Why business can never be too close to home for boss
Entrepreneur took plunge so she could settle near family
In this week’s SME Focus an entrepreneur whose interests include mentoring youngsters and sidecar racing says the Scottish Government must smooth the path for smaller firms to win public sector work.
Name: Wendy Pring.
Age: 46. What is your business called? KCP. Where is it based? Cumnock, Ayrshire. What does it produce? KCP uses industrial suction to remove waste such as sludge, sewage, grains and gravel. Our specially adapted vehicles, problem-solving experience and on-site project management capability have also helped us carve out a niche market, finding bespoke solutions for waste removal. The machines we use have huge suction power – they can work on an area 300 metres across and 100 metres deep, using suction to lift waste. For example, following a fire at one client’s site we used our suction capability to retrieve tonnes of molten plastic from deep excavations. We are also highly experienced in cleaning and restoring riverbeds – using suction to lift sludge and debris. Who does it sell to? Our clients range from major firms such as SSE plc, Veolia and Morrison Construction and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, to many lesser-known small companies. We work across four main sectors – landfill, industrial farming, food and drink and anaerobic digestion. What is its turnover? We are on Scottish Enterprise’s Growth Pipeline and on target to reach our £1 million turnover target next year. We are projecting turnover of £2m in the next two to three years. How many employees? Eleven. We hope to grow this number over the next two to three years in line with our turnover expectations. When was it formed? 2003. Why did you take the plunge? My previous role was based down south and involved long hours and a lot of travelling. With young children, I was keen to reduce the travelling and settle in Ayrshire, near family. My husband Karl and I felt that creating our own business and managing our own workload would help us achieve a better work/life balance.
We also wanted to take advantage of the gap we felt we had identified in the market. What were you doing before you took the plunge? I am a chartered civil engineer and was working as engineering manager for FCC Environment. I was responsible for all construction work connected to our waste facilities, and gained experience in programming and logistics. Karl was operating machinery and winning new contracts for an environmental waste company. Clearly, between us we knew a lot about waste. With Karl’s experience as a mechanic and flair for invention and problem solving, and my extensive industry experience, we were keen to join forces. How did you raise the start-up funding? We didn’t get any external funding to start the business. We sold our house, moved into rented accommodation and used the proceeds to buy a lorry. Ten months later we got a loan to buy a second lorry, and by the end of year one we were working with three lorries, that we customised to meet the business needs, and four members of staff. We approached our existing contacts, got ourselves onto suppliers’ lists and once word of mouth spread the business increased rapidly. What was your biggest break? When I secured a position on Scottish Enterprise’s Rural Leadership Programme – a six-month programme focussing on leadership skills. I benefited from one-to-one business coaching and it offered a huge boost in my business knowledge. New-found knowledge and confidence helped me to build a platform for the business to grow, and to steer the direction in which the business was moving. What was your worst moment? Running the business from a hospital ward during the last four months of my pregnancy in 2011, just as KCP was embarking on a campaign of business expansion. The business was moving to new premises and increasing our staff base, and I didn’t want to take four months out unexpectedly at this time, so I just got on with it. It wasn’t the easiest way to conduct business, but we got through it. What do you enjoy most about running a business? There are so many aspects of running our own business that I love. Every day is different because we tailor solutions to the problems that our clients present us with. Karl and I have to be creative and inventive, and work with our clients to find the best answers.
Running an SME also gives me the opportunity to get involved in the local community. I am involved in numerous schools’ projects across Ayrshire to get more young women and girls involved in science and technology.
Being a local business owner gives me a platform to share advice and experience, and to mentor young people. What are your top priorities? To continue to develop key relationships across all our industry sectors and to expand the range of services we have available to clients.
Staff development is a very important part of this – building on our employees’ industry skills and training them in soft skills too, such as communication. I have regular one-to-one meetings with all my staff for the purposes of continued professional development. What are your ambitions for the firm? Having built a strong reputation for being responsive in a crisis, we would like our clients to view us more and more as their fourth emergency service.
Because of the innovative nature of much of the work we do, we find ourselves with a patent pending for a nuclear disposal related product invented by Karl.
With other bespoke applications being devised all the time, we are in a good position to make more of Karl’s inventive skills, and we look forward to having more products attributed to KCP in the future. What could the Westminster and/or Scottish governments do that would help your business? I would like to see Holyrood investing in more small-scale localised anaerobic digestion plants and combined heat power plants, which could provide energy and heat to schools, hospital and district heating systems.
The Scottish Government could also help SMEs in general by modifying the current procurement process for public contracts so that it no longer favours large enterprises. SMEs are currently disadvantaged in tendering for public contracts because of their size but, by splitting large contracts into smaller lots, it would make it possible for SMEs to tender for these.
As a result we would see a shift towards local jobs, local resources and a boost to Scottish local economies. What is the most valuable lesson you have learned? The importance of tapping into the talent of my workforce and drawing on their individual abilities. Once you know what makes them tick and how best to utilise their skills, you can support them in the right areas, develop their strengths and therefore widen the skill set of the company as a whole. Connected to this is the importance of ensuring we have an engaged and interested management team – this is vital for a happy workforce. How do you relax? Like many people, I relax by spending time with my family. However, as a family, we are really into F2 sidecar racing. Karl drives, I perch on the platform next to him and we tour around some of the big races throughout the summer months. The kids come with us and love it.