BQ Scotland Autumn 2016

BUSINESS QUARTER

Scotland: Autumn 2016

Queen of Hearts Business woman Ann Budge is operating in a new arena

Playing a new tune Stuart Cassells has turned from bagpipes to whisky

Grape expectations

025

ENTREPRENEUR INTERVIEWS

Business Quarter Magazine

Scotland: Autumn 2016

Smillie’s people

£4.95

Scots vintner successfully labouring in the vineyards

TV star Carol Smillie is tackling taboos with her underwear brand

BUSINESS UPDATE

LIFESTYLE

EVENTS

BUSINESS UPDATE bqlive.co.uk

EDITOR’S VIEW SCOTLAND ISSUE 25 Looking through the career histories of entrepreneurs, it’s fascinating to see the different routes that people have taken into business. Some will have left school with no qualifications and cut their teeth on a market stall or in the family firm, working their way up from the bottom until they had enough cash to start their own business.

Some will have taken a more academic route to shape and hone their skills.

A degree in accounting or finance may have been followed with a masters of business administration degree – aye, that’s what MBA stand for – with perhaps a spell at a college in France or the United States along the way.

Others will have enjoyed a whole other career before going into business. In this issue of BQ Scotland, we celebrate those individuals who made a name for themselves in another field before being bitten by the entrepreneurial bug.

Carol Smillie helped countless families revitalise their homes on the television show Changing Rooms. Now she’s taken on a different challenge, producing pretty and practical pants to protect women from pelvic floor weakness and heavy periods. David Sole had captained the Scotland rugby side more times than any other player until Greig Laidlaw surpassed his tally earlier this year. After a career in the whisky industry, Sole made the move into executive coaching and now runs the School for CEOs. Ann Budge headed in the opposite direction – from business into sport. Yet she’s still using all of the acumen she built up running IT company Newell & Budge in her role as the chief executive and majority shareholder at Heart of Midlothian football club.

As the founder of the Red Hot Chilli Pipers, Stuart Cassells launched arguably Scotland’s most successful band, before illness forced him to hang up his bagpipes. After becoming a Saltire Fellow, Cassells is bringing innovation into the whisky industry with Famous Grouse-maker Edrington Group.

Ruth Simpson gave up a career in the humanitarian sector to buy her own vineyard in the South of France and is now preparing to make sparkling wine in Kent. As a fifth-generation member of the Grants whisky dynasty, perhaps it’s not such a surprise that the Scot is returning to her family’s roots.

While Cassells and Simpson moved into the drinks industry, John Dunsmore took more of a sideways step. Scottish & Newcastle’s final chief executive left behind the world of big breweries to launch a family business, the Edinburgh Beer Factory, which makes an award-winning lager, Paolozzi, named after the Leith-born pop art pioneer.

But what happens to entrepreneurs after their business careers are over? John Watson, who sold his eponymous printing business in Glasgow in 2014 for £15 million, joins journalist Karen Peattie for our Business Lunch to explain why he’s now investing in Social Bite, the sandwich shop chain run by Scottish Business Awards founder Josh Littlejohn.

Peter Ranscombe, Editor, BQ Scotland

READ ONLINE BQ Magazine is available to read online at bqlive.co.uk for when you are on the move

BQ LIVE Associate Sponsors:

@BQLIVE

03

Celebrating 100 EDITIONS “Proudly celebrating and inspiring entrepreneurship across the UK. My thanks to all who have contributed to our journey over the last 100 editions and I look forward to supporting many more of you going forward.”

BRYAN HOARE, MANAGING DIRECTOR, BQ

OF

ACROSS THE UK

To catch up on any issues you might have missed visit bqlive.co.uk/in-print

CONTACT S BUSINESS QUARTER Bryan Hoare Managing director e: bryan@bqlive.co.uk @BQBryanH

EDITORIAL Peter Ranscombe Editor e: peter@ranscombe.co.uk @peterranscombe1

SALES David Townsley Account director e: dave@bqlive.co.uk t: 0191 389 8513 @DaveTownsley99 Paul Regan Business development manager e: paul@bqlive.co.uk

DESIGN & PRODUCTION

ONLINE BQ Breakfast is your FREE daily digital bulletin providing the latest from the world of business.

Sign up for free at www.bqlive.co.uk/bq-breakfast

Steve Jessop Production manager e: steve@bqlive.co.uk Sarah MacNeil Head of design e: sarah@bqlive.co.uk Jake Charlton Designer e: jake@bqlive.co.uk

DIGITAL Leanne Elliott Head of digital e: leanne@bqlive.co.uk Beth Hewitt Business engagement manager e: beth@bqlive.co.uk @bqbethh Bryce Wilcock, Suzy Jackson Senior online business journalists e: press@bqlive.co.uk Aimee Robinson, Ellen McGann Online business journalists e: press@bqlive.co.uk or call 0191 389 8468

PHOTOGRAPHY

KG Photography e: info@kgphotography.co.uk Neil Hanna e:neilhannaphoto@gmail.com

IN PRINT Subscribe now at bqlive.co.uk/subscribe or by calling 0191 389 8468

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

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, September 2016.

JAGUAR XE ALL WHEEL DRIVE DISCOVERY SPORT

DISCOVERY SPORT ADVENTURE. TD4 SE FROM £327 MONTH +VAT IT’S IN AOUR DNA. *

INACCESSIBLE JUST BECAME ACCESSIBLE With standard equipment and competitive running costs, Discovery Sport gives you all the capability and space you need for both business trips and weekend adventures.

Business Contract Hire. Initial rental in advance of £1,962 +VAT. 36 month term. 10,000 miles per annum. VAT payable at 20%. Model pictured (including optional metallic) from £339 a month +VAT, plus initial rental in advance of £2,034 +VAT.

DISCOVERY SPORT From 129 g/km CO2 Up to 57.7mpg From Group 24E Insurance rating

Pentland Land Rover Newbridge, Edinburgh, EH28 8TH Tel: 0131 341 5830 pentland.edinburgh.landrover.co.uk Dunkeld Road, Perth, PH1 3GD Tel: 01738 480 140 pentland.perth.landrover.co.uk

Official Fuel Consumption Figures for the Discovery Sport TD4 150HP Manual 5 Door in mpg (l/100km): Urban 50.4 (5.6), Extra Urban 62.8 (4.5), Combined 57.7 (4.9). CO2 emissions 129 g/km. Official EU Test Figures. For comparison purposes only. Real world figures may differ. *Important Information - Business users only. Based on a Discovery Sport 2.0L TD4 150HP Manual 4WD SE with standard specification, non-maintained. Excess mileage charges (at 9.3p per mile).

Must be returned in good condition to avoid further charges. Contract Hire subject to status. This promotion cannot be used together with other manufacturer’s promotions and is subject to availability at participating Retailers only for new vehicles ordered by 30th September 2016. Contract Hire is provided by Land Rover Contract Hire, a trading style of Lex Autolease Limited, Heathside Park, Heathside Park Road, Stockport SK3 0RB. Model shown is a Discovery Sport TD4 Manual 4WD SE 5DR with optional metallic paint.

XY TXCRXYX

08

bqlive.co.uk

CONTENTS

Autumn 16

22 UNDERCOVER

Carol Smillie tackles taboos with a winning business idea

32 QUEEN OF HEARTS

40

BUSINESS LUNCH John Watson, a printer who’s still making a mark

Ann Budge built a business and tackles a football challenge

80 WINNING VINTNERS

Ruth and Charles Simpson give the French some lessons in wine

58 MOTORING Ian McEwan takes the Audi Q7 for a spin

XYXTCRZXX bqlive.co.uk

Celebrating and inspir ing entrepreneurship

FEATURES

REGULARS

28

A TOAS T TO THE PIPER Red Hot Chilli Pipers founder finds whisky gems

10

ON THE RECORD Fast track for food and drink producers on the Caledonian Sleeper

32

HEAR T OF THE MATTER Ann Budge uses her business skills to revive Hearts football club

14

BUSINESS UPDATE The latest news from Scotland’s business community

46

TAKING ON THE CHALLENGE Sandy Finlayson is the new chairman of Converge Challenge

20

AS I SEE IT Sheila Scobie on how entrepreneurs can fight anti-competitive practices

52

FINDING THE SUBLIME I N T H E E V E R Y D AY John Dunsmore swaps the world of big brewers for a family firm

44

ON WINE Alan Gordon had a moment of drinking epiphany

48

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

58

MOTORING Ian McEwan takes the Audi Q7 for a spin

72 80

HOW TO BE THE BOSS Rugby legend David Sole now trains chief executives GRAPES AND THE GRAIN Scot who labours in the vineyards

INTERNATIONAL TRADE

28

Special report on Scottish business overseas

PIPING HOT Stuart Cassells created Red Hot Chilli Pipers and works in whisky

78

SCOTTISH BUSINESS AWA R D S An all star line up for 2016

09

10

ON THE RECORD www.bqlive.co.uk/bq-breakfast

Full steam ahead for Scottish suppliers Since Serco took over the Caledonian Sleeper, the outsourcing giant has been giving Scottish food and drink producers increased space on its menus. Peter Ranscombe books a ticket to find out why Climbing on board the Caledonian Sleeper at London’s Euston Station has often felt like stepping back in time. The old British Rail rolling stock, the 1970s orange lighting in the seated carriage and the mysterious controls for the heater in the cabins all conjure up images of a bygone age.

Changes are afoot though. Outsourcing giant Serco took over the running of the franchise on 1 April, 2015, and is on track to introduce 75 new carriages in April, 2018. The company is investing £150m in the rolling stock – which is being built by Edinburgh Trams-supplier Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF) in Barcelona – with £60m coming from the Scottish Government through a capital grant.

In the meantime, Serco has been giving Scottish entrepreneurs a boost by stocking more of their produce on board the existing trains. Dingwallbased RSF Scotland supplies 300,000 meals a year to the service as part of a £1m contract.

Over the summer, the evening menu available to passengers in the lounge car included smoked venison from Rannoch Smokery, haggis form George Cockburn & Son in Dingwall and lamb from Clunes Farm near Inverness, along with chicken from Midlothian, cheddar cheese from Perthshire and Wester Ross smoked salmon.

Around 92% of the food served aboard the trains comes from within 50 miles of RSF’s base in the Highlands.

Many outlets will serve Scottish produce, but they miss a trick by not naming their suppliers and telling the story behind the dishes, reinforcing the provenance of the food. Turning its food and drink into a selling point will be a key part of Serco’s plan to change perceptions about the sleeper service, as it repositions the franchise from being a simple train journey into a hotel-style experience.

“There’s only so much that you can do when you’ve only got two microwaves on board,” admits Ryan Flaherty, guest experience director at Caledonian Sleeper. “The new trains will have a full galley, with conventional ovens and a toaster.

“We’ll be able to do things like make the bacon crispy. I can’t wait to be able to have a softboiled egg with toasted soldiers on the train.”

While it’s no surprise that the lounge car serves around a dozen Scotch whiskies, the drinks list also includes Valt vodka from Strathleven Distillers and Caorunn gin from ThaiBev’s Benromach distillery at Cromdale in the Cairngorms National Park, alongside more mundane spirit brands.

Scottish sourcing also extends into the eyecatching list of craft beers on offer, with Innis & Gunn’s lager and original oak-aged beer sitting alongside West Brewery’s St Mungo lager, Deuchars India pale ale (IPA), Belhaven Best, Thistly Cross cider from East Lothian, and tipples from Black Isle Brewery and Fyne Ales.

Food and drink are only part of the story though. Flaherty praises the work of Glasgowbased fashion designer Alan Moore at Ten30 in designing the new uniforms for the train’s staff and Edinburgh-based interior agency Ian Smith Design – which has worked with Cameron House, Martin Wishart and Andy Murray’s Cromlix Hotel – in its plans for the new carriages, which feature Harris Tweed.

“It’s all about portraying Scotland in a contemporary way,” Flaherty adds.

“Not like it is on a shortbread tin.”

Passengers are already being offered Arran Aromatics products on board, with first-class ticket holders able to use the showers in the lounges at either end of the route as part of their package. The new trains will include en-suite berths with showers, as well as cradle seats, fully-reclining “pod flatbeds” with their own privacy screens and reading lights, and cabins with double beds. n

ON THE RECORD www.bqlive.co.uk/bq-breakfast

11

12

ON THE RECORD www.bqlive.co.uk/bq-breakfast

Heard it through the grapevine How can a discount supermarket chain like Lidl offer high-quality wines from Bordeaux at affordable prices? Peter Ranscombe heads for France to find out Mention the word “Bordeaux” and most wine buffs will start reeling off the names of the famous first-growth chateaux – Lafite Rothschild, Latour, Margaux, Mouton-Rothschild and Haut-Brion – the five producers whose bottles sell for hundreds and sometimes thousands of pounds.

Yet Bordeaux is about much, much more. The region is massive, stretching from close to the mouth of the Gironde estuary on France’s Atlantic coast all the way inland along the Dordogne and Garonne rivers, with its vineyards producing around 15% of the country’s entire wine output.

As well as the individual classified growths that only need to use their chateaux names on their bottles, there are myriad village and regional designations for wines, including those labelled simply as “Bordeaux”, which offer more basic, easy-drinking options.

Logic dictates that a discount supermarket chain like Lidl should only be selling basic Bordeaux; thin reds and flat whites to accompany a mid-week pizza or salad. Yet a quick glance down the list of bottles in its latest Wine Cellar promotion – which begins on 29 September – reveals a number of quality wines from both Bordeaux and other famous French regions.

So how can the firm offer top wines at affordable prices? Part of the answer lies in its scale. More than six million shoppers now use the chain’s 630-plus stores in Scotland, England and Wales each week, with its car parks full of

BMWs, Mercedes and Volvos after middle-class bargain hunters long ago shrugged off any suggestions they were trading down.

Instead, the company has won a series of awards, not just for the quality of its wines but for its other produce as well, culminating in prizes from publications as diverse as The Grocer and Good Housekeeping.

In November, the firm unveiled plans to invest £1.5 billion in its stores over the next three years, accelerating the number of sites it opens each year from 20 in 2014 to between 40 and 50, along with the refurbishment of up to 150 shops over the next three-to-four years.

The brand isn’t just expanding in the UK either.

Tracing its roots back to the 1930s, the German company opened its first discount outlet in 1973 and now has more than 10,000 stores spread across 29 countries and territories.

Such scale gives the company increased buying power when it seals its deals with merchants or ‘négociants’ in Bordeaux and elsewhere, buying wines that could potentially be sold throughout Europe.

“We would always match the cheapest price in the market,” explains Paul Gibson, buying director at Lidl UK, whose remit includes wines and spirits. “But we would never undercut the cheapest price – we see that as irresponsible.”

The company is smart about the wines it selects too. Les Hauts de Pez 2012, one of the bottles in the latest promotion, is made by Chateau Tour de Pez, a producer listed among the ‘Cru

Bourgeois’, a group of winemakers ranked just below the 61 classified growth chateaux. Crus Bourgeois offers value without compromising on quality. Stepping outside the most famous areas also provides winners. Chateau Roque le Mayne 2014 comes from Cotes de Castillon, sitting next to the celebrated town of Saint-Emilion, and uses a similar blend of grape varieties to produce a comparable style.

Another factor is the advice the chain takes when selecting its lines. Lidl UK uses three masters of wine – Ed Adams, Richard Bampfield and Caroline Gilby, members of an elite group of fewer than 350 professionals – who consult with the buying team when it is making its decisions and who sample each wine before it goes on sale, writing tasting notes that sit alongside bottles on shelves to inform and entice customers.

“We mark each wine out of 100 points and only wines that score above 80 make it into the stores,” says Bampfield. “Using three highlyqualified and experienced palates means our scores are as reliable as they can be.”

The combination of buying power, site selection and expert advice appears to be working – the Wine Cellar promotions featured 48 wines each quarter last year, but have been expanded this year to five tranches of 40 wines, with bimonthly offers planned next year to cope with demand, sitting alongside the 70 lines in the retailer’s core range that are available year-round. n

PROFILE Scott-Moncrieff

13

Europe is part of Scotland’s economic DNA In the UK, particularly in Scotland, we have been working with Europe for such a long time that it is now hard to see where the European money ends, and home-grown funding begins. Indeed, some of our now well-established SME funding routes can’t be picked apart. Many exist alongside, and because of, the other.

In Scotland we have long celebrated our ability to punch way above our weight when it comes to SME and high growth funding and, although a significant part of that is from our thriving angel network, European money sits right alongside it. The two are so intertwined that it is now hard to tell whether angels would have had the same impact had we not had the European funding input.

Funds such as the Scottish Co-Investment Fund originate from Europe and, with match funding from the angel network, have significantly boosted the fortunes of high growth SMEs. Funds such as this have been around for some 20 years, providing ambitious businesses with support when sources such as the big banks couldn’t, or wouldn’t.

However, many are unaware that despite the name, the funds actually originate in the EU. High growth Scottish SMEs, and in particular those in the tech sector, have become exceptionally dependent on European money, without many of them being aware of its source.

Collectively, Scottish businesses have benefited from the European Regional Development Fund and the European Social Fund, and these have had a marked impact on our economy. If this funding stops, there will undoubtedly be some extreme challenges to the Scottish business infrastructure in the future.

The SMEs regularly hailed by development agencies and others as exemplars of innovation, growth and success are almost all European funded in some way.

Earlier this year, a £70m fund, £30m of which came from Europe, was established to support innovation in Scottish manufacturing. A further £60m programme to support young people in South West Scotland into secure and sustainable employment was also launched. These are just two Scottish programmes that have the thread of Europe running right through them. Whether the support they receive is from initiatives like these, or from other seed funding and grant support, many Scottish SMEs simply wouldn’t exist without Europe.

If the funds go, and it seems they might, as they

are nearly all rooted in European money, then it’s unlikely angels can fill the gap. This could leave high growth companies with banks, Government and non-traditional funding models to rely on. These companies find it hard to get bank funding; they will go to the back of the queue behind health, education

“High growth Scottish SMEs, and in particular those in the tech sector, have become exceptionally dependent on European money, without many of them being aware of its source.” and defence when it comes to securing Government funding; and although they are naturally suited to non-traditional funding models, these cannot yet deliver all the funding that Scotland’s high growth SMEs require.

A new comprehensive, well-funded and supported model will be needed in the near future to maintain the sector, and underpin Scotland’s future economic growth. Is now, just on the other side of a recession, the best time for a radical ‘blank sheet’ approach?

With the reality of Brexit looming, until new systems are in place, we run the risk that innovative ideas could be lost, SME growth could slow, and the clock will have been wound back many years.

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

FACT OF THE QUARTER 1.3m: The number of Britons who want to start their own businesses, according to a survey

by Direct Line insurance

BUSINESS UPDATE Swimmers’ new business makes a splash Olympic swimmers David Carry and Keri-Anne Payne have launched Triscape, a sport and health retreat company, with funding support from Clydesdale Bank. Their new company will run sport and wellness camps in locations including Aberdeen, San Francisco, Abu Dhabi and St Lucia. Husband and wife duo Carry and Payne have competed at the Olympic and Commonwealth games and at the European and world championships.

Carry said: “Our team of eight specialists has the combined experience of 15 Olympic games behind it, so we really do offer the highest level of coaching and guidance.

“Keri-Anne and I come from a swimming background, but we also have Olympian and world record-holding cyclist Jess Varnish on board. As well as athletes, we have Scott Gardner, a cycling coach and performance scientist to eight Olympic gold medalists, Team GB doctor Kate Jordan, and head physiotherapist for the British triathlon team Emma Deakin. Tim Jordan and Colin Hill have joined the team in the roles of sports psychologist, personal trainer and wellness coach, and open water event lead respectively.”

David Carry, Keri-Anne Page and Kevin Thomson.

Edinburgh entrepreneur launches gin with Japanese berries An entrepreneur in Edinburgh has turned to his family connection with Japan for the inspiration behind his first gin. James Nicol is using sansho berries sourced from Nic, his uncle, in Japan to make Kokoro gin. Nicol, whose day-job is running his own project consultancy business in the financial services industry, set up Forest Spirits, the company behind the gin, with his brotherin-law, Barry Darnell, founder and managing director of Leeds-based design agency Analogue Creative. Forest Spirits outsourced production of the gin to Thames Distillers, the London-based manufacturer that produces gins for more than 60 brands, including Gordon Castle Gin, which it makes using botanicals grown in the castle gardens. “We tasted the sansho berries when we visited Nic in Japan and we thought they were amazing,” explains Nicol, who developed the recipe for Kokoro using his spirits still in Edinburgh. When I distilled them with juniper I thought ‘wow’ – they add a warming pepperiness to the gin.” Kokoro – which translates as “heart and soul” – is already being stocked in a number of bars, restaurants and bottle shops in Edinburgh, Leeds, London and the North-West of England, where Nicol has family connections.

Field-to-fork venison brand unveiled Farmers Bob and Jane Prentice have launched Stagison, Scotland’s first brand for farmed venison. The Prentices opened an abattoir on their farm at Downfield, near Cupar in Fife, last year after becoming disillusioned with having to send their deer to the UK’s only venison abattoir, in South Yorkshire.

Their £140,000 operation is billed as “Scotland’s only field-to-fork venison farm and processing

plant” and already lists The Buffalo Farm, Hope Farm Venison and Seriously Good Venison among its customers. Bob said: “The whole concept is based on the idea of going from ‘field to fork’ – we can bring the animals in from the fields, through the abattoir, into a package and send it wherever we want to send it.

“What has struck us is the quality of the meat, the consistency because it’s farmed, and the nutritional value.” Farmed venison is billed as having a softer texture than wild venison.

BUSINESS UPDATE www.bqlive.co.uk/bq-breakfast

QUOTE OF THE QUARTER “Shetland businesses are more resilient than the national average in part due to the relatively isolated nature of the business environment on the islands. Shops and other services outlets located in Shetland may face less competitive pressure from businesses located in neighbouring areas, due to time and costs involved in searching for and accessing alternative sources of supply on the part of local residents or businesses.”

Steve Lucas, managing director at Development Economics, commenting on a survey by website Ebay, which found Shetland start-ups were the most resilient in the UK.

WEBSITE OF THE QUARTER www.geovation.uk Entrepreneurs are invited to win funding to help utility firms solve 55 problems giving them sleepless nights

15

TOP TWEETS Fantastic line-up of speakers for this year’s @VenturefestScot: @ SpaceBudgie @billatnapier @zonefox @AbertayUni – @InterfaceOnline 5 Key Tips to Make an Entrepreneur’s Time Count www.entrepreneurial-spark.com/5key-tips-to-make-an-entrepreneurs-timemake-it-count/ – @ESparkGlobal CONGRATULATIONS to all the @ ConvergeC shortlisted nominees bit. ly/2bII88b #CC16Awards – @EntrepScot CALLING #Scotland’s #ICT Co’s looking to raise ≥£1.5m Series A round! APPLY NOW #EIELondon bit.ly/29vhhgL – @infventures Looks like we love our bubbly! Who knew....

Glasgow named Prosecco capital of UK buff. ly/2bLIBIR – @Glasgow_Chamber Scotland a major #fintech player in UK taking topspot as European fintech leader.

Investment to exceed 2015 level. ow.ly/ UvHz303FS1g – @ScotDevInt

Moo Pie pushes Transmit Start-Ups over £10m Transmit Start-Ups has broken through the £10m barrier after providing a start-up loan to Moo Pie, run by 27-year-old Emma Riddell, who sells gelato from a bike at the Tram Stop Market in Leith. The Gateshead-based company has been a delivery partner for the UK Government’s £310m start-up loans programme for the past three years. It has lent money to more than 1,200 entrepreneurs in Scotland and England, with one-in-five of the applications coming from north of the Border. Transmit Start-Ups recently opened offices in Edinburgh and Glasgow to cope with the demand for finance. Riddell said: “I was delighted when I found out that my start-up loan application had been accepted.

“It’s amazing to think that my start-up loan broke the £10m barrier for Transmit Start-Ups. “I really hope this will inspire others to take that first step on their own start-up journey.”

Richard Myers, commercial director of Transmit Start-Ups, added: “The number of applications we receive has increased month-on-month since we started, particularly in Scotland, prompting us to open offices in Glasgow and Edinburgh so that we can meet demand and respond to applications quickly.

“Emma is a great example of one of these entrepreneurs and we look forward to mentoring and watching her success as she builds her own business.”

Join us in Feb 2017 as we look at emerging ideas and solutions on transforming our urban areas into smart cities for the next generation! – @ ScotRenew @MADEfestival returns for 2016: www. bqlive.co.uk/2016/08/26/made-returnsfor-2016/ – @BQLive Almost 2/3rds of tables sold already for our 17th November ceremony! Don’t leave it too late to book and apply! www. scottishbusinessawards.co.uk/book-atable/ – @scotbizawards

ONLINE AT BQLIVE.CO.UK

16

BUSINESS UPDATE www.bqlive.co.uk/bq-breakfast

Bank of Scotland signs up for eighth Great Scottish Run Bank of Scotland is continuing its sponsorship of the Great Scottish Run for an eighth consecutive year. The event, which takes place in Glasgow on 1 and 2 October, is expected to attract up to 30,000 participants. Organisers said that the ‘business challenge’, for which companies can submit a team of willing participants, is proving popular. Nick Laird, Bank of Scotland’s regional managing director for mid markets in Scotland and the North of England, said: “All of our clients are offered the opportunity to enter the business challenge

Findr connects customers to photographers A former newspaper snapper is launching an online marketplace to connect event organisers and venue managers to suitable photographers.

Alex Hewitt, who was deputy picture editor at The Scotsman, is launching Findr.me at Codebase, the UK’s largest digital technology incubator, in Edinburgh. Hewitt has secured seed funding from Apollo Informal Investments and a grant through the Edinburgh Digital Media Launchpad, organised by Codebase and Innovate UK, formerly known as the UK Government’s Technology Strategy Board.

He said: “Busy event professionals can struggle to engage a suitable photographer without a lengthy process of communication and engagement.

“We bring clarity and transparency to the process so that users can focus on the quality of the photographer’s work and not worry about questions of price or availability.

and we are delighted that Goals Soccer Centre and some of our other clients have signed up and have chosen to run for our charity of the year, BBC Children in Need.

“We’re looking forward to seeing them on the start line.”

A business challenge team consists of a minimum of four people and a maximum of eight, and can be a mix of men and women. There are options to run either ten kilometres or a half-marathon, and both events take place on 2 October.

“By focusing your search or seeking appropriate recommendations from your industry, we can quickly identify the most appropriate photographer for any project.

“Event photography is the initial focus but the technology can be applied to any need for on demand photography.”

Hunter backs DynamicAction Sir Tom Hunter’s West Coast Capital investment vehicle has led a US$15 million (£12m) funding round for Silicon Valley-based retail analytics firm DynamicAction.

Accenture, the New York-listed technology giant, has also invested in the company and has entered into an alliance with it.

West Coast Capital was one of the original investors in DynamicAction, which also lists London-based Frog Capital, Eplanet Capital and advertising giant WPP among its shareholders.

Hunter said: “We are delighted to welcome Accenture as an investor in DynamicAction.

“Global retail is going through incredible change, and where there is change, there is opportunity.

“Data analytics will be at the forefront of that change, and DynamicAction’s world-class software will help retailers navigate a more profitable path in the face of heightened competition.”

Paul Davidson, managing partner at West Coast Capital and a director of DynamicAction, added: “We’ve had the unique opportunity to witness the world’s most innovative retailers, from Cole Haan to Tesco, improve their operational efficiency, their decision making paradigm and their profitability with DynamicAction technology.

“This company has bucked the trend of hypebefore-substance and managed to build a world-class product, with the top retailers in the world as clients, and truly revolutionise the way that retailers look at their metrics and run their businesses.”

BUSINESS UPDATE www.bqlive.co.uk/bq-breakfast

Glencraft deal to supply spring units to Blindcraft Glencraft, the Aberdeen-based mattress-making social enterprise, has won a ‘significant’ contract from City Building Glasgow, the company spun-out from Glasgow City Council’s building services department. The North-East company has secured a two-year deal through the Scottish Government’s supported business framework to supply 190 ‘spring units’ a week.

Lesley Quinn, head of client management at City Building Glasgow, explained: “The spring units will be used by our manufacturing division at City Building, Royal Strathclyde Blindcraft Industries.

“Where possible we look to work with social enterprises and supported businesses, as part of our high standards for responsible business practice and Glencraft is a quality business making a quality product.” Graham McWilliam, managing director at Glencraft, added: “Wining this contract is a great boon for Glencraft. We handcraft our mattresses and spring units to ensure they are of the highest quality made by our loyal and dedicated team. This two-year contract will provide the business with stability and allow us to hopefully win further work with other organisations looking to collaborate with social enterprises.”

Spoonfed feeds Social Bite’s corporate sales Social Bite, the sandwich shop chain that provides meals and work for homeless people, has reported a ten-fold rise in revenues from its corporate catering business after using software provided by Scottish technology outfit Spoonfed.

Monthly sales have risen from £7,000 to £70,000 to turn corporate catering into Social Bite’s biggest revenue generator, accounting for 50% of all company turnover.

The social enterprise has also posted a 25% increase in average order value over a six-month period. Willie Biggart, managing director at Livingston-based Spoonfed, said: “With Social Bite we saw an opportunity for it to revamp its corporate catering order process with the help of our software, and we’re delighted that it has seen such outstanding results.

“Social Bite does brilliant work within the homeless community and we wanted to ensure that it could continue to do this with the help of Spoonfed.

“As a result, we incorporated the option to ‘suspend’ items like coffee or sandwiches, meaning companies placing corporate orders could reserve items to give back to the homeless community, all with just a couple of clicks.”

Alan Mahon, director at Social Bite, added: “Since adopting Spoonfed’s software, our corporate image has vastly improved and we have seen continued customer satisfaction and confidence in our offerings, which has been brilliant.”

17

New Equity Partner Joins GFW Land, property and business consultancy George F. White has appointed a new Equity Partner. Mike Young (FRICS FIQ) joins the firm, with over 21 years’ experience as a Chartered Surveyor. During his illustrious career, Mike has developed a specialist range of expertise through the management and development of private and public owned minerals and waste property estates. Mike’s specialist expertise includes contract negotiation, planning and environmental assessment, strategic site appraisal and evaluation, estate management and compulsory purchase and compensation.

Welcoming Mike to the business as an Equity Partner, Robyn Peat, Managing Partner at George F. White, said: “We are thrilled to welcome Mike as a Partner in the business. It’s a great coup to recruit a man of Mike’s niche talent, leadership qualities and industry expertise. His experience, especially in the land and mineral resources field, will strengthen our delivery in this growing service area and enable us to expand our client base in this sector nationally. Young said: “My position is a dual role. From a leadership perspective as a Partner, a key focus will be developing the regional strategy as head of Northumberland and Borders. I strongly believe George F. White should be the first choice of property consultancy for both employees and clients alike. As Head of Commercial Property, I will be focused on business related property including minerals, waste & recycling, industrial and manufacturing, office, retail and distribution and logistics. I’m looking forward to working closely with our existing commercial property clients while developing new clients in this key area of growth.

It’s a great time to join George F. White and I can’t wait to get involved.”

18

BUSINESS UPDATE www.bqlive.co.uk/bq-breakfast

MOVERS AND SHAKERS Nick Laird has been named as Bank of Scotland regional managing director for mid markets, succeeding Alasdair Gardner who has been appointed head of global corporates North America. Laird will be based in Edinburgh and will lead Bank of Scotland’s commercial banking presence in Scotland and Lloyds Bank’s commercial banking presence in the North of England.

Business minister Baroness Lucy Neville-Rolfe has been selected by Business Secretary Greg Clark as the ‘growth champion’ for Scotland. Clark wants each of his ministers to “better connect government policy with the businesses and industries” in their areas.

Sandy Finlayson, former managing partner at law firm MBM Commercial, has been appointed as chairman of Converge Challenge. Find out more on page 46.

Sue Dawe has been appointed as head of accountancy firm EY’s financial services practice in Scotland as well as the managing partner of the practice’s Edinburgh office.

TL Dallas comes ‘home’ to Edinburgh An insurance broker with Scottish roots has opened an office on Castle Street in Edinburgh, bringing it ‘home’ to the capital. TL Dallas was founded in Bradford in 1919 by Scotsman Thomas Lessels Dallas. The company opened a branch in Shetland in 1993, followed by Falkirk in 2000 and Glasgow in 2011.

In November, 2015 the firm funded a ‘buy back’ of much of the former Castle Cairn business that had been sold in 2011 to Central Insurance, now part of Marsh.

Existing TL Dallas client director, Tim Mackenzie, is joined by a team of nine led

by Alan Grant and Helene Brown.

Polly Staveley, deputy group managing director, said: “We are delighted to be moving into our new offices in the heart of Edinburgh, bringing us firmly ‘home’ to the city where our founder and my great grandfather, Thomas Lessels Dallas, started his business career – and in the very street where Castle Cairn was established in 1979.”

Scottish Building Society has appointed Aileen Brown to the newly-created role of finance director. She joins chief executive Mark Thomson as the second executive director on the board.

Malcolm McPherson, senior partner at law firm HBJ Gateley, has become non-executive chairman at The Big Partnership public relations firm.

Sara Zorriasatein has become a director of Edinburgh-based recruitment firm Edgar Stewart.

She leads Cyrus, one of the spin-out companies from Edgar Stewart’s incubation centre.

Glasgow-based architecture firm Page Park has appointed Karen Pickering as its new chair and Andrew Bateman as its managing director.

Digital technology trade body ScotlandIS has appointed four board members: Russell Dalgleish, managing partner at Exolta Capital Partners; Jude McCorry, head of business development at the Data Lab innovation centre; Kenny Millar, senior software development manager at Amazon’s Scottish development centre; and Lee Murray, director of head resourcing.

Douglas Millar, business consultancy co-owner, has been appointed chairman of the Institute of Directors’ (IoD’s) Fife branch, while Andy Doig, managing director at Arthurstone Management, has taken over as chairman of IoD Tayside.

Meanwhile, former IoD Scotland chair Ian McKay and former Edinburgh Napier University principal Dame Joan Stringer have both joined the IoD’s UK council.

FIND OUT MORE ONLINE AT BQLIVE.CO.UK

For up-to-da business ne te ws sign up for BQ Breakfast bqlive.co.uk/ breakfast

PROFILE Transmit Start-Ups

19

What Scotland’s start-up businesses look like Start Up Loans delivery partner Transmit Start-Ups has helped over 1,300 entrepreneur’s start-up their own businesses by providing finance, free business support and mentoring. Twenty per cent of these entrepreneurs are based in Scotland, but a recent upsurge in new business starts, particularly from Glasgow and Edinburgh, has resulted in one in every three entrepreneurs approved for funding being from Scotland.

Off the back of this increase in volume, Transmit Start-Ups commissioned a piece of research to get a better understanding of who these Scottish entrepreneurs are, where they live and what types of businesses they are setting up.

They found that age was no barrier to those in Scotland looking to become their own boss, with the oldest recipient of one of its start-up loans 74 and the youngest just 19. The start-up businesses also spanned across a whole range of industries, with the most common sectors being retail, food and drink, creative and digital, and professional services.

Although there is a high concentration of new entrepreneurs across the central belt, Transmit Start-Ups has funded businesses from the Scottish Borders and as far north as the Isle of Lewis. The

“Transmit Start-Ups commissioned a piece of research to get a better understanding of who these Scottish entrepreneurs are, where they live and what types of businesses they are setting up. They found that age was no barrier to those in Scotland looking to become their own boss, with the oldest recipient of one of its start-up loans 74 and the youngest just 19.” entrepreneurs came from all sorts of business backgrounds. 42 per cent of loan recipients were becoming their own boss from full-time employment, while 13 per cent started their own business after being unemployed for a period of time.

One such entrepreneur is Kirsty Gurr from Dunbar, who started her mobile cocktail business, The Alchemist Cocktails, with a start-up loan from Transmit Start-Ups. Kirsty used the loan to fit out her 1979 Renault Estafette van and since then, her business has gone from strength to strength. “It has always been by dream to start up my own business and I can officially say that is now a reality” said Kirsty. She added: “One thing I have learnt is that self-employment is definitely not for lazy people!”.

If you’re interested in starting your own businesses, find out more about Transmit StartUps and the work they do across Scotland at www.transmitstartups.co.uk, call 0845 094 3670 or email info@transmitstartups.co.uk.

20

AS I SEE IT bqlive.co.uk

Competing for business Sheila Scobie, the Competition & Markets Authority’s representative for Scotland, explains how entrepreneurs can help stop anti-competitive practices

£

The Locomotive Act of 1865 regulated the speeds of new-fangled motorised road transport to no more than 4mph on country routes and 2mph in cities, despite the fact that they were able to move very much faster. Why? The government had been influenced by drivers of horse drawn vehicle and train companies.

Despite the advantages to be seized from innovative new ways of transporting people and goods, it was decided that these innovations should be constrained to fit with existing business models. Imagine if these restrictions had lasted?

Entrepreneurs benefit our economy and society. They create products and services that consumers want and provide a powerful incentive for incumbent businesses to drive down costs, streamline processes, and innovate to develop their own better products and services.

Reducing barriers to new businesses entering markets, therefore, can increase competition and consumer choice. Even just the threat of entrance to a market can be a powerful disciplining tool to drive the benefits of competition.

My organisation, the Competition & Markets Authority (CMA), formed from a merger of the Competition Commission and the Office of Fair Trading in 2014, works to promote competition in markets, to benefit consumers. We look to policy makers to consider the impact on competitive markets when shaping new policies and legislation.

And, if we’d been around in 1865, we would surely have been advocating against some of the provisions in the Locomotive Act. The well-established wisdom is that competition benefits the economy, encourages the best use of resources and benefits consumers, including

businesses as consumers. It also puts pressure on businesses to innovate to attract customers looking for new, better or cheaper goods and services.

New businesses, in the fast-paced world we live in today, can take up a dominant position quite quickly: look at Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, businesses that are relatively young, but with many customers globally. Dominant positions however, as we have seen from companies such as Yahoo, IBM, Myspace and Bebo, can be eroded.

The challenge for the CMA and other competition agencies, is to be agile enough in working with regulators and policy makers to allow businesses to develop the goods and services that consumers want – in markets that have not been defined or even thought of yet – without rules stifling innovation.

Entrepreneurs, seeking to innovate and enter

AS I SEE IT bqlive.co.uk

markets, could encounter a number of hurdles.

To encourage entrepreneurialism and the noted benefits to the economy, we need to give confidence to new entrants that they are able to compete; that they can operate new business models, if that is what consumers want, and they are able to gain market share from incumbents, if they provide products or services to meet demand.

An effective competition regime will

help do this.

The CMA takes action against firms that seek to abuse their dominant position or who collude with other firms to fix the conditions in which they will all trade. In two cases earlier this year, Ultra Finishing, a supplier of bathroom fittings, and ITW, a supplier of commercial fridges, were fined by the CMA for engaging in ‘resale price maintenance’: they restricted retailers’ abilities to sell their products online at independently-

21

determined prices. We have also investigated suspected breaches of similar activities in the hotel online booking sector.

As well as addressing specific concerns, the CMA can also investigate whole markets where competition does not appear to be working effectively. These investigations can lead to market-opening remedies.

New entrants into a market like retail banking are an important source of competition and

“Competition benefits the economy, encourages the best use of resources and benefits consumers, including businesses as consumers ”

innovation, and we are aware of the current barriers to challenger banks. Our investigation, which reported in August, aims to improve information available to both personal and business customers on the offerings available from challengers – as well as incumbents – to allow them to compare and choose the right bank for them. Remedies around ‘open banking’ are designed to make it easier for smaller banks to win customers, which should improve the degree of competitive pressure on the large incumbents.

Likewise, with the energy market, the CMA found evidence to suggest that the average prices offered by the ‘big six’ energy firms have been “above those that we would expect to prevail in a well-functioning competitive market”. In seeking to remedy this, we have developed a range of proposals with the objective being that competitive pressures bear

down on costs, reducing the prices paid by customers. Specifically relating to third party intermediaries or brokers in the energy market, our remedies should help consumers choose the supplier that best meets their needs.

Both these investigations considered the important role of price comparison websites (PCW). Technology such as PCWs and usergenerated content, such as online reviews, can be helpful in informing consumers – including small businesses, which often face the same difficulties in making the best consumption choices. The CMA is mindful however of the need to protect consumers from fake reviews and lack of transparency around sponsored materials; with the objective to empower consumers to make the best decision.

Entrepreneurs, seeking to create a space for their business, may be well placed to spot market failures, either through regulation that

needs to be improved or by spotting anticompetitive behaviour by other businesses. They will know a market well, and can spot types of behaviour that could inhibit their entry to or growth in a market. But it is important that all businesses are aware of the signs of abuse of dominance and know what to do if they suspect it is happening. Complying with competition law is good for businesses too: it helps them avoid expensive fines and reputational damage, which might turn customers away.

The CMA has a number of tools to stop anticompetitive behaviour, from proactive guidance for businesses to help them comply with competition law, to enforcement powers to stop illegal behaviour. We encourage reporting of all anti-competitive behaviour or issues in markets. This can be done online at www. gov.uk/government/publications/report-anticompetitive-or-market-issues-to-the-cma n

22

ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

Airing her laundry Depending on when you started watching television, there are a whole range of reasons why you may know the name ‘Carol Smillie’.

In the 1980s, she was a successful model, before her big break on the small screen as the hostess on Wheel of Fortune. In the 1990s, she conquered prime time, presenting The Travel Show, Holiday and Changing Rooms, which ran for 165 episodes and launched the careers of designers Linda Barker, Laurence LlewelynBowen, Anna Ryder Richardson and ‘Handy’ Andy Kane.

If you were just meeting Smillie for the first time now though, there’s a whole new reason why you would remember her name. Smillie is the entrepreneur behind Diary Doll, a range of lightweight women’s briefs with a secret waterproof panel to help protect against “life’s little leaks”, whether it be heavy periods, pelvic floor weakness or post maternity.

The pretty clever pants have really captured the public’s attention. They’re already on sale through Alliance Healthcare, Boots, QVC and a host of independent lingerie shops, with the company winning a score of prizes, including a grant from the Scottish Edge Fund, and Smillie carrying off the ‘sports entrepreneur of the year’ title at this year’s [2016’s] Sports Business Innovation Awards, run by Sporting Chance Initiative.

It’s perhaps not the easiest subject to speak about – at a recent business lunch, it was interesting to watch men squirm after they asked Smillie what she did and she looked them straight in the eye and told them. “I don’t do that in a controversial way – I’m not out to make people uncomfortable,” she explains. “If you’re a man with sons then you’ve probably never talked about periods.

“It’s partly our fault as women for not discussing it more openly. It doesn’t need to be graphic – it’s

Carol Smillie has used the skills she has developed as a television presenter to create underwear brand Diary Doll, which is helping to tackle not one but two taboos writes Peter Ranscombe just a fact of life, this is what happens. People see it as a dirty thing and that really irritates me because it’s not.”

The idea for the Diary Doll pants came while Smillie and former tennis star Annabel Croft were on holiday together. Smillie recently bought out Croft, leaving her in sole control of the business.

“Television is very shallow and quite ageist for women particularly, so I was on the lookout for what could become the next step for me,” Smillie

says. “A couple of ideas had come up, but they were other people’s businesses. As soon as we had that conversation on holiday I knew that this was the one. It grabbed me straight away.

“It’s simple, it’s obvious, and we thought it was incredible no one had done it before. I got on Google and found there were a couple of companies in America making similar products, but they weren’t doing a very good job.

“That’s changed now because there are slightly

24

ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

more sophisticated companies out there, but they still differ from us, in that they’re quite expensive, absorbent – which we’re not – and just downright ugly, exactly as you would imagine, big, ugly, nude-coloured Bridget Jones’ specials.

“In my boundless, open-eyed enthusiasm I thought I’d give it a go. ‘How hard can it be?’ was what I used to say – it makes me laugh now because the answer is ‘It’s bloody hard’.

It’s been a steep learning curve. I knew nothing about manufacturing, about bringing a product to market, intellectual property (IP) protection, banking.

“To me, it was about making pretty knickers and breaking down taboos – but actually there’s everything else that has to go on in the background to make that possible.”

Smillie began by carrying out market research among 100 teenage girls at three schools.

The results astounded her. She found 34% had accidents every month, which is what she expected, but a startling 91% said that they were so afraid of a leak happening that they just avoided sports, wouldn’t stay at anyone’s house overnight and wouldn’t wear lightcoloured clothing.

“For a huge number of these young girls, it will never be a physical issue, it’s an emotional issue,” says Smillie. “The peer pressure or the embarrassment of boys seeing a mark on the back of their skirts would be social suicide. Kids are brutal, they’re harsh. That was enough to convince me that we had to launch this product.

“I’m a great believer in doing market research.

Just because you think it’s a good idea doesn’t mean anyone else does, and friends and family will only tell you what you want to hear.

Everyone’s very supportive to begin with but then you’re left with the harsh reality that it’s just you and 7,000 pairs of knickers and a website.”

The next step was to speak to her friend Midge Whyte, the former British ski team member who set up Edinburgh-based Bawbags Underwear in 2007, which sells boxer shorts and raises money for charity. He put her in touch with an agent in Aberdeen, who had the first batch of pants produced at a factory in China.

“We got two things wrong immediately,” Smillie confesses. “The first was sizing. We ordered more medium and large knickers and fewer small knickers, because everyone kept telling us that British women are bigger – and then we immediately sold out of ‘small’.

“To me, it was about making pretty knickers and breaking down taboos – but actually there’s everything else that has to go on in the background to make that possible.”

“The second was labelling them ‘small’, ‘medium’ and ‘large’ at all. We immediately had a Twitter backlash from mothers telling us that their daughters weren’t ‘large’ and they couldn’t give them pants with ‘large’ or ‘extra-large’ on the labels.

“Social media is a wonderful thing, but it can also be a terrifying thing, so I’m a great believer in dealing with it right away and be seen to deal with it. So I went on Twitter and said ‘You’re absolutely right, we’re just learning as we go. This is invaluable information and we will immediately change it on the website.

Unfortunately, we can’t change it on the packaging, but just pull the tag off and she won’t know any differently. Let us know how you get on.’ They loved it and said it was so nice we’d dealt with it right away.”

That interaction with customers on social media has become a cornerstone of Diary Doll.

Customers told Smillie that they wanted size 24 and 26 pants; when she explained the cost would be higher, they said they would be prepared to pay extra because that was the normal situation when it came to other garments.

One of the few situations in which celebrity status has come into play was getting Smillie a meeting with Mumsnet, the all-conquering website. Smillie hosted an event for Mumsnet at the British Academy of Film & Television Arts (BAFTA) on Piccadilly in London’s West End, during which she met Kate Hardcastle, a retail analyst best known for her work on Sky News.

“Kate suffers from endometriosis, which is an illness where your internal organs fuse together and it causes horrifically painful and heavy periods,” explains Smillie. “She understood Diary Doll immediately. She took me to a private dinner organised by The Twenty Club, an exclusive meeting of retailers, and introduced me to John Lewis managing director Andy Street.

“We’d been trying to meet with John Lewis’ head lingerie buyer but they hadn’t returned our calls – Andy Street arranged a meeting for the next day,” Smillie remembers. “So I went into this meeting totally unprepared – all I had with me were a couple of pairs of pants.

“The buyer wasn’t really interested to begin with, but then her assistant explained that she suffered from endometriosis too. I came away with an order for 1,500 pairs.”

Yet fulfilling the order for one of the biggest names on the high street came with difficulties.

Having had issues with the quality of the original pants from China, Diary Doll had switched production to Headen & Quarmby, the Manchester-based factory that was made famous in the Channel 4 documentary series Mary’s Bottom Line when it produced Mary Portas’ Kinky Knickers brand.

But Headen & Quarmby fell into administration in January 2014, only partway through making the 500 knickers for the first tranche of John Lewis’ order. Smillie and her husband – former restauranteur Alex Knight – climbed into the car immediately, and drove from their home in Glasgow down to Manchester to rescue their stock.

“That’s when you start to go ‘This is not fun anymore, I’ve got to grow a pair now, what the hell do I do?’,” says Smillie. “So we drove down, ten o’clock at night, and they opened up for us.

They were quite embarrassed about the whole thing, and we got it all out. We drove all the way back up to Glasgow with my face jammed against the window by a box of leg elastics and my husband asking ‘What next?’ and I told him ‘No idea, keep driving’.”

Smillie was able to fulfil the first part of the John Lewis order using the remainder of the website stock from the Diary Doll Scottish warehouse – but was then faced with the headache of finding a new manufacturer to meet the second and third tranches. She turned for help to Entrepreneurial Spark, the business incubator network.

“I’d watched the BBC Scotland documentary about Entrepreneurial Spark and to be honest I was a bit sceptical,” Smillie admits. “It all sounded very evangelical – and that’s not me.

“But I recognised they were trying to do something really good and I thought, what have I got to lose? I mean, I never assumed they would take me in. I went to see them, explained the

ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

25

26

ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

situation, and they said, okay, you can come in.”

Diary Doll became a ‘chiclet’ in Entrepreneurial Spark’s ‘hatchery’ in Glasgow. One of its fellow chiclets, a boxer short company called Dick Winters, introduced Smillie to Haven Products, a social enterprise based in Stirling that provides work for disabled people and which grew out of the former Remploy factory.

“Haven make very manly items like lifejackets and boiler suits for oil rig workers – so it ruffled a few feathers when I turned up and asked them if they could make pretty pants,” Smillie laughs.

“But they had a few seamstresses working for them who had worked on underwear before and they knew what to do – and I will be forever grateful to them.”

Teaming up with Haven sadly wasn’t the end of Smillie’s sourcing problems though. While she was filming a series of adverts for Finish dishwasher tablets, she had to sit in the back of the brand’s big blue Transit van on the phone to the French company that supplied her with waterproofing for the pants.

“The waterproofing was really expensive, so I begged this woman in French to please supply me with a smaller amount,” she laughs. “I begged her woman-to-woman but she turned around and said ‘But my boss is a man’.”

When department store chain Debenhams saw the pants on John Lewis’ website, the company got in touch with Smillie so it could stock the garments too. But a lack of customer education meant Diary Doll sold too slowly for Debenhams, which then cut the price after six weeks. John Lewis also pulled out, squeezed by slow sales and lingerie brands with far bigger budgets.

“God, it was awful,” Smillie admits. “It felt like it was all crumbling around me. But being part of Entrepreneurial Spark was brilliant. Having so many like-minded businesses around me, who were all going through similar challenges.”

Diary Doll has gone on to be one of the poster children for the incubator network and arguably one of its most-famous chiclets. The company moved out of the hatchery over the summer into offices in Charing Cross in Glasgow. After parting company with Debenhams and John Lewis, the duo spoke at Entrepreneurial Scotland’s conference at The Gleneagles Hotel, prompting an approach from a potential investor, who went on to conduct intense due diligence and market research. This highlighted a pivotal change in direction for the brand, addressing women over 40 with weak pelvic floors – or the “running, jumping, coughing, sneezing brigade” as Smillie gently puts it.

“The overwhelming information that came back was that periods were great but we were missing a massive, massive market, which is pelvic floor weakness,” Smillie explains. “Women over 40 have got the money, but they don’t talk about it, it’s even more taboo than periods, but it’s a silent epidemic and it is huge.

“I went to see Boots and they loved it. They said, there’s nothing like this out there. ‘It’s really pretty – glamorous in a deeply unglamorous world’ was the quote.

“The other piece of fascinating information that Boots gave us is that the period market is a declining one. Everyone laughs when I say that, but young girls today will not put up with it, the way their mothers did before. If it’s bad then they go on the pill, they have an implant, they have a patch or whatever.”

Pivoting the business to address the needs of women as well as teenagers and the loss of the contracts with Debenhams and John Lewis has had an initial impact on sales – taking them down from around £180,000 to £120,000 – but

27

Smillie is confident that the switch is the right move. With increased orders, manufacturing has now switched to a new, quality-assured company in China. The company has partnered with the Association of Continence Advisors, along with charity Endometriosis UK. Some of the original Chinese stock was recently donated to one of Lord Willie Haughey’s charities and sent to Malawi.

Knight has also come on board running the logistics, financial and administration side, leaving Smillie very much at the forefront. “Alex brings calmness to the business,” Smillie grins. “He has a very good analytical brain and will question if things are taking up too much time or costing too much money. After 25 years of marriage, we work well as a team.”

Rather than sell the company to a larger player, Smillie wants to develop it hand-in-hand with the right financial backer, and explore potential licensing options.

“It’s the expertise I want – it needs to be ‘smart’ money, not just money,” she explains. “You can get money from a bank, I suppose, if you wanted to go down that route, but smart money means someone with the right contacts, and more importantly, experience.

“I do think I’m quite entrepreneurial. I’ve always been that way – when you’re the youngest of four children, you’ve got to shout to be heard and you’ve got to get attention.

“I had a life of red carpets and getting bunches of flowers for doing the job that I was paid to do.

It’s very sobering to be back down in the mosh pit of business, with people telling me that they don’t care who I am or what I’m shouting about.

But whatever happens I’ll be pleased I gave it a go – I’m definitely not a lady that can just go and ‘do lunch’.” n With thanks to House For An Art Lover for hosting the photo shoot. Find out more at www.houseforanartlover.co.uk

“The overwhelming information that came back was that periods were great but we were missing a massive, massive market, which is pelvic floor weakness”

28

ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

Ask most wee boys what they want to do when they grow up and they’ll probably tell you they’re going to be a farmer or a firefighter or a footballer. When Stuart Cassells was nine years old though, he had a completely different idea.

“I wanted to be the most famous bagpipe player in the world,” laughs Cassells, who is now general manager of both the Famous Grouse Experience visitors’ centre and Glenturret distillery near Crieff in Perthshire. “That’s not the same thing as being the best bagpipe player in the world.”

After being named BBC Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year and becoming the first bagpipe graduate from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama (RSAMD), Cassells was well on his way to achieving that goal. Born and bred in Falkirk, he began performing at Scottish music shows five nights a week for American tourists when he was just 12.

Cassells initially forged a career playing the pipes at corporate events throughout Scotland and acting as an agent for ceilidh bands and other musicians. His early influences included bagpipers like Gordon Duncan, Fred Morrison and Allan MacDonald, part of a new wave of musicians who began playing their instruments in a more modern style.

“Up until that point, the bagpipes’ association with the military was so strong that the only time people heard the instrument was at Highland games, parades or formal occasions and people thought you had to march around and wear a uniform,” he explains. “But the bagpipes were never invented to be a military instrument; they were a shepherd’s instrument, a folk instrument.”

Cassells’s bagpipe heroes were heavily influenced by Celtic music in general and Irish music in particular, which had become very popular in the 1980s, along with the Asturian and Galician styles of piping from Spain and the Breton form from France. “They were bending or swerving notes, they were using vibrato, they were sliding from note to note,” Cassells remembers. “Traditionalists didn’t approve of this style of piping at all, but people like me in the generation that followed absolutely loved it.

A toast to the piper When he founded the Red Hot Chilli Pipers, Stuart Cassells created the biggest Scottish music act on the planet. He tells Peter Ranscombe that he’s now turning his attention from the bagpipes to another national symbol – whisky “There was a group doing corporate events called the Gutty Slippers, who also played at Paul Gascoigne’s wedding and who started off busking in Glasgow. Busking is a great training ground for doing corporate events because you very quickly learn what audiences like.

“If someone pays to come and see you play at a concert then they’ve already invested money and they’re there to have a good time. But if you’re playing at a corporate event then the audience aren’t necessarily on your side – they sit with their arms folded and dare you to entertain them.

“The Gutty Slippers would be the first to admit that they weren’t the best musicians, but I loved their showmanship. So I began to wonder what it would be like if you could put together a group of good musicians and get them to play in that modern style. Essentially, what I wanted to do was to play the bagpipes like you would play an electric guitar – a far more relaxed style.”

During the winter of 2002, Cassells and his then girlfriend were tidying his student flat in Glasgow. “She was arranging the CDs for me in genres because they were lying all over the floor,” he says. “Once I’d finished tidying the

bathroom, I went back through to the lounge to see how she was getting on and she’d put bagpipe CDs in one part, rock and roll CDs in another, jazz in another, folk music CDs all together.

“But in amongst all the bagpiping CDs there was a Red Hot Chilli Peppers album and I asked her why she’d put it next to all of the bagpiping CDs. She said she thought it said ‘Red Hot Chilli Pipers’ and at that moment the penny dropped and something clicked – and I thought ‘That’s the name for this idea’.

“By that point it was 1am, but I phoned up one of my friends, Willie Armstrong, who I thought would be interested in joining this mad venture and at first he thought I was crazy but when I told him the name he thought it was genius.”

After putting together the original line-up for the band, Cassells used his contacts in the corporate events industry to book their first gigs, which they did for free to gain experience and try out the concept. “One of the original members packed it in after doing gig five for free and said it would never go anywhere,” Cassells smiles. “I think he now feels like the fifth Beatle.”

The Red Hot Chilli Pipers quickly established

ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

29

30

INTERVIEW bqlive.co.uk

themselves as a regular turn on the corporate events scene, both in the UK and further afield.

But the big break that pushed the band firmly into the public eye came in 2007 when the group won the BBC One talent show When Will I Be Famous.

They went from providing the entertainment at black-tie business dinners to filling theatres and playing headline gigs at music festivals throughout Europe. During Cassells’s final year with the band, they played 300 gigs, with two or three line-ups playing at different venues on the same night.

“It became a brand, which I never imagined at the beginning,” he admits. “During my final year, our turnover was more than £1 million. I think the band is the most successful in Scotland at the moment – other bands, like Deacon Blue, are better-known, but they’re not playing nearly as many gigs.

“The vision for the pipers was that one day we would have a run at Las Vegas. The band hasn’t quite had a run at Las Vegas yet; I thought we were getting close when we were in New York playing BB King’s blues club on 42nd Street with our names up in lights on Broadway.

“The band still tours throughout America, playing to crowds of 3,000 or 4,000 people each night and to 30,000 to 100,000 people at festivals. Germany is the other big market

“The Red Hot Chilli Pipers quickly established themselves as a regular turn on the corporate events scene, both in the UK and further afield” – between Germany and America, the two biggest music markets in the world, the band plays 35 weeks per year.”

Cassells’s career as a bagpiper was cut short in 2011 after he was diagnosed with “focal dystonia”, more commonly known as writers’ cramp or musicians’ cramp or golfers’ yips. “It’s due to a misfiring of neurons in the sensory motor cortex,” he explains. “Basically the brain sends too many signals or the wrong signals to the hands and the muscles don’t work in the same way that they used to fire.

“It typically affects people who are using fine motor control, so whether that’s writing or playing a musical instrument, but I’ve also met dentists and surgeons who have been afflicted with this condition and they’ve had to retire.

You have hand spasms and you don’t have the same dexterity or fine motor control.”

Faced with not being able to earn his living through playing the pipes, Cassells sat down to plan his next move. He had already become a regular host of music programmes for the BBC and so a career as a broadcaster seemed like a possibility.

Yet a second option held even greater appeal – a career in the whisky industry. During the early days of the Red Hot Chilli Pipers, the band had undertaken a lot of corporate work in Asia for Pernod Ricard, the French spirits giant that owns Chivas Brothers, Scotland’s second-largest whisky distiller and the company behind brands including Ballantine’s, Chivas Regal and The Glenlivet.

“I spoke to a few people in the whisky industry who I knew through performing and they all told me that I didn’t have any experience and that there were no whisky jobs I could get,” he says. “When I applied for jobs, they took one look at my CV and saw a musician. Then a friend pointed out an advert for the Saltire Fellowship, a training programme run by the Saltire Foundation – now part of Entrepreneurial Scotland – that sends promising entrepreneurs to Babson College in the United States to undertake intense business training before bringing their skills back to Scotland. “I was the ‘wildcard’ in my cohort,” Cassells laughs.

“There were finance guys and legal guys, a couple of tech guys, a couple of life science guys

ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

and girls, and here was me coming from a music background.

Being the brains behind a band required sales and marketing skills and the ability to deal with agents in different countries. “You’ve got a product, which is the band or the music, and you’re trying to sell that into agents in different regions in the same way that you would do with any other Scottish product, from shortbread to whisky,” he adds.

After studying at Babson for eight months, Cassells completed the two mandatory pieces of hands-on project work, the first involving ecommerce for the National Trust for Scotland in New York and the second back in Scotland with Edrington, Scotland’s fourth-largest distiller and the maker of whiskies including The Famous Grouse, Highland Park and The Macallan.

Cassells was tasked with looking at the stock model for the Glenturret distillery, which makes an eponymous single malt whisky used in the blending of The Famous Grouse and for bulk sale to other blenders.

“I built a model that showed if we sold the stock as cases rather than in bulk then it would generate four-to-five times more profit for the business,” he says. “So at the end of my project they said ‘Give it a try’.

“So I set up a project within Edrington called Whisky Gems and we did retailer exclusives and

worked with independent bottlers that allowed us to take excess whisky and sell it as cased goods. We achieved a lot higher profit than we predicted – six-to-seven times more profit than selling in bulk in tankers.”

Whisky Gems has generated £2m of profit over the past two-and-a-half years and so Cassells has now been asked to develop the concept across other parts of Edrington’s business.

Somewhere along the way, Cassells also picked up a further two jobs with Edrington – running both The Famous Grouse Experience and Glenturret distillery. The Famous Grouse Experience is Scotland’s most-visited whiskyrelated tourist attraction and carries a five-star rating from VisitScotland, the national tourism agency. The experience is based at Glenturret, Scotland’s oldest distillery, which traces its roots back to 1775.

“Once I took over The Famous Grouse Experience, I began to realise the potential of The Glenturret as a whisky,” he explains. “There hadn’t been much of a focus on Glenturret distillery up until that point because it was so small, so niche, so craft. But craft distilleries and craft whiskies are on the rise and so I saw there was an opportunity.

“We relaunched The Glenturret single malt whisky on 5 November, 2015, with a new range of bottlings.

31

“We took all of the complexity of Glenturret away from the main business so it didn’t take up resources. Glenturret is unique – it now sits outside Edrington as an incubated brand and is being looked after by distributors Gordon & Macphail in the UK and Douglas Laing in Europe and beyond.”

While much of Scotland’s whisky industry is now based around automation and large-scale production, many of the processes used to make Glenturret are still carried out by hand.

“Glenturret is probably the most-expensive whisky in Scotland to make,” admits Cassells.

“It’s three-times more expensive to produce than any of the big brands of whisky. Because we’re growing from such a low base, I can confidently say that we’re also the fastest-growing whisky brand in Scotland at the moment. But we have ambitions to scale the brand up to ten-times the current volume within three years.”

Cassells sees lots of connections between his two careers: “Whisky is very similar to music in that you’re telling stories connected to a specific area,” he explains. “Depending on which whisky region you’re from, you’re also very passionate about your distillery, your history, the way you make whisky, the people who are involved in it; there’s a lot of correlations between whisky and music. You’re basically selling Scotland, which is what I felt I was always best at.” n

32

ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

Getting to the heart of the matter As one half of IT services firm Newell & Budge, Ann Budge built a business with more than 1,000 staff. Now she faces a different kind of challenge as owner of Hearts football club, as Peter Ranscombe discovers

It’s a busy day at Tynecastle. Buoyed by a 1-0 away win in Aberdeen the night before, Hearts fans are swarming into the stadium’s ticket office to renew their season passes, which went on sale the day before.

“That’s what I like to see,” laughs Ann Budge, chairman, chief executive and majority shareholder of Heart of Midlothian Football Club. “We sold more season tickets yesterday than we did on the first day of sales last year.”

As they pass through the smartly-dressed club shop, fans have the chance to buy not only replica football kits, but also teddy bears, cool bags, autograph books and even Heartsbranded toothbrushes. Football is big business.

Budge’s office at the stadium in Edinburgh’s Gorgie district could be mistaken for the nerve centre of any business operating in any industry if it wasn’t for the array of historical photographs on the walls. One of the largest prints is of Hearts’ Scottish Cup winning side from the 1900-01 season, when the team beat Celtic 4-3 in the final; with the ever-growing fascination with hipsters and their weird and wonderful beards, perhaps it’s just a matter of time before the handle-bar moustaches and other facial hair displayed in the photo also come back into fashion.

Though football may now occupy her working life, it was in a different industry that Budge, now 68, made a name for herself. Back in 2005, she sold information technology (IT) services firm Newell & Budge to French peer Sopra for €48.45m – or about £32m at the contemporary exchange rate – with her 57% shareholding triggering an estimated pay-out of around £18m. Budge founded the eponymous firm in 1985 alongside Alison Newell, with Budge buying out her fellow founder when Newell

I found myself sitting in a plane on the tarmac at Edinburgh airport at six-thirty in the morning asking myself ‘Why am I doing this?”

33

34

ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

“I bought the club on the Friday and then came in on the Monday and had to tell the manager and a number of players that we weren’t renewing their contracts”

retired in 2001. Private equity house 3i backed Budge’s management buyout (MBO), with members of staff also taking an equity stake in the business.

After studying psychology at university, Budge joined the IT department at brewing giant Scottish & Newcastle in Edinburgh.

Newell recruited her to join IT services firm F International – later Xansa – in 1981 to initially setup and run the London-based company’s Scottish operations.

“I was then asked to add the North of England to my remit,” explains Budge. “At the time, the ‘North’ for F International extended down to Derby, which was fair enough. But then I was asked to take on the Midlands too. Then they explained they were adding the South-West into the Midlands. I ended up being general manager for UK operations excluding London and the South-East.

“So I would fly to, say, Manchester on a Monday, and then Bristol on a Tuesday, and so on. I found myself sitting in a plane on the tarmac at Edinburgh airport at six-thirty in the morning asking myself ‘Why am I doing this?’”

Asking that question prompted Budge to realise that she wanted to continue to live and work in Scotland. This ultimately led to her decision to leave the security of her position with F International and, in turn, Newell & Budge was born, with Newell running operations in the South-East of England and Budge once again building a business from scratch in Scotland.

The two arms of the business were very different – Budge’s operation offered IT services to large financial service companies such as Bank of Scotland, Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Life, as well as to central government departments, while the southern operation provided more niche services for clients in and around the City of London.

Budge grew her Scottish operations by listening to her clients’ needs. With an enormous skills shortage in the IT sector and technology changing evermore rapidly, there was a huge opportunity for IT services companies able to support legacy systems. In-house staff tended to want to work on the latest technology rather than helping to maintain backwards compatibility, so Budge offered to provide support for those systems on behalf of her

35

clients, as well as building bespoke software systems using the latest technologies.

Over time, the natural progression of outsourcing was to look for offshore companies that could offer lower labour costs. Newell & Budge initially partnered with a couple of Indian firms to offer international outsourcing to its customers but, to ensure control over the quality of the programmers, the firm took the plunge and bought Momentum Technologies in 2005 to create its own offshore operation.

“I think the fact we had operations in India had initially put off Sopra,” Budge confesses. “It wasn’t something that French companies did.

But once we sat down with them and explained how we used our operation in India, they saw the benefit of it.”

Testing software to make sure systems worked immediately for clients was crucial for a bespoke development company. “If things went wrong after then we would step in to sort the problem,” she says. “We never went to the desk drawer and pulled out the contract to go looking for a get-out clause.

“We always asked our clients for feedback and something that came through again and again was that, on the rare occasions when things went wrong, we would always be there to sort them out. It was one of the biggest selling points for the company in Scotland – if something went wrong then the clients knew where I was and how to get hold of me.”

After selling her business, which had grown to encompass a workforce of more than 1,000 people and £38m of revenues, Budge stayed on to run Sopra’s operations in the UK, integrating the French company’s existing smaller UK operation into the wider Newell & Budge business. “Although it was Sopra taking over Newell & Budge, in UK terms it was more like Newell & Budge taking over Sopra,” she explains.

“That’s why I was able to stay on – I had a great deal of autonomy. That made it easier to go from being the majority shareholder to working for someone else.”

Budge stepped down from her role with Sopra in 2008. “The pages on the calendar were turning and I was approaching 60,” she recalls.

“My daughter was having my first grandchild so I wanted to spend more time with my family.”

36

ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

At both Newell & Budge and F International – which was founded to allow women to work from home and balance the needs of family and a career – much was made in the press of Budge’s role as a senior woman in the IT industry. Since retiring from Sopra, Budge has continued to be involved with debates within the industry about how more women can be encouraged to consider a career in IT. So would she be in favour of quotas to encourage more women into the boardroom?

“No, I’ve never been in favour of quotas,” Budge replies. “When I worked in IT, I avoided being part of any women-only business groups.

I believe people should be appointed based on their skills and not on their gender or ethnicity or any other aspect of equality or diversity. I didn’t have much time for people who thought women needed special treatment.

“Hence the fact that the gender split at F International in Scotland was fifty-fifty, while women outnumbered men by four-to-one in its other regions.

“Since I’ve retired, I think my views have mellowed. I realise that I was very lucky because my mother could look after my daughter when I went out to work and a lot of women don’t have that opportunity.

“What I think is more important is that the IT industry needs to get better at communicating to the outside world about what a career in IT actually entails. If you’re a pupil at school then you know what a doctor does all day or what a lawyer does all day. It’s not the same in IT – there are so many diverse careers.”

Whether it was in IT or now in her current role at Hearts, recruiting the right people has been one of the biggest challenges, both in scaling-up the size of Newell & Budge and now in stabilising the operations of the football club. “When I arrived at the club, there were members of staff who hadn’t had a pay-rise for years,” she says.

“Working in IT is hard and working for a football club is hard. We need people who feel motivated and want to go the extra mile for the club. And so that means we need to treat them fairly.

“We were one of the first companies to sign-up to pay the Scottish Government’s living wage to our staff. I was amazed by how much publicity we got for doing it. That wasn’t the aim; it wasn’t a gimmick. But it was amazing how people latched onto this idea of a football club doing the right thing.”

Budge bought the 79% majority stake in Hearts in 2014 for £2.5m as part of a deal to take the club out of administration and eventually sell it to fans’ group Foundation of Hearts. Her involvement in the rescue of Hearts goes back much further though.

“I always said that I wouldn’t lose a fortune on a football club,” Budge smiles. “I received a hand-written letter from some fellow supporters of the club asking if I would come and listen to their plans. I was very intrigued because it was a hand-written letter, which is quite unusual these days.

“So, out of courtesy, I went along. I kept being asked to go along to meetings and I did. I put the supporters in touch with people who could help with putting together a website, with marketing their message, and with setting their strategy.

“We soon realised that the most likely way of achieving the transfer of shares from the previous owner was if the club went into administration – but little did we realise that we’d end up dealing with so many administrators. By the time it came round to me

being asked to put forward the money to buy the club, it wasn’t a hard decision to make.

“I bought the club on the Friday and then came in on the Monday and had to tell the manager and a number of players that we weren’t renewing their contracts. One of the headlines in the newspaper said it was ‘Budgement Day’,” she groans.

Budge doesn’t take a salary for acting as the club’s chief executive or chairman. Under the original plan, Foundation of Hearts would have bought Budge’s stake in 2019, five years after she purchased the club.

But the team won promotion back up to the premiership only one-year into a five-year plan, and fans have continued to invest their money in the club. That financial security has allowed Budge to offer to extend her investment in Hearts to allow the club to draw up plans to redevelop one of its stands.

“If the money continues to come into the club at its present rate to buy my shares then that will only add a further eight months to our initial agreement,” says Budge. Hearts finished in third place behind Celtic and Aberdeen in the 201516 league table, giving the club the chance to play European football next season, offering a further potential boost to the side’s finances.

Budge’s father was born in Leith – firmly on the green rather than the maroon side of Edinburgh.

So how did the daughter of a Hibernian fan – who herself was born in West Pilton, one of the city’s poorest areas – end up as a Hearts supporter?

“It was through my daughter,” Budge laughs.

“My husband was a Hearts fan and so he took my daughter to games. The marriage didn’t last but my daughter’s interest in football did and so she asked me to go to matches with her.

“My sisters and I weren’t interested in football when we were growing up, but our brother was. He was a Hibs fan and we had uncles who were Hearts and Hibs fans. So we have both Hearts and Hibs fans in the family. It makes things interesting. My nieces come up to me and say ‘We used to hope Hearts would lose, but now that’s Aunty Ann’s team’, so it is ‘tricky’.” n

“I believe people should be appointed based on their skills and not on their gender or ethnicity or any other aspect of equality or diversity. I didn’t have much time for people who thought women needed special treatment”

ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

37

40

BUSINESS LUNCH bqlive.co.uk

“For John Watson & Company to have come from such humble roots and to exit as the largest printing company in Scotland with a global reputation was quite something – something I’ll always be very proud of and also the team that made it happen.”

BUSINESS LUNCH bqlive.co.uk

The printer who’s making his mark Once he had sold his eponymous printing business, John Watson could have been forgiven for putting his feet up.

But, as journalist Karen Peattie discovers over lunch, the entrepreneur is now supporting the next generation of business talent

For printing entrepreneur John Watson being late is never an option so he is already engaged in conversation with the sommelier at Glasgow’s Hotel Du Vin at One Devonshire Gardens well in advance of his interview with BQ. It’s a sunny Monday and, with a meeting straight after lunch, he’s keen to get down to business.

Indeed, one of Watson’s four sons – Fergus, 21 – works here. “I’ll have left by the time he comes on duty and he’ll be quite relieved about that,” says Watson. “I’m sure he doesn’t need his dad checking up on him.”

All the same, he can’t resist enquiring about his third son’s progress with sommelier Alan Brady.

For the record, he’s doing very well.

So, too, is Watson who sold his hugely successful independent Glasgow-based printing business, John Watson & Company, to United States conglomerate Multi-Color Corporation (MCC) – one of the largest label companies in the world – in 2014. Watson, who was appointed as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to the printing industry and charity in 2006, was the fifth generation of his family to run the business, which can trace its history back to 1826.

Why did he sell rather than pass the reins on to the sixth generation? “I didn’t seek a buyer but it was time to get off the bus,” says Watson.

“People find it odd when I tell them I was glad to get the tap on the shoulder at a time when the business was performing so well and in a very challenging marketplace, it has to be said.

But I had no qualms about selling because it was right for me and the company – and there were no issues with the family.”

Watson had previously been approached by Toronto-based CCL, the world’s biggest printing company. He says that deal didn’t go ahead “for various reasons” despite initial terms being agreed but when by chance he met Nigel Vinecombe, then chief executive of MCC, at a licensed trade function in Glasgow, the dialogue was different. “It didn’t happen quickly but it felt right and I was happy to go with it,” says Watson.

“For John Watson & Company to have come from such humble roots and to exit as the largest printing company in Scotland with

41

a global reputation was quite something – something I’ll always be very proud of and also the team that made it happen.”

Ending almost two centuries of independence for the company that continues to specialise in producing labels and tube wraps for the Scotch whisky industry was still a big deal, however, given two of his sons were working there. Sandy, son number two, has remained with the firm and is a Heidelberg Speedmaster operator. “It’s like being a Michelin-star chef,” says Watson.

Moving Watson away from his favourite subject – printing – is challenging but not surprising given his 50-plus years with the company. As managing director from 1975 then chairman and chief executive from 1986, the family printing dynasty was his life. “I’ve actually just published a history of the company,” he points out. “It’s called ‘The History of John Watson & Company Ltd – from the nineteenth century to the present day’ and I worked with a wellknown genealogist, Margaret Hubble.”

His attention then transferring to his starter – ham hough and puy lentil terrine and pickled vegetables – Watson takes time to savour and enjoy his food. It’s a similar scenario with his main course of confit pork belly, spring cabbage and apple purée. “This is one of my favourite restaurants,” he admits, sadly having to refuse sommelier Brady’s recommendations of a delicate Australian Eden Valley Riesling from Peter Lehmann with his starter and a more robust Wairau River Pinot Gris from New Zealand’s Marlborough region with the main.

With an excellent lunch focusing his mind on life post-John Watson & Company, he changes position in his chair and adjusts his tie. “Sometimes it seems as if I’m busier than ever,” says the energetic 68-year-old who has long held the belief that it’s important to give something back when you’ve been successful.

The businessman-turned-philanthropist, said to have pocketed about £15m from the sale of Watson’s to MCC, has never publicly discussed the exact figure, instead referring to it as a “significant multi-million-pound” deal. But he made up his mind very early in the process that he wanted to “make a difference” and “do

42

BUSINESS LUNCH bqlive.co.uk

something worthwhile”.

The phrase “giving something back”, then, has taken on a different guise in Watson’s world.

For him, it’s not just about supporting a few good causes. “When you find yourself with two things – money and time – you’re in a very privileged position, a position that enables you to make a real difference to people’s lives,” he says.

“When you retire you think about all the things you’ll have time to do, like spending more time with your family, playing golf, holidays – nice lunches like this. But you can’t do that all the time,” says Watson. “When you’ve been at the sharp end of business you don’t just leave the office for the last time and put your feet up or relocate to the golf course. I want to make a contribution to business and society in a different way.”

The seeds of The Watson Foundation charitable trust – set up in 2014 – had been floating around in his mind; the idea being to help young entrepreneurs establish and grow their

“When you’ve been at the sharp end of business you don’t just leave the office for the last time and put your feet up or relocate to the golf course.” businesses, and also provide help to charities.

Today, Watson is involved with no fewer than nine charities, including Marie Curie of which he is a long-time supporter, and, more recently, Paragolf buggies, which allow disabled golfers to stand up and play.

Watson, still one of Scotland’s most influential business figures, is only too aware of the challenges many companies face when it comes to asset funding – his own firm was no exception – and that is one of his reasons for wanting to support those at the beginning of their journey.

Watson’s solution to the problem was simple – go elsewhere. He took his business to Clydesdale Bank and subsequently saw profits surge to record levels in the last full financial year before John Watson & Company was

taken over by MCC. The new equipment – representing an investment in the region of £4m – enabled the firm to move into high-end gift tubes and self-adhesive labels for the Scotch whisky and drinks industry.

“I took risks in my business and always believed we could grow globally and not just be a local company,” says Watson. “Scotland has always had a real entrepreneurial spirit and I want to nurture that. I want to see people with great ideas being successful and having been there and done it myself I have a responsibility to help businesses I see potential in move up to the next stage.”

Watson retains close links with Entrepreneurial Scotland, which was created following the merger of two of Scotland’s driving forces in talent creation and entrepreneurship, the Saltire

BUSINESS LUNCH bqlive.co.uk

Foundation and the Entrepreneurial Exchange. “I was involved with the Entrepreneurial Exchange almost from day one so it’s great to see how it has evolved and developed,” he says.

“Today’s young entrepreneurs are extremely motivated and the innovation we’re seeing across all business sectors is remarkable – I feel privileged to be in a position to advise people on their next move or help them bring a brand new business idea to fruition.”

In 2015, The Watson Foundation gave £100,000

to Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, which is using the money to assist local businesses.

Companies are invited to apply for grants of up to £10,000 – they also receive access to the chamber’s network of contacts and support services. “Contacts can be just as important as finance in business,” suggests Watson.

“People often question the value of attending networking functions like business breakfasts and entering awards,” he goes on. “But all it takes is just one introduction and your business

Hotel Du Vin & Bistro Glasgow’s Hotel Du Vin at One Devonshire Gardens is a luxury boutique hotel and restaurant with a reputation for service and style. Nestling unobtrusively in a tree-lined Victorian terrace in the heart of Glasgow’s West End, the hotel has 49 bedrooms and suites as well as a bistro, bar, cigar shack and whisky snug which is open to guests and non-residents.

Headed by Barry Duff, The Bistro is at the heart of this distinguished hotel and features a menu of dishes crafted from fresh, seasonal, locally-sourced and, wherever possible, organic produce.

Duff and his team of top chefs are passionate about creating a true taste of Scotland and have been awarded three AA Rosettes.

With the hotel boasting its own very expansive wine cellar, guests are encouraged to engage with sommelier Alan Brady to find the perfect bottle to accompany lunch or dinner. The whisky room offers more than 300 whiskies and is the perfect setting to retreat for a digestif. Indeed, Brady regularly hosts wine and whisky tasting events where guests can find out more about a particular malt or region.

The Bistro at Hotel du Vin offers an outstanding dining experience. As guests soon discover, the rooms have all been carefully converted to retain their original Victorian features, which include luxurious oak panelling and beautiful open fireplaces creating a cosy and relaxing atmosphere.

Hotel Du Vin & Bistro is at One Devonshire Gardens, Glasgow, G12 0UX. Find out more at www.hotelduvin.com/locations/glasgow or call 0141 378 0385.

43

and viewpoint could change forever. I often hear people saying, ‘If I hadn’t gone to that event I would never have met…’ – and that’s what networking’s all about. You can make these things work for you.”

Meanwhile, Watson is working with the highprofile social entrepreneur Josh Littlejohn, who has launched what is thought to be the world’s first skills and employment academy for the homeless community. The Social Bite Academy offers homeless people a paid, four-year course aimed at breaking the cycle of homelessness by providing support ranging from social integration, housing help, skills training and work experience.

Littlejohn’s not-for-profit Social Bite sandwich shop concept, of course, famously caught the eye of George Clooney who brought Edinburgh to a virtual standstill when he visited the shop in Rose Street last November prior to a speaking engagement at Littlejohn’s Scottish Business Awards. The Social Bite Academy has been seedfunded by a £50,000 donation from The Watson Foundation and will see students gain paid employment in Social Bite shops or with partner commercial businesses, helping individuals to make a contribution to society in Scotland as well as turn their lives around.

Watson, whose initial donation has enabled the first three students to enrol in the academy, says: “I’ve been a big admirer of Social Bite so I didn’t hesitate to support the new academy – it’s an inspirational idea and will go a long way to helping change people’s lives. It’s the right time for Social Bite to evolve.”

Since the launch of the academy, Social Bite has confirmed that it is working with a group of Scotland’s leading restaurateurs to create Home, a restaurant where diners can help support the homeless. Operated by Dean Gassabi of Maison Bleue restaurants, Home – on Queensferry Street in Edinburgh – opens in September.

“I think Josh Littlejohn is great example to hold up in the business world,” suggests Watson. “People do business with people, not companies, and that is one of the reasons why he is so successful.”

Does John Watson miss the cut and thrust of daily business? “No, not at all,” he says without hesitation. “Do I miss printing? I have to say yes.

And do I miss the people? Absolutely.

But I do manage to fit in some golf from time to time.” n

44

GORDON ON WINE bqlive.co.uk

GORDON ON WINE bqlive.co.uk

45

A little taste of history Alan Gordon, a partner at DM Hall Chartered Surveyors, remembers how a visit to Berry Bros & Rudd’s cellars in London sparked his interest in wine – and how two current bottles from the wine merchant stack up There is a line in the hymn Amazing Grace to the effect that “I was blind, but now can see”.

This rather neatly sums up the way I felt after a wine tasting a few years ago that opened my eyes to what wine was really all about. It was, literally, an epiphany. It took place in the Sussex Cellar of Berry Bros & Rudd, deep under St James’s Street in London’s West End. This is a firm that has been supplying the finest clarets, hocks and burgundies to the gentry since 1698, and everything about it is inextricably fused with the rich history of Britain and Europe.

I was there for a corporate event and, to put the scale of my conversion into context, I have to reveal that, although I am a wine enthusiast, my wine selections tended to be entirely price-based – under £8 for a supermarket choice, and a bit of a grimace if I paid more than £20 to £30 in a restaurant. I have also been to plenty of tastings over the course of my career, but this was the first time the penny really dropped and I realised what people meant when they talked about the importance of the “terroir” – French for the land – and the complex environmental, production and storage factors that shape a classic vintage. It was clear that Berry Bros & Rudd was no ordinary wine merchant when I arrived at its inconspicuous entrance, which backs on to Pickering Place, the smallest public square in London. It was positively Dickensian and, in fact, used to be a cockfighting and bear-baiting venue. We were led into cellars

on which the firm has lavished millions – and it showed, with its glazed tiles and passage after passage of wine. The Sussex Cellar is named after the Duke of Sussex, just one of many aristocratic, and indeed royal, patrons who enjoyed an equally aristocratic tipple. The other cellars are called the Pickering, after one of the earliest antecedents of the firm, William Pickering; and the Napoleon, named after Napoleon III, who plotted his return to France in it while in exile in England between 1838 and 1848. The wines we were offered that evening by our knowledgeable young fogey of a host were unlike anything I have ever tasted, from a 2004 Pol Roger Champagne to a deep and lush 1998 Rioja Gran Reserva at an eye-watering £115 a bottle. So it was with great delight that I was offered two bottles for this BQ Scotland article, both from the fascinating depths of the St James’s Street treasure trove.

The first was the firm’s own Champagne from the Grand Cru village of Mailly, a blend of 75% Pinot Noir and 25% Chardonnay. There is an old saying in the wine trade that a glance at the label is worth 20 years’ experience, but it really did taste of brioche and the flowers of the Montagne de Reims.

Our second bottle was a 2011 Berry Bros & Rudd Pauillac by Chateau Lynch-Bages. This comes from the Medoc peninsula, the 100 kilometres between the ocean and the Gironde estuary that is home to names such as Margaux

and Mouton Rothschild.

My default position with wine is white, with an unerring inclination towards Chablis. I have been wary of reds, finding them heavy for my tastes. The Pauillac, in contrast, was smooth, intense and silky and, again, the label was spot on about blackcurrants and damsons – though I have to say the last damson I tasted was in jam.

Both wines disappeared in short order with a meal in the company of my wife and another couple, all of whom shared the revelatory aspects of the evening. As one of them said: “We really don’t even know what we don’t know”. The single complaint was that there were only two bottles.

Will it change the way I drink wine? I’m not sure. The fact that for 50 years I have been something of a philistine is not going to change overnight. I will still enjoy my chilled Chablis of a summer evening.

But, given my price criteria, perhaps there is a case to be made for less but better. And if I come across anything as good as these two corkers, I will not hesitate to splash out. n

Alan Gordon is a partner in the Glasgow North office of DM Hall Chartered Surveyors. Thank you to Berry Bros & Rudd for supplying the Grand Cru Champagne

by Mailly (£24.25) and the 2011 Pauillac

by Chateau Lynch Bages (£19.95).

46

CONVERGE CHALLENGE Media Partnership

Sandy Finlayson, the lawyer hailed as the godfather of Scotland’s digital technology ecosystem, is taking over as chairman of Converge Challenge, the business creation competition for university students, graduates and staff

Taking on the challenge Over the past 40 years, Sandy Finlayson has been at the heart of some of the most exciting chapters in the story of Scotland’s technology ecosystem: he introduced Mike Rutterford to Barry Sealey, which led to the creation of the Archangels business angel syndicate; he brought the Archangels together with inventor Douglas Anderson to finance the foundation of eye scanner maker Optos; and he paired up those who funded the expansion of energy consultancy McKinnon & Clarke.

Now, after stepping down last year as senior partner at law firm MBM Commercial, Finlayson is ready to take on a new challenge. Once the prizes have been presented at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh on 22 September, he will become the chairman of the Converge Challenge, the company creation competition and entrepreneur development scheme that invites university

students, staff and recent graduates to come up with an idea for a business. Finlayson, who takes over from Mervyn Jones, has signed up to his new role for the next three years. Since it was created in 2011, Converge Challenge has supported 150 projects and 90 early stage ideas, which have resulted in the formation of 68 companies.

Those businesses have gone on to raise in excess of £34m of funding between them and together they now employ more than 150 people. A record 212 entries were received across the three categories this year: ‘Converge Challenge’

for those with an established idea; ‘KickStart’ for early stage ideas; and ‘Social Enterprise’ for ideas that aim to have a positive impact on social and environmental issues.

“I think it’s a very exciting and important initiative,” Finlayson says. “I’ve had the good fortunate to have been involved in some of its events and I’ve been very impressed by the standard of the events that it’s held and the way that it’s grown. The fact that it’s growing year-on-year shows that it’s fulfilling a gap in the market for which there is a real need.

“I’m also impressed by the standard of many of

“It was a real eye-opener for me to see the extent to which an active research base could improve the prospects of an economy”

CONVERGE CHALLENGE Media Partnership

“There is so much more that we could do here in Scotland to commercialise our intellectual assets and that’s what excites me”

the applications. I think that it’s great that there are so many international students taking part in it. That’s really what attracted me.”

Finlayson will chair the contest’s steering group, which includes representatives from Scotland’s eight research-intensive universities – Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Heriot-Watt, St Andrews, Stirling and Strathclyde – along with the Scottish Funding Council. The contest is open to students, graduates and staff from all 19 of Scotland’s universities and research institutions.

Part of the attraction for Finlayson of taking up the role of chairman was working with Converge Challenge director Olga Kozlova, who came up with the idea for the competition. Kozlova, who is also enterprise creation manager at HeriotWatt University in Edinburgh, has been praised

by Finlayson for her capable leadership and for assembling such a skilled team.

“I’ve been interested in this area for a long

47

Much more than just a competition Contestants taking part in the three categories of Converge Challenge – ‘Kickstart’, ‘Social Enterprise’ and the main ‘Converge Challenge’ – compete for a share of £150,000 in prize money and in-kind help, which consists of legal support, financial advice, mentoring, branding and marketing support, intellectual property (IP) help, product development aid, and networking.

But the cash is only half the story. Converge Challenge also offers a comprehensive training programme to the top 30 competitors in the main Converge Challenge and to the KickStart and Social Enterprise finalists. This includes a three-day residential training course, followed by a one-day workshop entitled “Practical skills in business development for start-ups” for the top ten entrants in the Converge Challenge. The finalists receive individual follow-up meetings and one-to-one coaching to help them attend a trade show or meetings with customers. The training is delivered by Neuehansa, which also provides trainers for the highly-regarded and competitive Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) enterprise fellowships. Converge Challenge director Olga Kozlova also contributes to the development and delivery of the training, so applicants can take advantage of her experience and expertise. The aim of the training programme is to help entrants compile an ‘investor-ready’ business plan, incorporate a start-up or spin-out company, or close a seed funding round. Each project starts from a different point and has different short-term goals and so the training can be tailored to suit each competitor. Sandy Finlayson, the incoming chairman of the contest, said: “Converge Challenge is a competition, but it’s much, much more than that – it’s a process that encourages and enables people to start interesting businesses with real potential.”

Ahead of the deadline on 4 August for submitting their business plans for the competition, the top 30 entrants took part in one-to-one business surgeries at law firm Morton Fraser’s offices in Edinburgh and a Royal Bank of Scotland office in Glasgow. Evelyn McDonald, chief executive of Scottish Edge, told competitors how they could apply for finance from her fund, while director of operations Gordon Stuart spoke about Informatics Ventures, the technology entrepreneur accelerator scheme. Converge Challenge judge and early-stage company consultant Mary Jane Brouwers and Gill MacAulay, managing director Strathclyde University Incubator and director of investment syndicate Gabriel then offered advice before the competitors spoke confidentially to the advisors.

time,” he explains. “Back in 1995, Crawford Beveridge – who at the time was the chief executive at Scottish Enterprise – asked a really important question: why isn’t Scotland commercialising its science base?

“That led to the commercialisation inquiry and the creation of Connect, which has morphed into the Engage Invest Exploit (EIE) programme, an initiative of Informatic Ventures. So I became very interested in this whole issue of commercialising our science base – it was a real eye-opener for me to see the extent to which an active research base could improve the prospects of an economy, such as the major effect of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States or the ‘Cambridge miracle’ south of the Border.

“There is so much more that we could do here in Scotland to commercialise our intellectual assets and that’s what excites me.”

He adds: “I think Converge Challenge fulfils a very important role in this particular part of the technology landscape. EIE has a very clear part to play and I think Converge Challenge fills an important role at an earlier stage in that process, which is helping people to firm-up on their ideas for new businesses, to help them validate their business plans and to get them ready for investment. “They can then go on to pitch for investment at EIE. The two together are highly-complementary to one another and I think they play a very important role in this part of Scottish business life together with other initiatives like Scottish Edge.”

Finlayson may have stood down from the partnership at MBM Commercial but he is still working with the firm in a business development role. He has also become involved with TalentSpark, a digital platform for start-up jobs, advice and support. n

Schoolhill site, part of which have been bought

by Malmaison Hotel Du Vin

In association with

COMMERCIAL PROPERTY Malmaison buys Aberdeen buildings The Robert Gordon University (RGU) sold part of its Schoolhill site in Aberdeen city centre to Malmaison Hotel Du Vin (MHDV) Property Holdings. MHDV has bought the Clarke building, the students’ union and the tenement block at 54-58 Schoolhill, covering 93,000sq ft in total. The sale comes after the RGU moved its academic activities to its Garthdee campus.

Ferdinand von Prondzynski, principal at the RGU, said: “The completion of the sale marks our commitment both to our Garthdee campus and to supporting the regeneration of Aberdeen’s city centre.” Paul Roberts, chief executive at MHDV Property Holdings, said: “The acquisition of the Clarke and iconic students’ union buildings demonstrates our continued commitment to support the regeneration of the Aberdeen city centre.” Mark Jones, director at Cushman & Wakefield, which handled the deal for the RGU, said: “These buildings lie in the heart of Aberdeen’s cultural quarter and will remain in economic use for generations to come.” Amicus Property Consultants acted for MHDV Property Holdings.

Network Rail pulls into Motherwell’s Airbles House Network Rail has signed an eight-year lease covering all three floors of Airbles House in Motherwell. Alistair Urquhart, associate director at CBRE, which acted for landlord Regent Capital, said: “Airbles House is a fantastic building and provided a rare opportunity to acquire a self-contained circa 18,000sq ft office in a very accessible location.

“It is therefore no surprise that a high-profile organisation such as Network Rail decided to take the entire building for its operations.”

Alistair Reid, director at JLL, which acted for Network Rail, added: “Airbles House is a wonderful development in an enviable location.

“As a destination for doing business, Motherwell is a great town and I’m sure the quality of the working population, excellent transport links and the surrounding amenities available to staff represent a great offering for Network Rail as an employer.

“Therefore we had no hesitation is presenting Airbles House to our client and I’m sure the organisation will find it an excellent building for the business.”

Upgrade for Exchange Tower A refurbishment has been completed at the Exchange Tower office block in Edinburgh, with Flow Hospitality Training leasing the entire seventh floor. Around 11,000sq ft on the ground and third floors of the 13-storey building are currently vacant. Allan Matthews, director at CBRE, which is marketing the tower on behalf of landlord Kennedy Wilson Europe alongside

Montagu Evans said: “The comprehensive refurbishment of Exchange Tower presents a rare and exciting opportunity for businesses to acquire high-quality open-plan accommodation in an unrivalled location in Edinburgh. We are confident the high specification of the building and prime location will appeal to a wide variety of occupiers looking for excellent value for money, helping the capital attract and retain businesses.”

Be part of it thehaymarketedinburgh.com

Everything is Connected

A prestigious joint venture between Interserve and Tiger Developments, tHe Haymarket is considered to be one of the UK’s most significant regional property developments of the last decade.

340,000 SQ FT OF PRIME OFFICE SPACE All office enquiries to:

07808 479 215 www.dougraysmith.com

thehaymarketedinburgh.com @tHeHaymarketEd #WellConnected A development by:

0131 255 8344 www.wymre.com

0131 255 2583 jll.co.uk/property

www.interserve.com

www.tigerdevelopments.com

50

COMMERCIAL PROPERTY bqlive.co.uk

Senior managers from accountancy firm KPMG

KPMG gets ready to flit Senior managers from accountancy firm KPMG have veiwed at their new office in Glasgow.

Craig Anderson, current chair of KPMG in Scotland, Catherine Burnet, who was recently appointed to lead the firm’s business in Scotland when Anderson retires in October, and Phil Charles, senior partner in the company’s Glasgow office, visited St Vincent Plaza, where the firm has leased almost 40,000sq ft. KPMG is due to move from its existing premises in West George Street to St Vincent Plaza in the autumn. Around 350 Glasgow-based staff will transfer to the new Grade-A premises. The firm also employs more than 175 people at its UK tax centre of excellence at 123 St Vincent Street. Burnet said: “It’s going to be a great space for both staff and clients, with plenty of room to grow our business. We’re keen to share the benefits of our new offices with existing and prospective clients and support initiatives that will benefit them such as networking events. “One of our key considerations when planning our move was ease of access for clients.”

Whyte & Mackay toasts warehouse deal Whisky maker Whyte & Mackay has bought one of two former Asda warehouses in Grangemouth.

The distiller – which owns the Dalmore, Fettercairn and Jura single malt brands as well as its eponymous blended Scotch – acquired the 130,000sq ft DC2 warehouse on the East Mains industrial estate. The supermarket chain is also selling its 250,000sq ft DC1 warehouse after moving to a nearby 500,000sq ft unit, which is now its principal distribution hub in Scotland.

Bryce Stewart, director of industrial and logistics at Colliers International, which acted for Asda, said: “This is one of the largest industrial transactions in East Central Scotland in 2016 and highlights the continued demand for industrial space in general.

Everything is Connected

Drum buys Edinburgh Park building Drum Income Plus Real Estate Investment Trust (DRIP REIT) has bought the 3 Lochside Way building at Edinburgh Park for £4.5 million.

Tenants at 3 Lochside Way include Lockheed Martin, Exception and GL Industrial Services.

The purchase price reflects a yield of 8.5 per cent. John Evans, chairman of DRIP REIT, said: “The acquisition of Lochside demonstrates DRIP REIT is continuing to identify property that delivers on our differentiated investment strategy of assets of between £2m and £15m in strong regional locations with opportunities to increase value. Our experienced team is focused on the delivery of an asset management strategy that will drive rental growth and maximise additional income opportunities, offering investors an attractive blend of income return and capital growth.”

Drum raised £31.8m when it floated on the London Stock Exchange in May 2015.

Bryan Sherriff, managing director at Drum Real Estate Investment Management (DREIM),

#WellConnected thehaymarketedinburgh.com

COMMERCIAL PROPERTY bqlive.co.uk

51

said: “Adding Lochside to the portfolio fits with our stated strategy of acquiring regional multi-let assets that offer asset management opportunities.

“We are delighted with the acquisition, which is on the back of increased values at June quarter.

“DREIM believe that the sub-£15m regional assets still represent fair value and with the larger funds trying to increase lot size we believe there may be further buying opportunities.”

“Drum raised £31.8m when it floated on the London Stock Exchange in May 2015.”

Chris Stewart buys Blenheim for £5m Property developer Chris Stewart Group (CSG) has bought Blenheim House in Edinburgh for more than £5m. The site – which has 35,000sq ft of Grade-A office accommodation over five floors and 19 car parking spaces – was previously owned by Belgate Estates.

The office block was built for Scottish Equitable and was later occupied by Bank of New York Mellon. CSG owns and manages ongoing property developments to the value of more than £125m in Edinburgh city centre, including The Registers regeneration project on the south east corner of St Andrew Square and Baxter’s Place, which is being developed for the first Courtyard by Marriott hotel in the capital.

Chief executive Chris Stewart said: “This is a fantastic building in an equally fantastic location; it simply needs some investment to ensure it meets the technology standards and quality expectations of Edinburgh businesses.

“The plan is to upgrade the offices for occupancy from early 2017 and we are confident that there will be a lot of interest.

“There is strong demand for high quality office accommodation in Edinburgh and with the developments happening in the east end of Edinburgh’s city centre, this building will add to the overall regeneration.

Workspace elements that attract today’s millennial workforce Having the right office workspace to attract today’s millennial workforce is now a vital ingredient in the employment proposition. An independent survey commissioned by tHe Haymarket Edinburgh, has found that 60% of employees aged 26-­34 consider open plan workspace as much more appealing space to work in compared to only 31% of 45-­54 years olds. The survey, conducted by Yolo Comms, questioned senior executives of over 200 of Scotland’s Top 500 businesses on key issues affecting their decision-­making when it comes to attracting top talent into their workforce.

After location and proximity to public transport and career development opportunities, office attributes such as open plan layouts and breakout space, were considered as strong motivators when considering a new position of employment. Recent research has shown that the millennial generation (those born between 1980 and 2000, otherwise known as Generation Y) and the start-­up culture, favour open floor plan and collaborative workspaces. They value flexibility and common areas that are set up for specific tasks rather than specific people. Many consider open offices more conducive to collaborative working, significantly helping towards promoting transparency and fairness. In short, fewer walls and doors make management seem more approachable and encourage information to flow freely. Ros Taylor is a leading UK and international clinical psychologist, author and corporate coach. She features regularly in national press and was named by the Independent on Sunday as one of the top 10 coaches in Britain. She explains: “I can really understand why a millennial workforce would embrace an open plan office space. They have come from an education system that is collaborative, in which they have had to discover facts and ideas for themselves and are not told or instructed any more by a higher authority. So the concept of team working, of being close enough to bounce ideas off each other, is perfect for this generation.” In their quest to attract and retain this Generation Y, many companies are rethinking their physical space to fit such employees’ preferences.

Graham Haydon-­‐White, Development Director at Tiger Developments, joint venture partner on tHe Haymarket Edinburgh £200m scheme with Interserve, said: “Today’s professionals want the freedom and choice to work where and how they want, which means they no longer want to be tethered to a single workstation for eight hours a day. They want spaces that inspire them and allow them to collaborate with others and work to their full potential. It’s all about driving up productivity and tHe Haymarket, due for office element phase one completion in 2018, could not be better placed with its highly connected central location and Grade A office purpose-­built specification.”

Where Business Meets Lifestyle

#WellConnected thehaymarketedinburgh.com

52

INTERVIEW bqlive.co.uk

Finding the sublime in the everyday

John Dunsmore built his reputation as the chief executive of brewing giant Scottish & Newcastle and Tennent’s owner C&C Group. Peter Ranscombe catches up with him to find out why he’s now brewing lager on a much smaller scale at the Edinburgh Beer Factory

INTERVIEW bqlive.co.uk

John Dunsmore is like a child in a toy shop; the excitement is clearly written all over his face as he strides between the rows of brewing equipment at the Edinburgh Beer Factory. “It looks like a giant Meccano set, but I know enough about how it works to give a tour,” he jokes, before explaining the production process that the company uses to make its awardwinning Paolozzi lager.

It all feels a long way from his previous roles in the drinks industry. John served as the final chief executive at Scottish & Newcastle (S&N) before the brewing giant was broken up by Carlsberg and Heineken in 2008. He went on to run C&C Group, the Irish company that owns Tennent’s lager and Magners cider.

Now, John is making beer on a somewhat smaller scale. Last year he launched Edinburgh Beer Factory, a family business that he runs alongside his second wife, Lynne, and his daughter from his first marriage, Kirsty.

The trio has created its craft brewery on the Bankhead industrial estate, with its fluorescent blue and pink sign attracting curious glances from passengers on the tram and on the Glasgow-to-Edinburgh train line, which both pass outside its door. Brewery tours are already on offer while a visitors’ centre is due to open early in the new year.

With its white-washed brick walls, rows of gleaming stainless steel and colour-changing ‘disco lighting’, the factory feels like a cross between an arch-villain’s lair from a 1960s James

Bond film and a garage brewery on steroids, complete with its own bottling line, keg wash and 24 hectolitre brew kit.

“This isn’t a hobbyist brewery expanded,” explains Kirsty, who cut her teeth at M&C Saatchi in London before spending nine years in the advertising industry. “This was all part of a vision.”

That vision took shape in 2014 during a “family meeting” on board a boat moored in Leith docks. All seven members of the clan – John, Lynne, their three sons aged 13, 16 and 18 at the time, along with Kirsty and her brother, Patrick – had gathered to discuss ideas for setting up a family business. Also at the table were Rosie Nicholson, John’s personal assistant in his other business ventures, who would become head of finance at the beer factory, and John Lowery, who facilitated the meeting.

“We fancied making a craft beer and we’d looked at a couple of existing companies with a view to buying into them or buying them out, but all of them had baggage,” remembers John.

“Basically, all craft brewers – including ourselves – are like cabbies because we all want to do our own thing in our own way and we don’t want to be told how to do it by anyone else.”

“We were very conscious that we were coming into a craft beer movement that had already started and there were already a lot of people involved in it – we saw it as a challenge,” adds Lynne, who is the brewery’s head of recruitment and resources and who previously served as

53

chairwoman of the Children’s Hearing Panel in Edinburgh. “So we spent a lot of time in the planning stages. John Lowery showed us a picture of a supermarket shelf full of beer and asked us ‘How are you going to be different from all that lot?’.”

Part of the answer lay in finding a distinctive brand for the beer and the brewery. Their meeting came during the run-up to the independence vote and so questions about Scottish identity were high on the agenda.

“It was wrapped up in the same time as the referendum,” Lynne continues. “Everything was being represented as haggis and thistles and tartan and it made Scotland look very inward looking, which is not how we felt at all.”

“We wanted to challenge two perceptions – people’s views of beer and people’s views of Scotland,” Kirsty says. “For most of the 20th century, the image of beer was very unsophisticated, very laddish, particularly when it came to lager.

“Craft beer has done a hell of a lot to change that. But, actually, beer is still very male, in a hipster, bearded, hoodie way. Craft beer has hugely challenged people’s perceptions of beer, but we actually feel it’s still a bit male – so there’s more we can do with it.

“Edinburgh is our home – that’s why the brewery is here. But we thought about what we wanted to say about Edinburgh and about what sort of Scottish business that we wanted to be. At that time, there was a lot of unhelpful

54

INTERVIEW bqlive.co.uk

“Having a lager as the brewery’s first product was also another way of challenging expectations about craft beer” stereotyping – both within the country and outside – so we wanted our business to represent the best of Scotland and Edinburgh at its best can do that. The best of Scotland, is its creativity and its inventiveness and its welcoming the world and exporting.”

Those desires to challenge perceptions of beer and of Scotland led to a set of ‘values’ for the business – ‘unisex, creative, playful, openminded and crafted’. “We wouldn’t patronise or specifically target girls, but we would avoid being macho – half the company being female really helps with that,” Kirsty adds. “We think that’s something that’s being missed out in beer.”

Given John’s experience of managing global brands and Kirsty’s background in advertising – along with Lynne’s talent for organising the other two – it perhaps comes as no surprise that the family business would have a clearly thought-out set of ‘values’ and ideas to underpin its identity. But how did that identity become the Edinburgh Beer Factory and Paolozzi lager?

“Eduardo Paolozzi was born in Leith in 1924 to Italian parents and he was one of the pioneers of the pop art movement,” explains Kirsty. “He also became a very influential sculptor – creating the foot and the hand at the top of Leith Walk in Edinburgh.

“What we wanted to say about Edinburgh was perfectly exemplified by him. He’s a great way

of challenging stereotypes about Scotland – he’s not your typical Scot because he’s not called ‘Jock McTavish’.”

John adds: “People have asked why we’ve named the beer after an Italian because it doesn’t sound Scottish – but that’s exactly the point that we were trying to make. Not everyone in Scotland is called MacDonald.

“We’re the Edinburgh Beer Factory because the ‘factory’ is a nod to Andy Warhol, who had his pop art factory, but also Tony Wilson’s Factory Records in Manchester. If you think of Factory Records then you can come out with different bands from the same label. We don’t have to say we’re going to do a Paolozzi India pale ale (IPA) or a Paolozzi bitter. We can create another name.”

Having a lager as the brewery’s first product was also another way of challenging expectations about craft beer. While many micro-breweries will follow an established path of producing an IPA, an 80 shillings-style beer, a golden ale and perhaps a stout, the Dunsmores wanted to do something different.

“Paolozzi came up with the phrase the ‘sublime in the everyday’, which is what pop art is all about,” says Kirsty. “That’s a perfect brief for a beer because beer is such a drink of the people.

We thought we’d take lager – which is so well known, especially in Scotland, and which is usually a mass-produced style of beer – and show how excellent it can be, how delicious it

can be.”

They settled on the Helles style of lager from Munich in Germany, which has more body than the lagers traditionally brewed in Scotland. In German, ‘lager’ means ‘store’.

It’s an interesting space to be in – while Tennent’s is unquestionably Scotland’s most famous lager, Clackmannanshire-based Harviestoun Brewery has been winning awards for its Schiehallion craft lager stretching back to 1999, before everyone started using the word ‘craft’, while former BQ Scotland cover star Petra Wetzel launched Glasgow-based West Brewery’s St Mungo’s lager back in 2008 as a hybrid between a true Bavarian Helles and a northern German Pils, and Dougal Sharp from Innis & Gunn in Edinburgh unveiled his Helles-style lager in 2013.

Paolozzi struck a chord with drinkers right from the get-go. Within just weeks of being launched, it won a gold medal from the Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA) and was named by Time Out magazine as one of the top five craft beers in Edinburgh.

One of the factors that sets the business apart – alongside the taste of its lager, perfected by head brewer David Kemp – is the attention to detail. The team rescued a 1970s Citroën H Van from rural France and now use it as a mobile bar to promote the brand.

The blue label on its bottles features a Paolozzi print called ‘Illumination and the eye’. The firm approached the Paolozzi Foundation, the artist’s estate, to ask if it could use the brand name and received its blessing, with the business making a healthy donation to the charity, whether it makes a profit or not. “Paolozzi’s sister has been to visit the brewery and loves it,” John says.

The company’s current run-rate puts it on course to turn over more than £450,000 during its current financial year. It is forecast to reach the breakeven stage when revenues hit £1.5 million, which was originally predicted in its fourth year in business but which John now expects to come part-way through year three.

“The one luxury we’ve got is that, by not having external shareholders, we’ve got time,” he says.

“We’re not sitting here thinking about how we’re going to get a 20 per cent internal rate of return or anything like that. That’s important – our time horizon is quite long.”

“If you did have that pressure then we would probably have called our first beer ‘Edinburgh Castle lager’ and started exporting it straight

INTERVIEW bqlive.co.uk

away because Paolozzi lager has quite a complex backstory that needs to be explained,” chips in Kirsty. “If people like the story then it’s really rewarding. It takes time to do it, but we think we’re going to get to a better place in the long-term.”

Those long-term plans include expanding sales into Europe. The team wants to target cities with connections to Paolozzi – such as London, Hamburg and Munich – as well as other cosmopolitan locations like Paris, Rome or Vienna where the Edinburgh ‘brand’ already has traction.

Having run brewing giants S&N and C&C, what attracted John to set up a small family business?

“The thing that’s in short supply in businesses isn’t money, it’s imagination,” he says.

“It’s really hard grinding away in a big organisation and keeping your imagination afloat. It’s almost impossible.

“That’s why there’s so much growth in small companies – it’s so much more enjoyable and it’s an environment that’s so much more conducive to people applying their imagination. That’s what’s missing in most organisations.”

“There’s a tension in a small business – there are only 13 of us and four of us are family members,” explains Lynne. “You try to leave the argument at home about who hasn’t taken the bin out or who hasn’t walked the dog, but that’s not always possible.

“John has run big businesses and he’s now running a small business, so there’s a difference between sitting as a chief executive talking to heads of functions in a big company and sitting as a chief executive in this organisation and talking to a brewer who qualified last year. That’s been a process for John to adapt to and so part of my role is being the translator.”

“I don’t really miss anything about larger companies,” John adds. “It’s very tiring spending so much of your time on that word ‘alignment’.

Basically you’re trying to get a large group of people down a very narrow channel so that they’re all after the same goal – and that’s hard work.

“The only bit I miss is the fact there’s now only a small group of us – so if a job needs done it needs to be done by one of us. We were at a pub at the weekend doing a promotion. In a sense that’s the best and the worst of a small company because it’s exciting – but it can be pretty knackering as well.” n

55

“ The team rescued a 1970s Citroën H Van from rural France and now use it as a mobile bar to promote the brand”

56

TRAVEL bqlive.co.uk

Blythswood Square is the ideal hotel from which to explore Glasgow’s stunning architecture, as BQ Scotland editor Peter Ranscombe discovers Edinburgh is often lauded for its architecture. From the imposing castle and the regal surroundings of the Palace of Holyroodhouse through to the Marmite-like love-it-or-hate-it concrete mass of the Scottish Parliament, it’s easy to see why tourists flock to Auld Reekie. In amongst all the noise made about the Scottish capital’s buildings, it feels like Glasgow sometimes gets left out.

Marching down the gridiron streets in the city centre on the way to a meeting, it’s all too easy not to look up and enjoy the surroundings.

As the Year of Innovation, Architecture & Design – or YIAD to its friends – continues, it’s time to take a moment to enjoy Glasgow’s splendour. And it’s not just the usual suspects either, like the City Chambers, Gallery of Modern Art or Scotland Street School. How about the Art Deco facade of the Beresford on Sauciehall Street? Or St Aloysius Roman Catholic Church in Garnethill? Or even the modern flows and curves of the Hydro?

And what better place to act as a base for a stroll around Glasgow city centre than a hotel that can be classed as an architectural sight in its own right? Blythswood Square was once home to the Royal Scottish Automobile Club (RSAC), which was founded in 1899 to promote the rather painful-sounding ‘automobilism’ in Scotland.

The club began buying up townhouses along the eastern side of the square until it owned the whole row and then commissioned architect James Miller to redesign the terrace so that it could become its headquarters, which opened in 1926. The RSAC moved out of Blythswood Square in 2002 and the site was bought by hotelier Peter Taylor’s Town House Collection in 2006 for £5m.

A series of setbacks delayed the full opening of the site until 2011. Yet the £20m investment to restore the Georgian building and construct a 70-bedroom extension at the rear was wellworth the wait.

Last year Taylor sold Blythswood Square and its sister hotel, The Bonham in Edinburgh, to Harrogate-based accommodation operator Principal Hayley, which is backed by Starwood Capital Group, an American company that has also invested in the De Vere Venues and Four Pillars Hotels brands.

Stepping inside the foyer of Blythswood Square, the restoration work that went into preserving the historic architecture is easy to see, from the fluted columns through to the Art Deco tiling.

The hotel prides itself on offering five-star service but in a relaxed atmosphere, and those two elements certainly come together, with the members of staff on duty in reception striking the right

TRAVEL bqlive.co.uk

“After pounding the streets to see Glasgow’s architectural prowess, the spa at the hotel was the perfect place to end the visit.”

balance between friendliness and efficiency.

Across the entrance hall from reception sits the hotel’s restaurant, which is housed in what used to be the RSAC’s ballroom. The restaurant was buzzing, even on an early mid-week evening, and the staff provided the same well-balanced mix of courtesy and camaraderie.

What was most striking about the eatery though was the valuefor-money; a two-course dinner from the market menu came in at £20, while a third course only took the price up to £25.

A starter of roast tomato and sweet pepper sauce delivered all of the required thickness, richness and creaminess and – most importantly – was served piping hot, along with a choice of five breads.

The chicken supreme with garden peas and gem lettuce was moist, while the pancetta fricassee was smoky and almost too rich and creamy. To finish, a sweet and tart yoghurt panna cotta was joined by a creamy and light dark chocolate mousse and delicious fresh raspberries, all sitting on a soft chocolate biscuit crumb.

The meal was accompanied by a fresh and bright A20 Albarino from the Rias Baixas region in Galicia in North-West Spain, just over the border from Portugal’s Vinho Verde area. The modern style of the Albarino combined concentrated peach, apricot and honeysuckle aromas and flavours to match the refreshing acidity.

From the ‘last few bottles’ section of the intriguing wine list came a more traditional style of Albarino from Martin Codax, which brought together the same signature acidity with more classic green apple and mineral flavours.

Upstairs, a superior room in a corner of the second floor facing the square showed off the hotel’s accommodation at its best.

As well as the massive super-king-sized bed, the room included a coffee table and sofa, decked out in some of the 9,000sq m of Harris Tweed that was bought for kitting out the hotel’s interior, the largest single order since the QE2 ocean liner was built in the 1960s.

The marbled bathroom came complete with the separate shower and bath plus the double sinks now expected of up-market hotels, along with the necessary arm of large white towels. Free wifi – which actually worked – was also a welcome bonus.

When hotels reach the heights of five stars, it’s the little things that help to differentiate them and set them apart from each other. The establishment’s salon bar on the first floor certainly falls into that category, offering a view out across the square while sipping Scotch or a local St Mungo’s lager from West Brewery. The bar even has a ‘whisky bottle keep’ from which guests can buy an expensive Scotch and leave it at the hotel, so they can enjoy it on subsequent visits.

A private cinema is another interesting feature – although with so many films available for free in the bedrooms, it would take a special flick to entice viewers away from the comfy beds.

After pounding the streets to see Glasgow’s architectural prowess, the spa at the hotel was the perfect place to end the visit. Small yet perfectly formed, the pool is definitely designed for relaxation rather than Olympic training, but the warmth of the water was still very welcome for an aching pair of feet. n Bed and breakfast at the Blythswood Square hotel in Glasgow starts from £160 based on two people sharing a standard bedroom. Find out more at www.townhousecompany.com/blythswoodsquare

57

58

MOTORING bqlive.co.uk

I arrived to pick up the Audi Q7 ‘S’ Line on one of our rare sunny summer days and the car looked fabulous in its gleaming ‘Sepang’ blue pearl-effect paint (£675 extra) and sitting on optional 21” sport alloys (£1,350). Coupled with the ‘S’ Line styling, this made for an impressive looking vehicle.

Audi seems to have managed to make this new model look much smaller and less imposing and cumbersome than the old model, not a bad thing in my opinion, with the car being smaller in all dimensions than the previous model. The new body-shape is much less rounded and has beautiful creased lines resembling the old Audi Quattro of yesteryears, which I remember well from my old rallying days.

To put you in the picture, I have been an Audi fan for many years, although I have to admit I do not own one in our current family pool of cars. I have previously owned four different models from an Audi 100 Avant, S4, RS4 and then, once the kids started to arrive, an old model Q7. This made for an interesting review to see what improvements Audi had made, especially to my old Q7, which we always

Audi ‘nails it’ with new Q7 Having previously owned four Audis, Ian McEwan seemed like the ideal candidate to put behind the wheel of a new model considered to be a very good car. So, after a quick demo on the workings of the car at the impressive Glasgow Audi dealership, I set off on a test drive for the day.

The first thing to strike me was how sumptuous the cabin was; the quality and feel is absolutely top class and very modern looking as you would expect from the Audi marque. The seats in the

‘S’ Line model are of the sports variety and this car had the optional ‘Valcona’ leather (£1,100 – I’m not sure I would bother) and were electric, heated and with a programmable memory, and proved very comfortable and supportive. The resulting driving position is excellent with good visibility and a well laid-out dashboard. I had the benefit of the optional reverse camera (£500 – a

MOTORING bqlive.co.uk

59

“The first thing to strike me was how sumptuous the cabin was; the quality and feel is absolutely top class and very modern looking as you would expect from the Audi marque” must in this car), ‘dynamic pack’ (£2,655 – ouch, but well worth it, more on that later) and the impressive ‘technology pack’ (£1,950 – again, ouch, but adds some great functions). You will be getting the drift now that upgrading your Audi Q7 is not for the faint hearted and, at £63,320, this is not a cheap car, although this compares well with the competition in the form of the Volvo XC90 and the Range Rover Sport.

The technology pack adds ‘virtual cockpit’ and heads-up display, navigation and telephony upgrades, amongst other things. I loved the virtual cockpit – it shows all information on the instrument cluster directly in front of you on a 12” high-resolution screen, making for easier and safer motoring. The heads-up display then takes some of that information and projects it onto the windscreen – such as speed, speed limits, navigation and assist functions – all making for a thoroughly fighter jet-like experience, but with safety in its underpinnings.

The dynamic pack adds adaptive air suspension, lane assist and pre-sense front collision avoidance. The suspension element is worth the cost on its own; it helps off-road and with towing but, most importantly, the range of suspensions setting is fabulous – you can select ‘comfort’, which it certainly is, through

to ‘dynamic’, which turns this Q7 into an impressive handling car despite its obvious size and tightens up the steering. I have to say these two settings allow this car to turn from comfortable family load-lugger to sports estate at the press of a button – very clever. If you feel yourself coming over all ‘Lewis Hamilton’ then there is even an individual option allowing you to tinker with damper settings – I’m not sure why you would feel the need though.

As far as the rest of the standard interior functions is concerned, they are all well laid out and Audi’s multi-media interface (MMI) infotainment system is easy to use and has a fabulous array of options and functions, although I think my children would probably find more features than I could manage – my goodness cars are getting complicated.

As far as practicality goes, you won’t be wanting for anything. Front and rear leg and head room are ample and you get the added advantage of that third row of seats – a frequently-used feature of our old car – and they’re not even electronically-operated on the new model. With the third row seats flat, the boot is gargantuan and will swallow everything you can throw at it.

Out on the open road, the car really impresses; the ride is adaptive from super comfortable to

sporty and the engine and gearbox provide for swift and effortless motoring. It really is a good engine, with 270bhp and loads of torque taking you from nought to 60mph in 6.5 seconds. It responds very quickly and is exceptionally smooth through the eight-speed auto box – again the improvement from my old model is marked.

All too soon it was time to return the car and I have to admit being a little sad to have to hand it back, having been impressed by the overall package and I truly can’t find anything to complain about, except the cost can really climb once you start to spec up from the options list.

Audi really has improved the Q7 from my old model – in fact, I’d say it’s ‘nailed it’ and I would own one in a heartbeat.

Ian McEwan is joint managing director at building contractor AKP Scotland and director of construction documentation firm Multivista Scotland. n Audi Q7 3.0 TDI 218 Quattro S-Line TIP Auto. £409.99 + VAT per month . £3,689 + VAT initial rental. Two year contract hire. 10,000 miles per annum. For more information please call 0800 298 20 30 or www.firstvehicleleasing.co.uk

INTERNATIONAL TRADE In association with:

SPECIAL FEATURE

The prize is trade across the globe Scottish Enterprise demonstrates that by collaborating, businesses can reduce costs, share risks and create platforms for growth

62

INTERNATIONAL TRADE bqlive.co.uk

Special Report: International Trade Exports can sometimes sound like a scary topic. Where do you begin?

Which countries should you target? What happens if you don’t speak the language? How do you handle foreign currencies?

With so many questions swirling through their minds, entrepreneurs could be forgiven for dismissing any thoughts they may have about international trade and for focusing on their home market instead.

But you don’t have to go it alone.

Help is at hand from Highlands & Islands Enterprise and Scottish Enterprise, along with their overseas arm, Scottish Development International. The Scotch Whisky Association and Scotland Food & Drink recently joined forces to launch a charter to help other companies learn from the decades of experience built up through selling Scotland’s national drink overseas. Plus, there is a whole host of accountants, bankers, lawyers and management consultants who are willing to share their international experience.

In this special report, we find out about consortium co-operatives, an interesting model being promoted by Scottish Enterprise’s Cooperative Development Scotland unit. These companies limited by guarantee allow businesses, partnerships and individuals to come together to buy, sell or share services, without the need for a joint venture or merger or takeover. For small businesses, a consortium co-operative could be one option for building the scale needed for international trade.

The International Leadership Alumni Conference (ILAC), which took place in Edinburgh on 23-26 August, highlighted the important role that international trade can play in the rural economy. The ILAC is a group of graduates from rural and agricultural leadership programs from Australia, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, Scotland, and the United States.

Scottish Enterprise used the event to share insights gained from its ten years of investment in rural development through its Rural Leadership Programme, and invited collaboration from partners across the world in addressing key challenges and opportunities for rural-based businesses.

One rural business that’s benefitted from collaborative opportunities and leadership development is Angus-based Soil Essentials, which designs precision farming technologies and now sells its products to customers in Scotland and the US. Co-founder Robert Ramsay is a graduate of Scottish Enterprise’s Rural Leadership Programme and says the course has helped him to boost the company’s success by presenting partnership opportunities, peer-to-peer mentoring and heightened market awareness.

Whether in town or country, island or city, entrepreneurs should be able to access the support they need to help them trade internationally.

Peter Ranscombe Editor, BQ Scotland

Virgin beefs up Glasgow route Virgin Atlantic is increasing the capacity of its Glasgow to Orlando service for summer 2017. Almost 5,000 extra seats will be made available when the airline introduces four flights per week to Orlando during June and July 2017. The flight is in addition to Virgin Atlantic’s twice weekly service that runs between May and October 2017. All services will be operated by one of the airline’s fleet of Boeing 747 aircraft. Steven Marshall, Glasgow Airport’s head of airline development, said: “Since launching in 2007, Virgin Atlantic’s direct flights to Orlando have been a huge success and we are very proud to have a strong brand such as Virgin Atlantic here at Glasgow Airport. Florida has always been a popular destination among Scottish holidaymakers and the decision to increase capacity on this route is a clear demonstration of Virgin Atlantic’s commitment to the Glasgow market. It is also a direct response to the marked increase in demand for Virgin’s flights and we’re looking forward to welcoming the jumbo 747 four times per week during the peak summer months.” Earlier this year, Virgin Atlantic announced it will introduce a winter service to Orlando, which will take off on 16 November and run until 17 March 2017. In June, Virgin Atlantic’s joint venture partner, Delta Air Lines, announced it will launch non-stop flights between Glasgow and New York-JFK in May 2017.

Copylab expands into Asia Investment writing firm Copylab is opening offices in Hong Kong and Singapore as it expands into the Asian market.

The Edinburgh-based business – which lists fund managers BlackRock, Columbia Threadneedle and Standard Life Investments among its clients – already has offices in Glasgow and Boston, which opened in March.

Copylab Asia will be led by Paul Lees, who joined the firm in 2013 from Ignis Asset Management. Lees plans to expand the business into Australia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia and South Korea. The new venture has been supported by Scottish Development International (SDI). Ross Hunter, founder and chief executive at Copylab, which now has more than 40 staff, said: “Copylab is now operating in all three of the world’s major financial centres and is open for business 24 hours a day. We believe there is no equivalent company operating in Asia and, following the launch of our United States business, it gives us a true global perspective and local presence to match our client base. I am delighted that we have someone of the calibre of Paul Lees to strategically develop our proposition across the Far East”.

Mara Seaweed dips toe into American waters

B U S I N E S S U P D A T E International Trade Mara Seaweed dips toe into American waters Mara, the Edinburgh-based seaweed brand, has launched its first products in the United States.

The company’s products are being stocked by ingredient delivery service Blue Apron and catering supplier `Chefs’ Warehouse.

Mara’s seaweed has been included in 300,000 Blue Apron meal boxes, while Chefs’ Warehouse has introduced the brand to restaurants including Blue Hill at Stone Barns, Eleven Madison, Momofuku Nishi and Nobu.

The company has also launched ‘Furikake’, a single-serve sachet containing Dulse seaweed, toasted sesame seeds and chili flakes, which means ‘shake’ or ‘sprinkle’ in Japanese.

Fiona Houston, ‘SeaEO’ at Mara, who was interviewed in issue 23 of BQ Scotland, said: “Like Mara, Blue Apron and Chefs’ Warehouse pride themselves on sourcing some of the most delicious, authentic, natural ingredients.

“Mara’s nutritious shake-on seaweed flakes is their latest discovery and we’re delighted to partner with them.”

Mara joined trade body Scotland Food & Drink’s delegation to exhibit at the Summer Fancy Foods Show, which ran on 26-29 June at the Javits Centre in New York. Speaking before the show, Houston added: “We’re delighted to bring Mara’s range of premium seaweed products to a new

RBS tells Espark ‘chiclets’ about exports

programme with the skills and knowledge they require in order to take their business to the next level. To date we have seen a number of our entrepreneurs achieve fantastic success as a result of expanding into foreign markets, and I can’t wait to see what other businesses will accomplish as a result of these sessions.”

The Royal Bank of Scotland’s exports and international trade teams have visited the Edinburgh and Glasgow ‘hatcheries’ run by Entrepreneurial Spark, the world’s largest free business incubator programme.

Staff from the bank held a series of workshops to tell the tenants or ‘chiclets’ more about exporting and international trade.

Gordon Merrylees, head of enterprise at the Royal Bank of Scotland, said: “Exporting, like entrepreneurship, is the lifeblood of the UK economy. “Entrepreneurial Spark has already helped entrepreneurs build client bases across the world and it is clear, certainly in the goods and services sector, that there is an appetite for Scottish products. We hope that these workshops will help more entrepreneurs consider expanding their horizons and consider exporting as part of their business vision.”

Jim Duffy, co-founder of Entrepreneurial Spark, added: “These workshops, focused on exporting and trading internationally, help equip the entrepreneurs on board our accelerator

Enda Kenny, Ireland’s Taoiseach, attended an event at accountancy firm RSM’s Glasgow office as part of his UK visit to discuss business opportunities for Ireland and the UK. The event, hosted by Patrick Norris, head of RSM’s Irish desk, and Robert Ross, RSM’s Scottish managing partner, was attended by representatives from the Scottish Government, Irish consulate and a range of Scottish businesses. It was also an opportunity to highlight the recently-launched Irish Business Network Scotland, which aims to forge stronger links between the two countries.

Norris said: “As close partners – both in geography and approach to business – Ireland presents key trading and investment opportunities for Scottish businesses.

“It was great to welcome the Taoiseach to RSM and discuss the reciprocal opportunities for Irish and UK-based companies to do business together.

audience at the Summer Fancy Foods Show.

It gives us the opportunity to further drive Mara’s mission to ‘Nourish Body and Soul’ across the Atlantic.”

Taoiseach visits RSM Glasgow

64

INTERNATIONAL TRADE Special Feature: International Trade

It’s a situation that will be familiar to so many entrepreneurs – you see a contract being advertised and you want to submit a proposal, but you’re worried that your business lacks the range of skills needed to win the work, or is too small and lacks the scale to catch the client’s eye.

That’s where consortium co-operatives can come into play. Members of these organisations can be businesses, partnerships or individuals that come together for a shared purpose such as to buy or sell in scale, market more effectively, share facilities or jointly bid for contracts. By collaborating, businesses can reduce costs, share risks and create new platforms for growth.

“Each member of the consortium retains its independence, but is able to come together to benefit from the combined scale of the cooperative,” explains Suzanne Orchard, specialist advisor at Co-operative Development Scotland (CDS), part of Scottish Enterprise.

“Forming a consortium co-operative allows a small business to access its target markets more quickly by working together with other small businesses, rather than having to wait to scaleup itself or without having to integrate their businesses through a merger or a takeover. They are limited by guarantee, resulting in limited liability for members. The cornerstone is they are democratically run and each member has a say in the direction of the venture.

“Companies often collaborate informally; CDS helps them to take it that step further by formalising the consortium, registering it with Companies House and making sure there’s a members’ agreement in place as a governing document.

“Formal mergers or partnerships can be really daunting for people who are looking to collaborate for the first time, so a consortium co-operative is a good way to dip your toe in the water and test collaboration.”

Consortium co-operatives will have their ideas recognised through the Collaboration Prize, which is delivered by CDS on behalf of Scottish Enterprise and in partnership with Business Gateway and the Scottish Chambers of Commerce.

The Collaboration Prize is open for entries until 18 November 2016. Up to five winners will be selected by a judging panel to receive £5,000 cash – to implement their collaborative ideas – and up to £5,000 in consultancy support from

Working together This year’s Collaboration Prize from Scottish Enterprise is designed to help businesses access new markets by establishing a consortium co-operative – but what is this business model and why is it so innovative?

CDS to set up as a consortium co-operative.

The theme for this year’s prize is ‘accessing new markets’ and two of the five recipients will be consortia that have come together to access overseas markets. Entrants can come from new consortia or an existing one provided it was formed after 12 June 2016. The international winners will have their achievements recognised at the Hilton Hotel in Glasgow on 22 March 2017 during the ceremony for the Scottish Export Awards, in association with Scottish Enterprise. The Scottish Export Awards are part of a 12-month campaign to celebrate and inspire international trade, with BQ Scotland magazine as the media partner.

Last year’s prize was aimed at the creative

industries and was awarded to four winners: ArchBlue brings together an archaeology company, conservation architects, a 3D measuring and modelling business and a specialist in 3D printing and visualisation to provide a broad range of services to owners and managers of heritage assets; Ecosse From Above consists of the film and image libraries of three aerial photography companies and a website developer to make them available online; Edinburgh’s Netherbow brings together members from throughout the city to develop the existing honeycomb of buildings, gardens, closes and streetscape in and around the Scottish Storytelling Centre and John Knox House on the Royal Mile; and Kettle of Fish

INTERNATIONAL TRADE Special Feature: International Trade

65

“Formal mergers or partnerships can be really daunting for people who are looking to collaborate for the first time, so a consortium co-operative is a good way to dip your toe in the water”

includes an illustrator, scriptwriter and a digital agency that are building an app containing interactive stories where children choose what happens next. John McCreadie, business development director at both ArchBlue and David McCreadie 3D Measuring & Modelling, said: “We have come together as a consortium co-operative to create an international heritage consultancy. Four different organisations, each offering different but complementary services, can now, through ArchBlue, provide an integrated service to survey, record, analyse, conserve and promote an organisation’s heritage asset. We are changing our workflows and developing data structures to allow us to work together effectively and efficiently.”

ArchBlue was setup in March and is already

talking to organisations such as the National Trust for Scotland and the National Trust, along with private trusts that own heritage assets.

The consortium is also working at Lindisfarne Castle, where one of its members – Simpson & Brown – has been the conservation architect for several years.

Members of Ecosse From Above are busy creating a website that will bring together aerial photography and video from three of its member companies. The consortium has already attracted the interest of tourism agency VisitScotland, for which it recently filmed the Flying Scotsman steam train as it returned to Scotland. Craig Jump, founder of Sky View Video, said: “We are finding that we are all working together more, either providing

resource or skills and equipment, or working collaboratively. This has led to a considerable amount of knowledge sharing which has helped all of our companies.” n

Collaboration Prize The Collaboration Prize opens for entries on 12 September 2016. Visit the website for further information and to download the application form www.scottish-enterprise. com/collaborationprize. The international winners will be announced at the Scottish Export Awards, in association with Scottish Enterprise, at the Glasgow Hilton Hotel on 22 March 2017.

66

INTERNATIONAL TRADE Loch Duart

Making a splash in international markets Alban Denton, managing director at Loch Duart, which picked up the export team of the year prize at the 2016 HSBC Scottish Export Awards in association with Scottish Enterprise, explains why trading overseas is so important to the salmon producer Salmon is big business in Scotland. The nation exported nearly £400 million-worth of the fish last year and the industry is expecting to beat that figure this year thanks to growing demand in markets across Europe and Asia.

One of the companies at the heart of Scotland’s salmon industry is Loch Duart, which is based at Scourie, near Lairg, in Sutherland. The company, which produces about 5,000 tonnes of salmon each year, rears its fish in sea lochs in the NorthWest Highlands and in the Outer Hebrides.

Loch Duart – which supplied the salmon served at the Queen’s diamond jubilee in 2012 and the royal wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton the preceding year – turned over more than £25m last year and is expected to comfortably beat that figure this year.

About two-thirds of its sales come from exports, with its fish being eaten in more than 20 countries spread across Europe, the Far East, the Middle East and North America.

“Our exports are driven by customer demand – customers all around the world want to eat our salmon and so we export it to them,” explains Alban Denton, who took over as managing director in April 2015, following a career in the food industry that included spells at bread giant Warburtons and as a director of supermarket vegetable supplier Kettle Produce. “At the moment, we’re being pulled more and more into France by the demand for the premium product that we produce.

“We’re a relatively-small producer, but to sell our 5,000 tonnes we can’t just commit to the UK market because we produce a

premium product and so we also choose to go international. Strategically, I like to balance risk and so the ability to run a business that can trade in sterling, euros and dollars is a pragmatic way of spreading our eggs across a number of baskets.”

Loch Duart was crowned as the export team of the year at the 2016 HSBC Scottish Export Awards in association with Scottish Enterprise, beating off strong competition in what was a popular category.

“Winning an award is important for us because it gives validation for what we do from an independent authority when we talk to our customers – our customers see that we are an award-winning company and who doesn’t want to buy products from an award-winning company?” says Denton. “Winning an award tells our customers a really positive message that, not only do we preach about the way our business operates, but we also put it into practice and then external people come in and audit what we do through awards schemes and authenticate and validate what we do.

“It’s also really important internally because it’s one of our ways of recognising and rewarding our excellent professionals. I can tell them ‘well done’ as often as I like but for them to see their names in the press and to have a night out at the awards ceremony and be celebrated gives

them an important moment in the spotlight.

The evening itself is an exciting and exuberant occasion so it gives them a chance to celebrate what they do.

“For our investors, it shows that their business is at the leading edge of its industry and is beating its competition to win these awards. That’s an important element of success.”

The company is owned by its founders – Alan Balfour, Andy Bing and Nick Joy, along with their family members – as well as the Scottish Investment Bank, the investment arm of Scottish Enterprise, and the sustainable investment division of Capricorn Investment Group.

“Capricorn is as interested in understanding what we do to sustain the communities in the Highlands and the islands as it is about the profit-per-kilo figures,” Denton added.

Loch Duart isn’t resting on its laurels – the company is targeting further export growth in the Far East, with expansion across markets including China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. “Our salmon has just gone onto the menu at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hong Kong,” says Denton. “Being seen there will open other doors for us.”

Denton praises the support he has received from Scotland’s public bodies. Economic development agency Highlands & Islands Enterprise (HIE) has worked with Loch Duart since the company was

“For our investors, it shows that their business is at the leading edge of its industry and is beating its competition to win these awards. That’s an important element of success.”

INTERNATIONAL TRADE Loch Duart

formed in 1999.

“Loch Duart is a company we are very keen to support for a whole variety of reasons,” explains Keith Muir, head of business growth for the Caithness and Sutherland area at HIE. “The company is very well managed with a strong team who have earned our respect by consistently delivering exactly what they say they will do.

“They are a crucial employer in two of our most

fragile areas, and have a reputation for being both good employers and good neighbours in their communities. They have worked tirelessly to develop close relationships with all their suppliers and customers, who now form a committed community of stakeholders.

“Pulling these strands together, they have succeeded in building a substantial and enduring value in their brand, based not just on the quality of their product but on the whole

67

ethos of the company with its respect for its partners, for the environment, and crucially, for the industry-leading standards of husbandry of the fish in their care.

“We were particularly pleased when they won the export team of the year award earlier this year in recognition of all the hard work the whole team has put in over the years to build their brand and take the best of Scottish produce to a world market.” n

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 22 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

CATEGORIES The Scottish Export Awards, in association with Scottish Enterprise, are open to all businesses with a presence in Scotland. The award categories for 2017 include: MOST ENTREPRENEURIAL EXPORTER OF THE YEAR A company that has demonstrated entrepreneurial flair within their export strategy. This will be shown through an extraordinary approach to reaching new markets where creativity, innovation and tenacity has resulted in success.

MICRO EXPORTER OF THE YEAR Recognising outstanding achievements in export growth by a company in any industry with a turnover up to £2million. This success will be measured by growth in sales and market penetration together with the application of innovative market strategies to extend export potential.

SMALL EXPORTER OF THE YEAR Recognising outstanding achievements in export growth by a company in any industry with a turnover of £2-£15million. This success will be measured by growth in sales and market penetration together with the application of innovative market strategies to extend export potential.

LARGE EXPORTER OF THE YEAR Recognising outstanding achievements by a company in any industry with a turnover greater than £15million. This success will be measured by growth in sales and market penetration together with the application of innovative market strategies to extend export potential.

EXPORT TEAM OF THE YEAR The export team of the year award will recognise a team who can demonstrate significant added value to their business through adopting innovative techniques, personnel development measures, and successful implementation of the company’s export sales strategy. It should be clear how the company has developed a team-wide approach to exporting which may well extend beyond the company to distributors, agents and other third parties who will have contributed to export success.

E-COMMERCE EXPORTER OF THE YEAR A company that through e-commerce has increased brand awareness and recognition, expanded into new markets, increased sales and efficiency and improved customer service. The winner of this category must be able to demonstrate how they have used e-commerce and trading online to significantly enhance their export growth or potential for growth.

PROFESSIONAL SERVICE ADVISER OF THE YEAR A business that does not export, but plays a key role in supporting exporters to trade overseas either directly or indirectly through providing associated services such as advice and consultancy. The professional service adviser of the year award will recognise a company that has demonstrated outstanding achievements in supporting businesses to achieve their exporting objectives. Success will be measured by the advice given and how it directly affected export growth in the companies supported.

LOGISTICS PARTNER OF THE YEAR Awarded to a company that provides outstanding customer service and innovation in supporting the export market with their delivery solutions. Success will be measured through their ability to support complex or innovative methods of distribution and delivery whilst adding value. Where possible nominees in this category should also be able to show how their business is focusing on support for new and emerging export markets.

HIGH GROWTH MARKET EXPORTER OF THE YEAR Awarded to a company demonstrating impressive export growth in high growth markets (including India, China, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia or Oman).

This success will be measured by growth in sales and high growth market penetration together with the application of innovative market strategies to extend export potential.

BQ SCOTTISH EXPORTER OF THE YEAR This award will be presented to a company that has made an outstanding contribution to Scotland’s export profile and success. Companies must have demonstrated how they have overcome their barriers when entering new markets. The winner of this award will be selected from the winners of the above award categories and announced on the evening of the awards.

ENTER NOW AT WWW.BQLIVE.

CO.UK/SCOTEXPORTAWARDS17

70

ENTREPRENEURIAL SPARK Media Partnership

Turning a spark into a flame Lucy-Rose Walker is the new ‘chief entrepreneuring officer’ at Entrepreneurial Spark and she has ambitious plans to extend the reach of its incubation centres throughout the country One of the key moments in any start-up’s life is when the founder hands over the reins to the new boss. But with two co-founders heavily involved in the business, Entrepreneurial Spark – the world’s largest free business accelerator programme – doesn’t have to worry about the change-over.

Jim Duffy and Lucy-Rose Walker founded Entrepreneurial Spark in 2011. During the summer, Duffy finished his role as the company’s

‘chief executive optimist’ to take on the new role of ‘head of #GoDo’, while Walker switched from being ‘chief solutions officer’ to ‘chief entrepreneuring officer’, continuing the company’s tradition of coming up with alternative meanings for the job title of ‘CEO’.

“Jim’s new role will involve him training the staff in our hatcheries so that they can give the best advice to our chiclets and he will also work one-to-one with some of the most-promising

entrepreneurs,” Walker explains. “It’s about harnessing what we like to call ‘The Jim Duffy Effect’ – being able to assess a situation quickly and ask the entrepreneur the right question that gets to the heart of the problem they’re having.

“Part of my job over the next three to five years is to create a sustainable business model,” she adds. “At the moment, Entrepreneurial Spark is funded by Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) on a rolling five-year contract, along with cash from

ENTREPRENEURIAL SPARK Media Partnership

“Entrepreneurial Spark is the fastest-growing scale-up that’s come out of a hatchery – we’ve brought in contracts worth tens of millions of pounds” local councils and philanthropists, so I need to look at how we turn that into a sustainable business.

“We need to do that to make sure that we continue to attract and retain talented staff to help our chiclets. Our staff are motivated by the desire to help entrepreneurs, but if we want to retain them then we also need to be able to offer them salary increases and other financial rewards too.

“My aim is to turn this into a £20m social enterprise – and I think we can do it.”

Entrepreneurial Spark has grown from a single hatchery in Glasgow in 2011 to become the biggest free business accelerator programme in the world. It already has 12 sites throughout the UK and its 13th will open in August 2017 in London, while its partnership with Viridian Ventures, the investment arm of the eponymous New Dehli-based property group, has two centres in India.

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.

Entrepreneurial Spark itself has grown too.

The company, which is constituted as a social enterprise, has 45 members of staff, having grown from seven workers just 18 months ago.

Next on the agenda for Walker is the launch of a pilot scheme in September, which involves delivering Entrepreneurial Spark’s support to entrepreneurs in the Highlands and Islands.

The hybrid model – which is being offered in partnership with Highlands & Islands Enterprise and RBS, and funded by the Scottish Government and law firm Harper Macleod – will be delivered through a mix of teleconferencing and face-to-face support.

The new scheme was unveiled in August in Inverness, with RBS chief executive Ross McEwan launching the project in the Highland capital. The pilot is initially aimed at early-stage companies and businesses that haven’t yet started to trade, although it is also open to more

mature firms that are looking to kick-start their growth.

Entrepreneurial Spark is also looking to develop an entirely virtual support programme, which could be delivered online throughout the world. Together, the virtual and hybrid models could help Entrepreneurial Spark to reach entrepreneurs who are not based near hatcheries.

Another string to the company’s bow is delivering the Entrepreneurial Development Academy for RBS, which contributes to Entrepreneurial Spark’s work throughout the UK via its RBS and NatWest brands. So far 2,500 members of staff from the group have been given training that will not only help them to provide better advice and services to entrepreneurs but also to be more entrepreneurial in their own roles within the bank. Other companies have now expressed an interest in the company running similar schemes for them.

With all the talk of ‘chiclets’ and ‘hatcheries’, Entrepreneurial Spark can sometimes sound very

71

American. Walker is unapologetic about that fact, as she thinks it’s important to learn lessons from other entrepreneurial societies.

She is also keen to learn from some of the world’s most successful companies, such as Google and Adobe. Staff at Google are encouraged to use 20% of their time to work on projects that they think will benefit the company, with one of the most successful outcomes to date being its Gmail email system.

Walker and her team are harnessing this idea by creating ‘explore’ and ‘exploit’ teams; while the ‘exploit’ team focus on making sure the hatcheries are world-class collaborative working spaces and supporting alumni who have graduated from the programme, the ‘explore’ team is working on new projects, such as the remote training in the Highlands.

Harnessing the expertise contained within the whole of Entrepreneurial Spark means that the executive team can draw on good ideas from anywhere within the company instead of having to tackle all of the development work itself.

“Entrepreneurial Spark is the fastest-growing scale-up that’s come out of a hatchery – we’ve brought in contracts worth tens of millions of pounds,” adds Walker. “It’s important to remind our staff that Entrepreneurial Spark itself is ‘walking the talk’ – we’re putting into practice what we teach our entrepreneurs.” n

Entrepreneurial Spark awards £255,000 to chiclets Entrepreneurial Spark, the world’s largest free business accelerator programme, has awarded £255,000 to its ‘chiclets’, the fledgling businesses based in its ‘hatcheries’ or incubation centres.

The cash was presented on the evening of 20 July at nine of the company’s 12 hatcheries during its annual ‘Entrepreneuring Awards’.

Nine chiclets received up to £10,000 each after being crowned as the ‘entrepreneurs of the moment’, while another nine walked away with ‘Acceler-8’ awards of up to £7,000 each.

A total of 26 entrepreneurs received ‘#GoDo’ prizes of up to £3,000 each, with a further 25 entrepreneurs taking home £1,000 each after impressing judges in a 60-second pitching contest. There were also nine ‘chiclet choice’ awards of £1,000 each, with the winners being selected by their fellow chiclets.

“Congratulations to all of our winners,” says Lucy-Rose Walker, the ‘chief entrepreneuring officer’ at Entrepreneurial Spark, who addressed all nine of the hatcheries at the end of the evening via a video.

“We focus on building people who build businesses, and taking home an Entrepreneuring Award shows how hard you’ve worked and progressed in your first months in the hatchery.

“Well done to everyone who was nominated and to all the winners – we’re sure you’ll continue to #GoDo and embrace the programme and all opportunities which come your way.”

72

INTERVIEW bqlive.co.uk

Tackling the hard questions Rugby legend David Sole captained Scotland to the memorable 1990 Grand Slam win against England. Now, he runs the School for CEOs, which trains the next generation of business leaders, as Peter Ranscombe reports Being born and bred in Scotland during the 1980s, it was easy to be lulled into a false sense of security about our nation’s sporting prowess.

In football, qualification for five World Cups on the trot culminated in an appearance at Italia ’90, leading onto Euro ’92 in Sweden and Euro ’96 doon south.

And in rugby, a Five Nations Grand Slam in 1984 was followed by a sharing of the championship with France in 1986 and then the legendary campaign of 1990, when Scotland beat England at Murrayfield during the final match of the tournament to take the Calcutta Cup and the Grand Slam.

At the heart of that glorious day in Edinburgh was David Sole, the captain who marched his team out onto the pitch at the start of the game and who gained the crucial psychological advantage over the ‘auld enemy’ in the process.

He captained Scotland 25 times – a record held until Greig Laidlaw beat this tally this season

– and he won 44 caps in total for his country, along with a further three during the 1989 British & Irish Lions tour of Australia.

Some of those caps are hanging behind glass along with team photographs and match-day programmes in the boardroom of School for CEOs, the Edinburgh-based executive coaching business that Sole founded with partner Patrick Macdonald. With such a well-known sporting pedigree, has Sole’s reputation led to any embarrassing incidences of hero worship when students come face-to-face with the former Scotland captain?

“It was all a long time ago now, so no, that doesn’t happen as much as it might have done in the past,” he replies modestly. “I’m an old has-been now. I’m conscious of my age – it’s 24 years since I finished playing rugby, which is a long time.

“It’s something I’ve parked mentally myself, so I’m far less aware of it than others are. People

come on our courses because they’re interested in listening to our members of the faculty and not listening to me.”

The route from rugby into business is a well-trodden path for former Scottish internationalists: Sir Bill Gammell founded London-listed oil and gas explorer and producer Cairn Energy; Jim Aitken is chairman of East Lothian-based grain merchant Alexander Inglis & Son; and Willie Watt is chief executive at Edinburgh-based investment manager Martin Currie. Indeed, the list of former sports stars who go on to become business coaches or motivational speakers seems to grow longer each week, but Sole thinks the comparisons between the two worlds can only go so far.

“There are a lot of similarities when you think about the traits of leadership and teamwork, mobilising people behind a vision and a plan,” he admits. “And there are lots of lessons that you can draw from sport and bring

INTERVIEW bqlive.co.uk

“I’m an old has-been now. I’m conscious of my age – it’s 24 years since I finished playing rugby, which is a long time.”

73

74

INTERVIEW bqlive.co.uk

into business.

“But I think it also stops at a certain point. A lot of sport is about preparing for a certain event or competition. But business is relentless. You can’t just peak for an event and then say ‘We’ll all just relax’. In the generic stuff, there are a lot of parallels, but I think business is more sophisticated than sport.

“You need to develop different characteristics around resilience, which is an area of interest for me just now from a neuro-science perspective – what’s happening to your thought processes that will make you more resilient. Having that cognitive awareness to do something about it is difficult.”

That interest in education and learning is a trait that appears to have remained with Sole throughout his career, both in sport and now in business. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, rugby wasn’t a professional game and so his two lives ran parallel with each other for a while.

“My early jobs really revolved around finding something that would keep me occupied during the day until I could go training in the evening,” he remembers. Having studied economics and agricultural economics at the University of Exeter, entering the food and drink industry was a natural choice for the young prop. After working for a dairy and a wine merchant in Bath, he returned to Edinburgh to work as a sales rep for a grain merchant, before a second brief spell in the wine trade.

Winning the Grand Slam wasn’t the only reason that Sole remembers 1990 though; it was also the year during which he began working for United Distillers, the whisky producer created in 1987 by owner Guinness through the merger of its Distillers Company and Arthur Bell & Sons subsidiaries. In 1998, a year after Guinness itself had been combined with Grand Metropolitan to form Diageo, United Distillers was merged with International Distillers & Vintners to form United Distillers & Vintners, now known simply as ‘Diageo Scotland’.

“I joined as an assistant grain buyer, purchasing the raw materials needed to make Scotch whisky and gin,” explains the softly-spoken Sole. “I had just been appointed as captain of Scotland, leading the team against Fiji and Romania in the autumn internationals, so they knew what they were letting themselves in for when they hired me.

“I spent nine years with United Distillers and

then a further two following the merger of Grand Met and Guinness to form Diageo. At the point of the merger, I was running the team that was responsible for any raw materials that went into a distiller and any co-products that came out, like draff and dark grains, which are used as animal feed.”

One of the driving forces behind the merger of the two companies was the cost savings that could be extracted from the businesses.

“We spent something like £1.2 billion in global operations of which £900 million fell into five categories: glass; aluminium; paper and corrugated cardboard; distribution; and commodities and neutral spirit,” says Sole.

“All of the consultants told them that if they applied a strategic sourcing approach then they could deliver £256m of merger benefits – so obviously people were very excited about that. So I was asked to look after the commodities and neutral spirit category.

Basically, we formed a small team of five people, one to run each category.

“I did that for a couple of years and I moved my family down south to Oxfordshire. I got my gold card from British Airways for travelling the world, negotiating deals in Barbados and all sorts of places.

“At the end of the two years, I over-delivered on expectations. The consultants had predicted a 4-6% saving on commodities and neutral spirits and I delivered 9%.”

Once the two-year posting was completed, Sole wanted to return to Scotland and so he left Diageo. “I probably had an early mid-life crisis,” he laughs. “I had a complete change of career.

I was introduced to Norman Drummond, who was setting up the Scottish office of the Change Partnership, which at the time was probably the largest coaching organisation in the UK. “I had no idea that an industry existed around the world of executive coaching. Having come from a background in performance sport – albeit in an amateur era – coaching really resonated with me.

“When I was at Distillers, we went through a cultural change programme and part of that was learning to be a coach and learning some models and approaches to be an effective coach and leader. It really struck a chord with me and I got quite excited about it.”

One of Sole’s early clients was Patrick Macdonald, who had been appointed in 2003 as chief executive at John Menzies, the FTSE250 newspaper distribution and aviation services group. The two got along well together and kept in touch.

“We were having lunch one day and Patrick said what a challenge it had been becoming a chief executive,” Sole recalls. “Patrick is a very bright guy, with a first-class honours degree in engineering from the University of Oxford and an MBA with distinction from Insead in France.

“He’s worked at Boston Consulting Group,

INTERVIEW bqlive.co.uk

Unilever, and General Electric and so he has a terrific pedigree. But he said that nothing in his education or experience had prepared him for taking on the role of CEO. “So we kicked that idea around and we came up with the concept of the School for CEOs. The difference being that we wanted to approach it from a very practical perspective, so we didn’t want academic input into the teaching on the programme.

“Academics are there to teach people the theory; what we wanted was very much a practitioner’s approach. So all of our faculty – and we have more than 70 faculty members now – are currently or have just finished serving as CEOs, chairmen, or non-executive directors.

So they’ve been there, they’ve done it, they’ve got the T-shirt.”

The faculty who teach at the School for CEOs reads like a Who’s Who of the Scottish and indeed British business community, from wellkent faces such as Samantha Barber, Katherine Garrett-Cox and Lesley Knox through to Bob Keiller, Peter Lederer and Lord Smith of Kelvin, with a smattering of sporting greats thrown in too, like Katherine Grainger, Shirley Robertson, and Will Carling.

The list of companies that have used the school’s services is equally prestigious: Aberdeen Asset Management, Bacardi, Carphone Warehouse, Heineken, Santander, SSE, and William Grant & Sons to name but a few. Brakes, the food services business, has used Sole and his team to deliver an in-house version of the course and the school is also doing the same for PepsiCo in Barcelona, where 30 of its rising stars from throughout Europe will be given training as part of a new talent academy.

High-flyers from charities including Children in Need and the Teenage Cancer Trust – along with organisations such as Inspiring Scotland and UK Sport – have also taken part in courses.

“We’re very keen to make sure we get diversity in the room,” says Sole. “It adds a richness for the delegates. They get a huge amount from bouncing ideas off each other. Some of the issues facing businesses and charities are different, but others are exactly the same.”

The school runs two courses: the ‘Vital Few’, an intensive two-day residential programme at which experienced directors teach first-timers about the vital few skills they will need, such as setting the agenda, managing relationships and

75

“This is about stepping back and thinking about the leadership of the company and how you grow and nurture the business, which is sometimes a difficult step for entrepreneurs to take ” structuring their team; and ‘Runway’, which is aimed at people a few steps away from taking on an executive committee (exco) post, who complete an online self-assessment beforehand and then receive feedback and come up with their own personal development plan while they’re on the course.

“We’ve had our fair share of entrepreneurs on the courses too,” adds Sole. “They’ve loved it.

The courses are as relevant to an entrepreneur running a business, if not more relevant.

“Entrepreneurs are wedded to the concept that they’ve developed and are commercialising. This is about stepping back and thinking about the leadership of the company and how you grow and nurture the business, which is sometimes a difficult step for entrepreneurs to take because they are so attached to the technology they’ve developed or the business they’re growing.”

But if entrepreneurs are being asked to part with their hard-earned cash to take up a place on a course, is it possible to quantify the results?

“That’s a hard question for any developmental or learning intervention to answer,” Sole admits.

“I’m very often asked it as a coach – ‘What’s

the payback?’

“For me, I’m fundamentally wedded to learning and being curious about stuff, so any investment in yourself to develop your learning is worth it – and it’s not just about the ‘hard’ messages you get in the programme but also about the relationships you form with the faculty and your fellow delegates.”

Sole isn’t just focused on growing other people’s businesses. He and Macdonald – along with business partner and programme director June Boyle – took on their first full-time staff member last year and held a strategy day over the summer. “We’re being quite grown-up about it,” smiles Sole. “We’re ambitious and we want to grow the business.

“What we’re doing has struck a chord, especially with our ‘Runway’ programme.

Getting people to think long and hard about their development and how that’s aligned to their ambitions is something that generally isn’t done. Often it’s just left to an hour-long annual review or appraisal, which – given the amount of time we spend at work – almost feels a bit disingenuous.” n

76

WE ARE THE FUTURE Media Partnership

Williamson shares some ‘accelerated wisdom’

WE ARE THE FUTURE Media Partnership

77

We Are The Future will celebrate the fifth year of its Startup Summit when it holds its event at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh on 14 November, with speakers including Jumpstart chief executive Brian Williamson From tiny acorns, mighty oaks grow – or so the old saying goes. When it comes to entrepreneurship organisation We Are The Future, it’s not just one oak but a whole forest that’s growing from that single acorn.

Founder Bruce Walker came up with the idea for his social enterprise when he was just 17 years old and he held the first event at his secondary school, Wallace High in Stirling, which attracted 135 pupils. This year, Walker expects more than 1,000 entrepreneurs to attend his Startup Summit at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh on 14 November, with a further 20,000 watching proceedings online.

During its short existence, We Are The Future has grown into a global organisation that has hosted international summits throughout the world in cities including Abu Dhabi, London and San Francisco, while its first events in Asia are also pencilled in for later this year, with trips to China and Hong Kong.

Walker, now 22, was recently named as one of six Scots in accountancy firm Grant Thornton’s list of ‘100 Faces of a Vibrant Economy’, alongside former BQ Scotland cover stars Josh Littlejohn and Petra Wetzel.

One man who still clearly remembers that first occasion back in 2012 at Wallace High is Brian Williamson, chief executive at Jumpstart, the Edinburgh-based research and development (R&D) tax credit consultancy. Williamson was the speaker at Walker’s debut event – but he originally wasn’t going to be there.

“Simon Howie had been due to speak, but he had to pull-out,” remembers Williamson. “But instead of giving Bruce the problem to sort out, Simon asked me to step in, which I was delighted to do.

“Even at that first event, you could tell that Bruce was fascinated by entrepreneurship. He was so enthusiastic when he came up to speak

to me, so we kept in touch.

“I could tell as soon as I met him that he was going to go places and he’s gone on to do remarkable things. I often wonder whether I could have done the same thing when I was his age because he’s absolutely amazing.”

Williamson also helped Walker with a small amount of start-up funding to get We Are The Future off the ground. “I know from starting my own businesses that it can be tough and I saw something of myself in Bruce,” Williamson explains. “That was a small way in which I could help him – it was an easy decision for me.”

Williamson will be reuniting with Walker at this year’s Startup Summit in Edinburgh as one of the guest speakers. He will be taking to the stage alongside: Rob Jones, co-founder of FanDuel, one of Scotland’s digital technology ‘unicorns’ with a valuation in excess of $1 billion; Deborah Magid, director of IBM Venture Capital; and Kerry Sharp, chief executive of the Scottish Investment bank, the investment arm of Scottish Enterprise.

“I’m going to be following a theme about ‘accelerated wisdom’, which comes to us all at different ages and stages in our life,” says Williamson. “It’s exponential – I think I’ve learned more in the past 12 months than in the whole of my life up to that point.

“Rather than going through the businesses that I’ve been involved in, I’ll speak more about my curiosity about how people interact with each other and about how people make money. Over the years, I’ve realised that being in business is like playing Monopoly with real money – it’s got to be fun.

“When you show interest in a person and how they make money then it leads to you gaining knowledge and leads to meaningful and authentic relationships. Those relationships over time build trust and lead to you finding out

“I could tell as soon as I met him that he was going to go places and he’s gone on to do remarkable things.”

more information about how businesses are connected with each other.

“Businesses are like a jigsaw puzzle – they’re all connected. The exciting thing for me is that the business landscape is like a movie rather than a picture because it’s changing all the time.”

Jumpstart was launched from an attic in 2008 by Richard Edwards, Don Galloway and Stuart Wyse. William joined the business early on as a consultant and became managing director in 2012, investing in the business alongside its founders.

“When I looked at Jumpstart there was an intuitive blink moment that made me think ‘I really like this business’,” Williamson explains.

“The back of your brain processes an enormous amount of data about the business and the people behind the business and tells you to work with that business – you think it’s your ‘gut feeling’ but actually it’s based on subconsciously processing a complex array of information.

“My hope at the conference is to explain that you don’t have to get to the age of 60 before you know it – you can accelerate that process by rubbing shoulders with the right people.”

Jumpstart – which is backed by the Business Growth Fund, the £2.5 billion growth capital provider launched in 2011 by five of the UK’s biggest banks – has recently opened an office in London as it prepares for a bigger push into the English market. The company is also developing a new service that will give its clients upfront access to the cash that they will be able to reclaim through R&D tax credits.

“It’s still in the final stages of development, but it will disrupt the marketplace,” says Williamson.

“It will guarantee people money even prior to them getting their R&D claim.

“It will shake-up the market – it will encourage more people to apply for credits. At the moment, the size of the UK market is about £1.7bn, compared with about £3.9bn in Canada, which is the world’s most mature market. That shows that there’s still room for further growth in the UK and we hope to replicate our dominant position in Scotland as we expand south of the Border.” n

78

SCO TTISH BUSINESS AWARDS Media Partnership

Leonardo DiCaprio named as Scottish Business Awards keynote speaker How do you top George Clooney’s appearance at the 2015 Scottish Business Awards?

Organisers have turned to the ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ for the answer Talk about a hard act to follow: Hollywood actor George Clooney set a new standard at last year’s Scottish Business Awards by not only winning the hearts of the 2,000-plus members of the audience at the dinner, but also taking the eyes of the world’s media to sandwich shop Social Bite during the preceding afternoon to highlight the chain’s work in helping homeless people.

Having previously secured the services of entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, musician Bob Geldof and former United States president Bill Clinton as speakers at past dinners, organisers had certainly set the bar high and gave themselves a challenge when it came to finding a speaker to top the bill at this year’s event.

It looks like they’re poised to maintain the same high standard though. Organisers have unveiled Oscar-winning star Leonardo DiCaprio as the keynote speaker at the 2016 Scottish Business Awards.

DiCaprio rose to fame through starring roles in films including Titanic, The Beach and William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, before cementing his reputation in dramas such as Blood Diamond, The Great Gatsby and The Wolf of Wall Street. His recent performance in The Revenant earned him an Academy Award in the best actor category.

As well as starring in and producing feature films, the actor has also founded the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, a charity that focuses on the climate, forests, oceans and wildlife. He was one of the speakers at the United Nations’ landmark climate change negotiations in Paris during December 2015.

Sir Tom Hunter, the chairman of the Scottish Business Awards, said at the launch of the programme in August: “Leonardo is not only a famous actor, he is a pioneering environmentalist and committed philanthropist

“Leonardo is not only a famous actor, he is a pioneering environmentalist and committed philanthropist ” whose charitable work is making a global impact. To have him address our nation’s premier businesses and entrepreneurs is incredibly exciting.

“That the Scottish Business Awards is the largest awards dinner of its kind in the whole of the UK says a lot about the strength and ambition of Scotland’s entrepreneurial community, and 17 November is set to be another very special night.”

Alan Mahon and Josh Littlejohn – who founded both the awards and the Social Bite chain of sandwich shops – have been working together on the contest for four years. Since last November’s star-studded awards ceremony, the pair have been busy working behind the scenes with the Hunter Foundation to come up with an even more exciting event this year, for which BQ will once again be the media partner.

New prizes this year include one for ‘scale-up of the year’, while the number of categories has been reduced to give more prominence to the finalists and allow for extra content to be created, celebrating the achievements of Scotland’s entrepreneurs and their companies.

Last year’s ceremony secured its place in the history books, with more than 2,000 guests attending the dinner, making it the largest ever business award ceremony in the UK and the biggest meal ever served in Scotland, eclipsing a record that had stood since the coronation of King James VI, when 2,000 people attended a banquet. What an epic achievement for catering company Leith’s.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, Donald Wilson, Lord Provost of the City of Edinburgh, and Matthew Barzun, the United States’ ambassador

to the UK were among last year’s guests at the dinner. Rob Brydon, the Welsh comedian, hosted the awards ceremony, with celebrities such as Olympic cyclist Sir Chris Hoy and tennis coach Judy Murray also taking to the stage to speak to the audience and present awards.

Clooney was interviewed on stage by BBC Radio 2 host Chris Evans, who probed him about everything from his charity work through to whether he would stand as candidate for the US presidency.

Highlights of the evening included Edinburghbased flight comparison website operator Skyscanner scooping the overall company award, Lord Robert Smith of Kelvin being presented with the outstanding contribution prize, and engineering contractor QTS Group scooping the BQ growth strategy of the year award, which was presented by Bryan Hoare, managing director of BQ. As well as presenting prizes, the event also raised money for charities including: Not On Our Watch, the humanitarian charity set up by Clooney and fellow actors Don Cheadle, Matt Damon, and Brad Pitt; the Scottish Edge Fund, which offers grants to budding entrepreneurs; and Social Bite. More than £500,000 was raised through ticket sales ahead of the dinner, with the total exceeding £1 million when the evening’s auction and raffle were included.

Over the past four years, more than £4m has been raised for charities by the Scottish Business Awards. This year, all of the profits from the event will support the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, ScotEDGE and Social Bite. n To enter the Scottish Business Awards visit www.scottishbusinessawards.co.uk

SCO TTISH BUSINESS AWARDS Media Partnership

“That the Scottish Business Awards is the largest awards dinner of its kind in the whole of the UK says a lot about the strength and ambition of Scotland’s entrepreneurial community”

79

80

ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

The grape and the grain After a career in the humanitarian sector, Ruth Simpson and her husband Charles bought a vineyard in the South of France and began making awardwinning wines. Now, the Scottish vintner is bringing her skills to Kent, as Peter Ranscombe finds out

Whisky must run through Ruth Simpson’s veins. As a fifth-generation member of the Grant family, the Scotch dynasty behind the Balvenie and Glenfiddich brands, she grew up learning about her mother’s ancestors and their history of making whisky, which stretches back to 1887.

But if whisky is in her veins then wine must be what fills her soul.

Simpson and her husband, Charles, have owned and run Domaine Sainte Rose, a wine estate in the Languedoc region in the South of France, for the past 14 years.

Now, the couple are bringing their wine-making expertise back to Blighty after buying land in Kent, where they are preparing to make their first English sparkling wine. Within a matter of weeks, they will be harvesting the first grapes from the vines they planted in 2014, with their debut wine expected to go on sale in 2018.

Not necessarily what you would expect for a woman from the Highlands.

Born in Inverness and raised in Edinburgh, Simpson attended the now defunct St Margaret’s School in the Newington area of the Scottish capital before studying international relations and modern history on the prestigious course at the University of St Andrews.

Travelling and voluntary work while at university sparked her interest in working in the charity sector, first as a recruitment officer in London for youth organisation Raleigh International and later as a consultant for Relief International and Save The Children in Baku in Azerbaijan, where Charles had been posted as country manager by pharmaceuticals giant Glaxo Wellcome, now part of GlaxoSmithKline.

As well as being familiar with the operational and financial side of humanitarian work, completing a paediatric nursing diploma at Napier University in Edinburgh and working at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London had given Simpson hands-on experience too.

While they were posted in Azerbaijan, they began to realise that their careers were taking them in different directions. They both harboured dreams of working for themselves and so they began to explore what business they could launch.

“Wine making wasn’t an obvious choice, but perhaps there was some alcohol in the blood there,” Simpson smiles. “Being so far from home, we probably had too much time on our hands to navel-gaze and think about the future, but we were both keen wine consumers and when we did take holidays a lot of those were spent visiting different winegrowing areas.

“Then we got a reality check from our families – they told us that we’d been living on our own in Azerbaijan for far too long and that we should come back to the UK and get our feet on solid ground again, which we did. I worked as a grants officer with the charities board of the National Lottery but, after six months, we decided we would stop what we were doing and go out and visit the areas in which we were considering setting up a business and make a go of it.”

ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

81

82

ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

Their research took them to Australia – where they visited potential sites – and then onto New Zealand. As part of the homework for her new career, Simpson also completed the graduate certificate in wine marketing from the University of South Australia in Adelaide as a distancelearning student.

“In the early stages, we thought that a couple of Brits coming in and doing things a bit differently would go down better in the New World rather than the Old World,” Simpson explains. “But we were also hearing about and reading about and tasting interesting wines coming out of the Languedoc region in the South of France. So we went down there and spent time speaking to as many people as we could, knocking on doors, making cold calls to people in the industry.”

Old World countries such as France, Italy and Spain have traditionally sold their wines under the names of the areas in which they were made, like Bordeaux, Chianti or Rioja. Wine labels very rarely carried the names of grape varieties leaving consumers guessing about how the wines would taste and building up the complexity and snobbery that often surrounds wine.

All of that changed in the 1980s when Australia and other New World countries began sticking the names of grape varieties on their labels.

Coupled with more modern production techniques – such as fermenting the grapes in temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks – drinkers were able to buy wines that were consistently fresh and fruity.

One of the first parts of France to hit back was the Languedoc. While the complicated appellation d’origine contrôlée system still prevented many top wines displaying the names of their constituent grape varieties on their labels, the broader vin de pays system for ‘country wines’ was reformed, allowing for varietal labelling. Coupled with the injection of fresh capital, suddenly winemakers in the South of France had the ability to take on the New World at its own game.

One of the people the Simpsons met during their travels in the Languedoc was James Herrick, who is credited with introducing the first branded French chardonnay to the UK market in the 1990s. “By the time we met him, he had recently sold off his business to Southcorp and was then acting as a consultant,” remembers Simpson.

“It’s a lovely lifestyle, living in the South of France, with vineyards on the doorstep, but unless you’re competitive and can sell the product then you can’t pay for the next harvest and you’re not going to last long.”

“James was the person who told us to go away and sit in a darkened room until the thought of going into the wine industry had gone away – which we duly didn’t do,” she laughs. “But we went out to lunch and chatted with him and he told us ‘I think you’re mad, because I’m trying to get out of this business’. But he also offered to become our advisor.

“He was our guardian angel, our mentor, the type of person you can never plan for when you’re writing your business plan, but who was really very influential in the early days for us, keeping our feet very firmly on the ground and keeping us very commercially-driven rather than letting us get caught up in the vineyard and the very technically-driven side, which we didn’t have a lot of experience of.

“Ultimately, we were very honest when we came into the industry and said we didn’t have the agricultural skills or technical wine-making know-how but we came into it with business management and sales and marketing skills and an entrepreneurial spirit that said ‘Right, we’re going to do this in a commercial fashion’.

“Yes it’s a lovely lifestyle, living in the South of France, with vineyards on the doorstep, but unless you’re competitive and can sell the product then you can’t pay for the next harvest and you’re not going to last long. That’s how we went about it and why we’re still doing it and doing it all over again in Kent 14 years later.

“We were 29 and 31 when we moved out there – so it was a bit of an early mid-life crisis.

We made all of our big life-changing decisions at the same time. We decided to start our own business, move to France and start a family all at the same time.

“On 31 May, 2002, we completed on the property, moved into the domaine, then three weeks later our first daughter was born. We spent the entire summer renovating the winery so we could process our first harvest in August – that was an achievement in itself, considering most of France is on holiday from July through until the end of August. It was a busy summer.”

Domaine Sainte Rose has gone onto win accolades from Decanter magazine and the International Wine Challenge, as well as plaudits from drinks critics. The success of the business has given the Simpsons the springboard they need for their attempt to repeat the feat in the cooler climes of the UK. Making wine in England and Wales isn’t quite as mad as it first appears. Vines have been grown in Britain since before the Roman invasion and the current revival in wine-making stretches back to the 1950s. English wines in the 1960s and 1970s tended to imitate the popular German styles of the day, such as Liebfraumilch, but as tastes shifted towards fruitier Australian wines in the 1980s, English producers instead turned

ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

their attention to sparkling wines.

Trade body English Wine Producers listed 502 vineyards and 133 wineries in England and Wales in 2015, which together produced just over five million bottles. The most widely-planted grape varieties were chardonnay and pinot noir, which – alongside pinot meunier – form the backbone of global sparkling wine production.

The traditional method – which is employed in Champagne, in other parts of France for crémant and in Spain to make cava – involves producing a still wine and then carrying out a second fermentation inside the bottle to add bubbles. The alternative method – which is used to create prosecco in Italy – involves the second fermentation taking place under pressure inside a tank before bottling.

English sparkling wine is made using the traditional method and has been likened to Champagne – with prices to match. But it’s not just the production process that has drawn

comparisons; it’s the soils too. The South of England is blessed with similar chalk-based soils to the Champagne region in northern France.

With their eldest daughter finishing primary school and their second daughter not far behind, the Simpsons decided to return to the UK in 2013 when they bought their farm in Kent. They planted their first grapes the following year and added a second wave of chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier during this summer.

Earlier this year, Simpsons Wine Estate was awarded a grant from the Rural Development Programme for England, a pot of European Union money designed to create jobs in the countryside. The cash is being used to help turn their former farm buildings into a winery to handle this autumn’s crop.

“The total cost of the project is £400,000 and we are receiving a grant of £143,154.08 – that final 8p is very important,” says Simpson. “The grant will enable us to create the equivalent

83

of six full-time jobs and we’ve already had expressions of interest from people in the local community who want to come and work for us.”

The Simpsons have been practising their sparkling winemaking skills since 2012 at Domaine Sainte Rose, where they’ve made a traditional method blanc de blanc from chardonnay, a blanc de noir from pinot noir and a sparkling rosé wine too. The couple will continue to run their winery in France while setting up the operation in England.

“Nothing changes at Sainte Rose – we’re very lucky to have a farm manager who lives on-site and a trusted consultant winemaker who keeps an eye on the winery when we’re not around,” explains Simpson. “To all intents and purposes, Charles and I are still doing just as much work on the business as if we were down there, just less of the day-to-day stuff.

“All the management, the marketing and the sales are done by us at a distance wherever we are. We’re actually now closer to a lot of our main clients here in the UK than we were before so we’re probably more engaged with them in terms of marketing. And it’s easier to get to the States and to other European markets to service them than it was from the South of France.

“We’re lucky that – thanks to our thriving French business and our existing customers in the UK and export markets – we have a lot of people who are already very interested in our product.

A lot of our English wine could be pre-sold.”

The new vineyard in England has been raising a few eyebrows across the Channel too.

“The sites that we have in Kent are superb,” says Simpson, who also remains a non-executive director of Gordon Woodlands, a 5,000-hectare commercial forestry business that was established by her father and which her brother now manages.

“Even our Southern French plantation team, who came across in 2014 when we planted the first vineyard, were very sceptical about why they were being asked to go to the south of England, but they left very impressed with the quality of the terroir.

“When we ordered vines for that first plantation, we sent the soil samples to the vine nursery in France, but they didn’t believe they came from England – they thought they came from Champagne. The soil isn’t just similar to Champagne – it’s identical.” n

BIT OF A CHAT Jock Yuler examining the news behind the headlines Stop press!

It’s the end of an era. The final two journalists have left Fleet Street in London – and they were Scots. Gavin Sherriff and Darryl Smith worked for the Sunday Post, granny’s favourite newspaper, but sadly both their jobs have now been made redundant.

DC Thomson – the publisher behind the Post, as well as other comics such as the Beano, the Dandy, and the Press & Journal – is keeping its office on the famous street, but just for non-editorial staff.

“I get very suspicious of people who say it was better back then because I’m sure people got away with stuff that would not be tolerated today in the workplace – for one the drinking culture,” Sherriff reminisced in the Press Gazette. “People having really long lunch breaks and coming back inebriated. Naming no names. I’m sure that was quite widespread.

“It’s a bit of a stereotype but there were people like that who went and had a long lunch then bumbled back to their desk, rang up a couple of contacts, put something together and got away with it.

“Also I remember walking in and the whole room was full of cigarette smoke.

You wouldn’t be able to do that now – it would be illegal for one thing.”

Stand and deliver The present Mrs Yuler is always telling me to get off my fat hairy arse and do some work – and for once I’ve listened to her.

I’ve been trying out one of these new-fangled Varidesks; it sits on your table and then you pull a magic lever to raise it up, so you can stand and type.

I was relieved when I saw the box land – it was ready-assembled, so there weren’t any footery instructions tae follow, not like when me and Kenny Kemp helped Noah to build that ark on Glasgae Green back in the day.

Now, as you well know, I’m sceptical about all of these things, but it’s definitely grown on me.

The makers reckon you burn 2.6 calories each minute when you’re sitting and 3.3 calories when you’re standing and so – by the magic of

Xyxtrc trxcxytrc yxcryxtrc yx

Beer goggles Former BQ Scotland interviewee Dougal Sharp has brought a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘beer goggles’. The entrepreneur has been serving ‘virtual reality’ headsets alongside glasses of his Innis & Gunn original and lager at bars over the summer.

Drinkers at the firm’s own ‘beer kitchens’ in Dundee and Edinburgh got the chance to try out the ‘Immersive & Gunn’ goggles, as well as those at Tabac in Glasgow and the Brewhouse Highbury and Brewhouse Islington in London.

Sharp teamed up with cognitive neurologist Jacob Jolij, an assistant professor at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, to create the videos shown in the headsets.

The video for the original beer showed trees – just in case you’d forgotten it was aged using oak – “before transitioning to a sunset, which shifts the focus to its sweetness”. I always think there are more toffee notes in a pint of original than a Tunnock’s Caramel Wafer, so I’m nae sure I need reminding of that either, mind.

For the lager, the video shows ‘wide water landscapes’, which apparently make the drinker think the pint “tastes even smoother and more thirst quenching than they first thought”. Whatever next.

maths – they think you could burn an extra 130 calories if you stand at your desk for four hours a day.

I’m told that’s the equivalent of doing a 10k run each week or 11 marathons in a year. Not sure if I’ve lost that much weight yet, but it eases the guilt a bit as I tuck into another packet of Tunnock’s Tea Cakes.

Beardless wonder Clean-shaven BQ Scotland editor and novelist Peter Ranscombe is no stranger to hairy situations, but he’s taken things a wee bit too far this time. He’s going to grow a beard in aid of Bookfellas, a campaign run by those good folk at the Scottish Book Trust to get more men reading for pleasure. All right, he’s going to “try” to grow a beard – we’re all waiting to see

if he can do it or not.

Fifty blokes are pledging to raise £1,000 each for the project, and Ranscombe is doing his bit by trying to grow whiskers during the month of November. You can catch him and the beard-in-progress when he speaks at the “Previously…” Scottish history festival at Blackwell’s bookshop in Edinburgh on 18 November, when he’s talking about his debut novel, Hare.

The figures from the trust make for sobering reading – one-in-five children in Scotland grow up in poverty, 35% of adults lack the literacy skills of an 11-year-old child and only a quarter of dads under 25 read to their children, compared to more than 60% of mums.

It’s a guid cause so go on yerself and sponsor him at www.beardsforbooks.scot

Emerging Entrepreneur NAT I O N A L

O F

T H E

Y E AR

2 017

IT COU LD BE YOU! E N T E R N O W A T W W W . B Q L I V E . C O . U K / N E E Y 17 FOR YOUR CHANCE TO WIN

86

XY TXCRXYX bqlive.co.uk

EVENTS

BQ’s business diary helps you forward plan

SEPTEMBER 21

BQ Scotland holds a ‘Meet the editor’ event in the Entrepreneurial Spark hatchery at Royal Bank of Scotland’s Gogarburn world headquarters.

22

The winners of the Converge Challenge will be unveiled during an awards dinner at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh. www.convergechallenge.com

27

NOVEMBER 03-04

The Institute of Directors in Scotland holds its annual conference at The Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire, with speakers including Scottish Enterprise chair Bob Keiller and Social Bite founder Josh Littlejohn. www.iodscotland.com

08

The Vision in Business for the Environment of Scotland (VIBES) Awards are presented in Glasgow. www.vibes.org.uk

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

10

Petra Wetzel, managing director of West Brewery in Glasgow, will speak at the Ladies Business & Inspirational Liaison Lunch at the Royal Scots Club in Edinburgh, noon to 2pm. www.royalscotsclub.com

29

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

11

The Law Society of Scotland will hold an early St Andrew’s Day dinner at the Vintners’ Hall in London, 6pm to 11pm. www.eiseverywhere.com/ehome/index.php?eventid=191165

29

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

14

We Are The Future start-up summit. www.wearethefuture.org.uk

15

Elevator Conference, Aberdeen Exhibition & Conference Centre. www.elevatoruk.com/initiatives/entrepreneurship/elevator-conference/

15

Informatics Ventures, the national technology accelerator, takes Scottish businesses to London for Engage Invest Exploit (EIE16) London at the Institution of Engineering & Technology, 1pm to 10pm. www.informatics-ventures.com/events-calendar/

17

Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio is the keynote speaker at the Scottish Business Awards, Edinburgh International Conference Centre. www.scottishbusinessawards.co.uk

17

Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce holds its annual employment law conference at the Aberdeen Exhibition & Conference Centre, 8am to 4.15pm. www.scottishchambers.org.uk/events/local-chamber-events/

25

The Digital Solutions for Tourism Conference takes place at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, 8.30am to 2.30pm. www.scottish-enterprise.com/events

25

Comedian Jo Brand will be the after-dinner speaker at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland’s (ICAS’s) annual CA Scotland dinner at the Sheraton Grand Hotel in Edinburgh, 6.45pm to 11pm. www.icas.com/events/ca-scotland-dinner

OCTOBER 06 13-18

ScotSoft 2016, information technology trade body ScotlandIS’s annual event, Edinburgh International Conference Centre, 9am. www.scotlandis.com/events/ Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce and the British-Iranian Chamber of Commerce run an oil and gas trade delegation to Iran. http://news.cbi.org.uk/events/regional-events/scotland/

25

CBI Scotland holds its annual Westminster reception at the Scotland Office in London, 7pm to 8.30pm. http://news.cbi.org.uk/events/regional-events/scotland/

26

The Law Society of Scotland holds its Technology and Cybercrime Conference in Glasgow, 8.45am to 4.45pm. www.eiseverywhere.com/ehome/index.php?eventid=183787

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

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

HIRE YOUR NEXT DEVELOPER... ... and access a wealth of new digital talent.

Scotland’s tech industry is booming, with 11,000 new jobs created each year. But there’s a skills gap. CodeClan is here to help tackle the problem and we’re looking for employers to join us.

Through our 16-week immersive software development course, we’re providing a steady stream of talented coders to our employer network.

CodeClan’s express aim is to train and upskill a new generation of programmers, delivering high-quality, job-ready junior developers to Scotland’s tech industry.

Go to www.codeclan.com to learn more about becoming a partner.