people,” Kennedy points out. “There’s so much talent and innovation across all business sectors but we need to help these young companies scale up and the people who have been there and are at the top of their game are in the ideal position to nurture that talent and help them on the next stage of their journey.”

As any entrepreneur will tell you there’s much more to success than coming up with a good business idea. Kennedy says, “I’ve yet to meet an entrepreneur who hasn’t made mistakes and scale-ups need to hear about what’s gone wrong as well the success stories.

“We heard at the conference in April from our chairman Chris van der Kuyl, who said that Scotland is great at start-ups but not so good at world-class scale-ups and this is what’s behind the new Fellows of Entrepreneurial Scotland initiative we’ve set up to help established businesses that are well past the start-up stage and looking to move up to the next level.”

The first cohort a 17-strong group of Scotland’s leading entrepreneurs has pledged to further assist growth businesses across all sectors of the economy and society. Ann Gloag, Ann Budge, Bob Keiller, Sir Tom Hunter and Jim McColl are among its members who will adopt an active role as ambassadors for Entrepreneurial Scotland.

“It’s about sharing experiences and demonstrating how their particular styles of leadership skills have worked for them,” Kennedy explains. “Clearly, we want to inspire these growth companies because these are our future industry leaders.

“But you need to place yourself in an environment where you can meet people who can share their experiences with you,” he points out. “We all have our view on ‘networking’ but you only need to meet one person at a conference who says something that resonates or hear one speaker who particularly inspires you and that day spent out of your business has been worth it.”

But it works both ways, suggests Kennedy. “Our most successful business leaders will tell you they’re on a never-ending journey – they never stop learning and their hunger for knowledge remains voracious. So, while they’re on a mission

“I’ve yet to meet an entrepreneur who hasn’t made mistakes and scaleups need to hear about what’s gone wrong as well the success stories” to identify and nurture future talent, they’re also keen to pick up hints and tips along the way”.

Kennedy describes Entrepreneurial Scotland as a world-class business network. “This bigger, stronger organisation means we have more clout and stature – and I would point out that we’re not just here for the private sector,” says Kennedy. “We are here to help all those who have an entrepreneurial mindset so we need to hear the experiences of those running publicsector organisations, too.”

The recent conference, for example, gave a platform to Steve Dunlop, chief executive of Scottish Canals, whose commitment to making his organisation successful and taking it to the next level “rivals that of our highest-profile entrepreneurs”, according to Kennedy. “You listen to someone like that who doesn’t own the business but has the passion, determination and foresight to keep pushing it forward – that’s really inspiring.”

One of its most successful projects – the Falkirk Wheel, the world’s only rotating boat lift – is to undergo a £1m improvement programme to upgrade and develop new visitor experiences.

More than 600,000 people visited the Falkirk Wheel in 2015, making it Scotland’s busiest

tourist attraction outside a city.

“The more experiences we can share from as wide a cross-section of business people the better,” Kennedy believes. “Running any business can be lonely at times and we have a great number of people with a massive amount of experience who are willing to engage with individuals who want to listen. But that’s the important thing – someone has to want to get involved and expose themselves to that experience. Listening to other people is so important in business.”

And it’s certainly not about ego. “These topflight entrepreneurs may command column inches on the business pages but they continue to face challenges as they develop their own companies – yet they’re still prepared to give up their time to help others. They genuinely care and they recognise they have a role to play in influencing the next generation – they want to give something back.”

While entrepreneurs are regularly called upon to tell their business stories, it is often those at the growth stage who are best at engaging with young people embarking on their career.

“Imagine you’re at school,” says Kennedy. “You don’t really know what you want to do but you

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know you want to do something great. So when a former pupil who is a Saltire Scholar and is maybe just five or six years older than you comes back to speak to you – that’s very powerful and very persuasive. We need to build more peer engagement.”

He points to the Saltire Foundation, founded by the renowned GlobalScot network, as a key contributor to Scotland’s future economic growth, comparing a Saltire Scholarship to a Rhodes Scholarship, widely viewed as the most prestigious international scholarship programme in the world. “Everyone involved is extremely proud that the programme’s grown to become considered as a blue riband among scholarships,” he says.

“We’re in this great position where members of Entrepreneurial Scotland can access talent from the Future Leaders network and vice versa. We can identify the expertise our businesses need and use the raw talent that comes up through the Saltire programmes and also tap into the GlobalScot network – it’s really exciting.”

Kennedy himself was brought up in an entrepreneurial household, started working in his family’s dry-cleaning and photo shop business in Lanarkshire at the age of 14, and picking up some early skills that would hold him in good stead later on. “I learned about humility and being respectful to people and about working hard,” he said. “I found myself in a customer-facing environment with people who were much more experienced than me but there was no special treatment for me because I was the boss’s son.”

After graduating from the University of Cambridge and qualifying as a lawyer with a London firm specialising in private equity, Kennedy joined venture capitalist 3i. In 2000, he won the Chris Hill Prize for being the best overall master of business administration (MBA) student at the University of Strathclyde’s business school, later using his commercial background to start up his family’s Bowie Castlebank Group.

The business – which experienced rapid growth and, at one point, had 600-plus UK-wide retail outlets trading as Klick Photopoint and Max Spielmann, and provided off-site photoprocessing services for Tesco – fell victim to the advent of digital photography. “We had to shut a lot of shops but managed to get back into sales growth,” says Kennedy.

“Then the credit crunch hit and the rest is

history. We had more than 3,000 employees and it was a tough time. But, at the end of the day, we were able to look everyone in the eye in the knowledge we’d acted with the utmost integrity and done our very best.

“It was upsetting saying goodbye to a family business that had been there for generations but everyone rallied and there was a bit of the Dunkirk spirit in those final stages,” he recalls. “I always feel empathy for a business that’s going through a tough time because I’ve been there.”

Kennedy’s own experience of seeing his business go into administration made him realise that his own personal network of contacts was “rubbish”. “I didn’t really know what I was going to do,” he admits. “I didn’t know who to contact. I was then approached by Crawford Gillies, who was chairman of Scottish Enterprise, to consider leading the Saltire Foundation. That was in 2009 and it’s been an amazing journey.”

Becoming chief executive of Entrepreneurial

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Scotland in 2014 with the merger of the Entrepreneurial Exchange and the Saltire Foundation, Kennedy has since forged stronger relationships with other business groups and sits on the advisory boards for the Scottish Edge Fund, the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship, MIT Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program (REAP) and Social Investment Scotland.

Who does Kennedy admire in business? “So many people, but Mike Loggie of Saltire Energy in Aberdeen was Entrepreneurial Scotland’s Entrepreneur of the Year in 2015 and he has continued to invest during the downturn in the oil and gas industry, choosing to reach out and seize opportunities that others will miss out on because they’re scaling back because of the perceived risk,” he says.

“Mike believes it is more risky to follow the crowd and that is a very compelling rationale – and a truly entrepreneurial spirit that we can all learn from.” n

The Finnieston The Finnieston is part of Kained Holdings, the independent Glasgow-based bar and restaurant group that also owns Lebowskis, Porter & Rye, The Crafty Pig and So, What Comes Next?

Renowned for its fresh seafood, which is sustainable, the award-winning bar and restaurant opened in the oldest building on Argyle Street – in the 18th century it was a drovers’ tavern – in September 2011. As well as its food, The Finnieston has gained a reputation for its selection of gins and cocktails. With the emphasis on its quality food and friendly, laid-back atmosphere that fits in well with the Finnieston area’s vibe – its regeneration has seen it become a magnet for foodies. The Finnieston attracts a broad mix of customers, from locals and those seeking to experience the hospitality scene outwith the city centre. Managing director Graham Suttle won the BQ Emerging Entrepreneur Award for Scotland in February. Along with fellow directors Scott Arnot and Mo Clark, his vision is to adhere to the firm’s core values of honesty, continuous development and community. So, What Comes Next? is the former Crosslands pub in Glasgow’s West End, which featured in the famous scene in the movie Trainspotting where Robert Carlyle’s hardman character Francis Begbie throws a glass from a balcony, causing a riot.

The Finnieston, 1125 Argyle Street, Finnieston, Glasgow, G3 8ND, www.thefinniestonbar.com

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L AWRENCE ON WINE bqlive.co.uk

Getting in the mood for a barbecue On a rare sunny weekend, Wayne Lawrence – head of law firm DWF’s Edinburgh office – fired up his barbecue to put two Spanish wines through their paces As luck would have it, the weekend that I was asked to review these two wines was one of the very few over the spring when it was sunny and warm enough to sit in the garden for a few hours in the early evening with my children and drink a nice glass or two of white wine before lighting the barbecue and moving on to the red.

Although I like both these styles of wine – Albarino and Rioja – I hadn’t tried either of the two particular bottles before, but I knew I was in for a treat. I’ve bought wine from Richard Meadows at Great Grog in the past and so I knew I could trust his palate.

I tend to always start an evening – I hasten to add at weekends and not every night – by ‘warming up’ with a glass or two of white wine before moving on to a red. Over the past few years, I’ve tended to be quite ‘safe’ and drink mainly white Burgundy but three or four years ago I was introduced to Albarino by a friend and it has been on the list ever since.

Albarino is the main grape grown in the Rias Baixas region in the north-west of Spain, a beautiful, lush, green place where it tends to rain a lot – sounds familiar. Albarino tends to be a surprisingly fresh white from a country better known for its reds and it tastes of peaches, grapefruit and, as the glass warms in your hand, it also develops a light floral quality.

The Alba Vega Albarino 2015 that I sampled was excellent and had all of those qualities.

The wine was clean and smooth and very easy to drink on its own – although I am sure that if

my culinary skills were any better I might have rustled up some scallops or other seafood dish to accompany the wine. I had no such challenge on the red. The barbecue was now in full swing and the steaks were about to touch the grill plate for a minute or two. Richard at Great Grog helped me choose the Rioja that I was to review and the Rioja Vega Gran Reserva 2009 was fantastic. I am a bit of a Rioja fan and this wine was certainly not going to do anything to change that. This particular wine was chosen at a blind tasting by the regulatory council of Rioja to represent the region at institutional events in Spain and abroad throughout 2015. Given the importance of its reputation in maintaining the ‘Rioja’ name, this is a prestigious honour for any wine. It did not disappoint.

This wine is made using Tempranillo, Graciano and Mazuelo grape varieties – it was intense but at the same time very smooth and easy – possibly too easy – to drink.

I have already been in touch with Richard to buy a case of both wines in anticipation of a good Scottish summer and a few more Saturday evenings in the garden. n Wayne Lawrence is head of law firm DWF’s Edinburgh office. Thanks to Richard Meadows at Great Grog, 17 East Cromwell Street, Edinburgh, EH6 6HD, for supplying the Vega Alba Albarino 2015 (£9.49) and the Rioja Vega Gran Reserva 2009 (£16.99).

Find out more at www.greatgrog.co.uk

“I am a bit of a Rioja fan and this wine was certainly not going to do anything to change that�

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MOTORING bqlive.co.uk

She’s electric I love speed. I love motorbikes. And I love sidecar racing. My husband had been into the sport for a long time and back in 2009 he took me down to Oulton Park to watch sidecar racing. I’d been to the circuit when I lived near Chester to see the British Touring Car Championship, but I’d never watched sidecar racing before.

I was hooked straight away. We went to watch sidecar racing again at Mallory Park the next day and then the following weekend we bought our first motorbike and sidecar to race, ready for the following season. We practiced at Llandow circuit in South Wales the following February because you don’t need a racing licence to use its track and then the following month I made my racing debut at Brands Hatch. We’ve raced at most of the British circuits over the years, including Donnington and Silverstone, but these days a lack of time means we tend to just race at Scottish tracks.

That love of speed has stayed with me though.

Even when I was driving on the road, I would want to make progress – I’d be watching the revs flick up to the red, working my way up through the gears.

But then along came the Mitsubishi Outlander plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV). You know a car is something special when it changes the way that you drive. We bought an Outlander as our family car last December – my husband took me to a showroom to see another car but it was the Outlander that caught my eye. I loved the design – it’s a really good-looking vehicle – and I loved the concept of the hybrid system, which means you can plug it into the mains to charge the battery or you can recharge it as you drive.

Let’s face it, most of us want a car that we know will be a workhorse. Being a Mitsubishi, I knew it would be safe and sturdy, which is what I wanted and what I needed for taking my three children to Scouts, football practice and all the other duties as mum’s taxi service. I needed something with a big boot too. The Outlander ticked all of those boxes for me and it looked good at the same time, going head-to-head with the equivalents from Audi or BMW. I also like what Mitsubishi is doing in terms of watching the car’s carbon footprint – it produces just 42 grams of carbon dioxide-equivalent per kilometre it travels and its eye-catching headline fuel economy figure is 156 miles per gallon.

“You know a car is something special when it changes the way that you drive”

MOTORING bqlive.co.uk

As manging director of Ayrshire-based waste management firm KCP, Wendy Pring knows a thing or two about science and engineering, so she was the ideal driver to put Mitsubishi’s latest hybrid through its paces

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“Outlander may have changed my driving style, but the thought of a spoiler appeals to the speed-freak in me”

I think that all the big car brands should have a model in their range that includes a hybrid option.

Living with the car for the past six months has really changed my driving style. Instead of watching the revs, I’m now watching the performance of the battery, making sure that I can eek out as many miles as I can from a full charge. I tend to fly now for business, so the car is mainly for my local ‘mum’ journeys.

I’ve regularly been getting more than 20 miles from a single charge and – now that the winter has ended and I can turn off the heating – I’m aiming to get it up to the magic 32-mile mark that Mitsubishi calculates it can hit in electricvehicle mode.

My passengers have noticed it too – when I give my husband a lift now, he comments on how smooth my driving has become, especially

through the corners. I laugh and tell him that it’s not his comfort I’m thinking of, but my mileage.

Having driven our 2015 Outlander, I was really interested to get behind the wheel of the 2016 model. Under the skin, the technology is just the same, but the aesthetics in the cabin have been upgraded. I took my mum and daughter for a spin around Glasgow, out to the Erskine Bridge and then back into the West End. My mum loved the seats and reckoned they were more comfortable and padded than in our car.

Being an engineer, the technology in the Outlander really appeals to me. I studied civil engineering at university and became a chartered engineer with the Institute of Civil Engineers and I’m preparing to apply for my fellowship. Engineering underpins all of the work we do with KCP, handling waste materials for clients and using our technological knowhow to solve problems for them.

Although it was a warm day when I took it out for a test drive, I know that the heated steering wheel would be a real bonus in the winter.

Pieces of technology like that can make a real difference for drivers.

One innovation that I found really useful was the assisted parking system. Without resorting to stereotypes about women drivers, I hate parallel parking – I’d always prefer to reverse-park or pull-in nose first. What made the 2016 Outlander really interesting was its 360-degree parking-assist – so instead of just having cameras at the back, it gave a view on its console screen of everything around the vehicle and overlaid guide-lines so you knew when to make your turns for parallel parking.

Returning the car to the showroom after the test drive, something else caught my eye. The top-of-the-range Outlander PHEV GX5 comes with two-tone Nappa leather and a spoiler. The Outlander may have changed my driving style, but the thought of a spoiler appeals to the speed-freak in me. Perhaps we won’t be waiting the usual three years before we upgrade. n Wendy Pring is managing director of KCP, a Cumnock-based specialist in waste management, material transfer and environmental maintenance.

The car Wendy drove was a Mitsubishi Outlander plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV), starting from £36,004 on the road.

Supplied by Park’s Mitsubishi, Coatbridge, ML5 4RX, 01236 352029.

MITSUBISHI OUTLANDER PHEV

SAVE £10,000 OVER 3 YEARS ON YOUR COMPANY CAR. With luxuriously smooth driving dynamics, the intelligent Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV decides when it’s more efficient to use petrol or electricity, giving it the ability to deliver a staggering 156mpg1. With ultra-low CO2 emissions the Outlander PHEV is exempt from Road Tax and the London Congestion Charge2 – as well as being eligible for drastically reduced Benefit in Kind taxation. Business users will only pay 7% Benefit in Kind rather than the 25+% that most pay, saving an average of over £10,000 over 3 years3. There’s even £2,500 off the list price through the Government Plug-in Car Grant4 and, for a limited time only, we’re matching this with a £2,500 deposit contribution5. We call this Intelligent Motion.

£2,500 DEPOSIT CONTRIBUTION 5

0% APR REPRESENTATIVE 12 Months / 50% Deposit6

FROM £31,749 - £42,999 Including £2,500 Government Plug-in Car Grant4

PARK’S MITSUBISHI Acts as a credit broker and not a lender

Book a test drive

232 Whifflet Street, Coatbridge ML5 4RX 01236 468610 parks.uk.com/mitsubishi 1. Official EU MPG test figure shown as a guide for comparative purposes and is based on the vehicle being charged from mains electricity. This may not reflect real driving results.

2. Congestion Charge application required, subject to administrative fee. 3. Outlander PHEV GX4h compared with Honda CR-V EX, BMW X3 Xdrive SE, Audi Q5 S-Line Plus and Mercedes E-Class E250 SE Auto - average saving £5,714pa for a 40% tax payer. The savings for business drivers with a company fuel card are higher. Class 1a NI only payable on 7% of list price compared to 25%+ average. 7% BIK rate for the 2016/17 tax year. 4. Prices shown include the Government Plug-in Car Grant and VAT (at 20%), but exclude First Registration Fee. Model shown is an Outlander PHEV GX4hs at £38,499 including the Government Plug-in Car Grant. On The Road prices range from £31,804 to £43,054 and include VED, First Registration Fee and the Government Plug-in Car Grant. Metallic/pearlescent paint extra. Prices correct at time of going to print. For more information about the Government Plug-in Car Grant please visit www.gov.uk/plug-in-car-van-grants. The Government Plug-in Car Grant is subject to change at any time, without prior notice. 5. The £2,500 (inc VAT) deposit contribution can only be used towards a finance option through Shogun Finance Ltd. 6. The 0% APR Representative Hire Purchase Finance plan requires a 50% deposit and is over 12 months, it is only available through Shogun Finance Ltd T/A Finance Mitsubishi, 116 Cockfosters Road, Barnet, EN4 0DY and is subject to status to UK resident customers aged 18 and over. Finance Mitsubishi is part of Lloyds Banking Group. Offer is only applicable in the UK (excludes Channel Islands & I.O.M), subject to availability, whilst stocks last and may be amended or withdrawn at any time. Offer available between 20th June and 28th September 2016. Park’s of Hamilton (Townhead Garage) Limited is an Appointed Representative of Park’s of Hamilton (Holdings) Limited, FRN 308476 of 14 Bothwell Road, Hamilton, ML3 0AY, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Park’s of Hamilton (Holdings) Limited permitted business is Insurance Mediation and to act as a Credit Broker. We can introduce you to a limited number of finance providers to assist with your purchase, who may remunerate us for introducing you to them.

Outlander PHEV range fuel consumption in mpg (ltrs/100km): Full Battery Charge: no fuel used, Depleted Battery Charge: 51.4mpg (5.5), Weighted Average: 156.9mpg (1.8), CO2 emissions: 42 g/km.

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In an age of digital innovation swiss watch makers are finding new ways to make a statement and grab the consumers attention, as we report

Watches for our time “In this often gloomy world I think it’s important to put a smile on the customer’s face,” says Jean-Marc Pontrou, the CEO of Roger Dubuis. “We’re here to provide emotions. We’re in the love business, the gift business - even if that gift is to yourself.”

Many in the Swiss watch industry will acknowledge the functional outdatedness of the mechanical watch in the light of smart-phones. Few will stress just how much success in that industry is about getting people excited. “The fact is that you need to make a statement,” Pontrou adds. “People may like it.

They might not like it. But they remember it.”

That may be all the more important seeing as, Pontrou predicts, there is something of a cull among watch brands on the way: Switzerland has some 700 of them, relative to just 12 major car manufacturing groups, he notes. “We can’t forget that the last 10 years have been exceptional ones for the business,” he adds.

Perhaps this is why Roger Dubuis, like many of the companies unveiling wares at this year’s Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie in Geneva - the high-end watch world’s catwalk shows - has taken such distinctive position: in its case by focusing on watches for women. And not the usual scaleddown men’s watches: dials with flowers and leaves in laser-cut

enamel, models inspired by the Chanel-owned shoemaker Massaro, even ones with the first diamonds set in carbon and super-rare Paraiba diamonds at that - all feature in the collection.

Certainly, while SIHH offered up some trends, as far as watches at this end of the market follow trends - yellow gold and skeleton dials most notably - many watchmakers have gone out of their way to be stylistically or mechanically inventive. Richard Mille’s RM 50-02, for example, sees the company team up with Airbus to make, fittingly, its most streamlined model to date, with the case made from the same alloy used to make Airbus’s turbine blades and screws holding the watch together the same as those used to hold the airframe together.

Audemars Piguet, meanwhile, has now launched a production version of its patented Royal Oak Super Sonniere minute repeater, just a year after it unveiled the concept: it uses the science of instrument making, including a sound board, to produce a watch with a chime 10 times louder than anything on the market to date and cleverly circumventing the typical problems suffered by minute repeaters, notably a tinny sound deadened by being on someone’s wrist.

“We have historic legitimacy in the making of minute

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repeaters - lots of companies have introduced one over the last five years - but still we knew we had to make a strong statement in this area to really re-think how a modern minute repeater might work,” explains Olivier Audemars, head of the company’s R&D. “We spent a lot of time talking with physicists and musicians about harmonics...”

The show even revealed what could prove a genuine game-changer for anyone really fixated on the notion of cogs and wheels being in some way a superior form of timekeeping to circuits and batteries.

Parmigiani Fleurier, at 20 years old this year still a young brand, has made a major splash with an innovation called Senfine - that’s ‘eternally’ in Esperanto. It is still in concept, though the company says it will have a production model on the market by 2018. The big idea? It replaces the usual classic watch regulator - the several parts of which burn through energy as a consequence of friction - with a virtually frictionless silicon oscillator that combines balance, balance spring and pallet fork.

If that all still sounds like technical gobbledegook, the upshot is a mechanical watch with a power reserve measured not in the usual few days, but in months. Or at least one-and-a-half of them. Perhaps the most curious - and telling - aspect of the innovation is that it’s the brainchild of Pierre Genequand, a scientist who never trained as a watchmaker. In that is a lesson perhaps for the closeted and insular Swiss watchmaking industry to think outside the case more often.

Indeed, SIHH - usually a showcase for the long established and internationally known brands - seems to be embracing this notion itself: for 2016’s show the organisation opened a new area for the expanding generation of young, progressive niche players the likes of Urwerk, MB&F and H.Moser. These

are the companies making waves by placing innovation over refinement, and successfully charging big bucks for the results.

Hautlence, for example, has produced a watch with stained glass panels, designed in conjunction with, of all people, Eric Cantona; Urwerk has its T-rex, the dial of which is almost entirely covered by a bronze carapace, cut into tiny jags to mimic, what else, but dinosaur skin.

It is not your usual Swiss conservatism, and yet it is not without craft: the metal cover - which will develop a patina, thus itself becoming a more poetic expression of passing time - was painstakingly hand-cut using sandblasting and acid washes.

Of course, SIHH also offered the less adventurous, if no less technically sophisticated or well-crafted. Cartier’s new men’s model, the Drive, for example, is pure classicism - with its cushion case, guilloche dial, blue hands and Roman numerals.

IWC’s stand-out piece is the Timezoner Chronograph, the kind of high function, higher machismo watch that the company specialises in: it’s the only pilot’s watch that enables the user to set another time zone, together with the date and the 24-hour hand, in a single movement.

“Something like the Timezoner is simple to use but very hard to pull off, mechanically-speaking. But it’s always hard to find something technically new to do with a pilot’s watch and I’m rather worried about the next collection,” as IWC’s technical director Stefan Ihnen jokes, “because I’m not sure what else we can do. So far I have no ideas...”

Perhaps the answer, even for a brand regarded as a master of minimalism, is to nod to the aesthetically extreme. That may make the guardians of brand values shudder to think on, but the fight for consumer attention seems to be what the watch market is increasingly about these days. n

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TRAVEL bqlive.co.uk

In the first in a new series of travel articles, BQ Scotland editor Peter Ranscombe finds out that there’s a lot more to The Gleneagles Hotel than simply being the host of golf’s Ryder Cup

More than just golf With a flap of his wings and a swish of his tail, Victor the Harris’s hawk cut a graceful sweep above the grounds at The Gleneagles Hotel and landed with a soft thump on my gloved hand.

After being rewarded with a tasty treat provided by his minder from the Scottish School of Falconry, Victor was off again, gliding through the spring sunshine and causing consternation among the local herring gulls.

As well as Victor and his fellow Harris’s hawks, the school is also home to an array of other birds of prey, including the peregrine falcon and the golden eagle. Even though the name “Gleneagles” comes from the Gaelic word “eaglais” or “church” and doesn’t have anything to do with eagles, it still feels like a fitting home for the facility, which was founded as the world’s first dedicated falconry school in 1982 before moving to its present home in the hotel grounds in 1992.

The Gleneagles Hotel is seldom far from the headlines. In 2005, it played host to world leaders including Prime Minister Tony Blair and United States President George W Bush for the

G7 summit and in 2014 it staged the Ryder Cup, with Europe’s golfers triumphing over their American rivals. The contest marked the first time that the Ryder Cup had been held in Scotland in more than 40 years and was one of the highlights of tourism agency VisitScotland’s second Year of Homecoming, alongside the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. In 2019, the women’s version of the competition, the Solheim Cup, will also take place at the site.

As well as boasting three championship courses – the King’s, Queen’s and Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) Centenary courses – the Perthshire venue is also home to the PGA National Academy and its nine-hole par three course, along with an 11-acre pitch n’ putt and championship practice ground.

But there’s so much more to Gleneagles than just golf. As well as the falconry, the hotel is also home to a gundog school, an equestrian school and a shooting school. Other activities on offer range from fishing and tennis through to offroad driving and even Segway tours.

Foregoing a ride on a horse or a Segway, I opted

for Shanks’s pony as my preferred method for exploring the hotel’s grounds, which extend to 850 acres. Three way-marked jogging routes take guests on one-, two- or threemile trails around the golf courses, while the longer woodland walk leads past the Glenmor shared-ownership houses – no mention of the words ‘time share’ here – and then on across the moorland around the shooting school and equestrian centre. After ticking off the birds of prey at the falconry school, it was wild species that were the stars of the show on the walk.

Roe deer sat calmly among the trees, while buzzards circled overhead, mewing their familiar call to anyone who would listen.

Walking certainly built up an appetite. If the words ‘golf’ and ‘Gleneagles’ go together then the name ‘Andrew Fairlie’ is seldom far behind. The holder of two Michelin stars since 2006, Fairlie opened his self-titled restaurant at the hotel in 2001. But just as there’s more to Gleneagles than golf, there’s more to the hotel’s food than Fairlie’s legendary dishes. With two AA rosettes to its name, the Strathearn

TRAVEL bqlive.co.uk

restaurant offers silver service dining. The staff in the Strathearn work hard to put guests at ease, providing a welcome relaxed style of banter that helped me to enjoy my steak Diane fillet mignon followed by tarte tatin. Part of the enjoyment in the restaurant was the theatre that accompanied the meal. The fillet mignon was prepared and pan fried at the table, while a trolley was wheeled about in a hushed fashion, offering diners the roast of the day, a beef wellington. The Strathearn was also the venue for the famous Gleneagles breakfast, which elevates the concept of a help-yourself buffet to a whole new level. Pancakes made while you wait, sir? Certainly. A bloody Mary or a glass of Champagne to accompany your cornflakes, madam? No problem.

The hotel also has Deseo, a Mediterranean restaurant that includes meat and fish counters, where guests can not only select the size of their steak, but also specify the breed. Options include Aberdeen Angus and native guest breeds provided by butcher Simon Howie.

The Gleneagles Hotel was the brainchild of

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“Pancakes made while you wait, sir? Certainly. A bloody Mary or a glass of Champagne to accompany your cornflakes, madam? No problem” Donald Matheson, general manager of the Caledonian Railway Company, while he was on holiday in Strathearn in 1910. Many of Scotland’s luxury hotels – including the Balmoral and Caledonian in Edinburgh – also began their lives as railway hotels; a sharp contrast to the budget brands housed next to many stations nowadays. The hotel opened in 1924, five years after the King’s and Queen’s golf courses – which were designed by the renowned James Braid – had welcomed their first players. It soon became a playground for the rich and famous and, after the Second World War and the nationalisation of the railways, it expanded into the conference business, with recent visitors including Entrepreneurial Scotland’s annual gathering back in April. The AA awarded Gleneagles five red stars in 1986, with the 232-bedroom hotel maintaining its grading ever since. Diageo – the spirits giant behind whisky

brands including Bell’s, Johnnie Walker and Talisker – sold the hotel in 2015 to Londonbased hospitality firm Ennismore for a reported £150m. The new owner recently embarked on a major refit of the main bar and some of the bedrooms in the main hotel, so my room was in Braid House, a self-contained annexe opened in 2002. While the rooms in Braid House have a different feeling to the main hotel – with modern grey tones replacing the traditional tartan – all of my expectations were surpassed, with fresh milk for tea in the fridge, twin sinks, a walk-in shower and a giant bathtub, plus an outstanding view across the golf courses to the hills beyond. n Bed and breakfast at The Gleneagles Hotel costs from £365 per room per night from 1 May to 30 September 2016.

Find out more at www.gleneagles.com

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PROFILE Scottish Enterprise

Room at the top Future proof your business; the strategic approach to succession Change is a constant in business. It is often how businesses manage that change that determines how successful they will be. Moving into different markets, developing new products or changing the way they work can be opportunities to drive great improvement when managed effectively. There is one change that can have a profound impact on a firm and that’s changing the people.

Succession is a hot topic just now, especially as we see the baby boomer generation reach retirement age. Many business owners are looking to retire and in an owner managed business that can mean a change in ownership and a change in management.

Altering the ownership structure can be a difficult time for a firm and when it requires a change in leadership, the business can be left particularly exposed. As with any undertaking involving people, there will always be uncertainties. Proper and timely planning can minimise risks.

Bruce Farquhar, partner at leading law firm Anderson Strathern, has worked with many Scottish businesses as they transition from one form to another.

“My observation is that companies do not dedicate sufficient time and resource to considered succession planning,” said Bruce. “Owner-managed businesses and SMEs may have good intentions, but the demands of running the business get in the way.

“One certainty is that the managing director will not live forever. The best outcome is the leader plans

Sean Elliot, Network ROI

Network ROI their exit and enables a smooth transition. However, sometimes life isn’t like that and a sudden departure of a key individual can leave a firm dangerously vulnerable.

“This is not just about internal leadership and management; the managing director is often the steward of key business relationships with customers, suppliers and other stakeholders.”

Bruce advises having a five-year plan in place which is discussed at least annually and is integral to the company’s recruitment and performance management processes: “That might seem cumbersome to many small businesses where they might be more comfortable focusing on shorter term issues. My suggestion is make succession planning part of an annual strategic review and revise as necessary. It should be a regular topic on the board agenda.”

Sean Elliot, founder and managing director of Edinburgh IT firm Network ROI, has taken a very considered approach to managing his exit from the business with positive results.

With the support of the Scottish Enterprise Workplace Innovation Team, who took him through a full appraisal of the company, he identified the leadership potential within the business. He was then able to build a development plan to equip these individuals with the skills needed to assume the necessary senior roles. By taking this long-term

“One certainty is that the managing director will not live forever. The best outcome is the leader plans their exit and enables a smooth transition.” approach, the individuals have time to grow into their roles, and the business has time to adapt to the new leadership team.

Sean is happy with how this has worked. He explained: “I was keen that my successors would be internal appointments. We have a talented, competent team at Network ROI and I want to recognise and reward that so we recently promoted two managers to the position of director.

“I plan a phased exit by 2018, by which time one of these appointments may step into the role, or we may look at a different solution. Whatever we do will be the best fit for the company.”

Sean is convinced of the need to prioritise talent management and succession planning: “IT is fiercely competitive. Our success has been built on our relationships with customers and we can’t jeopardise that. We needed a plan in place that allows me to exit, safeguards the business for the current employees and provides a stable base to grow and prosper. I believe we have achieved

PROFILE Scottish Enterprise

a good outcome.”

Some businesses will not have an internal solution.

The requisite skills and experience may not exist within the business and it’s necessary to hire from outside the company. This can bring a different level of challenge.

One such company is Novograf, which is currently going through that recruitment process.

The firm manufactures and installs laminates, films, boards and graphics packs for the retail, banking and transport industries.

Entrepreneur Alistair Miller started the company in 1987 and has overseen its growth into a successful business with a turnover just under £10m, employing 66 people from its base in East Kilbride. The current managing director, John Clark, started as operations manager in 1993.

John and Alistair plan to retire from their roles within the year and have decided to sell their shareholdings to an Employee Ownership Trust.

There was an interesting reaction when this was announced to the company’s workforce.

John said: “This is a critical role for Novograf. This business has only had two managing directors in 30 years. When Alistair and I announced we were looking to exit and would be selling the business into employee ownership, we were surprised at the response from the employees. People were more concerned about who would lead the company than the change in ownership.”

That concern may be unfounded with more than 200 individuals applying for the role. Employee ownership has proven to be an appealing recruitment tool for the firm and Alistair Miller is impressed.

“It’s encouraging to see the calibre of candidate applying for the position,” he said. “During interviews, most candidates mentioned that leading an employee owned business was a key incentive for them to apply for the role.”

The company has not yet made a decision and employee opinion will have some influence on the final outcome.

Alistair explained: “We take a lot of risks in business but we’re not taking a risk with such an important role. The right candidate will be more than their skills and experience. The “chemistry” has to work for us.”

The company is investing time in supporting the appointee into the role. The plan is to have a new MD in place by midsummer to work alongside John Clark for a six-month period to ensure a smooth handover.

Succession planning should focus not only on the senior roles within the company. There may be other positions that are critical to the business and can’t be left vacant or filled by any but the best-qualified personnel. A holistic approach is best.

A key element of succession planning is managing the talent that exists already within the business and there is support available.

Kaela Dear, from the Workplace Innovation Team at Scottish Enterprise, works with companies looking to enhance performance and productivity. She said: “Fair work policies and good engagement strategies will make work more meaningful for employees. A good employer will find it easier to attract and retain talent.

“Research is unequivocal; an engaged workforce will be more productive and lead to improvements in

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Kaela Dear, Scottish Enterprise innovation and efficiency. It’s a virtuous circle, and helps create a dynamic talent pool that facilitates succession choices.”

There can be no doubt that taking a strategic, proactive approach to succession planning is more likely to deliver positive results than reacting to a crisis situation. With careful consideration and expert support where required, a company can arrive at a solution that fits with business, its trading environment and provides the company with a robust structure that will drive future success.

For further information on succession planning and employee ownership, please visit the Scottish Enterprise website: www.scottish-enterprise.com/cds-events

John Clark, Novograf

Alistair Miller, Novograf

or call 0300 013 3385

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ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

Brewing up a storm As managing director of Cairngorm Brewery, Samantha Faircliff has not only scaled-up her own business but has helped other craft brewers in the North of Scotland to grow too, thanks to her bottling line. Peter Ranscombe pulls up a bar stool to find out more “I never used to like the smell of beer,” confesses Samantha Faircliff as she leads the way through the warehouse at Cairngorm Brewery in Aviemore. “I was born in Leeds in Yorkshire but grew up near Burton-on-Trent in Staffordshire, at the heart of the English brewing industry.

The smell of the beer used to make my stomach churn as a kid.”

Fortunately, the managing director at Cairngorm Brewery soon learned to live with the odour that’s come to dominate her life over the past 15 years. Outside the shop and visitors’ centre in Strathspey, the rich malty notes of fresh ale linger in the air while, inside the brewery itself, it’s the crisper citrus aromas of the hops that waft towards the nose.

Cairngorm Brewery is hallowed ground for any long-time fans of Scottish beer. The company was launched in 2001 on the site of the former Aviemore Brewery, which had been brewing since 1997 and which in turn had taken over the operations of the nearby Tomintoul Brewery.

One of Faircliff’s first moves was to combine the two existing brands under the ‘Cairngorm’ banner, ahead of the Cairngorms National Park being created in 2003. Back at the turn of the century, Cairngorm was one of only a handful of breweries operating in the North of Scotland, with Black Isle and Orkney being among the other notable survivors from the time.

Fast-forward to 2016 and the situation couldn’t be more different. Scotland now boasts around 100 craft breweries. Although Gordon Brown’s time as Prime Minister may have left a bad taste in the mouths of many entrepreneurs thanks to the 2008 financial crisis and ensuing recession, his reign as Chancellor did include. But the introduction of small breweries’ relief in 2002, cut the level of tax for micro-producers.

Despite the lower rate of excise duty, brewers in Scotland faced another challenge. Due to a lack of bottling capacity, many were faced with the prospect of sending their beer down to England in tankers to be bottled before being sent back up to market. The high cost of buying and installing a bottling line means that it’s just too expensive for every micro-brewery to have its own facility. That’s where Cairngorm played a key role in boosting brewing in the North of Scotland. In 2012, the company undertook a £1.6m expansion, which involved installing a bottling line. The old building houses the 20 barrel brewey capable of producing 6,500 litres a day, along with the shop and visitors’ centre, while a new structure is home to the bottling line, a warehouse and offices.

Installing the bottling line – which was funded with a £660,000 loan from Bank of Scotland, grants of £150,000 and £100,000 from Highlands & Islands Enterprise and the European

Regional Development Fund and funds from shareholder Martin Riley – not only allowed Faircliff to scale-up the size of Cairngorm Brewery but also to help fellow brewers by offering contract bottling.

So far, 14 breweries have used Cairngorm to bottle their beer, including Lerwick Brewery on Shetland, Loch Ness Brewery, Spey Valley Brewery, and Speyside Craft Brewery. “As well as bottling their beers, we also sell some of them in our shop too.”

When Faircliff was recruited as managing director in 2001, the company was turning over about £150,000 a year and had just eight staff.

Now, revenues have grown to around £2m and the headcount has reached 36 workers.

“Cairngorm Brewery is owned by Martin Riley,” explains Faircliff. “He grew up in Strathspey – his parents had the Heatherbrae Hotel in the village of Nethy Bridge. Martin is an accountant to trade and made his money in information technology (IT) in Hong Kong and he wanted to give something back to the local community here in the Highlands.

“He wanted to prove that you could stay in the Highlands and have a career. The brewery is all about creating careers, not just about creating jobs.”

Faircliff herself is a prime example of the benefits of creating careers in the Highlands.

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“He wanted to prove that you could stay in the Highlands and have a career.

The brewery is all about creating careers, not just about creating jobs”

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After studying business at college in Burtonon-Trent – which included work experience at brewers Bass and Marston’s, helping to overcome her hatred for the smell of beer production – she worked for a commercial estate agent in Birmingham, selling shops, offices and industrial sites.

“At the age of 21, I thought to myself that there’s got to be more to life than this, so I took a year out and came up to Aviemore to go skiing – and I never went home,” she laughs. “I worked for Stakis at its Coylumbridge Hotel as ‘Cyril the Squirrel’ in the entertainment department, which was great fun, and then I worked in the hospitality department.

“I then went to work down in Edinburgh for a marketing company for a couple of years and then I came back and worked at Rothiemurchus Estate as commercial manager for ten years. I wanted to come back to this area because I had missed it.

“Now, this is home. I’ve been longer in the Highlands than in England. When I came up here skiing, every bar had live music. When she’s not distracted by that view, Faircliff is masterminding Cairngorm’s continued expansion. The company took over the running of the Winking Owl pub in Aviemore 18 months ago and has pushed it from 43rd to first in the TripAdvisor rankings for the village. Run in partnership with Heineken, the bar acts as a shop window for the brewery’s beers in the area and picked up the ‘Taste Our Best’ accreditation from national tourism agency VisitScotland in recognition of its work with seasonal, local ingredients.

Exports are also high on the agenda. Only around 3% of the company’s sales currently come from overseas, highlighting the size of the prize for Faircliff. Different beers go down well in different markets; Australians love Sheepshagger, Cairngorm Brewery’s pale ale, while Scandinavian markets like Denmark, Finland and Norway enjoy the unusual ingredients in some of its speciality beers, such as coriander, ginger, orange peel, or the elderflower in Trade Winds, one of its bestknown tipples.

“We’ve been working with Scottish Development International (SDI) and we took part in the ‘meet the buyers’ event at Gleneagles,” Faircliff explains. “We’ve also been talking to the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) in Canada.”

“At the age of 21, I thought to myself that there’s got to be more to life than this, so I took a year out and came up to Aviemore to go skiing – and I never went home”

ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

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Growing exports is likely to also come through partnerships. Cairngorm is already working with other breweries in the North of Scotland to export beer, as well as combining pallets to fulfil orders from the supermarkets and other large multiple retailers in the UK. “We’ve just been getting on with it and doing it for years,” says Faircliff. “But we’ve not done it under a single brand or created a wholesale entity unlike, say, the Craft Beer Clan of Scotland.”

Craft Beer Clan was founded by Simon Hannah, who runs Glasgow-based wholesaler JW Filshill, with drinks industry veterans Chris Miller, David Moore, JongWoo Kim, Joe Tcheng and whisky writer Charlie MacLean. In April, it secured an £850,000 contract to supply Asda with craft beers from companies including Eden Mill, Loch Lomond Brewery, and West Brewery.

The Brewers’ Association of Scotland (TBAS), which was launched in January 2015, could also

tourist trail in Scotland – that’s worked really well for the whisky industry. We could have a route that tourists could follow to breweries that have visitor facilities.”

Tourism is already playing an important part in the development of Cairngorm’s business. The brewery hosts two tours each day, rising to up to four during the high summer season, with the site acting as a popular stop-off point for many coach parties. Visitors are taken on a tour and can sample beers in the shop.

“Consolidating orders for export is another area that TBAS is looking at,” Faircliff adds. “The advantage of having an organisation like TBAS is that it gives the industry in Scotland a voice.

Other bodies – like the Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA) or the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) – have a UK-wide remit, but TBAS can speak just for Scotland. It’s a model that’s worked well for other bodies, like the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA).”

And how about beers made by – dare it be said – other breweries? “I like Southern Summit, which is Fiona MacEachern from Loch Lomond Brewery’s award-winning pale ale. And I like Yarl, which is made by Fyne Ales.”

It might be Black Gold and Trade Winds that are winning plaudits, but it’s one of Cairngorm’s other beers that brought it a certain amount of fame at Westminster. In 2012, the brewery created “Ginger Rodent”, a red ale named in honour of Danny Alexander, who served as the Liberal Democrat MP for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey.

Alexander, who was chief secretary to the Treasury during the Lib Dem’s coalition with the Conservatives, had been branded as a “ginger rodent” by Labour opponent Harriet Harman, who later apologised for the remark. The beer even went on sale in the Strangers’ Bar at the Houses of Parliament, with Alexander and Harman joining Faircliff to pour the first pints.

“It’s easier for a wholesaler in London just to deal with its local breweries, so we need to work with them to make it easier to get Scottish beers in London”

help drive other routes to market. Cairngorm was one of TBAS’s founders – alongside Fyne Ales, Harviestoun, Innis & Gunn, Inveralmond Brewery, Stewart Brewing, WEST and Williams Bros – with the association designed to act as Scotland’s development agency for the craft beer sector, a single point of contact for the Scottish Government and other public bodies.

“It’s still early days yet for TBAS, but we’re starting to make progress,” says Faircliff, who is the association’s treasurer. “We attended the Craft Beer Rising festival in London in February as a group and now we’re looking at ways of making it easier to get Scottish beers into London.

“Think of the number of craft breweries that there are in Scotland now and then imagine the situation in London. It’s easier for a wholesaler in London just to deal with its local breweries, so we need to work with them to make it easier to get Scottish beers in London.

“TBAS is also looking at setting up a craft beer

As well as opening her bottling line, one of the other highlights for Faircliff of scaling-up the size of the business has been the continued success of Cairngorm’s beers in competitions. One of the walls in the brewery’s shop is a mosaic of certificates and accolades, celebrating all of the prizes and awards that the firm has picked-up for its ales.

“Black Gold is currently CAMRA’s champion beer of Scotland – we picked-up the same award ten years ago for Black Gold, so it proves that it’s consistently been a quality product,” Faircliff beams. “When we win a national award then that’s a fantastic feeling.”

While Black Gold – the brewery’s stout – may be grabbing all the headlines, it’s the lighter beers that Faircliff would prefer to take home at night.

“I’m not a fan of darker beers – I like Trade Winds because it’s light and refreshing with the added elderflower. I like White Lady because it’s got orange-peel and coriander. I like Cairngorm Gold because it’s nice and light.”

“Before he was an MP, Danny was the press officer for the Cairngorms National Park and so I knew him through my work in helping to set up the park,” Faircliff explains. “He was a really good sport – when I approached him with the idea for a ‘Ginger Rodent’ beer he said ‘Let’s go for it’.”

Alexander may have lost his seat in the 2015 General Election, but the spirit of the beer lives on. Its successor, a full-bodied ruby red ale called Autumn Nuts, is still going strong, with the brewery making a donation from its sales to the Scottish Wildlife Trust’s red squirrel project. Many of the firm’s beers are named after the wildlife in the Cairngorms, with donations from sales of Caillie, Wild Cat, and new honey ale Buzz also going to charity.

“It all revolves around that idea of giving something back to the Highlands,” adds Faircliff.

“As well as creating careers for residents, we’re also helping to protect the wildlife that makes the Cairngorms so special.” n

ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

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BIT OF A CHAT Jock Yuler examining the news behind the headlines

Farmer never tyres of a good curry Never one to miss out on the chance of some proper nosh, Kwik Fit founder Sir Tom Farmer was the guest of honour at the opening of chef and entrepreneur Tommy Miah’s new eatery, The Raj, in Blackhall, one of the posher bits of Embra. Sir Tom even wielded a pair of scissors to cut the opening ribbon. He harked back to when Tommy had a restaurant next to one of his garages and how he and his staff used to pile in. Sir Tom maintains Embra is the only city in the world with an Indian restaurant next to a tyre and exhaust shop. But what’s made Tommy head back into the kitchen? Turns out it was a burst appendix – while he was recovering in the Royal Infirmary of Embra, he decided he wanted to cook again. He’s donating money from The Raj to the ward that helped with his convalescence. He’s a great one for “giving back” – he opened “Tommy Miah’s Institute of Hospitality” in his native Bangladesh back in 2003 and has so far trained 10,000 chefs.

Girl power It’s exactly what the present Mrs Yuler has been telling me for years – Scots are among the hardest-working women in Blighty. On average, Scottish women work for 1,626 hours each year, 70 more hours than the UK average, according to a survey by beauty brand Blow LTD. Only Londoners work longer hours, totting up an average of 1,631 in a year. The south-west of Englandshire finished bottom of the workaholic league table, notching up just 1,421 hours a year on average, which presumably excludes the

Going wild in the west Anyone who’s ever met West Brewery founder and former BQ Scotland cover star Petra Wetzel will know that both her and her beers are hot stuff. But we didnae realise quite how hot she was until West’s tenth birthday party a few weeks back. And no, it wasnae anything to do with the dress or the high heels Petra was wearing. The crowd at the party was so hot that it set off the fire alarm in Petra’s new event space at the stunning former Templeton carpet factory on Glasgae Green. She promises it wasnae part of some ruthlessly-efficient cunning German plan to get everyone off the premises by midnight. But it’s nae wonder that the revellers at the birthday bash were getting so hot and bothered – she’d only gone and booked 1980s pop sensation Go West to play at the gig. Petra reports that she had sore feet the next day but no hangover – apparently that’s what you get when you brew your beers to meet the 1516 German purity laws.

time spent making scrumpy, filling pasties and repeatedly saying “Ooo arr my lover”.

It’s a dog’s life A long time ago, when Kenny Kemp was a lad, the unicorn was named as Scotland’s official animal. Then along came the monstrous concrete shopping centre that is the Scottish Parliament, where MSPs tagged the golden eagle as our national bird. Now, Scotland even has its own dug. Aye, you read that right. VisitScotland ran a competition to find

Scotland’s “ambassadog” or “international canine ambassador” and the winner was a very fine golden retriever from Glasgae named George. And no, the announcement didn’t come out on April Fool’s Day. George beat off eight other finalists during an event at the swanky Prestonfield Hotel in Embra – God help any of the owners if they forgot to clean up after their pooches on those manicured lawns. George’s duties will apparently include appearing in social media campaigns and at red carpet functions.

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EVENTS

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BQ’s business diary helps you forward plan

J U LY 05

7-8

Scottish Manufacturing Advisory Service (SMAS) annual conference,

13

Start of Scottish Development International’s ‘Preparing to Export

Westerwood Hotel, Cumbernauld. www.scottishmasconference.co.uk

Edel Harris, chief executive of care provider Cornerstone, speaks to Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, George Hotel, Edinburgh, 12.30pm. www.edinburghchamber.co.uk/events/events

Intermediate Programme’, running over six days until 9 November for businesses already exporting to two or three markets. Held in Scottish

07

Entrepreneurial Scotland about ‘Building for exit’, Hotel du Vin, Glasgow, 6pm. www.entrepreneurial-exchange.co.uk/events

14

13

Scottish Renewables’ marine conference, exhibition and dinner, Eden Court Theatre, Inverness. www.scottishrenewables.com/events/marineconference-2016/venuetravelaccommodation/

Glasgow Chamber of Commerce holds its summer barbecue, Glasgow Hilton Hotel, 6pm. www.glasgowchamberofcommerce.com/events

AUGUST 18

Enterprise Edinburgh office. www.bit.ly/1Tn1AYa

Mike Welch, founder of online tyre business Blackcircles, will tell

15

TechShare, a Europe-wide conference that includes the Scottish Institute for Enterprise’s Live Innovation Lab, Glasgow Science Centre, 9am. www.sie.ac.uk/event.php?id=116

Glasgow Chamber of Commerce holds its women’s garden party, Hotel du Vin & Bistro at One Devonshire Gardens, 12pm. www.glasgowchamberofcommerce.com/events

16

Claire Kinloch, founder of marketing agency Genoa Black, speaks at Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce’s ‘Women Mean Business’ event, 11.45am. www.agcc.co.uk/networking-events

22

Tennis coach Judy Murray speaks to Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of

25

Chris Weston, chief executive of temporary power supplier Aggreko, speaks

Commerce, 6pm. www.agcc.co.uk/networking-events

to Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, Blythswood Square Hotel, 8am. www.glasgowchamberofcommerce.com/events

SEPTEMBER 01 01 6-7

Venturefest Scotland innovation summit, Glasgow Science Centre, 8.30am.

22

The winners of the Converge Challenge will be unveiled during an awards

26

Highland Business Week begins, including Highland Spotlight business

Glasgow, 7.15pm. news.cbi.org.uk/events/regional-events/scotland/

27

www.scottishrenewables.com/events/sr-solar-conference-2016/

Professor Simon Harris, chair in international strategy at the University of Edinburgh, on ‘Building an international business’, 8.30am. www.business-school.ed.ac.uk/about/events

29

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS) annual conference, Edinburgh International Conference Centre. http://conferences.icas.com/icas-conference.html

Trade body Scottish Renewables’ first solar energy conference, Convention of Scottish Local Authorities’ (COSLA’s) offices, Edinburgh.

exhibition on 27 September. www.inverness-chamber.co.uk/events/event/highland-business-week-2016

www.venturefestscotland.co.uk Confederation of British Industry (CBI) Scotland annual dinner, Hilton Hotel

dinner at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh. www.convergechallenge.com

29

The inaugural Scottish Beer Awards, Edinburgh Corn Exchange. www.scottishbeerawards.co.uk

BQ’s business events diary gives you lots of time to forward plan. If you wish to add your event to the list send it to eventsdiary@bqlive.co.uk and please put ‘BQ Scotland’ in the subject heading

Please check with contacts beforehand that arrangements have not changed. Events organisers are also asked to notify us at the above email address of any changes or cancellations as soon as they are known.

The diary is updated daily online at bqlive.co.uk

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