Media Square

Background:

In 2000, I was approached by a Birmingham printing company about investing in their business. While the company had several blue-chip customers and a £4 million turnover, the owners were struggling to make a profit, due to the tight margins in the world of litho (offset) printing.

After spending time understanding the business, the sector and the opportunity, I accepted the challenge, invested and joined the board as a non-executive director.

Operations:

I could see the massive potential the business had for engaging more with its blue-chip customer base and horizontally selling across these huge organisations.

I also saw how this potential could be further enhanced by expanding operations to offer design and broader marketing solutions, including digital implementations. At this point, digital marketing was still in its infancy but was clearly the direction of travel for this sector.

We recruited successful and experienced marketeers and designers to build out our digital marketing propositions, and then the brightest, most driven graduates for our customer service teams.

This strategy to offer a one-stop shop for end-to-end marketing campaigns delivered digitally and/or via the more traditional routes to market was compelling and gave us a distinct and huge competitive advantage over our competitors, which we were able to maximise.

Outcomes and numbers:

• The operational achievements were immense and included winning contracts with KPMG, Jaguar, Railtrack, NEC, Axa SunLife and Argos.
• Financially, during the three years I was with Media Square, our turnover grew from £4 million to £20 million.
• In 2003, we listed the company on the Alternative Investment Market. At that point, I sold my stake in the company and exited with a return of £10 for every £1 I had invested.