1. 64 Director May 2015
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SIMONWALKER It’s good to have you all
here. The Institute of Directors
has been around for more than
100 years and over that time we’ve
represented thousands of business
leaders and entrepreneurs. I think
what IoD members share from
across the decades is a focus on
growth, whether that’s personal development or
expanding their businesses.
That focus on the future has driven
them on in pursuit of the next opportunity
and we are very conscious there’s no silver
bullet or one-size-fits-all for how to achieve
growth or build a business. So I’m always
interested to hear from directors who’ve
found something that’s worked for them,
whether it’s the fundamentals, cutting costs,
winning customers, boosting revenues or
launching a new product, building a brand,
or disrupting their industry – and it sounds
as if we’ve got a lot of that here today.
Every business has its own blend of
what works for them. I think one thing
we’d say is that the most successful are
those who see opportunities where other
people see a challenge. As a lot of your
firms demonstrate, globalisation and
technological change are the real trends
which companies have been grappling with.
Customers have never been able to access
more information about products and
services that they are buying and that power shift has
put pressure on every business to demonstrate how
it’s ensuring quality and following best practice right
through the organisation and also through supply
chains. Again, some people see this as a challenge,
or lament the extra cost. But others see it as the
opportunity for differentiation and growth – and I’m
interested to hear your thoughts on that and your
own success stories. Before that, let me hand over to
our co-host – BSI’s marketing director,
Chris Wright.
CHRISWRIGHT Thank you, good morning
everybody. Like the IoD, we’re over 100
years old, founded in 1901. We are BSI,
the British Standards Institution, and we
started our business helping industry come
together to grow. It was the rail industry
in 1901… a huge challenge it faced was
agreeing the number of gauges of railway
tracks. There were over 70 at the time for all
the individual companies and engineering
firms, and we helped that group and
brought it down to seven, which made
trains go further. That was all about helping
businesses agree common best practice for
how they can move forward and grow as
an organisation.
Around the same time, we founded the
BSI KitemarkTM
– you see that on everything
from manhole covers to mobile banking
apps to windows in your homes.
FAST TRACKING
GROWTHIn this post-recession era, forward-thinking SMEs are achieving remarkable growth by embracing
technology and seeking customers globally. But how do they keep a competitive edge, win
further business and retain staff as they grow? Twelve directors from a range of sectors joined
IoD director general Simon Walker to discuss…
Director
ROUNDTABLE
Host Simon Walker
Director general, IoD
1 Chris Wright
Marketing director, BSI
2 Jitesh Bavisi
Director of special
projects and compliance,
Exponential-e
3 Laura Davis
Managing director,
Reality HR
4 Chris Gorell Barnes
Founder and CEO, Adjust
Your Set
5 Mansoor Hamayun
Co-founder and CEO,
BBOXX
6 Jason Heward
Managing director, Leica UK
7 Alison Howell
Founder and managing
director, Foot Trails
8 Chris Lamontagne
Head of growth, GetTaxi
9 Rhydian Lewis
Founder and CEO,
RateSetter
10 Gary Livingstone
Managing director,
LG Motion
11 Matthew Robertson
Chief commercial officer,
NetDespatch
12 David Walker
Chief commercial officer,
Personal Group
The panel
Roundtable Expert
May 2015 Director 65
WORDSCHRISMAXWELLPHOTOGRAPHYGARYMOYES

2. We’re incredibly excited to be here
today with a breadth of small businesses…
we read in the media that we’re now post-
recession, and living standards are back to
2008. We’re led to believe by those who
influence us that the market is buoyant,
has survived and come through the
challenges over the last seven years. What
I’m interested to find out from you all is:
what’s your take on the new challenges
for growth? Are they new, or are they the
same as they were before 2008? And what
are the new opportunities for growth?
I think this morning’s meeting is a great
opportunity for us to listen and for you to
share those experiences with each other.
Hopefully, you’ll discover some ideas
and techniques and some lightbulb
moments about things that you can apply
to your own businesses.
SIMONWALKER I was struck by the contrast
between a business like Chris’s [GetTaxi],
which is putting a scythe through existing
models, and Leica, which has been going
for over a century – producing something
really expensive while all of us can take
photographs with the thing in our pockets.
The contrast between what works and is
disrupting everything and what survives…
CHRISLAMONTAGNE I would say there’s a contrast,
but there’s also a synergy – in both,
businesses technology is the driver. We’re
a technology company that just happens
to provide a taxi app… I think if we talk
about growth now in a broader spectrum
post-recession, it seems like technology has
been the thing that has really kickstarted
the economy again. [But] I think for the
UK there’s still a long way to go. I know
it’s improving with incubators, Tech City
and these kinds of new initiative, but we’re
still far behind. We’ve got a very large R&D
department, but it’s in Israel. Because
there’s a relative brain drain – of being able
to get the international requirements we
need based in the UK.
CHRISGORELLBARNES I agree with you and I think
that this government is lacking in vision,
not only of how they’re helping with
technology but also, more importantly, the
infrastructure. Broadband was initiated as
an absolute core driver. It’s as important
as roads and they’re not investing enough
in broadband infrastructure. If the UK is
going to be a global, competitive country
it needs to have the fastest broadband
and the highest penetration of any other
country – and I think it’s really lacking.
MANSOORHAMAYUN [But] the opportunity that
you can actually set up an office in Israel or
you can look at resources globally as part
of your local business here is an enormous
benefit and something I think that’s really
changed over the last decade. As a business,
we just take talent where we find it, rather
than trying to bring it here – because as
globalisation is growing, all companies
need to think global... As a business we
are taking a great amount of advantage
from that: engineering is here in the UK,
but manufacturing and our subsidiary is
in China, our customer support is in
Kenya. That’s a real opportunity for a
mindset change.
SIMONWALKER What’s really interesting to me
is that you’re all SMEs. We’re not talking
about Unilever or Jaguar Land Rover, we’re
talking about relatively small companies
seeking out that expertise internationally…
DAVIDWALKER If you take those two things that
you were talking about – globalisation
and embracing new technology – a lot of
SMEs still have a UK focus, and I think the
second of the two points is the key one for
me… The companies that are experiencing
the fastest growth are the ones that are
embracing technology. I mean that as
a message – that all companies with an
aspiration for growth don’t have to focus
on globalisation. It’s an opportunity, it’s
never been easier, but the platform for
growth that I’ve seen, certainly for our
organisation – we’ve been around for
30 years, and we’ve experienced more
disruption in the last 18 months than we
did in the previous 29 years – has been
driven by technology.
ALISONHOWELL If I could come back to the point
about broadband – we’re an SME and I
began our company in quite a rural part
of England. I took the decision personally
and for my business to move into central
Bath last summer and one of the reasons
is because I was really struggling with
broadband – I couldn’t even get a meg of
broadband where we lived. Now we’re
in Bath, we’re very cloud-based, we can
use VoIP phones – there’s all sorts of
things we’re able to do to help us reach
out globally that we really struggled to do
when we were in more rural areas.
LAURADAVIS We’re very much UK based, and
the last three years have been interesting
because we’ve been doing a lot around
systems and processes. But what we’re
seeing now is that growth is coming
through and I agree it’s all about how
you manage it. It’s not perfect, but it’s
enabled us to grow for the last three years,
20 per cent each year, and I attribute most
of that to how we have carefully managed
our growth on an ongoing basis.
SIMONWALKERCould I ask Gary – you sound as if
you’ve got a pretty traditional business. Is it
true of you too?
GARYLIVINGSTONE Some people think we’re less
than traditional, which is why we get the
business. The people we employ are
creative thinkers and have to integrate
numerous technologies. We have core
engineering skills, so we’re milling,
turning, grinding, fitting – all the skills
associated with traditional engineering.
But we look for people who are trying
to solve problemsdifferently.Weare
approachedby companies who have got
a problem and offload onto us to find an
innovative solution.
SIMONWALKER It sounds like a lot of the
businesses around the table are in exactly
that position…
LIVINGSTONE Well, I believe that all the
successful SMEs [succeed] because they
are not traditional. They may appear
traditional, but they don’t think traditional
and they do continue to invest in the
technology and the people – and that is
why they differentiate themselves.
JASONHEWARD We’re 100 years old but, when
it comes to technology, our most talked
about cameras over the last three years
have been a black and white camera,
which is sort of taking a step back, a digital
camera that has no screen on the back, and
a purely mechanical camera. Now these are
all things that used to happen years ago but
no one has thought about doing that in the
market for years, so it’s disruptive, but it’s
taking a step in the opposite direction.
LIVINGSTONE I think where your company’s
The companies that are experiencing
the fastest growth are the ones that are
embracing technology”
David Walker
66 Director May 2015
Expert Roundtable
May 2015 Director 67
Making their points: clockwise
from top, Chris Wright, Matthew
Robertson, Jitesh Bavisi, Chris
Lamontagne, right with Simon
Walker, the roundtable panel,
and Laura Davis

3. particularly bold is you’re not scared to fail.
Traditional businesses are scared to fail,
and probably most of the people round
here aren’t scared of failure. They won’t
accept it, but they’re not scared of it. That’s
why you come up with such good ideas.
SIMONWALKER Have you all failed at some point
on the way to success?
JITESHBAVISIYou learn from your mistakes.
That’s the most important thing and, as
Gary said, if you’ve got smart people they
will learn to adapt. At the same time,
as a business you have to be agile, be
flexible, to adapt to what the customer
requirements are.
MATTHEWROBERTSON It’s not so much that we
have failed at any point, but more that
some time ago allowed our interest in big
corporates to distract us and reduce our
flexibility and fleetness for a brief period.
Their ability to respond through multiple
layers of bureaucracy did not match our
speed to respond and deliver. However,
it was a very good learning point and
since this time we have not allowed any
distractions from our entrepreneurial
outlook while driving significant growth.
DAVIDWALKER I think [in] the companies now
that are growing – failure is being analysed
better. Growth can be accelerated by really
good risk analysis and by companies
looking at opportunities, investing in those
and not being frightened. Sometimes to
leap into the unknown, particularly when
you’re investing into new technology,
you may think it is the preserve of big
companies – ‘I can’t engage with a really
top-level agency because that’s what big
companies do’. Well actually, agencies have
become more accessible.
HOWELL An inevitable part of the process of
innovation is that mistakes will be made
and it’s such a shame that we shy away
from talking about failure, because I think
there are different types of failure. If there
are major quality failings, I would feel that
would be unacceptable in my business. But
I want my team and I to be confident to try
new things in the right sort of positive way,
because I believe that’s what will make us
grow further and be more successful.
SIMONWALKER In the post-recession UK we’re
Talking growth: clockwise from
top, Mansoor Hamayun, Chris
Gorell Barnes, Alison Howell
and David Walker
68 Director May 2015
Expert Roundtable
kind of into now – how are you getting
more customers?
WRIGHT Could I ask Rhydian? Because his
business didn’t exist 10 years ago…
RHYDIANLEWISThat’s right. Peer-to-peer lending
is an innovation of the last five years and I
expect the recession was a precondition of
its thriving – in the sense that it was against
the background of banks collapsing, both
financially but also in the minds of people
who feel that they’ve lost trust in that
institution and that system. So perversely
the recession has helped our business [find
customers]. I also think, more generally,
recessions are quite a good time to start a
business, because you can attract better
staff than you can during boom times.
HAMAYUNThe way to get customers is [that]
a small business can be a lot smarter
nowadays. I think one of the underlying
reasons for that is access to data. If you
look at how much data as a small company
you can collect on your customers – from
CRM, from ERP, to the interactions in
different platforms – this is a wealth of
information. And, as a small company,
being able to realise what is actually
working, what the type of customers are,
you basically learn to fail quicker.
DAVIS We’ve spent a lot of time in the last
two years identifying what our ideal client
looks like. That sounds a bit arrogant and
I don’t mean it to sound like that, but it’s
important – especially when you’re in a
people business like we are. People buy
people, so you need to be able to work
with those individuals. So that’s about
being clever, identifying what their pain
is and where you can help. The key thing
we’ve done differently is go out and target
those individuals through the use of
technology and the CRM data.
HEWARD It seems to be about being authentic.
Certainly for us authenticity has been the
thing that’s kept us in our growth position.
SIMONWALKER How do your customers,
especially in such a rapidly changing world,
know that you’re any good?
GORELLBARNES It’s about good PR, making sure
that people know what you’re doing, good
thought leadership – especially within
innovation – and then good case studies.
Back to CRM and data, you can now prove
that your marketing is effective because
you know the conversion – you know how
many people engaged, and you know how
many people bought the product.
WRIGHT If trust and authenticity are so
important in all of your different sectors,
how do you demonstrate that as you grow?
HOWELL There’s a great need for honesty in
business as well. You have to be honest
with your customers, your staff, your
suppliers about what you’re doing and
why you’re doing it. That’s something
that we’ve done and I think people always
know when something isn’t real or isn’t
quite right. As a business you have to be as
open as you can in your communication.
HAMAYUN My customers are rural African and
the way that we access our customer is very
traditional – we open up shops. Having
confidence, loyalty and transparency
is a very important part of that user
experience for our customers, who are
sacrificing a large part of their disposable
income while buying our products… One
of the biggest challenges that we have had
to get to scale is, not so much about getting
customers outside, but internal training.
One of the struggles [of growing] from
20 people to 40 people to 80 people to
100 people, is the layers of management,
internal training – the stuff that, if you have
never done it before you have no clue what
is going to happen. So I think the quality of
the training internally really boils down to
the bottom line.
BAVISI At the moment we’re running our
academy, and it’s mainly the sales area.
We take on graduates or people who are
unemployed and we’ll give them intensive
training… From our academy we’ve got
very successful sales managers now who
are part of our company growth. It makes
a massive difference [that] as a business
we do great things and we know we do
great things.
How do we demonstrate [that] to our
end customers? We’ve underpinned all
our good work with ISOs – BSI are one of
our auditors who come in externally – and
we can demonstrate to our customers the
good work we’re doing… We’ve got five
[standards] in total at the moment, from
quality standards to business continuity
andsecurity.Andwestillgetmore
requests about environmental and energy
efficiency, so we’ll add a couple more this
year. That’s important – big-enterprise
customers do expect it these days, and for
us it makes it so easy to do business.
LEWIS It’s really interesting how many
conversations start on technology and
then basically just veer back to people.
Technology is the enabler, but what drives
business is obviously people. I’ve been
surprised at the extent to which [in] our
business, which has grown terrifically, how
much of that growth I could contribute to
face-to-face meetings, despite the fact that
we have an online platform and are very
modern like that.
HOWELLStandards are important in business.
Each business has to decide what their
standards are and going to be, but that says
something to your customers about what
you believe in, your staff, your suppliers.
The standards that we have in responsible
tourism have helped us differentiate
ourselves in the market and grow.
GORELLBARNESIn my industry the most
important thing is the culture that you
create as a CEO, the values that you have
as your business and making sure that
your staff understand them and believe
in them. Because it gets incredibly
competitive as the big corporations start
looking for innovative, clever, staff and
they’ve got bigger budgets and they can
give bigger pensions and bigger awards.
[So it’s important] you’ve created a brilliant
culture, that your staff truly believe in what
you’re doing, what you’re trying to change.
That often needs to be beyond the product
and the profit that you’re trying to make,
but what you’re actually standing for as a
business and what your purpose is. We are
moving into a world where a corporation’s
purpose beyond their profit is becoming
more important. In the next five years I
think we’ll see a phenomenal growth in
companies that are standing for things
much greater than profit.
SIMONWALKERChris, can I hand over to you to
wrap up the main points you’ve taken from
this very interesting discussion?
In the next five years we’ll see phenomenal
growth in companies that are standing for
things much greater than profit”
Chris Gorell Barnes
May 2015 Director 69
In association with BSI
TurnthepageforChrisWright’ssumming-up

4. WRIGHTIt has been a fabulous discussion
and I hope you’ve got a lot out of it, I
know I certainly have. One of the things
I observed as we started talking about
innovation [is that] we went back to
basics. We talked about being authentic,
being honest, being customer-focused
not product-focused. We talked about
the importance of our people. They don’t
seem new age or radical new thinking and
I think holding onto these principles as an
organisation – whether you’re small, large,
or in the middle – is clearly vital.
Before we sat down for breakfast, we
talked about the challenges that small
businesses face when they grow – how as
they grow from small to medium to large,
often they lose sight of their original
raison d’être. There are pressures and
dimensions that can potentially throw
you off course from the original vision of
that original concept. The complexity that
a business has increases as it grows and
the management population gets larger
and larger. So I think it’s been a fascinating
reminder of those fundamental principles
of good business that we’ve observed as
we’ve gone round the table.
How standards can help
BSI is the business standards company
that helps organisations of all sizes
improve – and stay true to the authentic,
customer-focused principles discussed
at the roundtable – through the effective
implementation of standards. Standards
define best practice for organisational
processes and the specifications
for products. They are developed
collaboratively by panels of independent
industry experts and consumer bodies
– there are standards in practically
every area, from biodiversity to running
sustainable events, and across almost
every industry sector. They fall into two
broad areas:
Product standards Last year we tested
over 5,000 products in our Testing Centres
of Excellence. We award the BSI Kitemark
(an officially recognised UK ‘Superbrand’),
which was first introduced in 1903 and
is therefore one of the oldest consumer
‘trustmarks’ still in use today. Some 72
per cent of the UK population recognises
our Kitemark as a mark of trust, safety
and reliability and therefore it can really
help brands differentiate their products in
crowded and competitive marketplaces.
Processes standards When it comes to
processes, we have three core areas of
focus – helping companies to improve
operational efficiency; helping them
manage their risk; and helping them
grow in a sustainable way to ensure
standards of best practice become habits
of excellence, that are demonstrated by
Chris Wright, marketing director of BSI, reflects on the roundtable discussion and considers how applying
standards can help growing small businesses continue to thrive
Chris Wright, centre, with Jason Heward, left, and Jitesh Bavisi
SETTING THE STANDARDS
FOR GROWTH
70 Director May 2015
Director
ROUNDTABLE
Four standards
in focus
Justahandfulofthethousandsof
standardsthatcanhelpboostbusinesses…
Quality Management ISO 9001
Will help you to continually monitor
and manage performance across all
operations. As the world’s most widely
recognised quality management
standard, it outlines ways to achieve,
as well as benchmark, consistent
performance and service.
Environmental Management ISO 14001
An internationally accepted standard
that outlines how to put an effective
environmental management system in
place. It is designed to help businesses
remain commercially successful
without overlooking environmental
responsibilities. It can also help you to
grow while reducing the environmental
impact of this growth.
Occupational Health and Safety
Management BS OHSAS 18001
A framework for an occupational health
and safety management system. It
can help you put in place the policies,
procedures and controls needed for
your organisation to achieve the best
possible working conditions, aligned to
internationally recognised best practice.
Information Security Management ISO/
IEC 27001
A management framework for what good
looks like in information security. It helps
you identify the risks to your important
information and put in place appropriate
controls to help manage the risk.
Expert Roundtable
everyone throughout a company, whether
the business is large or small.
End-to-end services
We also have a range of comprehensive
business services that help organisations
understand and implement a standard,
through our training courses. Then,
when clients are ready, we independently
assess and certify them, enabling them
to promote their adherence to an
internationally recognised standard of
excellence. Finally, we work with clients
to ensure they continually improve their
business and maintain standards through
additional training and software tools.
The scope of BSI
BSI was the world’s first National
Standards Body, formed over a century
ago, and today is recognised as a trusted
partner for businesses globally. We are
a Royal Charter company, which means
that our profits are reinvested back into
the business to continually improve the
services we provide to clients.
We work with over 80,000 clients
in 172 countries – from SMEs to global
enterprises – have 37,000 current
standards and are responsible for
originating many of the world’s
most commonly used management
systems standards, such as the Quality
Management Systems Standard ISO 9001
(see left). We have over 3,100 colleagues
worldwide supporting our clients.
Every person at BSI is dedicated to
enhancing the complete experience
for our clients, helping them to make
the most of the opportunities to grow
their businesses.
We work with clients to
ensure they continually
improve their business
and maintain standards”
Chris Wright
May 2015 Director 71
TofindoutmoreaboutBSI,visit
www.bsigroup.co.uk
In association with BSI