SUCCESS
when, as a teenager, he cut out his local newsagent by going direct to the wholesaler to start his own paper round, planting his entrepreneurial seed by building the paper round up and then selling it off. Later, Piers would leave the lucrative banking industry at the turn of the century in order to start an internet-based business. As one of the first to understand the transformative nature of the internet on communications, he has had the upper hand on many latecomers, but has still had to use his ingenuity to stay ahead of the competition. “I have always been fascinated by technology and the power of the internet,” he enthused. “The convergence of technology and communications is an enormous opportunity, and highly disruptive. We decided almost five years ago to focus on unified communications and collaboration, and we are now the UK’s leading provider of cloud-based unified communications and collaboration solutions using Microsoft technologies. Many existing providers of traditional communications have simply left it too late to evolve.” Although Piers has used his insights to predict where the industry will head next, he also believes that SMEs should take a measured approach when trying to predict the future, and that risk isn’t necessarily bad. “With risk comes reward. You can’t predict the future, but you have to embrace new technologies and the power of the internet to succeed, irrespective of the size of your business. SMEs now have access to technology and fulfilment capabilities that only very large enterprises enjoyed only a few years ago. This is levelling the playing field. There is also a fantastic opportunity for innovative and fast-moving SMEs to partner with large enterprises to create value,” beamed the tech guru. “For example, one of the
20 September 2015
With risk comes reward. You can’t predict the future, but you have to embrace new technologies biggest barriers to growth for any SME these days, is access to finance, especially during the growth phase when angel investors or venture capital funds are unable to follow up. A different approach to risk and reward is required to ensure that UK businesses are able to scale.” Armed with his business knowledge, and insight gleaned from the Den, if he had to start again from scratch, does he think he’d have a better or worse chance to triumph? “You learn something new every day as an entrepreneur, and it can take several attempts to actually succeed in business. Each new venture benefits from
past experience,” said Piers. “I think starting a business is now easier than it was in the past, and there are many useful resources available to help budding entrepreneurs. The key is to keep business and personal overheads low, as fixed costs reduce your ability to take risk.” Some might see it as a risk for the TV star to leave the Den, but with entrepreneurialism coursing through his veins, it’s unlikely this former Dragon’s fire will be extinguished any time soon. Contact: www.outsourcery.co.uk www.workinsight.org