Fast growth is still very much on the agenda for many CEOs. Whether through acquisitions, innovation or partnerships, senior leaders with great businesses remain hungry to expand and grow market share.
Much of this ambition and appetite was on display during Criticaleye’s Growth Company Retreat, held in association with
Workday, which gathered together executives, non-executives and Chairs to discuss various pathways to growth in the current environment.
Ben Dorks, CEO of Nottingham-based software provider Ideagen recounted to attendees the company’s acquisition-propelled growth trajectory of the last few years. “We functionally try and double our size every two years,” he said. “We expect to end this year at around £200 million revenue. We were circa £30 million [revenue] when I started in 2018, so for us, growth is very much part of our DNA, who we are and what we do, and the change and transformation that it creates.”
This remarkable revenue growth has been fuelled by ‘double digit’ organic growth, coupled with “five to eight acquisitions every single year”, Ben added, which has resulted in a diverse, increasingly global customer base ranging from GSK, BAE Systems and NASA to Northampton Saints rugby club.
Formerly a darling of the AIM market, Ideagen was taken into private ownership last year in a transaction worth just under £1.1 billion, with the new private equity owners promising to fund the next stage of the company’s development.
Daryl Pile, Managing Director of Channel at Gamma Communications, described his company’s own growth pathway during the Retreat. Gamma provides telecoms services to predominantly UK-based businesses and has grown a £1.1 billion market cap on AIM, with EBITDA exceeding £100 million in 2022. The Channel unit represents 65 percent of EBITDA, with
Daryl reporting into the Group CEO.
“We do comparatively less M&A and about 80 percent of our growth has been organic,” he stated. “How have we achieved this? Maintaining a very clear strategy, through startup, acceleration and maturity, that people can relate to [as it] helps people know what part they play and how it contributes.
“The second thing is employing the right people to execute that strategy, making sure they feel confident enough to act and use the empowerment you give them,” Daryl added.
Matthew Blagg, CEO of Criticaleye, commented: “The challenge for any Chief Executive of a fast growth business is to find the right balance between entrepreneurship and structure. Sadly, it’s common to see companies get into trouble when they haven’t looked at strengthening leadership capability or given an appropriate amount of thought to succession.
“It’s also essential to look at the support systems and governance that you need to have in place as an organisation grows in size. In this environment too, cash flow and a robust balance sheet are hugely important.”
A High Growth Culture
In some business cases, growth potential can lie dormant until it is unlocked by wholesale change to a company’s operating model.
Yamin Khan, CEO of hVIVO, was brought in last year to drive a turnaround process at the specialist contract research organisation.
“Since I joined as CEO, we’ve transformed the company and are now truly a full-service provider. We’ve tripled our order book and increased our revenue by 50 percent over the last two years. We’ve changed our operating model, our sales strategy; how we come to work with our customers, and we continue to build on that growth.”
Developing a sharper commercial focus and getting to know the product, market and customer base have been key drivers behind hVIVO’s rapid transformation in the life sciences space, according to Yamin. “One of the first things you have to do is build the order book. That was key, because without the order book, you can't really do much.”
Tamsin Todd, CEO of Findmypast, a company that utilises technology to connect people to their family histories, also recognised the importance of focusing on product optimisation. She commented on her experience of “reorienting the company around building a product that would be engaging, and would therefore generate subscriptions and long-term value”.
She explained: “To do that, we needed to build the product capability, have people who could learn what customers needed and build the product experience that would create value.”
This notion of building an identifiable culture that achieves comprehensive ‘buy in’ from employees to customers is a fundamental part of building a high growth company. “Integrity is doing the right thing when nobody's looking,” Yamin asserted. “That's one of the key aspects for me personally, to be able to make sure that we build a team that has a high level of integrity to be able to do the work and get it right.”
Tamsin agreed, citing the need to “build a culture that is both ambitious for growth and is humane, where people feel included and everyone can have a voice, because I believe we do better work when everyone is able to participate and contribute fully”.
The mindset required for high growth in a consistently changing external environment was summarised neatly by Ben: “What we've done is reorganise our business into something that really drives accountability and empowerment much further down into the organisation. So, there’s a constant recognition that whatever we are doing now is not fit for purpose in 18 months from where we are today.
“Every decision we make must ensure that we're fit to fly. That's just the culture that we have around shedding our skin and making sure that we are constantly moving in the right direction,” he concluded.
Jacob Ambrose Willson, Senior Editor, Criticaleye & Arya Ghassemi, Content Intern, Criticaleye
