Feature
The experience of working in a large
events company inevitably informs the
way that entrepreneurs approach the
working culture in their own business
and Manji and Kaker took the good bits
from their former employer.
“Marcus Evans did some things
really well with good processes and, in
particular we wanted to emulate the
feeling on-site and the fun that clients
had, even though the serious business of
knowledge and content are paramount,”
Manji explains.
“We decided to place emphasis on the
informal networking, even though it
costs more, people have a better time and
open up.” Kaker adds.
The growth story
The journey in building from one event
to a portfolio of 13 events today was
initially achieved through geo-cloning
CS4CA.
“We realised that the challenges that
companies have in Europe are the same
as they have in other parts of the world,
so we worked through the sponsors. Once
we had credibility through our initial
events our sponsors talked to us about
where they were focussing their business
and we set up events in USA, Asia Pacific
and Latin America for them. This was the
first leg of our growth,” explains Kaker.
One of the topics in CS4CA which
gained a lot of interest was IoT (the
Internet of Things) and Manji and Kaker
decided that it merited more depth
and created an industrial IoT event.
In the same way, they realised that the
manufacturing sector faced similar
challenges to the oil and gas sector and
ManuSec was born.
Now the business operates four brands
across five continents and the founders
consider themselves to be market leaders
in industrial cyber security. I ask Manji
what the main challenges have been.
“Ironically we’ve been victims of
cyber security attacks ourselves with
our website taken down and our email
systems hacked,” he says.
Challenges and rewards
In common with most small growing
businesses, staffing has also presented
difficulties as the company has grown
from the two founders to a current staff
of thirteen.
Kaker reflects on the issues:
“Understanding what motivates the
younger members of our team – the
millennials – is a challenge as their
motivations are very different from ours.
Our senior team is stable but recruiting
the right junior people has been a
challenge and we made the mistake of
Year to March Number of Events Revenue
2016 4 495k
2017 6 756k
2018 8 £1.4m
2019 10 £2m
2020 Forecast 13 £2.6m
hiring quickly because of the rapidly
increasing workload. We came to realise
the importance of spending time to find
the right person, so the creation of the
right team has taken longer than we
anticipated.”
These problems aside, the founders
never imagined that the business would
develop so successfully, and it has
provided each of them with unexpected
benefits.
Kaker tells me: “I didn’t realise that I
would have the passion and interest in
the challenges that our clients have and
how important it was for me to go on that
journey with them in order to provide
the platform for them to share and
collaborate.”
Manji adds: “At the beginning we were
focussing on the commercial aspects, but
I soon realised that the freedom to follow
our instincts allowed us to do far more
than we had expected. We are very close
to the clients because, even though the
company has grown, we still maintain
that personal touch.”
What lies ahead?
So, what’s next for Qatalyst?
Manji sums it up: “Our sector is growing
because of increased vulnerabilities
and hacking activities. Cyber-war is the
new form of terrorism and this is now a
boardroom issue rather than an IT one.
We’re selling out our events and turning
away sponsorship and we’re at the stage
where we are starting to create multi-
track programmes and to create more
exhibition space without compromising
the quality that our delegates expect.
“In time we will create a Critical Assets
Week which will bring together some
of our existing events and expand them
into something that is more exhibition-
led. To do this we need to concentrate
on growing the capability of the team,
bringing in some exhibition experience,
further empower the senior team and
automate more of the processes.”
Have they enjoyed the journey so
far? “We’ve loved some days, been
severely challenged some days but learnt
constantly,” concludes Kaker.
September — 35