Each week, we ask small businesses key questions.
Here we speak to Hazel Allen, director of Dingwall-based company Delfinity Consulting.
How and why did you start in business?
After three years working in California’s Silicon Valley, my husband, Lee, and I decided to move back to the UK to be closer to our families and to start one of our own.
I had received a job offer to head up an environmental consultancy in the Highlands and I was ready for a new challenge in a part of the country that we both loved.
After just over a year with the consultancy, I spent six years with what was to become the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) as director of finance and strategy, a substantial role that meant both meeting the educational aspirations of students and supporting the economic development of the region.
I worked with some amazing people and gained real insights into local and regional economies from Shetland to Argyll.
I’m still involved in the UHI partnership as a board member for two of the partners.
By 2011, we had two girls aged five and seven and I wasn’t seeing enough of them. It was time to get my work-life balance in order, so I left UHI and took up a couple of short-term roles to keep the money rolling in.
I was then introduced to Fiona Smith and Sarah Whitham by a mutual colleague, and from that meeting came Delfinity Consulting.
How did you get where you are today?
All three of us have had successful careers in our specialisms – finance, human resources and strategy – and we all love helping small businesses develop and grow.
We enjoy working with highly motivated entrepreneurs and are ready to roll up our sleeves and get stuck in, so joining forces as co-directors of a new specialist consultancy was the obvious way forward.
Many small businesses do not need our level of expertise all of the time, but they do require specialist skills and solutions at particular points in their businesses life cycles – early growth, business change and passing on the business.
For example, the owner of a biosciences company believed that his business should be merged to return it to profitability. We believed its financial difficulties were driven by the absence of a clear strategy, inadequate financial systems to help management make robust decisions and a lack of management skills.
We have been working with the client for the past year and his bottom line is improving. If a merger does eventually goes ahead, it will now be from a position of strength.
Who helped you?
No business is an island and we all need help and support from time to time. Delfinity helps businesses that are constantly being pulled in many different directions at once to stop firefighting and start thinking strategically.
I recently joined the Federation of Small Businesses so that I can benefit from the safety net it gives people like me.
What has been your biggest mistake?
It’s a cliche but mistakes are merely opportunities to learn. Every solution has to meet the client’s particular circumstances, and no two are the same.
One of the great advantages of working in a partnership is that we can talk over issues and thrash out concerns before presenting clients with fully considered, stress-tested answers.
What is your greatest achievement?
Getting the right solutions for our clients, every time. We have always had excellent feedback and recommendations, and that is helping our business to grow.
If you were in power in government, what would you like to change?
Our greatest resource is our people. Policies that keep people poor, stop them growing their skills and experience or force them to head abroad are the greatest long-term threat to our prosperity. Austerity politics are damaging at every level.
What do you still hope to achieve?
I do a lot of work with community enterprises. I’m passionate about the benefits of co-operatives and consortia to help communities and entrepreneurs achieve scale, and attract customers that individually would be out of reach.
We are currently putting together a consortium of professionals with different skills to help us access a wider portfolio of clients.
What do you do to relax?
Head for the hills. My husband and I met through our mutual enjoyment of the outdoors and we love cycling, walking and climbing.
What are you currently reading, listening to or glued to on the TV?
Time is always short so catch-up TV is essential. We have just finished Peaky Blinders and are heading through season two of The Fall.
What do you waste your money on?
Romantic e-books – chewing gum for the mind.
How would your friends describe you?
Someone told me I was always very kind. I can’t think of a better compliment.
What would your enemies say about you?
I’ve never asked them.
What do you drive and dream of driving?
A car with four wheels and an engine that gets me around our beautiful Highland roads.