PROFESSOR DYLAN JONES-EVANS

In 2020, the year that none of us will ever forget, I had considered carefully whether the annual search for the fastest growing firms in Wales should be cancelled. Certainly, it became obvious that we could not hold the annual awards dinner which is one of the highlights of the Welsh business calendar every year. However, as the economy battles to emerge from recession, it is clear that we need more than ever to celebrate the creativity, innovation and sheer determination of the best of Welsh businesses, something that was clearly emphasised by those many firms that, despite the lockdown we suffered earlier this year, wanted to be considered for the Wales Fast Growth 50. Like other businesses across Wales, the majority of those featured on the 2020 list had been hit hard by the lockdown in March and yet they have survived, recovered and, more importantly have started growing again, with a number registering their best quarter of trading during the summer. They have made significant c...

Earlier this week, the Scale Up Institute produced its annual report into the state of high growth businesses in the UK. It showed that scaleups - those businesses growing by more than 20% per annum by employee or turnover growth (or both) – continue to make a substantial contribution to the UK economy.  The research identified a total of 33,860 scaleups in the UK that generate a total turnover of £1 trillion which represents half of the total contribution by all UK SMEs despite making up less than 1% of the SME population. They also employed 3.5 million people and the total number of scale-ups has grown by more than 25% in the period 2013-2018.  Scaleups also continue to be more productive than other UK businesses across almost every sector of the economy and, more importantly, exist in all sectors with most being found in wholesale and retail, professional, scientific and technical, and admin/support services.  Whilst we have been identifying and celebrating the fastes...

As this column discussed last week, access to skills is one of the key concerns of many employers in the UK when it comes to improving the future effectiveness of their businesses. For example, the CBI has noted that low levels of skills is one of the biggest perceived threats to the competitiveness of the UK economy whilst the Institute of Directors has stated that in a post Brexit World, access to skills will be vital to helping achieve the future prosperity of the nation. Nowhere is the development of work-related skills more important than within our education system and yet employers often complain that schools are not preparing their pupils for the world of work and have little contact with the businesses in their area. To fill this gap, the serial entrepreneur and investor Sherry Couto decided to establish a new educational charity that would be dedicated to improving the life chances and employability of young people, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds. ...

Twenty years ago, I had this crazy idea of putting together a project that would identify and celebrate the fastest growing businesses in Wales at a time when the focus by politicians was firmly on attracting large inward investors into the Welsh economy. And so the Wales Fast Growth 50 was launched in 1999 and a small awards lunch put together for the firms at Jury’s Hotel in Cardiff with Rhodri Morgan - the then economic development minister - attending. Fast forward to 2018 and last Wednesday, the 20th list of the fastest growing firms in Wales was published following a glittering awards dinner with over 900 guests at Cardiff Motorpoint Arena. In fact, since the project was established in 1999, the 602 firms that have appeared on the twenty lists are estimated to have created 40,000 jobs and generate an estimated £20 billion into the Welsh economy, much of which is spent in their local area. Indeed, eleven previous and current fast growth 50 firms - including North Wales fir...

This year, the Wales Fast Growth 50 celebrates two decades of recognising the achievements of the fastest growing Welsh firms. And during the next few weeks, we will be announcing a very special event that will be taking place in October. Needless to say, it will aim to be the biggest event of its kind in many years and will not only commemorate 20 years of the Fast Growth 50 listings in the Western Mail but the Welsh business community as a whole. When we started back in 1998, there was very little interest in supporting indigenous businesses, never mind those firms that grow quickly. Fast forward to today and it would seem that politicians, policymakers and private companies have finally realised the significance and importance of this small group of firms to local, regional and national economies. Some of this increased interest has been supported by the work of companies such as Octopus, which has recently published its third High Growth Small Business Report and which, ...

In 2015, the Scale-Up Institute was established by the private sector to make the UK the best place in the world not just to start, but to scale a business. In the last three years, it has done a sterling job in ensuring that scale-ups – those firms with average annual growth in employees or turnover greater than 20 per cent per annum over a three year period – have been put at the forefront of key policies being developed by the UK Government. Their latest annual review is not only an impressive summary of the state of  scale-ups in the UK but, more importantly, presents an analysis of the key challenges being faced by such businesses as they look to grow further. According to the 2017 report, the biggest single challenge faced by scale-ups is access to talent, including the social and technical skills of their workforce, being able to recruit from overseas, or having the talent to win overseas business. This suggests, the issue of skills, and skills development, should b...

Is Wales an entrepreneurial nation? That is the question that some still ask when it comes to assessing the growth of the economy over the last two decades. For me, the answer is an overwhelming yes, especially when we see the performance of those businesses that make the list of the fastest growing companies in Wales every year. In fact, since the project was established in 1999, the 577 firms that have appeared on the nineteen lists have been estimated to have created 38,000 jobs and to generate an estimated £20 billion of additional turnover annually, much of which is spent in their local area. That is an incredible achievement given that this growth occurs across all sizes of businesses, across all sectors and, more importantly, across all parts of Wales. Indeed, the Wales Fast Growth 50 is yet again a celebration of the best that Wales has to offer and we should all be proud of the achievements of the fifty firms which are the fastest growing firms in Wales in 2017. D...

In less than five weeks’ time, the annual rollcall of the fastest growing firms in Wales will again be revealed in a special supplement published by the Western Mail. Since 1999, the Wales Fast Growth 50 has been identifying those businesses that have shown the highest levels of growth within the Welsh economy and the 551 firms that have appeared on the lists so far have generated tens of thousands of new jobs and generate nearly £18 billion into the Welsh economy every year. Such fast-growing firms (or scale-ups) are normally defined by organisations such as the OECD as those SMEs who have reported turnover growth of 20 per cent or more in the previous year (and in each of their preceding two years). Given that such firms account for a small proportion of businesses in the UK but create the majority of jobs in the economy, policymakers have taken an increased interest in their development and are increasingly looking for ways to support such businesses. That is why a speci...