14 June 2024
Julie White, managing director of D-Drill & Sawing
Running an SME does, of course, come with a variety of challenges and I often think that only those of us who do it truly understand what goes into it.
Having a great team around you helps and I feel blessed that I’ve been able to bring in people across the company that allow me to work on the business rather than always in it. That includes everyone at head office right through to our managers and operatives at our branches all around the country. They keep the business moving all the time.
This also allows me to give a bit of time to making sure that we, as a business, always play to our strengths and, for all the challenges of being an SME, it does come with benefits.
What I love is that if we see an opportunity we can just crack on and go for it rather than having to go through layers and layers of bureaucracy. If you’re a small business and you spot a potential new market, new client or service, you can go for it. We’ve done this so many times at D-Drill and I encourage our teams to let me know of any ideas or opportunities that they’ve seen. If we can see that it’s going to work, we move quickly because that’s what gives us as a competitive advantage over bigger businesses.
At D-Drill, for example, we could see that some of our clients were buying in services from a range of companies which was more costly both in terms of pounds, shillings and pence as well as the time it was taking. So, we added new services that means we can now offer, for example, concrete scanning, diamond drilling, anchor bolt installation and pull testing to the same client on the same job. It’s a win for the customer and it’s a win for us.
Think about your own sector and how you might be able to apply this.
It’s also worth considering changes to legislation or policy that might affect your clients and customers – and then how the service you provide will help them adapt to that or make the transition easier.
This happens a lot in construction and if you can get ahead of the game, you give yourself an opportunity of another business win!
Ultimately, we are all in business to provide great products and services to our customers – and solve problems. I’m proud of the way our team will always look to find solutions to challenges and with each new problem solved, you have another service/specialism to offer your clients.
So, as I said at the top, play to your strengths and use the adaptability and speed of process that being an SME brings you and make the most of every opportunity to grow.
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