Exceptional

Cover photography Wayne Zhou
Exceptional is an awardwinning
magazine for and
about entrepreneurs and
fast-growth companies.
Exceptional
For EY
Brand, Marketing &
Communications Assistant
Director, SGM, EMEIA
Lindsey Grazier
Marketing Leader, SGM,
EMEIA Victoria Gravett
For further information about
Exceptional, please email
exceptionalmagazine@uk.ey.com
or call +44 20 7951 4822.
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
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behalf of EY by Wardour,
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“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-and-mortar stores.
Also in this issue: brothers Adam and Jerzy Krzanowski tell us how they have
grown Nowy Styl Group into one of Europe’s largest manufacturers of office
furniture; we explore how education can help to foster the entrepreneurial
culture that is vital to create employment for young people; and we find out what
Mohammad Abunayyan, Executive Chairman of Saudi company ACWA Power,
learned by starting at the bottom of the ladder in his family’s business.
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.
Demet Ozdemir
Strategic Growth Markets Leader — EMEIA, EY
Exceptional February–June 2016
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