CHRIS HUTCHENS thought he was destined for a corporate career. At the age of 25 he joined a packaging company and spent nearly 12 years rising through the corporate ranks to become its sales director.
In 1993 at the age of 36, however, he was suddenly made redundant when the firm was taken over and he was forced to rethink his life.
He said: “They called me in at 5pm and told me to clear my desk and leave immediately. It was a devastating experience.”
His first thought was to get a similar job. But it proved to be much harder than he had expected, and after six months he was still unemployed.
“I applied for everything but I couldn’t get a job,” said Hutchens. “I didn’t know what to do. I lost a stone in weight due to the anxiety. I would go to the gym each morning and see businessmen in their cars and think, you bastards. I felt so useless and inadequate.”
Brought up in north London, Hutchens left school at 16 to study engineering technology at college. But he quickly realised he had made a big mistake, and got a job selling pharmaceutical equipment to companies in France instead. After five years he returned to the UK to sell packaging materials for a firm in Gloucestershire.
“I certainly didn’t see myself as an entrepreneur or a businessman,” he said. “I just wanted a successful, stable career which would satisfy me and enable me to better myself.”
Fortunately, six months after becoming unemployed fate intervened. Hutchens was sitting in a pub having lunch one day when he bumped into a buyer from a large company he had once tried selling packaging to in his former job. The buyer happened to mention that his company was having big packaging problems. Without thinking, Hutchens told him he didn’t work in the packaging industry any more and they parted company.
When Hutchens got home, however, he suddenly realised he might have missed a golden opportunity to get some work. So he called the buyer the next day and asked if he could have a look at his packaging operation. Hutchens suggested a few solutions to the company’s problems, and the buyer was so impressed he agreed to let Hutchens supply one of the company’s 30 packaging lines.
According to Hutchens, under the terms of his redundancy, he was banned from working in the packaging industry for a year. So to avoid trouble he bought his packaging from minor suppliers who wouldn’t recognise him.
Then he spent his redundancy pay of £25,000 plus £10,000 borrowed from his father buying cardboard packaging which he stored in the front room of his home. He ran a phone wire next door so his neighbour could answer the phone while Hutchens was out, and did so well that within three months he was supplying half the buyer’s packaging needs.
When his ban on working in the packaging industry expired, Hutchens started seeking orders elsewhere. Realising he needed someone with experience to help him, he persuaded a man who worked for his former employer to join him for a year with no salary in return for 25% of the company’s equity.
Though it had nothing to do with the internet, he called the company Online Packaging because he thought it was a name people felt familiar with. He said: “I would tell people they had probably heard of us and they would say, yes of course I have.”
Not everyone was in favour of his new venture, however. One day, one of Hutchens’s van drivers told him he was being followed. According to Hutchens, a private investigator was trying to find out who his customers and suppliers were. He had his suspicions about who had hired the private investigator and after a well-aimed inquiry the PI was called off.
“It was absolutely terrifying because they could have put us out of business in no time at all,” he said.
Online Packaging grew rapidly. But five years ago Hutchens realised the market was changing and that his company would have to change, too.
He explained: “At that point we were just another me-too supplier of bubble wrap and tape to stick up boxes. We just did exactly what everyone else did. But I noticed that the market was changing — people weren’t ordering today for delivery next week, they were ordering today for delivery tomorrow, or even this afternoon.”
He decided the solution was to start offering customers the option of handing over the entire management of their packaging needs. In return for a contract, his company would regularly check a customer’s stocks and automatically replenish them.
It worked a treat. The new way of working was not only more profitable, it locked customers into a contract and deterred them from taking their business elsewhere. The company now has 2,000 customers, and in 2004 sales were £7m.
Now 47, Hutchens thinks that the secret of his success has been the humility he discovered while he was unemployed.
He said: “I used to be the most arrogant, outspoken, self-righteous brat. I have fired more people than I’ve had hot dinners. But being made redundant is a very humbling experience. It made me view business and the people who worked in our business in quite a different light.”
He admits he is immensely proud of what he has achieved.
“When I started the business I thought that if I could earn enough money to pay the mortgage, I would have made it.
“But the money side of it is not what makes me proud, it is seeing the whole thing operating. I can stand in the warehouse and see all the trucks operating and think, this is amazing.”
