Bus

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s Pets before profitsBusiness magazine interviews Matt Davies,

Chief Executive of Pets at Home.

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High profile eventsbuild the reputationof our region

What happenswhen businessesand universitieswork together?

‘Real deal’ worldleading simulatorsarrive at theLogistics Institute

Contents

Pets before profits.........................................................................

Business school alumnus and Chief Executive of Pets atHome, Matt Davies, talks about the balance between healthypets and healthy profits

Issu

e16

|Oct

ober

2010

01 Welcome

02 Pets before profits

04 Improving ourinternational links

05 Raising the region’sprofile

06 When practitionersand academics worktogether...

07 ‘Real deal’ simulatorsfor logistics

08 News in brief

New direction forresearch

09 Keeping in touch

Helping graduates tosucceed

10 Events diary

05 06 07

02

Cover image:©iStockphoto David Selby

We are all being encouraged to do more for less in this current‘age of austerity’.

In the business school we are embracing this challenge byensuring that the education and training we provide offersorganisations the best value and is directly concerned withimproving business efficiency. We pride ourselves onaddressing the issues that are most important to businesses,offering practical solutions that can be immediatelyimplemented in the workplace.

We continue to develop our links with business practitionersthrough events such as Humber Business Week, in which wehosted an event on ‘Talent Management’ (p5), a key issue fororganisations looking to hold onto key employees inchallenging times. And capitalising on our relationships withbusiness, the Logistics Institute has become the onlyEuropean demonstrator centre for MPRI simulators, enablinglogistics practitioners and students to brush up their skills in aconvincing but less stressful environment (p7).

There is also the opportunity for external practitioners to getmore involved with the business school by participating inseminars, conferences and events that showcase businessexcellence, such as the annual Peter Thompson lecture (p5)which this year focuses on shipping, a key issue for the region.

With our wide range of expertise, access to funding and linkswith business, Hull University Business School has much tooffer the economy in a region which will need to work extrahard to secure long-term recovery.

Professor Mike JacksonDean of School

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Welcome

If you have any news for the nextissue, or require further informationon any of the items featured, pleasecontact

Kate TysonHull University Business SchoolT +44 (0)1482 463335k.tyson@hull.ac.uk

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So, when Business magazine read that leading UK petcare and supply retailer, Pets at Home, had reported a36% rise in pre-tax profits in June 2010 and opened 24new shops in 2009, we decided to talk with ChiefExecutive and business school alumnus, Matt Davies, tosee if he would share the secret of his business’s success.

Business magazine (BM): Pets at Home is a recognisedhousehold name and has recently recorded a great year.At a time when many retailers are feeling the effects of therecession, can you attribute this success to any specificfactors?

Matt Davies (MD): Obviously the business is not completelyimmune to the recession but we do sell products that arereasonably recession proof. Most people tend to bepassionate about their pets and when times are tough areless likely to cut back on this big part of their lives.

We are probably helped by the fact that our averagetransaction size is less than £20 and when money is tight,lower cost products will obviously sell better. Some otherbrands for which I have great respect have not fared sowell in the recession and those selling big ticket items,regardless of how good their product is, have struggled.

BM: The company’s mantra is ‘pets before profit’, anethical approach that is different to many corporateorganisations. How important is it to your business andhow do you ensure that this value is shared?

MD: This ethos is more important than anything else. Ifwe ever start compromising by only thinking aboutprofits, we won’t have a business to promote. To be fair alot of corporate organisations get a bad press, but I don’tknow of many businesses that don’t care about the impactthey have on the wider environment.

At Pets at Home, we make sure that the pets we do sell goto the right home and we try to educate owners in petcare. As part of this responsibility, we heavily support petadoption and are really proud of our record in this. Lastyear we raised over £1m nationally towards homeless

animal shelters and helped to re-home 50,000 pets. Ouraim is to re-home abandoned animals rather than sellnew ones.

Across the whole business, we want to do the right thing.Making sure that someone has the right pet for them andall the correct equipment to give it a good home is key. Weneed to take problems seriously and ensure that unwantedpets don’t become even more of a problem. We don’t wantto be perceived as a corporation that doesn’t care.

BM: Only 12 years after leaving university you becameChief Executive at the age of 33. What is the secret to yourrapid rise to success? Do you feel your time at universityhelped to prepare you for the challenges you face today?

MD: I didn’t really have a grand plan after I left universityhaving had a fabulous time there. I joined ArthurAndersen to do corporate recovery, which was a great wayto learn about business for three or four years. Fromcorporate recovery, I went into corporate finance and metthe person who founded Pets at Home, eventually joiningthe organisation as Finance Director.

I enjoy working with people and have been privileged towork with great people throughout my career. I’d hate towork on my own at home as I love the social interactionside of an organisation, the banter, camaraderie andhumour. Ultimately, I work hard and enjoy what I do.

BM: Do you have any advice for our students andgraduates who are looking to start a career in business?

MD: The sheer variety of opportunities available inbusiness supports career development post-university,and I would advise getting exposure to many differentfunctional areas as this will help shape what your passionis going to be in business.

Personally, be yourself. It’s the good people who workhard with a great attitude that get on. We only get one life,don’t waste it. Make sure that you enjoy what you do andenjoy the people you work with, otherwise you will neverbe good at your job.

Pets before profitsThe recession and global economic downturn have hit many businesses hard and over thepast two years we have said goodbye to many household names.

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Matt Davies – Curriculum Vitae

1989 – 1992 University of Hull – BSc Accountingand Finance

1992 – 1996 Arthur Andersen – CorporateRecovery Practice

1996 – 2000 Natwest Markets / Rothschild –Various advisory roles

2000 – 2001 Caudwell Communications –Financial Director of distributionbusiness within Caudwell

2001 – 2003 Pets at Home – Finance Director

2004 – present Pets at Home – Chief Executive

Partnership activities include collaborative research projects, exchangeprogrammes for staff and students and reach out programmes, buildingon our successes. This year in particular, our relationship withUniversidad Los Andes School of Management (UASM) in Colombia hasflourished.

As part of this, MSc Financial Management students, Suliman Aljabrinand Falah Al Ghanim, were given the opportunity to experience adifferent type of learning when they attended the UASM summer schoolin July.

Falah explained: ‘Our MSc timetable was already pretty full, but thissounded like a great chance to experience something new. I had neverthought of visiting Colombia, so when the opportunity came up I wasreally interested in taking the challenge and having an adventure.’

The students learnt alongside MBA students at UASM, benefiting fromadvice and tuition from experienced external professionals.

‘UASM is part of one of the best universities in Latin America and thewhole experience was of a very high standard – from the teaching andlearning to the accommodation and planning,’ explained Suliman.

‘The other students on the programme were excellent and we definitelylearned a lot from the experience.’

The summer school programme lasted three weeks and after this, Falahand Suliman travelled through Colombia.

‘The welcome we received was fantastic, not just at the university butbeyond. Colombia is a beautiful country with a great mix of life andcultures,’ concluded Falah.

As well as summer programmes, the business school is engaged withUASM in a range of other activities including joint research in complexityand sustainability, staff becoming visiting faculty and collaboration onbusiness outreach activity globally.

For more information about the school’s international strategicpartnerships, please visit www.hull.ac.uk/hubs.

Improving our international links

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Our links with five strategicpartner institutions, spreadacross the globe, are more thanjust relationships withinstitutions that share ourvalues. These connections feedinto and benefit every area ofour activity, helping us toincrease our international reach.

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Raising the region’sprofileCommitted to developing the region’s businesscommunity, the business school is working hard to putHull on the map in terms of high profile events andworld-class training programmes.

From holding a seminar on research into ‘Talent Management’ during theannual Humber Business Week to hosting a roundtable discussion on thestate of the region with Yorkshire Business Insider magazine, the schoolhas been at the forefront of raising the profile of the region. By combiningacademic excellence with business practice, Hull University BusinessSchool is able to offer practical advice and guidance for the future as wellas boosting the recovery of British business.

And this momentum is set to continue, with a series of conferences andevents, starting with the Peter Thompson lecture on 28 October 2010.

As part of the programme of business interaction, this annual guestlecture is hosted in recognition of the generosity of Dr Thompson, OBE,LLD, JP in endowing the Peter Thompson Chair in Port Logistics –currently held by Professor David Menachof.

This year, Dr Helmut Sohmen, chairman of shipping industryheavyweight BW Group, will speak on ‘Shipping and Governments: AnUneasy Partnership’, reflecting on the potential conflicts betweenbusiness, governments and other interested parties.

Dr Sohmen said: ‘Whether perceived or not, global shipping touchesmillions of lives. It is an essential facilitator of world trade, a majorcontributor to the rise in global welfare, a large employer around theworld and an immense user of capital.

‘It is therefore vital issues are resolved and that government rules forshipping are uniformly applied to ensure equality for nations andindustry participants.’

The school’s status as a centre for research excellence will be furthercemented as it hosts two prestigious annual academic conferences in 2011– for the Organisational Learning, Knowledge and Capabilities (OLKC)group and the International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS).

These conferences will bring the leading minds in business theory andpractice to the region, showcasing the business school, Hull and theregion as an area of excellence and growth for the future.

The 2010 Peter Thompson lecture will take place on Thursday 28October at Hull University Business School. To reserve your placeplease contact Ian Calvert on +44 (0)1482 463183.

For more information about this event and the OLKC 2011conference, please visit www.hull.ac.uk/hubs/olkc2011.

When practitioners andacademics work together...

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Businesses are being shown that they can connect withuniversities through means other than just educationprogrammes and consultancy. Academics are oftenaccused of sitting in an ‘ivory tower’ and being unable tocommunicate their ideas in simple terms. So whathappens when academics are approached by businessto collaborate on research topics? Are the interests ofeach group complementary or prone to collide?

Dr Kevin Orr, Director of the Centre for Organisational Futures, wasasked to consider these questions in the latest edition of PublicMoney & Management – a CIPFA-published review of policy andmanagement issues in the public sector and regulated industries.

He said: ‘Our work drew together international groups of senioracademics, government advisors and the ESRC to examine theirexperiences of working in collaborative research teams involvingacademics and practitioners.

We found that working together can be exceptionally beneficial,enabling us to generate more user-relevant and high impactresearch. However, it can be a political process involvingnegotiations on both sides.

‘Both parties have distinct interests, expectations and prioritieswhich influence decisions. For example, there are perceptions thatacademics only want to conduct the research and have no conceptof what is practical in business. By the same token, it is oftenassumed that businesses have neither the time nor the resources toundertake an in-depth study or won’t deal with difficult ideas. In myexperience, both are myths.

‘Working with business allows practitioners to benefit fromacademic inquiry and enables academics to enquire aboutpractice as well as give insight into areas of business that wewould not normally be able to access.

‘There are of course more challenging aspects to collaborativeworking. What are the costs of gaining access to practitionercommunities and what are the implications for hallowed

academic independence? And who ‘owns’ the knowledge?

‘Businesses can benefit from academic expertise on jointprojects and vice versa. Neither academics nor practitionershave all the relevant knowledge and skills to make significantadvances in the problems posed by the modern world so it is

vital to work together to further develop business.

‘Ultimately, those I’ve worked with recently seem to feelthere is far more to be gained than risked by both partiesworking together.’

For more information about collaborative researchopportunities at the business school, visit our researchpages at www.hull.ac.uk/hubs.

©iStockphoto.com michealofiachr

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Currently the use of simulators represents only a smallpart of the UK training market, but it is believed that thisis set to explode as we follow the lead of the US inexpanding their use in training.

The joint venture with American company L-3 MPRI andYorkshire-based consultancy, Archomai, was launched inJuly 2010 with a high-profile event. This project cements apartnership that will team technologically advancedsimulators with leading academic expertise.

The simulators relate to ‘real life’ jobs in construction andlogistics and offer scenario training for mobile cranedrivers, tower crane operators, liquid cargo handling andport crane operators. The realistic and interactiveequipment instructs users on how to operate equipmentsafely and efficiently, giving them invaluable experience,such as accident situations and bad weather conditions.

The launch event attracted delegates from across theregion and speakers included Dennis Corrigan, senior vicepresident of L-3 MPRI’s Training Systems Group andProfessor David Menachof, Peter Thompson Chair of PortLogistics at the Logistics Institute.

Professor Menachof believes that the investment from L-3MPRI will enable the Humber region to have competitiveadvantage over the rest of the country. He said: ‘Thistechnology, coupled with our world class logistics andsupply chain management programmes, means we canoffer businesses a service that takes simulator training inthis country to a new level.

‘We intend to jointly pursue research in technologyassisted training, especially where it is related to thelogistics and construction sectors. The simulators willprovide excellent and effective training, provingbeneficial for businesses across the region and beyond.’

Dennis Corrigan agreed, saying that his company wasexcited by the opportunity to work with the businessschool.

‘It is a leading academic institution appropriately based inthe UK’s largest port complex and has the facilities andstaff to match the quality of MPRI’s training solutions’.

For more information about the simulators at HullUniversity Business School, please contact Richard Faint,commercial manager of the Logistics Institute, on 01482347500.

The school’s Logistics Institute has become home to a range of world-leading trainingsimulators, making it the only centre of its kind in Europe.

‘Real deal’ simulators for logistics

Graduation 2010

Nearly 100 students attended thefirst business school summergraduation reception followingtheir ceremony on 12 July 2010.The event was a great success andgave staff and former students theopportunity to say their goodbyes.Dean of school, Professor MikeJackson, gave a short speech towish the graduates well in theircareers and reminded them to keepin touch over the coming yearsthrough our alumni association.

Ethical issues in logisticsDrawing on the considerable in-house expertise in the area, thisyear’s annual logistics conferencefocused on ethical, sustainableand green issues. The event wasonce again well attended, with themain speaker and school alumnusDr Martin Blake, Head ofSustainability at Royal Mail,proving to be a major draw.

KTP for KeyfortCloud computing specialistKeyfort has joined with theLogistics Institute to help logisticsbusinesses communicate moreeffectively through a two-year,partially funded KnowledgeTransfer Partnership (KTP).

Bournemouth-based Keyfortmoved into an incubator office atthe institute in March, takingadvantage of the institute’sexpertise and resources.

This will continue as ProfessorDavid Menachof will be the leadacademic on the project.

KTPs are run through theUniversity’s Knowledge Exchangeand allow businesses to accessexpertise and guidance notnormally available to them. Tofind out more about KTPs, contactLiz Ringrose on 01482 464909 orl.ringrose@hull.ac.uk.

CSR tops the internationalagendaBusiness school academic, DrAshish Dwivedi, recently co-organised a two-day internationalsummit on the theme of corporatesocial responsibility (CSR) in NewDelhi. The conference took awider view of CSR, taking itbeyond charity and assessing howit can integrate social,environmental and ethicalconcerns into an organisation’sprocesses.

Students top of PCWorldFour first year students haveproved themselves ‘techno savvy’marketers in the PC World StudentMarketing Assignmentcompetition. They beat off stiffcompetition to become one of onlythree chosen nationally to presentto the organisation’s top levelmarketing team.

Genevieve Lam, Victoria Jackson,Ellis Postlethwaite and EmilyBeardow represented the businessschool in the competition,presenting their marketing plan toencourage more people to shop atPC World.

The team received excellentfeedback, hugely impressing thejudges with their ‘understandingof the market and ideas on how totarget students effectively.

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News in brief

Further news and informationwill be added throughout theyear, please visit the newssection of our website,www.hull.ac.uk/hubs.

New focus forresearch

As part of a majorreorganisation of its research,the business school hascreated four new researchcentres: Centre forOrganisational Ethics; Centrefor Organisational Futures;Centre for Innovations inBusiness and ManagementEducation; and Centre forRegional and InternationalBusiness.

This multidisciplinary approach willcomplement the existing well-established centres of research inEconomic Policy, Accounting andFinance, Marketing, Logistics andSystems Studies, which waspioneered at Hull in the 1970s.

The new centres will connectknowledge from academics across abroad range of business disciplines.They will focus on wide ranging andtopical research, and will investigatevital business themes such asinternational investment andcorporate social responsibility.

Professor Steve Armstrong oversawthe changes. He said: ‘Among ourstaff we have many leading lights inacademia, from the dean of schoolProfessor Mike Jackson who has aninternational reputation in systemsthinking, to visiting professor andguru in logistics, Martin Christopher.

‘A connected approach to researchmeans that we will be able to bettercapitalise on the expertise we havewithin the school, which will enableus to equip business leaders withthe very best knowledge to embracethe future.’

The research centres are all headedby experienced academics and willconcentrate on publishing in fourand five star journals in their fieldand putting their research intopractice.

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The business school’smission is to equip managersand business professionalsto succeed in a fast-changingand interconnected world.With this in mind, we arelaunching a new scheme toenable our global alumnicommunity to continue theirprofessional developmentfollowing graduation.

Entitled Alumni Connect thesubscription-based scheme is aimedat individuals who graduated fromHull University Business School post1999 or in a business related subjectpre 1999. Graduates can benefit from:

• access to electronic businessjournals and archive memberdirectories

• invitations to business lectures andseminars

• the latest research from the school’sacademic staff

• attendance at an annual conferencein the UK and overseas locations

• career information, advice andcoaching

• regular e-newsletters

This scheme will enable members toremain abreast of the latest businessthinking and provide opportunities tofurther develop their knowledge andskills.

If you would like to register yourinterest please contact Sarah Fewster,Alumni Communications Manager, ats.fewster@hull.ac.uk

Helping graduatesto succeed

Social mediaThe business school has launched social media groups to encourage itsstakeholders to get involved and share their views and experiences of theschool.

Each page will keep members up-to-date with the latest news andupcoming events, as well as opening up discussions and networkingopportunities.

Keep in touch throughFacebook: Join our school page at www.facebook.com/hubs. We alsohave a thriving alumni page where they can reconnect with formerclassmates and find out more about graduate opportunities.

Twitter: Get the latest bite-size information on research, news and eventsby following us at hubsonline.

LinkedIn: Our MBA Alumni have their own LinkedIn group, which allowsthem to keep in touch, network and share best practice.

YouTube: The school has its own channel, showcasing video clips ofevents, student testimonials and academic comments on current hottopics. Search for hubsweb.

Suggest an issue?We are always looking for new ways to connect with our readers. If youwould like our experts to consider a particular topic in the next edition ofBusiness magazine, please let us know by contacting PR Officer KateTyson on +44 (0)1482 463335 or email k.tyson@hull.ac.uk.

Keeping in touch

©iStockphoto Scott Dunlap

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Open daysFull-time coursesSaturday 9 October 2010

Open days offer the chance foranyone wanting to study anundergraduate programme tovisit the business school at eitherthe Hull or Scarboroughcampuses.

Visitors will meet members ofstaff from the business school, aswell as interact with currentstudents, helping applicants tomake an informed decision abouttheir future education.

Part-time coursesOpen evenings for part-timecourses enable you to find outmore about how our ExecutiveMBA and BA BusinessManagement courses canenhance your business andmanagement knowledge andskills.

For further information on full orpart-time open days, please visitthe business school’s events webpage at www.hull.ac.uk/hubs.

Businesslectures/workshopsPeter Thompson guest lecture,delivered by Dr Helmut Sohmen,Shipping and governments: anuneasy partnershipThursday 28 October 2010

To reserve your place, pleasecontact Ian Calvert on+44(0)1482 463183

Procurement workshopWednesday 20 – Thursday 21October 2010

To book your place, pleasecontact Sam Davy,s.davy@hull.ac.uk or +44 (0)1482347524

For further information about anyof the events listed above orforthcoming events, please visitthe events section of our website,www.hull.ac.uk/hubs.

Hull University Business SchoolHullHU6 7RX

T +44 (0)1482 347500E businessschool@hull.ac.uk

W www.hull.ac.uk/hubs

Events diary