Good morning, ladies and gentlemen
I'm honoured to have this opportunity to talk to you
Eight years ago, I bought my first computer
but I soon discovered that where I lived
it was difficult to find accessories for that particular make
That made me realise that other people must have the same problem
Then I found that
foreign magazines contained plenty of advertisements of mail order companies
so I started buying spare parts and things
that way and selling them on to my friends at a small profit
That was how my company, Manshee,was born
Four years later
Manshee was making a profit
and had reached a turnover of 6 million pounds
We had four directors
myself and three of my friends
plus a staff of 17
The culture was young
and the working environment didn't have any structure
The company just grew and grew with its own momentum
and everything we did seemed to strike lucky
If we needed to buy some equipment or redecorate the sales office
we decided yes or no in isolation
only taking the short term
usually the cash flow for that month
into account
However, the market became increasingly cut throat
and that led to falling margins
We realised, rather unwillingly
that the time had come to structure our future
but we didn't really have much idea how to set about it
So we went to a firm of consultants
who specialise in helping small businesses
and it proved a turning point
They insisted that we four directors sit down
and rank our investments in order of importance for the coming years
It seems obvious now
but we'd never realised the value of doing it before