What I learnt … about business basics

Kerim Suavi, 33, is managing director of Crowbond Foodservice, a catering greengrocer based in New Spitalfields Market in Leyton, east London. He joined the business set up by his father, Mehmet, from school at 17, when it had four vans delivering fresh fruit and veg to local restaurants. It now has 26 vehicles, serving a wide range of hotels, restaurants, sandwich bars, and street food sellers, employs 65 people and is closing in on £25 million turnover. Next week he will own the business outright after buying out his father.
When my dad was 16, he bought his first shop with his dad, in Hackney Road, east London. It was Crowbond Groceries and no one knows why. So that’s where the name came from. He had the shop and local businesses started asking him to deliver. Eventually he got rid of the shop because he decided the delivery side was better. After I joined, we worked together for five years and then I took over the day-to-day operational management of the business when I was about 23. Since then it has been my baby.
They are our willingness to press forward on technology and to invest for efficiency, cost-cutting and a clear view of how the business is operating. Almost the complete opposite of that is our focus on fundamentals.
One of the things that makes us stand out is our lack of marketing. There are so many entrepreneurs and start-ups that begin with the glitz and glamour, the Vanity Fair of making a logo and building a social media and doing all the things that garner visibility, but what they fail to focus on is the fundamentals. For me, the three cornerstones of most businesses are the product, the service, and the price.
We have always remained geographically close to the market, the product. We are on the market every single night so it is as fresh as it can possibly be. We are buying it daily and turning it over as quickly as possible. In addition, we never over-buy. We try not to be led by price and not to over-buy. If someone offers you something for less than it is usually bought for, there is a temptation to buy more than you need. But we understand that what customers want is the right product. As someone said, “Customers will remember a bad product, far longer than they will remember a high price”. And that is key in our industry.
Prices fluctuate and something can be expensive for a week or two, but it will change. But if you serve someone something that is poor quality, that will stick in their mind.
Being good is subjective. Your idea of good and mine might be two different things. My idea of good service is a commitment to the idea that regardless of the cost to the business, it is our responsibility to deliver what the customer is asking for.
If we need to put a product in an Uber and send it to a customer because that is what is needed, that is what we will do. If I have to come out personally on a Sunday morning because someone needs a delivery or something wasn’t correct on the Saturday, that is in my remit and will be done. It is an overwhelming commitment that the task will be done.
Yes, everyone will deem turning up on time with the right product a good service. It is. But that is the bare minimum. It is what you do over and above that that will make the difference.
Issues are opportunities to shine in the eyes of your customer. If you go out of your way, they will feel your commitment. It can be that you are standing there in a horrific situation that you have caused and by fixing it you are all of a sudden your customer’s favourite person.
Products have an inherent value and whilst service isn’t a tangible item, service has a value. So when you are looking at the price, you have to look at what you are selling and what it is worth, and what the cost of delivering the service is. On top of that, the business has to turn a profit.
The key to finding that happy medium of the business being able to make money but also being fair to the customer is understanding that what you are trying to build is sustainable and be around for a long time. That is what keeps you in check in terms of pricing. A fortune isn’t going to be made in one year, or even five.
Because we are a trading business, on the market day-to-day, buying and selling, the temptation is always there to buy cheap and sell high, or exploit market conditions — a product has been expensive so you leave the price high a little longer than you should.
But our job is as much as we can to smooth that price curve for the customer. As long as we are happy with the amount we are making and it covers our expenses and makes us a sensible margin then that is OK. Don’t worry if everyone else is charging £20, and think we’ll be £19 because that is cheaper than the opposition. No, if you can do it for £15 and it still earns you a sensible margin then do it for £15. Don’t worry about what everyone else is doing — be your own man.
The more of those people you win, the easier it becomes to win the hearts and minds of those that then join the business. When you have built that culture it becomes unwavering and self-sustaining. It is so ingrained in the way that the members of our team do the work and carry themselves on a day-to-day basis that new staff don’t have an opportunity to do the job any other way. If they try to, they don’t last very long, certainly not here, I can tell you.
One lesson, learnt the hard way, is to suffer fewer fools, be even more unwavering in my commitment to what I know to be right. If you have staff members who are not willing to bend to your way, it can’t be tolerated. With the labour market being so difficult in recent years it is tempting to suffer people who just turn up and do the job. It doesn’t make for a solid foundation.
The culture is what drives this business forward but I feel the responsibility of being seen by the staff to be leading from the front. I am very often still found here during the night. We are open 24 hours from Sunday afternoon until we close on Saturday around midday. I like to be seen by all the different shifts during the week and to know that they have my support; that we are in it together.
It would be wonderful. My wife is pregnant with our first child and it would be wonderful, in theory, for my personal life to slow down now, and see what the other side of life is about. But it depends what you want out of it.
My vision for what the business can be is so much more than what it is right now. It feels like I am really only just arriving at the beginning. We have a decent management structure and we are now looking at marketing, branding and technology and I am just scraping the surface of those things.
No, definitely not. My wife is expecting me to come straight from work and/or return straight to work. I will probably have my laptop in hand in the hospital. I am sure it is the case with many of the entrepreneurs you have interviewed that it is a 24/7 commitment and a lifestyle choice. You are either in or you are out, there are no half-hearted commitments here.
Kerim Suavi was talking to Richard Tyler, editor of the Times Enterprise Networkhttp://www.thetimes.com/ten