Exceptional

Cover photography Charlie Surbey
Exceptional is an awardwinning
magazine for and
about entrepreneurs and
fast-growth companies.
Exceptional
For EY
Strategic Growth Markets
Leader, UK & Ireland
Graeme Crawford
Marketing, SGM, UK&I
Elizabeth Page
Brand, Marketing &
Communications Assistant
Director, SGM, EMEIA
Lindsey Grazier
Marketing Leader, SGM,
EMEIA Victoria Gravett
For further information about
Exceptional, please email
epage@uk.ey.com or call
+44 20 7951 8664.
For Wardour
Editor Tim Turner
Art Director David Donaghy
Account Director Emma Fisher
Account Manager Matt Goodenday
Production Jack Morgan
Creative Director Ben Barrett
Production Director John Faulkner
Managing Director Claire Oldfield
CEO Martin MacConnol
Exceptional is published on
behalf of EY by Wardour,
5th Floor, Drury House,
34–43 Russell Street, London
WC2B 5HA, United Kingdom.
Tel. +44 20 7010 0999
wardour.co.uk
“All these stories illustrate how
entrepreneurs are at the very
heart of our economy.”
Whatever your company’s growth aspirations, whether it’s
to grow from local to global, from private to public, from
challenger to leader, or from millions to billions, there is
one question we hear all the time: how do I accelerate
growth and make it sustainable?
To help answer this question, we’ve used our experience
dealing with the world’s fastest-growing companies to
create the EY 7 Drivers of Growth, a framework that helps companies to align
their capabilities with their growth strategy. In this edition of Exceptional, we
tell the stories of seven successful companies, each of which has benefited by
focusing on one of these Growth Drivers.
They span a wide range of activities, from traditional manufacturing
businesses to cutting-edge digital start-ups. Among the former are Büchel,
the family-owned German component company whose owner, Erhard Büchel,
took the bold step of relocating to the Far East and merging with a Chinese
firm. This alliance saved the company and laid the basis for its eventual
return, after the reunification of Germany, to its original headquarters. It’s
a remarkable tale of successfully adapting to changing circumstances.
Among the high-tech companies featured, Drop is an Irish start-up that is
launching a range of smart digital products for cooks, starting with a connected
kitchen scale and recipe app. Connectivity is at the heart of the company, which
uses data analytics to understand its customers and the market.
Another successful digital business is online luxury fashion marketplace
Farfetch — so successful, in fact, that it has become a “unicorn,” one of the
elite group of businesses founded since 2003 that are now worth over US$1b.
We meet CEO José Neves and find out how his dedication to innovation and
risk-taking has helped him to build a business that is not only growing online,
but also helping the fashion boutiques it works with to prosper in brick-andmortar
stores.
Also in this issue: our cover star, Nathaniel Peat, explains how he combines
cutting-edge innovation with social entrepreneurship in his renewable energy
company, GeNNex, and we explore how education can help to foster the
entrepreneurial culture that is vital to create employment for young people.
All these stories illustrate, in their various ways, how entrepreneurs are at
the very heart of our economy, and I hope they will inspire you to write the
next chapter in your own growth story.
Graeme Crawford
Strategic Growth Markets Leader, UK & Ireland, EY
Exceptional February–June 2016
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