Profile: Alan Savage, Ernst & Young Scottish Entrepreneur of the Year

14/6/07

ALAN Savage could be considered the quiet man of Scottish business. Described as "the entrepreneur's entrepreneur" by his contemporaries, the Inverness-based businessman has built Orion Group from a team of two to an engineering recruitment specialist with 500 staff and 110,000 people on its database worldwide.

His efforts over the past 20 years were recognised on Wednesday night, when, under the glare of the lights in the Glasgow Hilton, he was crowned the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in Scotland. Savage joins the cream of the nation's entrepreneurial talent, including Keith Miller, Robert Wiseman and Sir Bill Gammell.

Outside Scotland's most northerly city, where he is also Inverness Caledonian Thistle's chairman, the Manchester-born shy millionaire is virtually unknown, but look at almost any major oil platform in the world and Orion-appointed staff will be working hard.

Brought up in the shadow of Old Trafford, Savage would watch his heroes, including George Best, on the pitch. Now with the success of Orion, which is projected to turn over £300 million in the coming year, he can afford to lease a box at the ground and watch the game in style.

"United were always my team down south," Savage recalls. "I didn't have a season ticket, but you didn't need one back then. I used to just walk in and watch George Best play in the late 1960s.

"Now my company has a box at Old Trafford, which we use three or four times a year."

His love affair with Scotland began with a two-day work trip to Inverness for a Swiss multinational firm. He never returned and established his firm to recruit labour to Moray Firth fabrication yards. Armed with a typewriter and helped by his wife, Linda, creating Orion was for him a simple way to put his two children through university.

Savage, with his reputation for being straight talking and fun, could not have imagined the firm would grow into a global brand. He says: "I came up here for two days and have been here ever since. I just fell in love with the place and it was a great area to bring the kids up. After six years here I started up Orion Engineering.

"It is an honour to receive the Entrepreneur of the Year accolade and it is also a credit to the team at Orion. I'd like to think that by winning this award I have helped put Inverness on the map and highlight the strength of businesses operating in the region."

Savage says the firm has grown rapidly and diversified to meet industry demand, adding: "We're now firmly on course to rack up a record £300m turnover internationally in 2007 and we're bringing £100m of inward investment a year back in to the Scottish economy.

"We've got a rail division in Glasgow, a civil construction business in London and 800 people working in Kazakhstan. The firm's also opened branches in Australia and Canada, so it's quite a big operation."

The formula for his achievement? He jokes: "I often get asked what is the key to my success and the answer is paranoia, the fear that what you are doing is not good enough is a key driver to make you go that extra mile and continually strive to better yourself."

Jim McColl, the founder of Clyde Blowers and chairman of the awards judging panel, says his strong point is the fact that he is not afraid to take risks.

Savage has his own answer to that claim. He says: "Someone who takes risk and gains from it is an entrepreneur but someone who takes risk and loses money is an idiot - there's a fine line between the two."

Mark Harvey, Ernst & Young partner and leader of Entrepreneur of the Year in Scotland, adds: "His focused approach and willingness to take risks make him a fitting role model for other indigenous businesses to follow and a worthy winner for Scotland."

McColl says the strategy of investing heavily in his people has paid off for Savage, observing: "He has developed a clear vision for the business and has set goals for future growth and expansion."

Before the Holyrood election, Savage put his head above the parapet to fight for the Union and warned voters not to "sleepwalk into separation". He said at the time:

"Going it alone brings risks in defecting from a Union which has been arguably the most successful nation state in history."

Although the SNP has since arrived in power, Savage is hoping the party will not use its Holyrood powers to raise income tax by 3 per cent. He warns that with a scenario of taxes rising in Scotland and falling south of the Border, the country could see a major exit south of skilled workers. He says he harbours "fears for jobs and the economy".

It has not all been plain sailing for the man described by the receptionist at his Inverness headquarters "as one of the few gentlemen left in the world".

Savage and his two children, Fiona and Paul, were devastated by the death of Linda in January 2006. She died aged 53 after a long battle with cancer and since then Savage has raised tens of thousands of pounds for Marie Curie Cancer Care.

Taking part in a six-day, 550km challenge cycle ride last September from Prague to Warsaw, Savage collected more than £30,000 in sponsorship and his firm matched the sum collected.

It was Savage's daughter who spotted a notice for the charity cycle event and encouraged him to take part. With a training regime that included a 64 mile circuit round Loch Ness, Savage prepared for the six-day tour across eastern Europe.

On completing the event, in a note to staff, he wrote:

"Little did I know at the time of agreeing to participate, just how much my backside would hurt, but with plenty of cream and standing up on the pedals as often as I could, I survived to cycle across the finish line in Warsaw. Any pain was forgotten."

A colleague says that all the staff were devastated by the loss of Linda, and it hit Savage very hard.

"In typical fashion, he threw himself into raising money for cancer charities. It was his way of coping and the charity work gave him a focus.

"We were all so proud of him but many of us didn't know what to say.

"Linda was his rock. He deserves many more awards than he will ever win."

BIG NEW CONTRACTS

ORION Group has won the coveted contract to supply hundreds of workers to the Shell Pearl gas development in Qatar.

The three-year award will create 60 new support jobs within Orion itself, including at its Inverness, Aberdeen and Glasgow offices.
The contract, at Ras Laffan, a coastal city 40 miles from Doha, is for work on the biggest project in the world for converting gas to liquid.
It follows Orion securing a three-year contract worth about £75m to supply skilled personnel to the world's biggest energy project at Sakhalin Island, a Russian-owned island off the coast of Japan. Orion will supply 200 engineering and technical staff from the UK, mostly Scots from the Highlands and Grampian areas, to the Sakhalin development.

The Scotsman, 14/6/2007