Creating a Multi Million Pound Company

I have found the most difficult strategic dilemma to teach during my many years lecturing on the strategic management course at Sheffield Hallam, is the question of how much of business success is underpinned by planning and analysis, and, how much is driven by emergent unforeseen events. Many students are perplexed at this area of business, as they fully expect that business is all about planning and that I will be able to teach them conceptual tools and business methods that will ensure they are successful in their chosen careers. Before getting into the theories and my reflections on this critical area, I always ask the students to reflect on whether their lives so far are a result of planning, and how much of their future is under their control. This analogy resonates far quicker with the students than going straight into the opposing stances of authors and academics, who generally take one perspective or the other. Also, in my opinion, the emergent theorists whilst quick to point out the fallacies of planning offer very little practical advice for practitioners facing this dilemma. Maybe a book out there for somebody.....?

So what is the best approach to this strategic dilemma and what does it have to do with creating a multi-million-pound company?

Planning is an essential aspect of creating a company. I remember planning the inception of buybrandtools on a train to London, using a hybrid of models and concepts, with free interconnected thoughts. This is the luxury of applying academic models in real-life situations. ( nobody was marking me!) In essence, I had integrated some key changes in the environment with a plan to create a core- competence in internet marketing.

This was not my first attempt at creating a new company, but I had found through experience that my strategic planning either took me to a dead end, where I felt there were too many negatives factors coming into the mix or to a calmer state of mind where there were more reasons to go for the idea than not to. I call this road mapping an idea. One very important aspect of this planning journey to a dead end or an open road is to talk to as many people as possible who can inform your decision. It is amazing who will talk to you regardless of whether they know you or not. Conversations with relevant strangers are such a powerful input on a new business idea; this is one reason why I have concerns about this generation's ability to create a company that is not purely IT-led. Without these conversations, I am sure I would have never reached that place where you feel my plan can work without further analysis.

Whilst you can never be sure a new business idea is going to work, I do think you can start to experience an intrinsic sense of calm the more the plan feels balanced and well-reasoned. Yes, you can plan forever without a definitive place to stop and suffer the classic analysis paralysis, but in my opinion, you can, with experience, reach a place where you feel your idea can work and yet still accept there is no such thing as a perfect plan. This acceptance is one aspect of becoming an entrepreneur, and an area that is difficult to teach but profoundly important to understand.

So what does this all have to do with creating a multi-million-pound company? The key reflection I want to share is that whilst your plan should be well balanced and reasoned, the acceptance of the unknown is equally as important when you want to create a company: this is not pseudo-science. There are millions of people on the earth and millions of companies that could be interconnected with a new business idea. We only have a very bounded rational thought process, where despite your static strategic analysis infused with multiple conversations, you will only be able to gather a minuscule amount of information that could have an impact on your idea. This is a profoundly good thing if we embrace it. Why? Once you reach your open road in the planning journey, the absolute key, is to do something and not procrastinate in the hope things will get easier to understand: they won't. Embrace the unknown as part of the process and don't fear it.

If you have created a well-reasoned and balanced umbrella strategy, then this is where the apples start to drop randomly from under the orchard. Believing in the unknown is not some kind of mystic power, it is a belief that the world full of people and companies will come to you, only once you have stepped into it, but rest assured it will come. No matter how saturated a market is, there are always new opportunities. For example, I would like to enter the sports supplement market. Whilst sports nutrition is a passion of mine, I do not know the market. However, I am confident that if I attended a relevant exhibition and despite the market being mature and saturated, I would find a new supplier who has not tied into an existing retailer or distributor; that is the nature of the business world. If I were to attend such a show I would go armed with a strategic idea to interest a potential supplier, (the rational part) what would happen there on in I don't know. However, something would happen and it would work.

Buybrandtools was formed from the rational thinking that we needed to enter the construction market and gain power over the market by going straight to the user whilst creating competence in internet marketing. This strategy took us to a construction show in Birmingham where we were selling to the user for the first time in our history, rather than selling B2B. By chance, we met with a potential customer who engaged with us over the coming months. This engagement led us to a new supplier, whom I had had no contact with in the thirty years of being in the tool industry. This new relationship single-handedly took the company to a place I could have never conceptualized during the planning process. Was this luck? No, this is being in the orchard and catching the apples.

Not all unforeseen events are positive as many undergraduates point out, but there are more unforeseen opportunities than negative forces that you will come across once you have created a company, this is the nature of the business world not some kind of strange belief in the universe.

So, the key to creating a multi-million-pound company is to go down many roads until you reach an open one based on your static and conversationally driven analysis, but accept that the key to your success does not lie solely with this plan alone, but more with your acceptance of the power of the unknown and how to embrace it, and expect it.