The main factors family firms need for survival
Andrew Renwick, MD at Caltech Lifts, examines key strategies regarding, for example, handling dealings with staff and customers to ensure relative success.
Forty years ago my dad, Howard, started his own business calibrating pressure gauges. Later he started working with a lift industry contact and realised his passion for precision engineering was ideal for lifts. So the company became Caltech Lifts Ltd — it stands for Calibration and Technology – and we became a lift specialist, now one of Scotland’s biggest independents and still family-owned and run.
We’ve just celebrated its anniversary – and it’s made me think about how we’ve managed to achieve that feat when so many other family firms fall by the wayside long before this milestone.
The first is that first pivot the company made in 1985 – flexibility. However good your planned strategy may seem when you start, always be open to a better opportunity if it arises.
It’s not a negative because you’re changing course – lots of very successful firms have pivoted using an “emergent strategy” to be even more successful – look at how Virgin has gone from record label to a diversified portfolio brand.
The next is ensuring succession. Six years before Dad decided to formally retire in 2013, I joined the company, having worked in business development elsewhere. I took on the same role at Caltech Lifts, before shifting to sales and project management, general management and finally MD.
That experience of the business from the ground floor has proven invaluable in helping me understand and grow it to where it is now.
Two years ago we appointed Scott Carnegie as a non-executive director. He’s brought invaluable insight from his many businesses and roles.
All business leaders can greatly benefit from a mentor - someone who you can bounce ideas off, hold you to account and someone who’s experienced issues that affect all businesses.
We also enjoy a loyal and very talented workforce, including my brother Fraser. That’s not an accident. You have to be honest with yourself - understand where your strengths and weaknesses lie. Where you know you’re weak, employ someone better than you.
Earlier this year we acquired trusted competitor Scotlifts, not just for the maintenance contracts it would add to our roster (now more than 1,000) but because its owner, Scott Murray, is widely regarded as one of the best lift engineers in the business. As a result, his apprentice is also a real catch.
As well as gaining top talent by acquisition, we’ve been growing our own via Modern Apprenticeships and upskilling existing and new staff – supporting them through their NVQ in lift engineering.
We look to employ not just talented people – but ones who share our vision and core values. When you surround yourself with talented staff, pulling in the same direction and looking after them can make a direct impact on the success of your business.
Every company talks a good sales pitch about looking after its customers, but the undeniable reality will play a large part in whether you grow or shrink. Our growth record and client testimonials speak for themselves and our social media posts last winter and during the Beast from the East showed us walking our talk – using our 4x4 team to deliver our 24-hour emergency response, assisting care home clients by transporting staff between towns… and helping a few NHS workers get to work too!
Those client relationships also depend on quality. Many of our clients are five-star businesses and expect the same when it comes to ensuring their lifts go in or keep working. You simply have to deliver what customers expect or your firm will not have a future. While they’re primary stakeholders in your Winstanley matrix, don’t forget wider ones, such as the people in your local community. We just donated a van to Dundee Foodbank, after lending them one for four months when theirs was beyond economic repair.
We regularly help people out where we can, not as part of some grand corporate social responsibility strategy on a spreadsheet with a fixed cost on it, but as part of living the values we as a family believe in and our company operates by. We know from Facebook feedback that word of this gets around and helps let people know we’re a company with a heart that can be trusted. Is yours?
That kind of activity also makes commercial sense when bidding for public sector contracts where community benefit is now a significant factor.
What do you do to survive 40 years? All the stuff you read about in guides on business planning about creating a vision, core values and getting the right staff, but do it with passion, get and look after the right people and always put client relationships first, as well as helping your community.
And you will stand the best chance of ensuring your firm has a future.