RICHARD HORWOOD
MY APPROACH TO HELPING BUSINESSES
You're the expert about what you do. About your product, your market, your competitive insights. You don't need me - or anyone else - to second guess you.
But none of us can be an expert about every aspect of our business. And when you're facing a new challenge, it makes sense to tap into someone else's hard-earned expertise and experience.
Maybe you need help managing forceful or creative colleagues, or dealing with investors and other stakeholders, or navigating unexpected set-backs, or re-imagining strategies that haven't worked out as planned. That's where I come in, with some 30 years of senior management experience in media and technology businesses, after an earlier career in law and corporate finance.
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I can be as hands-on as needed. But here's what I typically do when I start with a business that calls me in:
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First, I listen and learn. I meet with the individuals in the business to understand what they do and how they feel about it. Obviously starting with the business leaders, but also those they lead. I look at the numbers and business plans. I review the products and services, and how they are developed, made and sold. I find out what customers and partners think. I respect confidences.
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Second, I question. I ask about the way things are being done and why. I probe business practices, routes to market, product development processes, the approach to sales and business development, management structures, and financial and corporate administration.
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Third, I consider the result of all this against my own experience, and that of other experts where appropriate.
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Fourth, I sit down with the business leaders and their investors and talk it through. I don't assume I've got it all right first time.
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Fifth, I produce a plan, with short and longer term actions, responsibilities and measurable goals, and agree that plan with the business leaders and investors. For PE investors, one of those goals will inevitably be a profitable exit.
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And then, if required, I lead the implementation of that plan. I take hard decisions firmly, explaining why, taking the team along with me. Without bluster, and always with good humour. I communicate the goals and strategy clearly, internally and externally.
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As we progress, I keep checking outcomes against the plan and expectations, and adjust as necessary.
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It's not rocket science. But it's based on my wide experience of working in a variety of media and technology businesses with different challenges and opportunities.
Whether it's migrating from print to digital, from broadcast to on-demand, from fixed to mobile, from display to search, from subscription to micropayments, from desktop to cloud, from human to artificial, and everything in between or as yet unimagined, these sectors are fast-moving and driven by innovation and creativity in a way less pronounced in other industries. They - and the people working in them - take a particular kind of expertise to manage, and I've spent most of my working life developing it.
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