Glasgow-based 3Business Group will post turnover this year approaching £5m, with outstanding profit margins. Staff numbers are up to 60 and the group is now operating internationally.
February 27, 2006 (Press Release) --
The Herald, February 27 2006
What is the obvious thing to do if you've set up a successful telecoms business and you have an urge to diversify? Set up a flying school?
No, that's just silly. Well, how about opening a chain of bed supermarkets? Oh puh-lease, let's not venture any further into the realms of the absurd.
The thing to do, clearly, is ask Ian Vaughan, the Ferrari-driving graduate of Richard Emmanuel's DX Communications empire who set up 3business Group, a provider of business entertainment and mobile content services – such as ring tones – whose growth curve is heading off the chart.
The Glasgow-based group will post turnover this year approaching £5m, with profit margins which would have most businessmen gibbering like Crazy Frog. Staff numbers are up to 60 and the group is operating internationally, with a particularly lucrative seam in Australia.
So, what is Vaughan's answer to the diversification dilemma? Yes, needless to say, he's opened a bed supermarket and a flight school – both of which have taken off, so to speak, in a dramatic fashion.
The reasons will become apparent later, but the enterprise which put him in a position to take these seemingly tangential steps began just five years ago, when O2 took over DX and he did not like its rationalisation plans. He waved goodbye without a great deal of compunction.
"I was never a salesman, but DX taught me how to do it and I became their number two salesman in the UK," the ebullient entrepreneur said at his headquarters in a business park just behind the Iron Horse on the M8 at Baillieston.
"I started reselling telecoms such as premium rate services and moved quickly into ring tones. But I saw that the money was not in selling other people's services, but providing my own, so I hired a programmer from Bulgaria and built a system which ranged from simple tones to 16-tone polyphonics."
By 2002, 3business was a primary supplier, selling to the resellers, of whom there were thousands up and down the country. "Some of them," said Vaughan, "were kids sitting in a bedroom earning thousands of pounds a month."
What kept 3business ahead of the pack was tightly controlled accounting and billing methods, which allowed Vaughan to keep track of the huge customer base. It remains a primary supplier – with some 50% of its offerings original content – having seen off competition within the UK. Most competitors are now in continental Europe.
More at http://www.3business.com/3Business_The_Herald_27022006.html
What is the obvious thing to do if you've set up a successful telecoms business and you have an urge to diversify? Set up a flying school?
No, that's just silly. Well, how about opening a chain of bed supermarkets? Oh puh-lease, let's not venture any further into the realms of the absurd.
The thing to do, clearly, is ask Ian Vaughan, the Ferrari-driving graduate of Richard Emmanuel's DX Communications empire who set up 3business Group, a provider of business entertainment and mobile content services – such as ring tones – whose growth curve is heading off the chart.
The Glasgow-based group will post turnover this year approaching £5m, with profit margins which would have most businessmen gibbering like Crazy Frog. Staff numbers are up to 60 and the group is operating internationally, with a particularly lucrative seam in Australia.
So, what is Vaughan's answer to the diversification dilemma? Yes, needless to say, he's opened a bed supermarket and a flight school – both of which have taken off, so to speak, in a dramatic fashion.
The reasons will become apparent later, but the enterprise which put him in a position to take these seemingly tangential steps began just five years ago, when O2 took over DX and he did not like its rationalisation plans. He waved goodbye without a great deal of compunction.
"I was never a salesman, but DX taught me how to do it and I became their number two salesman in the UK," the ebullient entrepreneur said at his headquarters in a business park just behind the Iron Horse on the M8 at Baillieston.
"I started reselling telecoms such as premium rate services and moved quickly into ring tones. But I saw that the money was not in selling other people's services, but providing my own, so I hired a programmer from Bulgaria and built a system which ranged from simple tones to 16-tone polyphonics."
By 2002, 3business was a primary supplier, selling to the resellers, of whom there were thousands up and down the country. "Some of them," said Vaughan, "were kids sitting in a bedroom earning thousands of pounds a month."
What kept 3business ahead of the pack was tightly controlled accounting and billing methods, which allowed Vaughan to keep track of the huge customer base. It remains a primary supplier – with some 50% of its offerings original content – having seen off competition within the UK. Most competitors are now in continental Europe.
More at http://www.3business.com/3Business_The_Herald_27022006.html
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