Daniel Muir
Murthly-based Daniel Muir runs Supply Chain Scotland, a new advice and resource consultancy that supports businesses to manage the systems, structures and processes they need in place to deliver projects or goods and services to their customers.
The company offers everything from ‘light touch’ advice to more in-depth and hands-on consultancy and fully scoped larger projects.
Daniel had heard about GrowBiz and the services it offers through friends who also run their own business and signed up to some of the webinars the enterprise support organisation offers.
He then attended a drop-in session, chatted to some of the team, and since then has had one-to-one support from experienced enterprise facilitators.
Getting started
Daniel set up Supply Chain Scotland in 2019 after some twenty years working in the manufacturing sector.
Throughout his career, he has gained lots of experience, and he decided that he wanted to bring the skills and knowledge he has to help smaller companies deal with their supply chain challenges.
The enterprise journey
After studying engineering, Daniel’s first job after graduating was as a continuous improvement engineer at Polaroid in Dumbarton.
He takes up the story: “This was a great company in terms of the training and development opportunities on offer and I learnt a lot about continuous improvement methods and application which has stayed with me.
“I moved from there to Highland Spring to work on the business software implementation side of a knowledge transfer partnership programme. I then moved into IT with Highland Spring for a few years before heading up a new order fulfilment department which was responsible for planning, customer service and stock control.
“This was where my supply chain journey really started, particularly when I later also became responsible for warehousing and distribution, joined the management team and was involved in some transformative projects.
“After 14 years at Highland Spring, I was ready for a change of scene and the opportunity came up to join Macphie of Glenbervie as head of supply chain, where again I was involved in running a high performing supply chain and delivering some great projects.
“I left there in 2019 and decided to launch my own venture and focus on helping other businesses.”
Support
Daniel says that he has been lucky to have had supportive university mentors and managers, particularly in his early career, as well as good relationships with the directors he has worked for.
Since starting his own business, he says he has “received really helpful support from GrowBiz”.
He says: “I’ve been really impressed by the engagement and encouragement offered by the GrowBiz team, and there are quite a few elements to it, from business advisers and mentoring to networking and training.
“At the moment for me one of the hardest things about running your own business is prioritising activity – there are so many things to work on and different ways of spending the available time and it’s not always clear which will be the most productive.
“One small but really useful thing I’ve noticed is the encouragement to set yourself short-term goals so that you can hold yourself to account on meeting them before the next review.”
He added: “I would absolutely recommend GrowBiz to others, the level of support that is available is really beneficial.
“Involvement with GrowBiz opens your eyes to how much entrepreneurial activity is going on in the more rural areas, and really enables local community support that is so valuable.”
Looking to the future
Daniel has high hopes for the future of Supply Chain Scotland and wants to establish the business as a trusted provider that delivers projects of all sizes and that “really helps solve problems, improve operations and profitability and facilitate growth for its clients”.
“Beyond that,” he says, “I’ve got some ideas about extending in a few other directions. I’d like to grow the business to the point where I need to recruit a team.”
See www.supplychainscotland.org for further information
