Change or die: How to be a winner in the ‘puddin-race’
Macsween haggis chief and leadership coach reveals the vital role of innovation in business.
JO MACSWEEN, executive leadership coach and a driving force behind Macsween’s evolution from retail butcher to award-winning international haggis brand, has revealed the vital ingredients of making a business successful.
Speaking exclusively on the Go Radio Business Show With Sir Tom Hunter & Lord Willie Haughey, Ms Macsween said: “My mother used to shop in a greengrocer, a butcher… separate shops. The idea of getting everything under one roof was a new concept. So, although the Macsween business was doing okay, there was a shadow hanging over the company and that was, if this continued, small shops maybe didn’t have a future.
“My dad could see this but didn’t want to. My mum absolutely saw it. She said: ‘John, we’re going to have to start thinking about working with these people rather than complaining about them.’
“That’s when my brother and I were talking about joining the business and we basically said to my dad, along with my mum: ‘Look, if we don’t evolve and change, we’re going to die!’
“So the big, scary decision that had to be made was for our future: we had to focus on the manufacturing, give up retail, which is everything my father had known, and open the world’s first haggis facility.”
Macsween is now a brand known all over the world and Jo says embracing innovation has been at the heart of the company’s phenomenal success.
“I’m thinking about some of the evolutions my dad had to make and, because he was such a natural innovator, I learned so much from him. I think sometimes we can think innovation is some kind of amazing gizmo but, actually, sometimes really small things make all the difference.
“So, for example, my dad was one of the first people to see the advantage of packaging haggis in a vacuum pack bag with a barcode. Right now we don’t tend to think of that as anything extraordinary but back in 1980 no-one was doing it.
“That allowed him to then get listings in Harrods and Selfridges because they were moving from being served to self-service. My had that spirit and that was very inspiring to all of us.
“At the same time when the young upstarts – my brother and I – joined the business, of course, we saw things slightly differently.
“For example, when I came in I could see we had a brilliant brand that was a sleeping giant, but the company logo had been designed by my dad – literally drawn. It was okay but I was thinking: ‘We’re about to go knock on the door of Tesco so we could do with professionalising this a little bit. I remember him saying: ‘Yeah, but that’ll cost money.’ So there were those healthy tensions. The challenge back to me was to go change the logo without being given any money.
“That, in turn, made me very good at applying for grants, getting to know Scottish Enterprise, really looking at the ecosystem around me. Then I thought, well what else can I use to help us grow? So, dad, in his own way, very cunningly made us good entrepreneurs.”
Ms Macsween recalled wanting to grow the business through “knowhow, knowledge, entrepreneurialism and innovation” and said: “I started to – and my brother was keen on this too, because he’s really good at developing things – explore how we could innovate and continue to make haggis relevant for the next generation.
“That’s what led us to develop the microwavable haggis. That was more successful than expected because we thought we were just going to help tackle younger folks engage with the product, but actually older people cooking for one loved it. People trying to save money, because you cook it in a minute, loved it. So from an energy, packaging and waste perspective, it just made so much sense.”