Business Plus Breakfast Club with Presidio Europe CEO, Paschal Naylor
Recently I had the pleasure to participate as a guest panellist for a Business Plus Breakfast Club event that took place at the InterContinental Dublin Hotel and attended by over 100 business executives. The theme of the event was focused on ‘Leading A Growth Business’. I was joined by two of Ireland’s leading CEO’s, Pat McCann of Dalata Hotel Group Plc and Alan Cox, Core Media, who also provided lots of food for thought around their experiences for how to accelerate growth for their respective businesses.
One of the common threads in leading a growth business is that the best companies set themselves apart by their ability to change momentum more quickly than competitors, with the chief executives deciding on strategic priorities and setting the pace of the team and the organisation.
Moderated by Nick Mulcahy, Editor of Business Plus, the event was very much based around a discussion format, exploring how each of the panel guests as CEOs, disrupt conventional ways of thinking, lead innovation and sustain energy throughout the business. As the CEO of Presidio Europe, leading a growth business has been very much a core focus of our own business over the past number of years. Having executed a management buy-out of the business in 2010, we have set ambitious and ongoing growth targets for the business.
Initially, we looked to grow the business from a turnover of €11 million to €50 million over a five year period. Having successfully delivered on this, we then reset our goal and target to achieve a €100 million business by the end of 2018. Having this goal and focus and then building a plan around how you will achieve it has been really important to what we have achieved to date and ensures the whole team are drawn towards it. Over the past four years, Presidio has achieved an average 470% growth in revenues, with over 90% of our growth been generated organically. I am delighted to say that Presidio is now well positioned to continue on our rapid growth trajectory and we are very confident of growing the business further and meeting our goal to become a €100 business this year.
Once you have your clear plan of what you want to achieve for the business, it is important that you get the buy-in from the team and achieve a broad consensus. Your belief in where the business is going will resonate with the team. That belief comes through how you handle your customers and how you deal with incidents or issues in the business. In IT, a lot of the time you are fixing things, so the relationship with the client is really important.
Looking back at our own growth achievements to date, I see the strategic partnerships with fast-growing global internet businesses as another key contributor. As a company, we have worked hard over the past few years to provide a global offering to our customers. We have invested heavily in supply chain management, people and supplier relationships. This investment is now paying off and we are well positioned as the preferred supplier to some of the largest Silicon Valley-based tech multinationals. As our customers grow, so too will Presidio as we continue to support our customers’ global reach.
Click here to follow Paschal on LinkedIn.
