Manshee公司的发展(1/2)

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen

I'm honoured to have this opportunity to talk to you

Eight years ago, I bought my first computer

but I soon discovered that where I lived

it was difficult to find accessories for that particular make

That made me realise that other people must have the same problem

Then I found that

foreign magazines contained plenty of advertisements of mail order companies

so I started buying spare parts and things

that way and selling them on to my friends at a small profit

That was how my company, Manshee,was born

Four years later

Manshee was making a profit

and had reached a turnover of 6 million pounds

We had four directors

myself and three of my friends

plus a staff of 17

The culture was young

and the working environment didn't have any structure

The company just grew and grew with its own momentum

and everything we did seemed to strike lucky

If we needed to buy some equipment or redecorate the sales office

we decided yes or no in isolation

only taking the short term

usually the cash flow for that month

into account

However, the market became increasingly cut throat

and that led to falling margins

We realised, rather unwillingly

that the time had come to structure our future

but we didn't really have much idea how to set about it

So we went to a firm of consultants

who specialise in helping small businesses

and it proved a turning point

They insisted that we four directors sit down

and rank our investments in order of importance for the coming years

It seems obvious now

but we'd never realised the value of doing it before