How does a Saville Row tailor set themselves apart?
Sinclair is passionate about UK garment manufacturing, but setting up the business has not been without its struggles, and developing a business strategy to go upagainst a range of competitors in the industry has been a challenge. Here, Sinclair tells us how she has overcome these challenges, as part of our Problem Solvers series.
What does a typical client look like?Our typical consumer is the modern day professional woman, who is very career driven. They are thriving as executives, managers and have a clear career goal of where they want to get to, who they want to be and off the back of that they want to make sure their image matches their ambition. What challenges have you faced since starting the business? Developing a product based brand is very capital intensive so in the beginning raising capital was challenging. As a product-based business investors tend to shy away, as there is no guaranteed return on investment. Especially in fashion developing a product takes times to get right and then when you do take it to market there is always elements that can be improved. Another challenge was finding the right individuals with the right skills and understanding to join your team. Your team is everything, and you have to have the right people on board that understand the vision and also understand the industry.
What has been your biggest challenge? I would say developing and implementing a new business strategy. We have had some recent development here at Sinclair and implementing it has taken some time. They are changes with huge results, and you have to be careful to balance the effort of that future thinking with not takingyour eyes of the day-to-day. At this stage, we need to bring in an additional person to handle some of the changes, but budgets are tight. Individuals who have an entrepreneurial mind-set, are proactive and are forward thinkers with an understanding of the industry and manufacturing are very rare to find. How have you overcome this challenge? We have been utilising our contacts and business relationships. I have found that the more we share with people about what we are looking to do, our connections oftenknow someone who can point us in the right direction. And I think, simply, perseverance is the aim of the game. Things don’t happen overnight so for us and the team I have to make sure they are kept motivated and inspired in order to see results. How has KPMG Small Business Accounting helped you get to where you are today? You can tell that KPMG genuinelycare about the future of small to medium-sized businesses and are probably one of the few who are actively working towards a better economy. The knowledge, and the software theteam have providedhave really helped to manage our cash flow which has had an impact to our bottom line overall.
