Business Adviser

Derek Allen

Address IconBuckinghamshire and London

Phone Icon01844 319286

Derek is the founder and for 30 years Managing Director of CMC. After the succession of CMC to a new owner in early 2020, he continues to support his CMC clients. Derek has worked in many hundreds of companies, helping the owners make sense of the decisions facing them month in and out. This personal experience is central to his approach and with clients of over 15 years duration, he must be doing something right?  

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How can Derek help you

Using his highly pragmatic approach, Derek can help you to:

  • Understand your personal and commercial objectives

  • Manage and grow your business in a sustainable way

  • Develop succession plans for you and your key people

  • Help you to step back from your business at the right time

  • Develop your exit strategy and prepare your business for its’ next stage

  • Maximise the value of your business to you and your family

About

About Derek

Derek has worked with clients ranging from multi-nationals through to small, privately owned businesses. With this experience and the experience of running the CMC business for 30 years he is now a generalist, able to take a Non Exec view on Finance and Accounts, Sales and Marketing, People and Business Processes.

Having graduated from Loughborough University as a Chartered Production Engineer, Derek began his career with Hamworthy Engineering and Molins Tobacco Machinery. After two years postgraduate study at Henley, he then made a change of direction by joining Avon Cosmetics as a line supervisor. Derek’s management consultancy career started with Neville Clarke in 1984, followed by a move to BDO Binder Hamlyn in their London office. In 1989 he was the founding partner of CMC Partners. Derek is also the owner and managing director of a worldwide airport consultancy called AiQ Consulting.

Visit Derek’s LinkedIn profile for more details.

To find out more about how we work with our clients, visit our library of case studies.

Contact Derek
What our clients say

Testimonials

"Retiring is starting to feel very real suddenly! I don’t think we could be in this position without your involvement and the success of the succession plan you introduced. So glad we found you."

Nicky McCarthy, Director, Connect Systems

"We regard Derek as part of the family. We really feel he cares about us and our business, it’s extremely comforting to know we have an experienced mentor who we can trust and know that he’s on our side."

Jemma Proctor and Phil Gordon – Managing Directors of One Limited

"Derek is a thoroughly approachable consultant armed with practical solutions and tools for giving the small business owner more control over the day to day running of their business. After just one meeting I have grown in confidence and walked away armed with a selection of tools to maximise my control in the business. I once more can see the wood for the trees!"

Chantal Francis-Flores – Managing Director of Chantal Flores Design

Articles

Latest Insights

10 Nov, 2021

How to revive your stagnant business

By Derek Allen

Is your business stuck on a treadmill racing to keep up with the competition? Are business sales flatlining with no sight of improvement? Maybe it’s time to relaunch your business and do things differently. Here’s how one creative company turned it around.

13 Jun, 2021

As a Business Owner how do I motivate my staff?

By Derek Allen

How do I motivate my staff? In this blog we look at research on staff motivation and scaling the business while maintaining motivation of staff.

10 May, 2021

Business Health Checklist – Improve your business worth

By Derek Allen

How do you make your business more attractive to potential buyers? If you’re thinking of selling your business, take a look at this Business Health Checklist to help you focus on key areas that will enhance its appeal.

7 Apr, 2021

Are you and your business ready for your retirement?

By Derek Allen

Are you financially and personally ready to retire from your business? Unsure? Many business owners often underestimate what is involved when planning to leave their business. To help, here we highlight some key questions to help guide your thinking.

23 Mar, 2021

Are you a business baby boomer reluctant to plan your exit?

By Derek Allen

Do you have a plan for leaving your business? The sooner you start thinking about how and when you wish to depart the better. It will give you time to prepare your business, increase its value and reap the rewards you deserve from all your hard work. Here’s how to get started with exit planning.

15 Jun, 2020

Contingency Planning for Retailers and Hospitality Businesses

By Derek Allen

Business continuity management or contingency planning is about the management of risks which could damage your business temporarily or could result in its failure. These risks can arrive suddenly such as through a storm or burglary, be part of a gradually worsening situation such as unexpected long term road works outside your business or a […]

15 Jul, 2016

Overcoming the Blockage to Selling

By Derek Allen

A number of owner managed businesses that we work with are run by people who have received little or no sales training and have very limited sales experience. They don’t like sales – they don’t trust sales – they just get on with it the best they can. For some it doesn’t hinder them but […]

4 Apr, 2016

Non-financial reward ideas to help motivate your staff

By Derek Allen

In my previous blog I reviewed the principle that money is a very important motivator, but not necessarily the prime motivator. Non-financial rewards can be more efficient than cash and create higher impact on people’s motivation. Creating the right culture and environment can be very effective. Many small businesses are unable to finance reward schemes […]

24 Mar, 2016

Should I motivate my staff with financial or non financial rewards?

By Derek Allen

Do financial rewards motivate staff? The plain truth is that we all need money to cover our basic needs – research in this area is long established. But money, while an important motivator, is not the prime motivator as we discussed in my previous blog ‘As a business owner how do I motivate my staff’. Non Financial […]

11 Aug, 2015

Common Business Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

By Derek Allen

When running or starting a business there are numerous mistakes you can make that can impact on your cash flow, motivation of staff, happiness of you and your team and your customers perception of your business. Here are a few to avoid. 1. Not acting on changes to your market This could be new competitors, […]

20 Jan, 2015

New Year, New Broom? New Opportunities!

By Derek Allen

Time for a business review? The start of a New Year is often seen as a time of new beginnings or a chance to sweep away the old and start afresh. This applies as much to business as your personal aspirations and if you have your own business the two are entwined. If you are […]

1 Dec, 2014

Increase Profit with Good Customer Service

By Derek Allen

Customer service has always been at the forefront of everything I do. When most people think about it, their first thoughts are of the service they recently received in a store or restaurant, or perhaps the often bad service they get on the phone to their bank or utility provider- if they can get through […]

1 Dec, 2014

Are you micromanaging your employees and hindering growth?

By Derek Allen

When you have started your company from scratch and have perhaps struggled to get it to where it is, it is often hard to let go. After all, it’s your baby and you know it better than anyone and you know how to make it succeed….. The hardest part of growing a business is to […]

19 Nov, 2014

Families! The trials and tribulations of succession

By Derek Allen

You have run your company successfully for years and have decided you want it to stay in the family so you’ve asked one of your children to join next month…… So many family businesses make an assumption that because they have run it successfully for years and it’s their company, whatever they do will work […]

21 Oct, 2014

Extending your Brand or Product to Create Growth and Exit Value

By Derek Allen

Large corporates have always been good at adding new products to their offer and in the last 20 years or so have embraced brand extensions to add further  growth and value to their company. Smaller SME’s have only more recently become adept at furthering their value this way and there are still untapped opportunities for […]

21 Oct, 2014

Grow your start up business

By Derek Allen

As an owner of a start up business starting to grow, what would it feel like to work with your local CMC Partner? Well, let’s start with what it doesn’t feel like. We will not want to collect a lorry load of financial data – most small businesses that we start working with are desperately short of the right information. The […]

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Clients

Success Stories

How we've helped our clients over the years

Whilst maintaining steady growth, the business owners successful achieved a smooth generational transition and company buy-out.

Steering them calmly through every aspect of the business sale, the company directors achieved what they wanted and so did their buyers – everyone ended up happy.

Through seeking external help, this company doubled the size of the company portfolio to expand into new markets and build a wider client base.

By embracing CMC’s advice, PI-KEM, who supply equipment for scientific research, had the confidence and direction to double the size of their sales and marketing team, resulting in fast growth.

After winning a large contract, this digital marketing agency needed to scale fast. Enlisting the help of their local business adviser, a recruitment plan was created and the team grew fourfold.

To achieve a successful business succession, this IT services company worked with CMC to develop a management structure and growth plan which truly delivered.

“My local business adviser is an invaluable member of our team. Going that extra mile, he is by far a trusted confidant who supports me and my business to help achieve my goals.” CEO, You HR Consultancy

Within 18 months, this IT solutions provider experienced a substantial increase in profitability and is now destined on a path of rapid growth.

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