Member Article

Pete Watson, Managing Director of Sherpa Business Consultancy offers his thoughts on the current climate within the sector

Pete Watson, managing director of Sherpa Business Consultancy – which specialises in propelling the growth of both start-up and established businesses – offers his thoughts on the current climate for starting a business, and how to maximise its chances of success.

How easy is it to get started in business? Is having a good idea or product enough?

Anyone can start a business – it’s staying open that’s the challenging part. Having a great product is the start, but having a brilliant team that can execute is ten times more important. The big thing, and the big problem, that a lot of businesses have is an incomplete management teams, which incorporates all the critical skills and experience in – sales, marketing, raising finance, and product devt. That is something that really does inhibit the success of a business.

Is the economic climate necessarily a barrier?

I look at it the other way, in that it’s a massive opportunity. There has been a growth in Cleantech, software and biotech, and particularly a growth in cost reduction products. We have been involved a lot of that over the last couple of years in utility-based and freemium pricing in technology, there are others who will offer costs per month per user. That makes it not only cheaper, costs controllable and more accessible. Businesses like Atlasim.co.uk charging per user desktops is a great example of that.

It is often cited that the North East has a low rate of business start-ups. Why do you think this is the case?

I wouldn’t say it was a lack of enterprise, and there are certainly plenty of investment opportunities for entreprenuers in the region to help businesses grow, but the fact it is a small marketplace can potentially be a barrier, with limited geographical expansion opportunites. Unless you have a global product, ie if it is internet-based, then there isn’t a huge market in which to grow. With Sherpa, we opened in Newcastle and then Liverpool within 12 months, and then went into Sweden within 18 months of starting, because the market in the North East wasn’t big enough.

Can you offer any tips to new businesses as to how to succeed?

Relentlessly revisit and reiterate your strategy. Make sure you are always offering what the customer wants and be maniacally focussed on the execution of every promise you made in your plan.

www.sherpabusinessconsultancy.com.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Pete .