Just give a good product or service people want

Oct 15 2008 By Paul Braidford

OUR work at Durham Business School and St Chad’s College often concerns enterprise and business development – how businesses get started, how they grow, develop and change in response to changing market conditions and what support they need to realise their entrepreneurial vision.

Looking at the “winners” – the fastest growing companies in the region – gives us a chance to see what the best and brightest here have managed to achieve and hold them up as examples for others to aspire to.

The 2008 Fastest 50 list is again a mixture of the old and the new: a reiteration of the North East’s traditional strengths in manufacturing and a reflection of how these are changing to fit
better into the modern environment of globalisation. This year’s fastest grower, Fast Temp Engineering, is an excellent example of this
adaptation.

The region has always had a workforce rich in engineering skills, but in today’s climate, the jobs to utilise these skills best aren’t always permanent, nor are they always in the North East.

By linking with multinational companies and helping them find the workers they need, Fast Temp ensures local skills don’t atrophy and go to waste.

Other businesses in the list are involved in high-technology manufacturing, including facility design and making electronic components, but others show that you don’t necessarily need to innovate to be successful – just deliver a good product or service that people want to buy, backed up with good customer service. This means the Fastest 50 also encompasses companies such as Hargreaves Coal Combustion, which deals in
coal ash, or Fentimans, which has taken a 100-year-old soft drink, brewed with traditional methods, and marketed it as a high-quality, premium product, engaging modern consumer tastes.

The key to success of many of the Fastest 50 businesses is finding the right niche and exploiting it through product design, marketing, adding extra value to products and delivering what the customer wants, be it a simple product that does its job well or a service delivered at the right time, in the right place at the right price.

To emulate the Fastest 50, companies need to tap into the knowledge economy, upping quality rather than slashing prices and concentrating on “working
smarter” rather than “working harder” in order to grow. Durham Business School has long been associated with supporting fast-growing companies in the North East.

Managers in these companies are constantly facing new challenges, in areas such as staff recruitment, company culture and internal processes.

A key element is the development of staff by way of management and business training – executive education.

Staff must be aware of how they fit into the strategy and how they
are contributing to the strategic vision.

Durham Business School supports managers at all levels, from the shop floor to the boardroom, with its comprehensive range of programmes.

The Business School delivers accredited qualifications not only from Durham University but also from the Chartered Management Institute and the Institute of Directors. Programmes are
also developed to cover the specific circumstances of the
organisation.

For further information on management development, please contact Durham Business School on (0191) 334-5200.

Paul Braidford, St Chad’s College and Professor Ian Stone, Durham Business School, who helped to compile this year’s Fastest 50