Profile - Kevin Parkin: ‘Turnaround king’s’ model for next generation of entrepreneurs

HERE’S a brain-teaser for all MBA students.

You’re walking around your factory, and find an employee having a nap.

What do you do? Sack him on the spot? Send him on an intensive health and safety course? Well, if you’re Kevin Parkin, you place a sign on his helmet saying “Sponsored by Horlicks”.

Don’t be misled. Mr Parkin takes safety seriously. But he doesn’t believe that work should be drudgery. When he brought DavyMarkham, the iconic Sheffield manufacturer, back from the brink of collapse, he could often be seen chatting to staff on the factory floor at 7am.

Most of them, you’ll be happy to hear, were very much awake. To Mr Parkin, good management is about face to face contact, rather than an over-reliance on focus groups and flip charts. He despises the “box-ticking” approach to management and education, because it stops people getting down to the nitty gritty of what makes business tick. Schools need to raise their game with regards to career guidance, he argues.

In the early 1970s, he was told to abandon his dreams of becoming an engineer and become a postman instead, because the careers teacher had spotted that he enjoyed walking. Mr Parkin fears that careers advice hasn’t improved much since then.

“We need to match jobs with students and that hasn’t happened for a long, long time,’’ he told me. “We need to bring back the traditional sandwich courses. The careers advice that kids get generally is not appropriate for their personality, their aspirations or what’s right for them at the time. Many kids are influenced by their peer groups, by whoever is going to which university to study the softest, easiest subject.

“I’m not convinced that everybody should be going to university at 18. I think gaining some practical, hands-on experience and then going to university is much better. What we don’t want are people coming out of university who are good at ticking boxes, and good at studying, but don’t understand communications and don’t understand how to present themselves.”

He highlights the success of a new three-year part-time engineering degree course at Sheffield Hallam University which is helping to nurture a new generation of entrepreneurs. These are the types of courses that offer a way forward for Britain’s universities, he says.

As the uncrowned “turnaround king” of Yorkshire, he’s built up a formidable CV. Is your manufacturing firm saddled with lethargic management, demoralised staff and profit figures that resemble a ski slope? It’s probably time to hire a man who didn’t allow a stroke to hold him back.

He took on the role as MD of DavyMarkham at a time when the 180-year-old company’s future was in doubt. He’d also become aware of his own mortality.

Months earlier, Mr Parkin, who was 51 at the time, had suffered a stroke which left him with temporary paralysis on his left side.

“I hadn’t listened to friends or my GP, who told me to slow down, who told me to take things easier, to not take three flights a week and have a permanently packed suitcase ready for trips to the Far East,’’ he recalled. “But there is a buzz to turning around businesses.”

After completing a Huddersfield Polytechnic degree in engineering and business studies, and picking up qualifications in accountancy and marketing, he rapidly rose through the ranks to lead a number engineering firms. When he was appointed MD of DavyMarkham in 2006, he was facing the challenge of a lifetime.

Apart from overcoming his health problems, he was placed in the hotseat at a company with which was on the brink of closure.

The following year, Endless, the Leeds-based investor which turns around troubled firms, bought the company for a nominal sum. In 2010, the firm, which makes large equipment used in the mining, quarrying, power generation, oil, gas and nuclear sectors, was sold to Indian conglomerate IVRCL in a deal worth more than £9m.

So how did Mr Parkin help the company to prosper and become an attractive acquisition prospect?

“The turnaround isn’t about me, it’s about the team you put in place,’’ he said. “You only get respect if you give it. It was about being there early in the morning. It was making sure you understood people’s personal lives. That sort of thing pays back many times over – 160 jobs were saved directly in the business and we created 25 more with the apprentices.”

According to Mr Parkin, DavyMarkham’s salvation was due to management, unions, suppliers and the local council forming a coalition to preserve a great Yorkshire brand.

Earlier this year, former Government minister Richard Caborn devised a plan to boost manufacturing. It involved firing senior civil servants and replacing them with heavyweight Sheffield industrialists, including Mr Parkin.

Speaking at the Cutlers’ Feast in Sheffield, Mr Caborn suggested that, apart from the politicians, the “Sir Humphreys” had also played a role in blocking an £80m loan that would have enabled Sheffield Forgemasters to achieve its nuclear ambitions.

“With respect to many of our politicians, none of them have actually done a day’s work that we would understand,’’ said Mr Parkin. “So it’s difficult to explain to them that manufacturing is key to the future of the country and it needs protecting.

“But we must understand that the permanent secretaries run the country and not the politicians. I have met two or three permanent secretaries and they are very bright guys.

“However, getting them out of Whitehall and into manufacturing plants is extremely difficult.”

He believes we could learn a lot from the French, and their commitment to life-long training. They’ve done a pretty good job of defending their manufacturing base as well.

“The nuclear power industry in France leads the world,’’ said Mr Parkin. “They have been investing for 50 years in nuclear power. We’re way behind. We can see that because the industrial base in the UK to manufacture nuclear components has largely disappeared. A lot of companies are working hard to put that in place, but it’s very expensive and taking a long time.”

And what of the future? He left DavyMarkham in February to set up his own management consultancy, and he’s also chairman of a start-up, Sheffield-based R3 Products, which aims to create 20 jobs by taking waste plastic and turning it into building products. So if you see any workmen pottering around Sheffield wearing “Sponsored by Horlicks” helmets, you’ll know Mr Parkin has just been on a factory tour.

Kevin Parkin Factfile

Name: Kevin Parkin

Title: Chairman R3 Products

Date of birth: May 25, 1954

Education: Central Technical School Sheffield; Huddersfield Polytechnic

First job: Trainee Accountant Dormer Tools

Car driven: Porsche Carrera S4 997 Cabriolet

Favourite holiday destination: Provence

Favourite song: Friends – Amii Stewart

Last book read: Elizabeth I CEO

Favourite film: Dead Man Running

Thing most proud of: Re-opening the apprentice training school at DavyMarkham for 25 young people