From Bags to Blenders E-Book

Gordon Black

• Herausgeber: Icon Books
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 166

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

This is a book about success and how to achieve it.  While there are many books about eminent retailers, From Bags to Blenders tells the story from a different angle – from the point of view of a supplier.  Gordon Black's career at Peter Black spanned over 40 years. He led a team with his brother which built a substantial business with sales of approximately £300 million and 3,000 employees. His revealing book faces up to the difficulties of supplying retailers today, and contrasts that with the close and fruitful relationship the Blacks enjoyed in the 1980s and 1990s with their main customer, Marks & Spencer.  This fascinating and amusing book explains why the biggest challenge in building a successful company is the development of a culture of teamwork and passion for the business while, at the same time, avoiding arrogance and taking advice from those with experience.  In Gordon's opinion, exiting a business is as big a challenge as building a business. He pinpoints the different options and the pitfalls to be avoided, and emphasises the need for first-class products: 'You can have the most modern factories and the best systems, but, without the right product, you're dead!' 

Leseprobe

FROM BAGS

TO BLENDERS

FROM BAGS

TO BLENDERS

The Journey of a Yorkshire Businessman

GORDON

BLACK

Published in the UK in 2016 by

Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre,

39–41 North Road, London N7 9DP

email: [email protected]

www.iconbooks.com

Sold in the UK, Europe and Asia

by Faber & Faber Ltd, Bloomsbury House,

74–77 Great Russell Street,

London WC1B 3DA or their agents

Distributed in the UK, Europe and Asia

by Grantham Book Services,

Trent Road, Grantham NG31 7XQ

Distributed in Australia and New Zealand

by Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd,

PO Box 8500, 83 Alexander Street,

Crows Nest, NSW 2065

Distributed in South Africa by

Jonathan Ball, Office B4, The District,

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Distributed in India by Penguin Books India,

7th Floor, Infinity Tower – C, DLF Cyber City,

Gurgaon 122002, Haryana

ISBN: 978-178578-203-9

Text copyright © 2016 Gordon Black

The author has asserted his moral rights

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher

Typeset by Simmons Pugh

Cover design by Sam Oakes of Gobo Systems

Printed and bound in the UK by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

CONTENTS

About the Author

Introduction

Monetary Values

Chapter OneBrief History

Chapter TwoThree Stages

Chapter ThreeLeadership

Chapter FourArrogance

Chapter FiveProduct

Chapter SixGood Business Practice is Enlightened Self-Interest

Chapter SevenTiming

Chapter EightBalance

Chapter NineHigh Street TV

Chapter TenConclusion

Color Plates

Index

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gordon Black CBE DL was born in 1943 and educated at Bootham School, York and Clare College, Cambridge, where he took a degree in History.

He joined Peter Black in 1965 and became Chairman in 1977. Peter Black Holdings was a major supplier of footwear, toiletries, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and logistics to the UK’s leading retailers, with annual sales of £300 million and around 3,000 employees. It was a plc for 25 years and was then taken private in 2000. The remaining companies were sold to Li & Fung, a Hong Kong-based global trading company, in 2007.

Gordon Black now runs Black Family Investments with his brother Thomas, and was awarded a CBE in 2005 for services to business and charity. He is married to Louise, with three children and nine grandchildren, and lives in Yorkshire.

INTRODUCTION

This book has been a challenge from the beginning to the end. Even choosing a title has been problematic. The working title was What I Have Learnt. As I view arrogance as a cardinal sin, it dawned on me that this title was somewhat presumptuous as I have not finished learning. Someone suggested Black & Blue. Perhaps this was a reference to the fact that on a long, rollercoaster business ride one can get bruised from time to time. One of the less salubrious members of my family came up with Fifty Shades of Black. This one did appeal as I certainly do not want to be taken too seriously and it would have boosted sales. However, it had to be binned as I would have risked seriously disappointing my readers. From Bags to Riches was voted out as it was considered not to be in good taste and not entirely accurate. I considered Work in Progress. Then I thought this was a little optimistic for a man of more than three score years and ten. I finally settled on From Bags to Blenders. Shopping bags were the first product my father manufactured when he started the business in 1947. The Nutribullet blender was a blockbuster game changer at High Street TV, which was the last company in which I have been involved.

I have tried to analyse why I am actually putting pen to paper. In a way, it is cathartic, in that I am dismayed by some of the goings-on in business today and therefore I have a strong urge to get my views off my chest. I also feel a sense of closure in that my days of writing reports and making speeches are coming to an end. In addition I want to express my pride in what my parents achieved in the face of adversity, and my appreciation of the start in life they gave to my brother, Thomas, my sister, Josefine, and myself. My main motivation is to pass on to my family, friends and anyone who is interested the lessons I have learnt and the observations I have made in a long and action-packed business career.

There have been many books published in recent times about eminent retailers. Rarely has anyone written without constraint about the reality of supplying retailers, as they are frightened of the repercussions.

I am aware my style of writing is more Daily Mail than Times Literary Supplement and it will certainly offend the purists. Reading through what I have written confirms to me that I am not a natural author. It reflects my background in that much of it reads more like an essay or the transcript of a speech. In addition, I am aware that I do tend to repeat myself (my wife will think this is the understatement of the year) and I am sure that some of my hackneyed phrases (‘low hanging fruit’; ‘the global economy is a reality’) will make some of those who know me groan somewhat. There have been many amusing incidents that have occurred over the years. I have woven various anecdotes into the narrative, and hopefully this will make the book a lighter reading experience. I am told that the average novel is about 80,000 words while my literary effort is about 32,000 words. The fact that this is a short book might make you think I have not learnt much. I would prefer you to react positively to this brevity, as I have worked hard to avoid jargon and waffle and to be succinct.

I certainly do not aim to cause offence. I am proud to be a Yorkshireman. Our trademark is bluntness – we tend to call a spade a shovel. I hope this outspoken approach will be viewed as forthright rather than arrogant – they say ‘you can tell a Yorkshireman, but you can’t tell him much!’ I do hope my views will be accepted in the positive spirit intended.

Absolutely everything I have been involved with has been very much a team effort. My most sincere thanks therefore go to all the great colleagues I have worked with over the years for their support, loyalty and friendship. I want to express my special appreciation to my wife Louise, my brother Thomas, and to Dick Leivers and Stephen Lister, who were both Managing Directors of Peter Black and made an immense contribution to the development of the business. I also want to thank Andrew Malcher and Jim Coleman, the founders of High Street TV, and my PA, Alison Whitham. I am grateful to Peter Pugh of Icon Books whose input and patience enabled this literary project to get over the line.

I have enjoyed reading several books by well-known businessmen which are packed with reminiscences and character assassinations. As I never kept a diary, and I cannot remember too much detail from the past, I have chosen a different approach. While there are certainly many stories about the Black family to relate, the emphasis is more analytical than biographical. In addition I appreciate that many people will never have heard about Peter Black. My first chapter will therefore run through the history of the company in order to provide a backcloth to what will follow.

As you will gather, any success we have had has been based on the fact that we made more good decisions than bad, but only just.

MONETARY VALUES

Money and its value is always a problem when writing about a period that stretches over a number of years, particularly when parts of that period have included some years of very high inflation. Furthermore, establishing a yardstick for measuring the change in the value of money is not easy either. Do we take the external value of the £ or what it will buy in the average (whatever that may be) weekly shopping basket? Do we relate it to the average manual wage? As we know, while prices in general might rise, and have done so in this country every year since the Second World War, the prices of certain products might fall. However, we are writing about a business, and money and its value crop up on several pages. We therefore have to make some judgements. We can only generalise, and I think the best yardstick is probably the average working wage.

Taking this as the yardstick, here is a measure of the £ sterling relative to the £ in 2016.

Apart from wartime, prices were stable for 250 years, but began to rise in the run-up to the First World War.

1665–1900 multiply by 120

1900–1914 multiply by 110

1918–1939 multiply by 60

(In Germany there was a period of hyperinflation in the early 1920s)

1945–1950 multiply by 35

1950–1960 multiply by 30

1960–1970 multiply by 25

1970–1974 multiply by 20

1975–1977 multiply by 15

1978–1980 multiply by 8

1980–1987 multiply by 5

1987–1991 multiply by 2.5

1991–1997 multiply by 2

Since 1997, the rate of inflation, by the standards of most of the 20th century, has been very low, averaging, until very recently, less than the government’s originally stated aim of 2.5 per cent (since reduced to 2 per cent). Some things such as telephone charges and many items made in the Far East, notably China, are going down in price while others, such as houses, moved up very sharply from 1997 to 2008 before falling back in the financial crisis. In 2011 on the back of sharply rising commodity and food prices, inflation accelerated again to reach 5 per cent per annum. However, as commodity prices fell back and much of the world suffered very low growth, the rate of inflation began to subside again in 2012 and 2013. Indeed, by 2016 many of the industrialised nations are starting to worry about deflation.

CHAPTER ONE

BRIEF HISTORY

Both my parents were born in Germany. My father’s name was Hans Schwarzschild and his family were patrons of the arts and academics. His uncle, Karl Schwarzschild, was a famous astronomer and a friend of Einstein. My mother’s name was Else Kohlmann and her family were the largest cigar manufacturers in Germany. Hans was brought up in Frankfurt and apparently was a rather shy but tidy and well organised boy who made his brother sign in and out for his toys – clearly a sign for what was to follow! His father’s family business was Dick & Goldschmidt which was a well-known global textile trading company. His brother, Paul, went into the family business and Hans joined a company which manufactured leather goods (briefcases, handbags etc.). My father met my mother at a language school in Frankfurt. Mercifully my parents were perceptive and, foreseeing the horrors of Hitler’s Nazi regime, fled to England in 1935.

It is important to relate briefly the background to the emergence of Hitler and the persecution of the Jews. In the early 20th century the Jews in Germany were well integrated into society. Many fought in the First World War and were generally successful and well respected. Germany’s defeat in November 1918 led to escalating economic problems for the country. In order to pay for the large costs of the war, Germany had suspended the Gold Standard and resorted to borrowing. This strategy backfired when Germany lost the war and was faced with a massive war debt. France and Britain demanded high annual repayments of the reparations dictated at the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 and this led to a rapid decline in the value of the German mark and escalating inflation.

By the autumn of 1922 Germany found itself unable to make reparations payments and by this time the mark was virtually worthless. Inflation was exacerbated when workers in the Ruhr went on strike and the government printed more money to continue paying them for their ‘passive resistance’. By November 1923 one American dollar was worth 4,210,500,000 German marks. The effect on the German people was appalling and this hyperinflation can be seen as one of the causes of the rise of Adolf Hitler.

The Nazi Party’s rise to power, and Adolf Hitler’s appointment by Hindenberg as the German Chancellor on 30 January 1933, had catastrophic effects for Jews in Germany. Hitler scheduled new elections to a ‘bogus’ Reichstag on 5 March 1933, he intimidated his opponents, and a week before the election the Reichstag itself went up in flames, possibly at the hands of the Nazis. That was the beginning. The rest followed in rapid succession. Jewish-owned shops were boycotted, Jews were expelled from the National Academy and from government positions, schools, research institutes and universities. They were banned from practising law and other professions and excluded from all national societies. A few weeks in spring 1933 sufficed to reduce the University of Göttingen, a world-renowned centre of advanced physics and mathematics, to the level of a provincial college.

The passing of the Nuremberg Laws in 1935 excluded Jews from many jobs, made it illegal for them to marry ‘Aryans’ and established them as second-class citizens. What had brought such anti-Semitic feeling to be so widely acceptable within Germany, within a land in which the Jews, including the Schwarzchilds, had felt at home and prospered, had even contributed to? A major tenet of the Nazi propaganda machine was that the Jewish people had contributed to Germany’s defeat in 1918, and were involved in the social and economic problems that the country had faced since the end of the First World War.

My parents arrived in London penniless and rented a one-room basement flat. My father got a job with the London branch of the company he worked for in Germany. With the advent of war he was asked by his employer to locate and run a small production unit outside London to manufacture army webbing (belts, and ammunition holders). After an exhaustive search he found a vacant floor in an old textile mill in Keighley, West Yorkshire.

His deep gratitude to this country for giving him refuge, and his appreciation of the warm welcome extended to him in Keighley, were behind his determination to integrate fully and to become as much an Englishman as possible. He changed his name from Hans Schwarzschild to Peter Black; he never spoke German at home; Thomas and I were sent away at a young age to boarding school; and he tried to understand the intricacies of cricket. The name change did cause some confusion. The literal translation of Schwarzschild into English is Black Shield. PB, as my father became known, and his brother decided to split the name – we became the Blacks and my Uncle Paul’s family became the Shields. To add to the confusion, my grandmother retained the original name. PB used to tell the story of when he met his brother and mother at a restaurant in London for dinner. He said to the unfortunate receptionist, ‘I’m Mr Black, are my brother Mr Shields and my mother Mrs Schwarzschild here yet?’

In a previous publication about the family, my brother Thomas wrote the following about my parents:

Peter Black was not an easy man to live with and, if he provided the brains and flair of the outfit, my mother provided the toughness. She was busy running the home and, while was not interested in the specifics of the business, she was very supportive. In all the traditional ways she was an elegant asset to Peter Black, who had high standards, and, like her husband, she was proud to be British. She integrated into the community and was very popular. She loved crosswords and Scrabble, embracing the English language even if she struggled with the English ‘w’, thus pronouncing Wimbledon, Watford and Willesden with a ‘v’.

After the war, with the help of a financial backer, Peter Black bought the production unit in Keighley from his London-based employer. He used the surplus webbing material to manufacture shopping bags. His first customers were Marks & Spencer and Boots. With considerable imagination and courage, he then went to the Gold Coast (now Ghana) and sold containers full of bags to the Bata Organisation, an international trading company originating in Czechoslovakia.

In the early 1950s, the traditional slipper business was transformed by the development of vulcanising – a method of heat-bonding a light rubber sole to a fabric upper. Marks & Spencer’s footwear manufacturers did not have the sewing capacity to keep up with demand. This led Marks & Spencer to ask PB to sew some uppers for their main supplier. It did not take him long to realise that it would be a good idea to invest in vulcanising machinery and become a slipper supplier himself. In order to get a strong bond between the sole and the upper, traditional slipper manufacturers using the vulcanising process limited themselves to smooth-surfaced textile materials. Although corduroy was a big fashion, it was not considered suitable to be used for uppers on vulcanised slippers on account of the ridges in the fabric. PB addressed and overcame the problem. We were the first to produce corduroy slippers, which proved to be a fast seller. This was the opportunistic beginning of our footwear business, which at its peak supplied over 20 million pairs per year to the leading retailers in the UK and abroad.

My brother Thomas, born in November 1938, is four years older than I am. He married Sue Broughton in 1967 and they have four sons, Adam, Ben, Oliver, and Daniel. Along with my wife, Thomas has always been my best friend and also business partner. After National Service (two years in the army), Thomas trained with Marks & Spencer and then worked in factories abroad before joining the company in 1962. While working for Marks & Spencer on the shop floor in their Leeds store, there was an incident Thomas has never forgotten. The manager told him that if he saw anyone he recognised (meaning senior executives from Marks & Spencer head office in London) he should introduce himself, give them the latest sales information and then take them for a coffee to the staff dining room. Half way through Thomas’s second week, a well-dressed gentleman came into the store and smiled at Thomas. In line with his instructions, Thomas introduced himself, explained at length how each department was trading and then proceeded with his guest to the staff dining room for a coffee. Thomas was puzzled by the bemused expression on his guest’s face. Then the penny dropped. He was entertaining the head barman from the Devonshire Arms Hotel at Bolton Abbey!

I read History at Cambridge – my father always joked that it was as close to Footwear as he could find. After university, I also trained at Marks & Spencer, spent six months in an accountancy firm and worked in factories in Europe and America before joining Peter Black full time at the age of 22 in 1965. My time at Marks & Spencer was also not incident-free. Initially, I was placed at their Wembley store. On my first morning the manager gave me a stern lecture along the lines that 70 per cent of the employees were girls and he did not welcome illicit liaisons. I was young and naive. It took me a few weeks to realise that I was the only one taking any notice of the manager’s directive. From Wembley, I was transferred to the head office in Baker Street, where I was attached (not literally) to the Ladies’ Underwear Buying Department.