For a Leader who has transformed his business for the better in 2020/21
Sponsored by Jonathan Grant – Partner and Head of Corporate at DMH Stallard ( sponsor absent due to being unwell )
Ryan Page – Espresso Solutions
Entrepreneurship is in Ryan’s DNA, having always thrived on new business ideas, he created his first business at the age of 17.
Ryan founded Espresso Solutions in 2012. Negotiating the exclusive distribution of a premiere Italian coffee brand La Marzocco, Ryan was set to go as a parts distributor for commercial coffee machines.
Fast forwarding to 2019 prior the pandemic: The company was in high growth & profitable and at the cusp of achieving Ryan’s ambitious turnover figure.
The pandemic arrived having a severe impact on sales. The coffee shops Espresso Solutions was supplying machinery parts for all closed. Technicians stopped ordering parts.
Espresso Solutions saw sales declining by 78% in the first 10 weeks.
The crisis highlighted the need to mitigate risks, as well as seize the opportunity to meet growing demand of evolving distribution of coffee related products direct to the end user.
A Ryan explained to us earlier this year – “we quickly started to see the spend of smaller, regional businesses increase. Customers were going to their local coffee roaster looking for beans and coffee equipment to use at home to get their caffeine hit. We quickly shifted our communications to focus on selling home brewing equipment, wholesale to roasters“.
Ryan decided to launch a barista distribution channel to respond to market demand.
And so Espresso Solutions Distribution ( ESD) was born – which assisted in maintaining Espresso Solutions market positioning and competitive advantage.
He decided to expand the ESD brand and diversify supply direct to the consumer, by creating a network of retailers to market their products to their existing customer base.
The project impact resulted in Expresso Solutions exceeding the ambitious target set ,delivered a new platform to reach new customers and markets, adding greater value their customers.
A regular attendee at our MDHUB POETS Group which originated in Crawley , we were particularly impressed when Ryan managed to join in a workgroup whilst travelling by train through Italy…
It is no surprise to us at the MDHUB that, in the past 12 months, Ryan has led Espresso Solutions to achieve record sales!