Bizquip

Our featured business this week is Bizquip, located in the Sandyford Retail Park. We spoke to Jim Leyden, Managing Director. Jim is both the founder and managing director of Bizquip, which all started back in 1984.

About Bizquip

Bizquip is the largest independent and fully Irish owned office supplies company which recently was rated in the top 1000 Irish owned companies operating in Ireland. It is also one of the top companies in the office supplier industry in Ireland which provides a complete service solution for its clients, offering a wide range of products and services, ranging from pens and staples to office space planning and furniture. One of Bizquip’s key advantages is that of its single source solution which is located in Sandyford, Dublin.

Jim’s first job was as a salesman for a frozen food company and he also had a brief stint going from door to door selling encyclopedias. This is where he feels he was able to develop his skills and master some essential selling techniques that have helped him achieve what he has today. It provided him with invaluable first hand sales experience and as a result, he knew fairly well what people wanted from a company’s products and services and to an extent from the sales force as well.

We asked Jim about the future for SME’s in Ireland and he provided us with some personal insights about setting up and running an SME.

Insights for entrepreneurs

Jim had the following insights and advice for new entrepreneurs: The future as I see it is still positive , all the current hullaballoo in the media tends to ignore that there is still an underlying series of positive factors that makes Ireland one of the best places in the world to live and work – apart from the weather!

Whilst I appreciate it could be deemed to be slightly simplistic, all people need to do in business terms is concentrate on niche markets and opportunities, in particular, in any business that adds value or saves money, time or resources for others. Look at growth markets for instance. How many people had heard of mobile phone apps 5 years ago? Now it’s one of the fastest growing categories of its kind in the world and there are plenty of Irish companies involved as well as individuals.

Getting results

Bizquip as a business has refocused its efforts on achieving savings, increasing productivity and allowing our clients a return on investment by proving to them how by engaging with us we can achieve real results.

I am not always advocating cutting staff, rather showing people efficiencies and other forms of cost savings all of which are positive rather than creating negativity all the time.

One area that I am particularly passionate about is building relations and any new start up company needs strong relations and contacts with a whole host of advisors ranging from solicitors to accountants to insurance brokers to bank managers.

Nobody ever set up in business without advice from someone - remember minds are like parachutes they only work when open!

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