 An ambitious entrepreneur who took up a summer placement at a small Edinburgh-based clothing firm has grown the business to become one of Scotland’s leading suppliers of corporate clothing and staff uniforms.
Textiles graduate Gill Eastgate completed a management buyout of NKD Clothing just four years ago and has since grown the company’s turnover to £1.3 million.
In her first year as managing director, Gill made the controversial decision of getting rid of the firm’s smallest clients in order to help her expand. And it paid off – a chance meeting with the chief executive of Malmasion hotels led to the company securing their first large account.
Determined to succeed, Gill began working around the clock.
She said: “I almost worked myself into an early grave as I was so engrossed in the business and worked constantly. Having been given such a great chance by Malmasion, I didn’t want to mess it up.
“Looking back at it now, I wonder how I did it but it didn’t feel like that at the time. I was so concentrated in the business, I wasn’t even focussing at all on the figures. I knew the business was doing well and we had some great clients but I was focussing on delivering uniforms to my clients.
“We were doing so well that my accountant questioned our year two figures as they were so impressive.”
The company, which now has 10 employees, experienced problems with getting the right staff members, a problem which Gill says has been her biggest challenge to date.
She said: “The management buyout was easy but getting the right people and allowing them to take the day to day running of the business was really hard - I still want to get involved in absolutely everything.
“We’ve got a good team in place now but it’s not been easy, we’ve made mistakes along the way. We’ve recruited the wrong people and kept the wrong people in wrong positions for too long.”
And despite the economic downturn, NKD Clothing is outperforming many of its competitors. With support from Scottish Enterprise, the company identified a number of ways to use the recession as an opportunity to help them grow. Business coaches were appointed to help the firm and its team members develop.
Gill said: “In a recession, we can’t just sit still and expect everything to be the same and not change our approach or anything.
“The coaches helped develop the staff and assist us in achieving our visions. We’re investing a lot of money in it and I think it’s quite innovative that companies like mine are doing this at the current time.
“We’re using the recession to our advantage – a lot of our competitors have gone into administration over the summer, but we’ve not, we’re changing the way we operate and we’re looking at a lot of new business development.
“During a recession if you’re daft enough to sit there and tighten the belts and not change anything about the way your business operates, then of course you’re going to fail. It’s been really enlightening to see how badly companies we thought were our main competitors are doing. We’re small enough and quick enough to adapt whereas a lot of larger companies won’t do anything.”
The company, whose main clients are in hospitality industry, is looking to diversify into new markets and has just secured a contract with airline Flyglobespan.
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www.nkdclothing.co.uk
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