BELGIAN HIGH-GROWTH MONITOR WHO ARE ’S FASTEST GROWING COMPANIES?

EDITION 2019

YANNICK DILLEN

PROF. HANS CRIJNS

Report made by the Impulse Centre ‘Growth Management for Medium-sized Enterprises’ (iGMO)

BELGIAN HIGH-GROWTH MONITOR 2019

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page 1 INTRODUCTION

Page 3 HIGH-GROWTH FIRMS IN BELGIUM: THE STATE OF AFFAIRS

Page 12 THE VOICE OF GROWTH ENTREPRENEURS

Page 25 WHO ARE THESE HIGH-GROWTH FIRMS?

Page 27 ABOUT THE RESPONDENTS AND THEIR FIRMS

Page 29 THE VIEW OF THE AUTHORS

Page 32 LIST OF EMPLOYMENT HGFs FOR THE PERIOD 2014-2017

ABOUT THE BELGIAN HIGH-GROWTH MONITOR

The Belgian High-Growth Monitor is an annual initiative from the Impulse Centre ‘Growth Management for Medium-sized Enterprises’ (iGMO) of Vlerick Business School, in cooperation with EY and KBC. This report presents the state of affairs of Belgian high-growth firms by giving an overview of their profile and characteristics. In addition, it presents the results of a survey of Belgian growth entrepreneurs.

ABOUT THE IMPULSE CENTRE ‘GROWTH MANAGEMENT’ (iGMO)

The Impulse Centre ‘Growth Management for Medium-Sized Enterprises’ (iGMO) of Vlerick Business School is a platform for research, open dialogue and networking for owner-managers of growth-oriented SMEs. The Centre fits within the strategic mission of Vlerick Business School, which aims to stimulate entrepreneurship. Founded in 1993, iGMO currently has over 160 active member-entrepreneurs who periodically gather in research seminars, workshops and learning visits, both nationally and internationally. iGMO builds on the support of its prime foundation partners EY and KBC.

OurThis report solution is based on to data your gathered specific from the Belfirst needs database of Bureau Van Dijk and on the analysis of survey results gathered from Belgian entrepreneurs. The conclusions and opinions of the authors of the report are not necessarily those of Vlerick Business School, EY or KBC. Copyright is held by Vlerick Business School and the report cannot be used without the permission of Vlerick Business School and the authors.

Copyright © 2019 Vlerick Business School (Yannick Dillen & Hans Crijns).

All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION

High-growth firms (HGFs) are frequently described as the engine of the Belgian economy. They create the majority of new jobs and account for an enormous increase in the total added value that is realised by Belgian private firms. Therefore, it is crucial to learn more about the characteristics of these HGFs. Who are these Belgian high-growth firms? Do we find remarkable evolutions in their profiles? Answers to these questions may be vital for academics, policy makers and ambitious entrepreneurs. The Belgian High-Growth Monitor aims to provide these answers by analysing the subset of HGFs in Belgium for the most recent period and by surveying a group of Belgian growth entrepreneurs.

HGFs are defined as companies that have achieved annual growth rates of at least 20 per cent per year in employees or added value, over a period of three years. Firms need to have had at least ten registered employees at the start of the analysed three-year period.1,2 Hence, micro-firms are excluded from the analysis. Our data were obtained from the Bel-first database of Bureau Van Dijk, which contains financial information for all Belgian firms for the period 2009- 2017.3

Number of employees and added value will be considered as growth measures. As a consequence, we will analyse two different subsets of high-growth firms. First, employment HGFs are defined as those that have realized high-growth in terms of full-time equivalent employees working for the company. Second, added value HGFs are defined as those that have experienced a period of rapid growth in terms of added value. Added value figures have important social implications, because the sum of all added value figures is a building block of the country’s domestic product. Hence, the two growth measures that are taken into account both have an impact — directly or indirectly — on the prosperity of a region, as strong employment growth entails job creation, and strong added value growth enables an increase in GDP.

1 The OECD definition of an HGF considers turnover instead of added value as a growth measure. In Belgium, however, most firms do not have an obligation to publish turnover figures. Hence, in our analysis, added value is chosen as an alternative growth measure as it makes up the difference between the total sales revenue and the total cost of components, materials, and services purchased from other firms within a certain period (usually one year). Belgian firms have an obligation to publish added value figures, which can be retrieved from section 9800 of their annual accounts. 2 Excluded from the analyses are firms without a lucrative purpose (in Dutch abbreviated as ‘V.Z.W.’, in French as ‘A.S.B.L.’) and public-sector companies. 3 Bureau Van Dijk, Bel-first: Financial Reports and Statistics On Belgian and Luxemburg Companies, https://www.bvdinfo.com/en-us/our-products/data/national/bel-first. 1

In our analysis, we will look for evidence if the net employment growth in Belgium is generated by a relatively small group of rapidly growing companies, the so-called ‘Gazelles’. According to Birch (1979) 4 these firms are generating most of the new net jobs in the economy. David Birch estimated that the gazelles, around 4% of the population of American firms, accounted for 70% of all new jobs. Next to these Gazelles stand on the one hand a group of large firms, called the ‘Elephants’, that created only few new jobs and on the other hand the ‘Mice’, the vast majority of all firms that aim to remain small and contribute only marginally to employment growth. A ‘Gazelle’ or high-growth firm is less associated with the size of a firm as we can find ‘Gazelles’ from nearly all sizes. However, on average, small firms are overrepresented in a subset of HGFs, but the few large HGFs are important as they are major job contributors in absolute terms.5 In this report, we will analyse the characteristics for subsets of Belgian high-growth firms.

The report consists of three parts. To start, it gives an overview of the profile and characteristics of the subset of high-growth firms in Belgium, focusing on 2014-2017, the most recent three-year period available. Thereafter, the main results of the annual Vlerick Growth Survey are presented, including the responses of 83 Belgian CEOs of growth firms. A variety of topics were covered in this survey, ranging from the most important barriers and enablers of growth through to the HR, innovation and digitization policies that are being applied. At the end of the report, an alphabetical list of the 822 Belgian high-growth firms for the period 2014-2017 can be found (with number of employees adopted as the growth measure).

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4 Birch, D. (1979), The Job Generation Process, MIT Program on Neighbourhood and Regional Change, MIT, Cambridge 5 Henrekson, M. & Johansson, D. (2010), ‘Gazelles as job creators: a survey and interpretation of the evidence’, Small Business Economics, volume 35 (2), p. 227-244 2

HIGH-GROWTH FIRMS IN BELGIUM: THE STATE OF AFFAIRS

HOW MANY HGFs DO WE HAVE?

Table 1 gives an overview of the evolution of the number of employment HGFs and added value HGFs over the last nine years. The percentage of HGFs remains relatively stable across the six periods of analysis.

The relative number of employment HGFs ranges from a low of 3.15% for the period 2012-2015 to a high of 3.57% for the period 2009-2012. For the most recent period, 2014-2017, 3.48% of Belgian firms with at least ten employees qualified as high-growth in terms of employment.

The percentages for the subsets of added value HGFs are slightly more volatile, ranging from a low of 5.91% in the period 2009-2012 to a high of 6.94% in the most recent period 2014-2017.

Hence, we can discover a positive trend with respect to the percentage of HGFs in our economy. The relative number of employment HGFs has been on the rise for several years, resulting in the highest percentage since the period 2009-2012, and the percentage of added value HGFs has now reached its highest level since the start of our calculations.

2009- 2010- 2011- 2012- 2013- 2014- 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Total number of firms (>10 employees) 23,867 24,262 24,930 24,633 22,442 23,654 Number of employment HGFs 853 835 799 775 744 822 Number of added value HGFs 1,410 1,616 1,507 1,530 1,532 1,641 Relative number of employment HGFs 3.57% 3.44% 3.20% 3.15% 3.16% 3.48% Relative number of added value HGFs 5.91% 6.66% 6.04% 6.21% 6.83% 6.94% Table 1: Evolution in the number of HGFs from 2009 to 2017

DO HGFs SUSTAIN THEIR GROWTH?

The percentages that were presented in the previous section show only a small minority of firms are able to achieve a high-growth status. However, persisting as a HGF might be even more difficult. With this in mind, we analysed the subsets of employment HGFs for six overlapping periods (from the period 2009-2012 to 2014- 2017) (see Figure 1). Our solution to your specific needs

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Figure 1: Overview of the overlapping analysed HGF subsets

This analysis revealed that 2,791 Belgian firms qualified as employment HGFs between 2009 and 2017. Of this group, 1,560 firms (55.90%) were identified as an HGF in only a single period. The majority of the employment HGFs can therefore be identified as one-shot HGFs. Table 1 shows that only a limited number of firms were able to remain as an employment HGF for more than three periods, and that only 11 Belgian firms were able to maintain their HGF status for the entire analysed period.

Percentage of total number of Number of periods Absolute number of HGFs employment HGFs in qualified as an that were qualified x times period 2009- employment HGF as an employment HGF 2017

1 out of 6 periods 1,560 55.90%

2 out of 6 periods 727 26.05%

3 out of 6 periods 382 13.69%

4 out of 6 periods 83 2.97%

5 out of 6 periods 28 1.00%

6 out of 6 periods 11 0.39%

Total 2,791 100% Table 2: Overview of the overlapping analysed HGF subsets

For the group of added value HGFs, we performed the persistence check in a slightly different way. In this case, we analysed the overlap between the most recent subset of added value HGFs and the previous subsets. It emerged that 36% (i.e. 590 firms) of the added value HGFs for the period 2014-2017 were also present in the subset for the period 2013-2016. This percentage gradually drops to 4% when comparing the 2014-2017 subset to the 2009-2012 subset.

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Number of added value HGFs in the period 2014-2017 1,641 100% Number of added value HGFs that were an HGF in both the periods 2013-2016 and 2014-2017 590 36% Number of added value HGFs that were an HGF in both the periods 2012-2015 and 2014-2017 267 16% Number of added value HGFs that were an HGF in both the periods 2011-2014 and 2014-2017 140 9% Number of added value HGFs that were an HGF in both the periods 2010-2013 and 2014-2017 133 8% Number of added value HGFs that were an HGF in both the periods 2009-2012 and 2014-2017 69 4% Table 3: The persistence of high-growth for added value HGFs

HOW MANY JOBS AND ADDED VALUE DO HGFs CREATE?

High-growth firms are commonly known as the engines of job creation. For employment HGFs such a statement might seem rather obvious, as these firms are identified based upon growth in their average number of employees. Nonetheless, the number of jobs created by this group of firms is striking. Table 4 shows the net number of jobs created by employment HGFs from 2009 to 2017, alongside the total number of jobs generated by all Belgian firms with more than ten employees. It shows that, in five out of the six analysed periods, the subset of employment HGFs generated more jobs than the overall amount generated by all firms with at least ten employees. Only in the most recent period was the number of jobs generated by employment HGFs (45,947 jobs) less than the total increase (68,549 jobs). Nonetheless, even in this period, HGFs accounted for 67 per cent of the total number of jobs generated by all Belgian firms with at least ten employees.

Total number of Total number of Net jobs Total Total Net jobs employees for employees for generated number of number of generated the subset of the subset of by jobs jobs by all firms employment employment employment generated generated (>10 HGFs in the HGFs in the HGFs in the by all firms by all firms empl.) first year of the final year of the high-growth (> 10 empl.) (> 10 empl.) in the high-growth high-growth period in the first in the final study period period (2) – (1) year of the year of the period (1) (2) reference reference (4) – (3) period period (3) (4) 2009- 39,707 94,976 55,269 1,440,913 1,493,511 52,598 2012 2010- 33,017 87,331 54,314 1,483,715 1,508,288 24,573 2013 2011- 27,859 75,650 47,791 1,541,335 1,531,351 -9,984 2014 2012- 27,978 73,256 45,278 1,425,581 1,438,837 13,256 Our2015 solution to your specific needs 2013- 36,592 83,775 47,183 1,470,498 1,490,922 20,424 2016 2014- 32,538 78,485 45,947 1,433,260 1,501,809 68,549 2017 Table 4: Job creation by employment HGFs 5

Figure 2 graphically represents the amount of net jobs that are generated by the subsets of employment HGFs (dark green line) and the net jobs generated by all firms with at least ten employees (light green line) from 2009 to 2017. It appears that the amount of jobs generated by the subsets of HGFs – notwithstanding that they are always composed of a large proportion of different firms – is very stable. It ranges around the amount of 50,000 jobs. The light green line is fluctuating much more, going from a decrease of almost 10.000 jobs for the period 2011- 2014 to an increase of nearly 70,000 jobs in the period 2014-2017. Hence, we can conclude that the group of HGFs are a stable factor that is - especially in times when the total job creation is decreasing (like the periods 2010-2013 to 2013- 2016) – able to generate a roughly the same amount of jobs in every three year period.

NET JOB CREATION OVER TIME Number of jobs created

68.549 55.269 54.314 47.791 45.278 47.183 45.947 52.598

24.573 HGFs 13.256 20.424

All firms

2009-2012 2010-2013 2011-2014 2012-2015 2013-2016 2014-2017

-9.984 period

Figure 2: job creation by ‘employment HGFs’ and ‘all firms’

Looking at the subset of added value HGFs (see Table 5), the same logic holds when discussing their contribution to the total increase in added value. For the period 2014-2017, the group of added value HGFs accounts for 59% of the total increase in added value generated by Belgian firms with at least ten employees (i.e. 10,62 billion EUR generated by the added value HGFs versus a total increase of 17,95 billion EUR). In this period the added value HGF subset generated 10.6 billion EUR — by far the highest increase in net added value when compared to previous periods.

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Total added Total added Net added Total added Total added Net added value value value value value value generated by generated by generated by generated by generated by generated by the subset of the subset of added value all firms(>10 all firms (>10 all firms in the added value added value HGFs in the empl.) in the empl.) in the study period

HGFs in the HGFs in the high-growth first year of the final year of the (>10 empl.), in first year of the final year of the period, in EUR reference reference EUR high-growth high-growth (2)-(1) period, in EUR period, in EUR (4)-(3) period, in EUR period, in EUR (3) (4) (1) (2) 2009- 5,897,692,993 14,091,670,160 8,193,977,167 124,257,404,000 138,617,069,000 14.359.665,000 2012 2010- 5,058,993,697 12,192,311,480 7,133,317,783 136,948,115,000 142,662,907,000 5.714.792,000 2013 2011- 4,632,267,956 11,156,900,580 6,524,632,624 141,032,422,000 144,472,465,000 3.440.043,000 2014 2012- 4,600,153,363 11,965,873,440 7,365,720,077 133,245,485,000 140,525,965,000 7.280.478,,000 2015 2013- 5,697,114,282 14,572,206,078 8,875,091,796 136,006,296,600 145,112,363,000 9.106.339,400 2016 2014- 7,637,020,945 18,261,646,820 10,624,625,875 135,115,415,300 153,066,049,400 17.950.634,100 2017 Table 5: Added value creation by added value HGFs

IN WHICH INDUSTRIES ARE HGFs MOST PREVALENT?

Table 6 shows the industries in which high-growth firms are active. Traditional and labour-intensive industries such as construction, manufacturing and retail show a clear under-representation of high-growth firms. For instance, nearly 15 per cent of firms with at least ten employees have their main activity in the construction industry, whereas only 9 and 10 per cent respectively of employment HGFs and added value HGFs are active in this industry.

Knowledge-intensive service industries, such as the IT and communication sectors, typically show an over-representation of HGFs. Firms that perform administrative and support service activities are also more likely to be in a high- growth category. Compared to the previous analysed period (2013-2016), the over- and under-representation of HGFs in certain industries is now less striking, leading to a convergence towards the overall percentage of firms in each sector.

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Industry Relative Number Relative breakdown Number of number of Relative Number of of added number of firms (>10 firms number of employment value added empl.) in (>10 employment (NACE Rev. 2 HGFs in this HGFs in value HGFs this empl.) in HGFs in this sections) industry this in this industry this industry industry industry industry A. Agriculture, 243 10 17 1.03% 1.22% 1.04% forestry and B. Mining and 49 0 4 0.21% 0.00 0.24% quarrying C. Manufacturing 4,237 92 290 17.91% 11.19% 17.67% D. Electricity, gas, steam and air 38 2 4 0.16% 0.24% 0.24% conditioning supply E. Water supply, sewerage, waste 170 6 19 0.71% 0.73% 1.16% management F. Construction 3,525 72 176 14.90% 8.76% 10.73% G. Wholesale and retail trade; repair 6,436 161 368 27.21% 19.59% 22.43% of motor vehicles H. Transportation 1,856 72 122 7.85% 8.76% 7.43% and storage I. Accommodation and food service 1,156 46 74 4.89% 5.60% 4.51% activities J. Information and 861 85 125 3.64% 10.34% 7.62% communication K. Financial activities and 428 19 43 1.81% 2.31% 2.62% insurance L. Real estate 282 6 17 1.19% 0.73% 1.04% activities M. Professional, scientific and 1,699 89 156 7.18% 10.83% 9.51% technical activities N. Administrative and support service 1,400 112 147 5.92% 13.63% 8.96% activities O. Public administration and 11 0 0 0.05% 0.00% 0.00% defence P. 54 2 4 0.23% 0.24% 0.24% Q. Human health and social work 720 37 48 3.04% 4.50% 2.93% activities R. Arts, entertainment and 216 6 17 0.91% 0.73% 1.04% S. Other service 258 5 10 1.09% 0.61% 0.61% activities T. Activities of households as 15 0 0 0.06% 0.00% 0.00% employers TOTAL 23,654 822 1,641 100% 100% 100% Table 6: Industry classification (based on NACE-BEL 2008 classification)

WHERE ARE HGFs LOCATED?

The province of and the -Capital region show a clear over- Ourrepresentation solution of bothto youremployment specific HGFs and needs added value HGFs (see Table 7). In all other provinces, there are fairly limited differences between the relative number of firms that are located in a province and the relative number of HGFs.

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Only in the provinces of Liège and Hainaut do we encounter a clear underrepresentation of HGFs.

If we compare these results with the findings of last year’s report, we see more or less the same trends continuing. However, the over-representation of HGFs in Brussels has decreased slightly, as has the over-representation of added value HGFs in the province of Antwerp. The over-representation of Antwerp-based employment HGFs increased by one percentage point. The province of shifted from an over-representation of employment HGFs of two percentage points to an under-representation of one percentage point. In , there is still a small under-representation of employment HGFs (1.5 percentage points), but compared to the under-representation of 4.2 percentage points in the previous period, this represents an upward trend.

Relative Total Relative number Relative number number of Breakdown Added number of of Employment of added by value employment firms HGFs firms in value province HGFs HGFs in this (>10 this HGFs in region empl.) region this region Antwerp 4,630 200 349 19.57% 24.33% 21.27% 1,983 64 130 8.38% 7.79% 7.92% East 3,251 108 222 13.74% 13.14% 13.53% Flanders Flemish 2,087 62 146 8.82% 7.54% 8.90% Brabant West 3,202 99 191 13.54% 12.04% 11.64% Flanders Brussels- Capital 2,619 138 259 11.07% 16.79% 15.78% Region Namur 695 15 34 2.94% 1.82% 2.07% Liège 1,996 44 112 8.44% 5.35% 6.83% Luxemburg 404 8 23 1.71% 0.97% 1.40% Hainaut 1,941 47 113 8.21% 5.72% 6.89% Walloon 846 37 62 3.58% 4.50% 3.78% Brabant Total 23,654 822 1,641 100% 100% 100% Table 7: Geographical distribution (provinces)

On a regional level, the strong over-representation of Brussels-based HGFs is striking (see Table 8). Whereas the presence of HGFs in Flanders appears to be in line with the overall percentage of Flanders-based firms with at least ten employees, the region of shows a clear under-representation of both employment HGFs and added value HGFs.

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Relative Total Relative Relative number of number Employ Added number of number of Breakdown added of firms -ment value firms in employmen by region value HGFs (>10 HGFs HGFs this t HGFs in in this empl.) region this region region Flanders 15,153 533 1,038 64.06% 64.84% 63.26% Brussels- 2,619 138 259 11.07% 16.79% 15.78% Capital Region Wallonia 5,882 151 344 24.87% 18.37% 20.96% Table 8: Geographical distribution (regions)

DO HGFs MAKE A PROFIT?

On average, the relative number of employment HGFs with a positive EBITDA is in line with the overall percentage of firms with at least ten employees that show positive EBITDA figures. It appears that the period of high-growth had a zero or only very limited effect on the percentage of employment HGFs with a positive EBITDA (see Table 9). For the subset of added value HGFs, however, we encounter a sharp increase in the relative number of firms that realise a positive EBITDA. For this group of HGFs, the high-growth period clearly had a positive effect on EBITDA figures, notwithstanding that there were clearly less added value HGFs with a positive EBITDA at the start of the high-growth period.

Percentage of firms that had a positive EBITDA in 2014 90.91% Percentage of firms that had a positive EBITDA in 2017 90.08% Percentage of employment HGFs with a positive EBITDA in 2014 91.00% Percentage of employment HGFs with a positive EBITDA in 2017 90.75% Percentage of added value HGFs with a positive EBITDA in 2014 76.79% Percentage of added value HGFs with a positive EBITDA in 2017 93.36% Table 9: Profitability of HGFs

HOW LARGE ARE HGFs?

By applying the OECD definition of a high-growth firm, we exclude all firms with less than ten employees from our calculations. Hence, the average size of the HGFs that are reported in Table 10 might seem rather high, as HGFs are frequently associated with young, small scaleup companies. The average employment HGF employed nearly 40 people at the start of the high-growth period and 95 at the end of this three year period. Added value HGFs were — on average — somewhat larger at the start of the high-growth period, but clearly smaller than employment HGFs at the end of the high-growth period.

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Employment HGFs Added value HGFs ('14-'17) ('14-'17) Average number of employees in 2014 39.60 45.50 Average number of employees in 2017 95.48 73.47 Relative number of firms with workforce between 18-49 employees in 2017 58.27% 71.12% Relative number of firms with workforce between 50-249 employees in 2017 34.67% 22.97% Relative number of firms with more than 250 employees in 2017 7.06% 5.91% Table 10: Size of high-growth firms

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. With number of employees as the growth criterion, 3.48% of all Belgian firms (with at least ten employees) qualified as a high-growth firm in the period 2014-2017. This percentage is a slight increase compared to the previous period 2013-2016 (3.16%). 2. With added value as the growth criterion, 6.94% of all Belgian firms (with at least ten employees) qualified as a high-growth firm in the period 2014-2017. This is the highest relative number when compared to the previous 5 three-year periods. 3. In the period 2009-2017, more than half of the firms that became ‘high- growth’ (in terms of employment growth) only remained a high-growth firm for one period of three years. Hence, high-growth is difficult to achieve, but even more difficult to sustain. 4. High-growth firms are responsible for the vast majority of job creation in our economy. A fairly small group of HGFs — 3.5% of the total number of firms — account for 67% of the total amount of jobs that are generated in Belgium by firms with at least ten employees. 5. The net added value that is generated by all high-growth firms is a good proxy for their contribution to overall welfare in a region (as added value is the building block of GDP). With this in mind, we can state that high-growth firms are the engine of Belgium’s GDP growth, as the group of 1,641 added value HGFs for the period 2014-2017 was responsible for 59% of the total increase in added value realized by firms with at least 10 employees. 6. High-growth firms are clearly over-represented in knowledge-intensive service industries (such as IT and communications) and under- represented in the more traditional and labour-intensive industries such as construction and manufacturing. 7. The Brussels-Capital region and the province of Antwerp are the hotspots for high-growth firms. The more urban regions appear to attract the most HGFs. 8. More than 9 out of 10 high-growth firms had a positive EBITDA at the end of the high-growth period. Hence, rapidly growing in terms of Our employeessolution or toadded your value specificdoes not seem needs to negative ly affect profits. 9. Most Belgian high-growth firms had less than 100 employees at the end of the high-growth period.

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THE VOICE OF GROWTH ENTREPRENEURS

In September 2018, a survey was sent out to the members of the Impulse Centre ‘Growth Management for Medium-sized Enterprises’ (iGMO). Eighty-three entrepreneurs completed the survey, in which a wide variety of growth-related topics were covered. However, not all of them have shown the high-growth rates over the past three years that are stipulated by the OECD definition. Nevertheless, the survey gives us useful insights into the characteristics of growth firms. We compare the results with last year’s Belgian High-Growth monitor.

WHAT ARE THE DRIVERS OF BUSINESS GROWTH?

Taking Ansoff’s growth strategy matrix as a starting point, Figure 3 shows that 39% of the surveyed growth entrepreneurs stated that they mostly adopt a product development strategy, which aims to sell new products and services in a market in which the firm is already active. This percentage is in fact slightly higher than last year’s result (36%). The difference between the second most popular growth strategy — market penetration (30%) — and the third most popular strategy — market development (26%) — becomes smaller when compared to the previous year. A diversification strategy, where firms move to sell new products or services in new geographic markets, clearly remains the less commonly chosen strategy with a mere 5% of entrepreneurs opting for this.

GROWTH STRATEGY

2018 2017

45% 39% 40% 36% 34% 35% 30% 30% 26% 25% 21% 20% 15% 9% 10% 5% 5% 0% Selling existing Selling new Selling existing Selling new products/services in products/services in products/services in products/services in new markets existing markets existing markets new markets

Figure 3: Growth strategy

Figure 4 shows all the actions performed by growth entrepreneurs with the aim of increasing turnover. Clearly the most common action undertaken was the introduction of new products and/or services, which is in line with the most Ourcommonly solution chosen growth to your strategy. specific needs

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Compared to the results of the previous year, it appears that taking over other players in the industry has become a very common option (from 30% to 40%). Creating partnerships (42%) and increasing marketing efforts (40%) also remain very popular. Increasing prices has also become an increasingly popular action, rising from 24% in 2017 to 35% in 2018.

ACTIONS UNDERTAKEN TO INCREASE TURNOVER

2017 2018

32% Setting up new distribution channels 18% 30% Taking over other players in the sector 40% More efforts on selling through digital 24% channels 23%

Increasing marketing efforts 47% 40% Decreasing prices 4% 2% 24% Increasing prices 35% 67% Introducing new products/services 71% Setting up partnerships with other firms 40% to facilitate market entry 42% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

Figure 4: Actions undertaken to increase turnover

WHAT IMPEDES FUTURE GROWTH?

There is nothing new under the sun when looking at the most prevalent growth barriers. Finding and attracting the right people seems to be by far the biggest barrier (75%) that impedes firms from growing faster, followed at some distance by increased competition (25%, compared to 20% in 2017) and the lack of management capacities (25%). The latter might be surprising, as one out of four entrepreneurs consider the management capacities present in the firm as an important barrier for future growth, meaning that a quarter of the CEOs find that the level of managerial skills in their organisation is not sufficient to manage the firm as it increases in size.

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GROWTH BARRIERS

2017 2018

7% Fiscal and regulatory barriers 4% 22% An inadequate internal structure 22% 23% Lack of management capacities 25% 7% An inadequate growth strategy 10% 20% Increased competition 25% 76% Attracting the right people 75% 12% Change in market situation 16% 14% Financing the growth 11%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

Figure 5: Growth barriers

ARE FINANCIAL RESOURCES EASY TO FIND?

Finding the financial resources to boost further growth appears not to be a major barrier, as merely 19% of entrepreneurs stated that financing constraints might, to a certain extent, hamper the future expansion of the firm. Eighty-one per cent of the CEOs indicated that they experienced no real financing constraints, which is eleven percentage points more than the result of 2017. Hence, the conditions to attract financing appeared to be even more favourable in 2018 than in 2017.

DID FINANCING CONSTRAINTS PREVENT THE FIRM FROM GROWING FASTER? 100% 2018 2017 81% 70%

50% 20% 6% 10% 13% 0% Yes To a certain extent No

Our solution to yourFigure 6specific: Financing constraintsneeds

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DO THEY HAVE FUTURE GROWTH AMBITON?

One out of ten entrepreneurs stated that they no longer have the ambition to grow their firm. Two out of three entrepreneurs have future growth ambitions and have captured these ambitions in formal growth plans. The relative number of entrepreneurs that aim for more growth but who have not captured this in growth plans has decreased by 12 percentage points, from 35% in 2017 to 23% in 2018.

80% 2018 2017

70% 67% 60% 60%

50%

40% 35%

30% 23% 20% 10% 10% 5%

0% No Yes, and this is Yes, but this is not captured in formal captured in formal growth plans growth plans

Figure 7: Future growth ambition

WHAT ABOUT THE ROLE OF THE GOVERNMENT?

Three top priorities emerge when the entrepreneurs were asked about the role of the Belgian government in stimulating growth entrepreneurship: (a) a more flexible labour market (72%), (b) less regulatory and legal obligations (57%) and (c) lower tax levels (47%, compared to 59% in 2017). The other possible options presented in Figure 8, such as providing growth capital or increasing the amount of subsidies, were not considered crucial by the clear majority of the surveyed entrepreneurs.

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WHAT SHOULD THE GOVERNMENT DO TO STIMULATE GROWTH FIRMS?

2017 2018

Make the labour market more flexible 76% 72% Decrease taxes 59% 47% Decrease the amount of regulation and 65% legislation 57% Create a pool of coaches who can 16% advise growth firms 7% 7% Provide growth capital 4% 6% Increase the amount of subsidies 11%

No actions 1% 4%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% Figure 8: The role of the government in supporting growth firms

WHAT ABOUT HUMAN CAPITAL?

As indicated in figure 5, attracting the right employees is considered to be the biggest hurdle for further growth. Figure 9 confirms these statements, as only 3% of respondents indicated that they had no difficulties in recruiting new people (compared to the closest competition). However, the percentage of firms that could not fill vacancies remained fairly low (8%). This might also indicate recruiting suboptimal profiles, as firms are forced to opt for lower quality candidates.

HOW MUCH DIFFICULTY DID YOUR FIRM HAVE IN ATTRACTING NEW PEOPLE COMPARED TO YOUR CLOSEST COMPETITORS?

2017 2018

So many that vacancies were not 8% filled in 8% 26% Many difficulties 26% 38% Quite a lot of difficulties 37% 24% Little difficulties 24% 4% No difficulties Our solution to your specific3% needs 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%

Figure 9: Difficulties attracting the right employees

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ORGANIC OR EXTERNAL GROWTH?

In 2018, acquiring other firms became more popular than the previous year. Figure 4 already indicated that M&A transactions are more and more indicated as an action that was undertaken and led to greater turnover. Figure 10 confirms this trend with now almost half (48%) of the surveyed growth firms having acquired a firm in the last three years, compared to 40% in 2017. If we look at the entire history of the growth companies that are present in our sample, it reveals that more than 8 out of 10 firms (81%) have taken over another firm at some point (Figure 11).

DID YOUR FIRM TAKE OVER ANOTHER FIRM IN THE PAST THREE YEARS?

2018 2017

70% 60% 60% 52% 48% 50% 40% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Yes No

Figure 10: M&A activity in the previous three years

DID YOUR FIRM TAKE OVER OTHER FIRMS IN THE PAST?

Yes No

19%

81%

Our solution to Figureyour 11 specific: M&A activity needs in the past

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HOW ‘INTERNATIONAL’ ARE BELGIAN GROWTH FIRMS?

About one out of five growth firms do not export any of their products or services (21%, compared to 22% in 2017). However, we can witness a trend that the firms that do export their products outside Belgium are exporting more as a ratio of their total turnover. For 40% of the surveyed growth firms, more than 60% of their realised turnover is the result of export; this percentage has grown from 30% in 2017. Looking at the distribution of the percentages in Figure 12, Belgian growth firms either export nothing (or only a very limited amount of their turnover), or they are realising the clear majority of their turnover outside Belgium.

PERCENTAGE OF TURNOVER THAT RESULTS FROM EXPORT

25% 22% 2018 2017 21% 22% 19% 20% 18% 16% 15% 14% 15% 12% 12% 9% 10% 7% 8% 5% 5%

0% 0% 1%-10% 10%-20% 20%-40% 40%-60% 60%-80% 80%-100%

Figure 12: Export behaviour

When looking at the export behaviour in continents other than Europe (Figure 13), it becomes clear that nearly half (47%) of the analysed growth firms do not sell their products or services outside Europe. Merely four percent of the firms are ‘truly global’ firms, exporting more than 40% of their turnover outside Europe.

PERCENTAGE OF TURNOVER THAT RESULTS FROM EXPORT OUTSIDE EUROPE

2018 2017

60% 51% 47% 50% 40% 28% 30% 19% 20% 14% 12% 11% 7% 10% 4% 4% Our solution to your specific needs 0% 2% 0% 1% 0% 0% 1% - 10% 10% - 20% 20% - 40% 40% - 60% 60% - 80% 80% - 100%

Figure 13: Export behaviour outside the Europe 18

HOW ‘INNOVATIVE’ ARE BELGIAN GROWTH FIRMS?

63% of the respondents indicated that they believe their firm is more advanced when it comes to innovation than their closest competition, with only 11% stating that they are less innovative than the competition. Although these answers are based on the self-perception of CEOs of growth firms, we might assume from the result that Belgian growth firms are doing well when it comes to innovation.

HOW DOES YOUR FIRM PERFORM WITH RESPECT TO INNOVATION CAPACITY COMPARED TO THE CLOSEST COMPETITORS?

2018 2017

50% 45% 44% 45% 40% 35% 32%

30% 26% 25% 20% 18% 15% 15% 10% 10% 7%

5% 1% 2% 0% We are clearly We are lagging a We are equally We are sligthly We are clearly underperforming bit behind strong more advanced more advanced

Figure 14: Innovation capacity

Figure 14 shows that most CEOs of Belgian growth firms see that their firms are doing well when it comes to innovation. However, another important aspect concerns the speed at which these firms can innovate. Therefore, Figure 15 shows us the average time period that growth firms need to go from identifying an opportunity in the market to entering the market. Twenty-one per cent of the surveyed firms can come up with an innovative solution in less than 6 months after having identified an opportunity. The clear majority (37%) stated that it takes between half a year and a year, with another 15% pointing to the presence of an annual cycle, thereby indicating that they have a more or less systematic approach to cope with opportunities that emerge in the external environment.

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FROM IDENTIFYING OPPORTUNITIES TO MARKET ENTRY

Longer than 3 year 3% Between 2 and 3 year 6% Between 12 and 18 months 18% We have an annual evaluation cycle 15% 6 to 12 months 37% Less than 6 months 21%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%

Figure 15: From opportunity to market entry

HOW ‘DIGITAL’ ARE BELGIAN GROWTH FIRMS?

Seventy-two per cent of the surveyed growth entrepreneurs believe that their firm is at least equally as strong as the closest competitor when it comes to digitisation. Compared to the results of 2017, however, the relative number of CEOs that think that their firm is lagging behind has increased from 20% to 26% (Figure 16).

HOW DOES YOUR FIRM PERFORM WITH RESPECT TO DIGITISATION EFFORTS COMPARED TO THE CLOSEST COMPETITOR?

2018 2017

45% 39% 40% 35% 35% 31% 28% 30% 26% 25% 20% 20% 15% 11% 10% 3% 3% 6% 5% 0% We are clearly We are lagging a We are equally We are slightly We are clearly underperforming bit behind strong more advanced more advanced

Figure 16: Digitization efforts

When the growth entrepreneurs were asked how they are coping with digitally transforming their businesses, for 31% of them the preferred solution is assistance from consultants and specialised digital agencies. Another third of respondents reported that they are focusing on partnerships with start-ups or Ourestablished solution firms into order your to facilitate specific their digitalneeds transformation. Only 28% of the growth firms considers itself strong enough to handle digital transformation on its own without reaching out to other parties (Figure 17).

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HOW DOES YOUR FIRM COPE WITH DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION?

We are doing this on our own We collaborate with consultants and/or digital agencies Through partnerships with start-ups Through partnerships with established firms Other We do not focus on digital transformation 3% 5%

28% 23%

10% 31%

Figure 17: Coping with digital transformation

Somewhat related to these digitisation efforts is the amount of products and services that are being sold online. Although it might not be feasible for all B2B firms in our analysis to sell their products online, the survey reveals that more than half of the firms (57%) are not realising any turnover via online sales. However, this is already 6 percentage points lower when compared to the results from 2017. Hence, we might deduce from Figure 18 that more growth firms are starting to sell online, as 36% of respondents indicated that they realise between 1% and 10% of their turnover from online sales.

WHAT PERCENTAGE OF TURNOVER CAME FROM ONLINE SALES?

2018 2017

70% 63% 57% 60% 50% 33% 40% 36% 30% 20% 4% 3% 0% 0% 10% 3%1% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%

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Figure 18: Online sales

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HORIZONS OF GROWTH

In their bestselling book on business growth, The Alchemy of Growth, Baghai, Coley and White state that firms must have a continuous pipeline of business-building initiatives in order to the firm on the growth trajectory.8 If a firm wants to achieve sustained growth, they should master “three horizons” of growth. The main idea is that once a business and its revenue streams mature, they should have other streams ready to take the place of the current core business (i.e. Horizon 1). Those other streams may be the result of innovations around the core business (i.e. Horizon 2), but also from entirely new business lines (i.e. Horizon 3).

In essence, Horizon 1 comprises the current core business, accounting for the clear majority of the firm’s profits and turnover. This is needed to fuel the initiatives taken in Horizons 2 and 3. In Horizon 2, resources are devoted to emerging businesses that are adjacent to the core business. Horizon 3 comprises those initiatives that may be quite far away from today’s core business but have been planted as seeds for the future. Overall, it will become critical to manage the three horizons concurrently, not sequentially.

Therefore, it is essential that growth firms devote their time and resources effectively between these three horizons. In the survey, we asked the respondents to indicate how much of their time is allocated to each of the horizons. As the questions were asked separately, it was possible for the total percentage to be higher than 100. This was done on purpose, so as not to force respondents to manipulate the percentage to a total of 100; we wanted the answers to reflect the general feelings they held about the time their firm devotes to each type of project and business line. In fact, Figure 19 sums up to 116%, revealing that the entrepreneurs are — on average — overestimating the time that is devoted to all three horizons.

As a rule of thumb, it is often suggested that firms should follow a 70/20/10 rule. Seventy per cent of time and resources should be spent on current core business activities, 20% should be dedicated to supporting emerging business from Horizon 2, and the remaining 10% should be devoted to the creation of genuinely new businesses. From Figure 19, and taking into account the higher total percentage of 116%, it is apparent that the Belgian growth firms are spending disproportionately more time on initiatives that fit within Horizon 2.

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8 M. Baghai, S. Coley, and D. White, The Alchemy of Growth: Practical Insights for Building the Enduring Enterprise (New York: Basic Books, 1999) 22

TIME DEVOTED TO THREE HORIZONS 66% 70% 60% 50% 40% 34% 30% 16% 20% 10% 0% Horizon 1 Horizon 2 Horizon 3

Figure 19: Three horizons of growth

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. A product development strategy, where the firm sells new products or services in existing markets, remains the most important growth strategy. Selling new products and or services is also clearly the most commonly undertaken action to increase turnover. This points to the importance of innovation capacities within the firm, as the creation of promising new products and services seems to be at the core of further growth.

2. Recruiting the right new employees remains by far the most important growth barrier, as three quarters of the surveyed entrepreneurs stated that not finding skilled people for vacant jobs hampers the growth of the firm.

3. Access to financial resources that are needed to fuel the growth of the firm is not perceived as an important growth barrier. Apparently, this has become even less of an issue for the growth entrepreneurs; in 2017, 70% of the surveyed growth entrepreneurs stated that financing constraints did not prevent the firm from growing faster, increasing to 81% in 2018.

4. The M&A activity of the analysed growth firms increased from 2017 to 2018. When asked about the most common actions that were undertaken to increase turnover, 40% of the entrepreneurs answered that they took over other players in the industry (compared to 30% in 2017). Moreover, it is shown that 48% of the firms have acquired a competitor in the previous three years; in 2017, the percentage was only 40%.

5. Creating more flexibility on the labour market should be the absolute number one priority for the government when aiming to stimulate growth among firms. Increasing the availability of subsidies is not considered important. Our6. Belgian solution growth firmsto your are export specificing mainly needs in Europe and not in other continents. Sixty-seven per cent of the analysed growth firms are generating at least 10% of their turnover from exporting, but only 25% are generating at least

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10% of their turnover outside of Europe. Hence, Belgium has only a few truly global growth firms.

7. The introduction of new products and services is found to be the most popular action undertaken to increase turnover. Therefore, it is crucial that firms are able to rapidly take new products to the market. With this in mind, the survey reveals that 73% of the growth firms bring new products or services to the market in less than one year from the moment of spotting an opportunity.

8. Only 5% of the growth firms are not focusing on digitally transforming the business, and only 28% are coping with the digital transformation process on their own (meaning that they do not collaborate with other parties, such as digital agencies or start-ups).

9. 57% of the growth firms are not selling their products or services online. However, this percentage has dropped from 63% last year.

10. Growth entrepreneurs are spending a lot of their time and resources on strengthening their core business (Horizon 1), but are also clearly aware of the importance of looking for adjacent businesses (Horizon 2) and totally new projects that could boost the firm’s growth further in the future (Horizon 3).

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WHO ARE THESE HIGH-GROWTH FIRMS?

Numbers and graphs are interesting, but in the end, it is the company and the entrepreneur and his team behind these figures that make growth happen. Therefore, in order to give an idea of the different types of firms that qualify as high-growth firms in the period 2014-2017, and of the CEOs that completed the survey, we present three short testimonials of Belgian HGFs that are members of iGMO.

“Skylux: aiming for high-growth in customer satisfaction”

One of the 820 employment high-growth firms for the period 2014-2017 is the Kortrijk-based company Skylux. The producer of skylights and barrel vaults, formerly known as AG Plastics,

generates a revenue of 70 million EUR and employs 250 people. Today, Jean Glorieux, the grandson of the founder Albert Glorieux is leading the third- generation family firm.

“Our ultimate goal is not to realize high-growth in terms of employees or turnover, but to achieve growth in customer satisfaction. Therefore, we aim not to grow too fast as this could lead to growing pains for our organization which may lead to lower customer satisfaction. Therefore, the most important challenge is to balance healthy growth and customer satisfaction”, says Jean Glorieux (photo).

Skylux’ main growth driver over the past few years has been a continuous investment in R&D and digitisation. “This has led to the development of new products and the optimization of existing products. In doing so, we partnered with technical consultants who could leverage our existing in-house knowledge. Furthermore, we are looking for innovations in

other industries which can inspire our R&D-teams to develop products that respond to what the end-consumer really expects.”, says Jean.

“Revive: purpose-driven people that go for sustained growth”

Revive, founded in 2009, considers itself as an outsider amongst project developers. They have established a clear

niche in their sector by focusing on the reconversion of strongly contaminated sites in urban areas. They have realised high-

Ourgrowth solution rates for several to yearsyour by specificmaking a distinctive needs choice for this type of niche project.

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Founder and CEO Nicolas Béarelle (photo) states that Revive takes advantage of a number of barriers to entry that have been built in previous years: “We started

from a strong capital base and did a lot of effort to make our brand visible in the market. Revive is a purpose-driven firm: by focusing on contaminated areas, we want to achieve added value for the entire neighbourhood. By having this philosophy, it became easier to attract high-quality people that were driven by the same intrinsic values and that have no ‘short-term mindset’. All this has helped us to create a positive image and credibility with our stakeholders.”

In less than ten years, Revive’s turnover has grown exponentially. “Today, we come at a point where we see that the Belgian market has become too small for further expansion as a niche player. Therefore, we try to broaden our current offering in the existing market by focusing on ‘housing-as-a-service’ and to enter new foreign markets with the initial niche strategy that we have

applied in our home market.”, concludes Béarelle.

“Tobania: intrapreneurial managers to boost our growth”

Tobania has grown into one of the largest business consulting and IT companies in Belgium with a turnover of 85 million EUR in 2017 and 900 consultants (of which 600 employees, the so-called ‘Tobians’). CEO Lode Peeters: “Our organisational structure is decentralized. Therefore, our top managers are given an extensive degree of freedom to be an entrepreneur themselves, within the business unit they control. They design their own strategy and have end-to-end responsibility for sales, business development, delivery and recruitment and management of talent.”

“We have a strong management team. On the one hand, there are the relatively young and highly talented managers who have been given the chance to grow internally towards positions within Tobania with a high responsibility. On the other hand, we recruited talent to give us a fresh look on the business. The sum

is that they all have relevant management experience, but we continue to coach and train them on the job. Contrarily, this brings the advantage that they are non-judgmental and eager to learn and willing to give the best of themselves every day. This leads to a very dynamic and entrepreneurial environment. And since the summer of 2016 we decided to strengthen the corporate Our management solution layer towith your the aim specific to guide and needs service our management team in an even better way with for example marketing and communication facilities,

sales strategies, budget control, legal and personnel advice.”, states Peeters.

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Tobania was created after the merger between Tobius and Saga in 2015. “One of the barriers we currently face in order to grow faster is the availability of financial resources needed for new acquisitions. Apparently, investors first want to see if the merger is a success before they are prepared to finance. I think we come to the prove now as we have two years of double digit growth.”, says

Lode Peeters (photo).

ABOUT THE RESPONDENTS AND THEIR FIRMS

KEY FIGURES

The surveyed firms have an average annual turnover of 120 million EUR, with a median of 50 million EUR. They employ 529 FTEs on average, with a median of 190 FTEs. The mean of all EBITDA figures is 13.6 million EUR, with a median of 5 million EUR. Hence, it is clear that the growth firms that we have analysed are mature firms and surely not to be thought of as a group of young start-ups.

Average Median Turnover (last 120 50 available year, in million EUR) FTE 529 190 (last available year) EBITDA (last available 13.6 5 year, in million EUR) Figure 20: Key figures

ARE THEY FAMILY FIRMS?

F I R M T Y P E

Family firm Non-family firm

13%

87%

OurFigure solution21: Type of firm to your specific needs

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DO THEY HAVE A BOARD OF DIRECTORS?

Yes No No, but we have a Board of Advisors

30% 48%

22%

Figure 22: Presence of a Board of Directors

WHO IS THE CEO THAT FILLED IN THE SURVEY?

Founder Family of the founder Externally appointed CEO Because of of a Management Buy-Our or Management Buy-In Other reason 5% 11% 20%

64%

Figure 23: Profile of the CEO

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THE VIEW OF THE AUTHORS

THE GROUP IS GROWING AGAIN, BUT …

After four consecutive periods were the number of Belgian employment high- growth firms was decreasing or stagnating, we now see an increase in the amount of employment HGFs for the period 2014-2017. Also the number of added value HGFs finds its highest amount since 2009. However, if we compare the relative number of employment HGFs in Belgium in the period 2014-2017 – 3,48% – with the percentage of HGFs in other neighbouring countries like the in the same period – 5,40%9 –, we can conclude that Belgium is trailing.

A RISE IN M&A ACTIVITY

An increasing number of growth firms have chosen the path of inorganic growth, meaning that they acquired other firms to make a turnover and/or workforce leap. This result fits within a general rise in M&A activity. The Vlerick M&A Monitor10 reports that a continuous surge in the number of transactions has been witnessed for the past five years. Hence, high-growth firms appear not to be different than ‘other’ firms when it comes to acquisitions. An important question may arise if the conclusions that were made about HGFs and their profile characteristics are still valid if a large amount of the growth should be attributed to external or inorganic growth. Past research shows11 however, that the conclusions are similar irrespective of whether organic or inorganic growth is studied.

SUSTAINABLE GROWTH NEEDS TO BE MANAGED

Very few (eleven) Belgian firms were able to be called an employment high-growth firm for the entire period from 2009 to 2017. Apparently high-growth is for the vast majority of firms a temporary phenomenon. However, one potential recipe for persistent high-growth might be found in the management of growth horizons. If firms achieve high-growth from the activities that result from their current core business (i.e. horizon 1), it will be crucial to invest sufficient time and resources to develop adjacent activities (i.e. horizon 2) in order to anticipate for the fall-back that might stem from the core business. Moreover, to anticipate HGFs should also look for completely new and innovative business opportunities (i.e. horizon 3) that may boost the firm’s growth in the long run.

By balancing the three horizons – for example by devoting 70% of the firm’s total available time and resources to horizon 1 activities, 20% to horizon 2 activities and 10% to horizon 3 activities – the chances of keeping the firm on Our solution to your specific needs 9 Jansen, J. & Luxemburg, M. (2018), ‘Scale-Up Dashboard 2018’, Research report, Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship 10 Luypaert, M. & Spolverato, G. (2017), ‘Vlerick M&A Monitor 2018’, Research report, Vlerick Business School 11 Henrekson, M. & Johansson, D. (2010), ‘Gazelles as job creators: a survey and interpretation of the evidence’, Small Business Economics, volume 35 (2), p. 227-244 29

the high-growth track might increase substantially as the pipeline for growth is filled in a substantial manner.

DIGITAL IS NOT YET THE NEW NORMAL

A ‘digital first’ mentality seems not yet to be the case for most Belgian growth firms. Compared to 2017, the relative number of CEOs that think that their firm is lagging behind when it comes to digitization has increased from 20% to 26%. However, we witness an increase of 6 percentage points in the number of firms that are selling their products online. Nevertheless, more than half of the firms remain selling not at all via the internet. Clearly, the there is an untapped potential for online sales – even in a B2B environment.

OVERCOMING THE PEOPLE BARRIER

Unsurprisingly, the major growth barrier is not being able to attract the right people. Only 3% of the entrepreneurs report no difficulties in recruiting skilled employees. The results are similar to these of 2017. This can indicate that there is a misfit between the supply side of the Belgian labour market and the type of jobs that Belgian growth firms demand. Growth firms that struggle to find technically skilled people such as engineers could reach out to urban areas such as Brussels, Antwerp, Gent or on order to have access to ‘tech-savvy’ pools of talent that are frequently based in urban areas. This might also to a large extent explain why overrepresentations of HGFs are found in Antwerp and Brussels. Firms could even go one step further and get inspired by many Belgian start-up companies who find their technical people abroad, and reach out to countries where many skilled engineers are based (e.g. Portugal, India, …). In a digital world, distance has become a vague concept.

DO WE NEED A POLICY FOR HIGH-GROWTH FIRMS?

There is no such thing as a typical high-growth firm with a typical growth trajectory. Rather, many growth patterns may lead to high-growth. As some firms will grow in a rather traditional way (i.e. by increasing employment and turnover at the same time), other firms may go for a higher turnover with less employeesi. Moreover, HGFs are likely to differ in the speed and consistency of their growth. Some may grow smoothly in the same pace, other may grow in one or two large steps. Hence, a policy that is specifically targeted to HGFs as a homogeneous group is likely to have limited effect 12. If policy makers would identify high-growth firms as an area of priority, it is crucial to acknowledge that these different patterns will have different implications for reaching policy goals. A ‘one size fits all’ approach is likely to be suboptimal given these diverging patterns. Our solution to your specific needs

12 Delmar, F. & Davidsson, P. (1998), ‘A taxonomy of high-growth’, Frontiers of Entrepreneurshio Research, volume 18 (1), pp. 343-399 30

Our finding that the subset of HGFs is generating a more or less stable amount of jobs – even in times when the overall population of firms is generating few net jobs – is an important message for policy makers. It may be tempting to launch a specific policy targeted towards HGFs as such; this may lead to a higher ‘stable’ amount of jobs that are created by the HGF-subset. Nevertheless, one should have some precaution. Such a policy may have limited impact as high firm growth is found to be a temporary phenomenon in the life of a firm. Hence, if the promotion of high-growth firms is an area of priority, it is important to determine what type of high-growth firms are the most valuable for reaching specific policy targets.

In addition a generic entrepreneurial policy is crucial for HGFs. It effects the framework conditions that allow companies to grow such as ease of doing business, macro-economic stability, a well-developed physical and commercial infrastructure, R&D facilities, access to finance and training and education.

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APPENDIX: LIST OF EMPLOYMENT HGFs FOR THE PERIOD 2014-2017

Company Name Location ! @B CLEAN BRUSSEL 24+ ZWIJNDRECHT 2CC67 MAISIERES 3 T PREFABBETON 4C A.C.N. IZEGEM A.I.R.A. CLEANING SERVICES LONCIN AAK BELGIUM MERKSEM ABSOLUTE@WORK GISTEL ABYLSEN BELGIUM BRUSSEL AC FACILITIES ACA IT - SOLUTIONS ACTION BELGIUM ACTIVE CLEANING SERVICES BRUSSEL ADIUTUM BRUSSEL ADM ANTWERP ANTWERPEN ADVANCE GROOT-BIJGAARDEN ADVENSYS BRUSSEL ADVIPRO LILLE AFAS BELGIUM MECHELEN AFELIO LIEGE AG REAL ESTATE PROPERTY MANAGEMENT BRUSSEL AGIDENS LIFE SCIENCES BURCHT AGILENT TECHNOLOGIES BELGIUM DIEGEM AGO CONSTRUCT KORTRIJK AGORIA REAL ESTATE BRUSSEL AGRISERT JONCRET AGRISTO BAVIKHOVE AGROKOM STADEN AKKA BELGIUM BRUSSEL ALARM EN VEILIGHEID VOCHTEN - MYLLE SECURITY MERKSEM ALDI HOLDING OTTERGEM ALL SERVICES COMPAGNIE ALTAIR GOSSELIES ALTEN BELGIUM BRUSSEL ALTISSIA INTERNATIONAL LOUVAIN-LA-NEUVE AMARIS CONSULTING BELGIUM BRUSSEL AMBULANCE FIRST CARE HOUTHULST AMG BELGIUM THIMISTER ANANKEI HEVERLEE ANDRE DE DECKER ET FILS SAINTES ANTWERP CONTAINER TRANSPORT INTERNATIONAL ANTWERPEN SPORTPALEIS MERKSEM API RESTAURATION CUESMES AQTOR! OOSTAKKER ARENDO ARGEN-X ZWIJNAARDE ARIES CONSULTANTS BIERGES ARTEBIS BRUSSEL ASIT BIOTECH BRUSSEL ASSYSTEM CARE HOLDING BRUSSEL ATALIAN MANAGEMENT SERVICES BRUSSEL ATELIER VIERKANT ZANDVOORDE (OOSTENDE) AUTO TERMINUS BRUGGE BRUGGE AUTOPARTS FLANDERS AVERNA HASSELT OurAVERTIM solution to your specific needsBRUSSEL AVIOVISION HASSELT AXIS ANTWERPEN AXONE PHARMA BRAINE-L'ALLEUD AXXI4YOU ANTWERPEN AZALEES BRUSSEL 32

B S X VERREBROEK BAAC VLAANDEREN BASSEVELDE BAKKERIJ GIELIS ZICHEM BAKKERIJ-TEA-ROOM VANALLES & NOGWAT BEERZEL BARTS POTATO COMPANY VLETEREN BASALTE MERELBEKE BASIC-FIT BELGIUM BRUSSEL BAUCOUBAR BRUSSEL BAV BBK EXPANSION NAMUR BE FOOD! BRUGGE BE NETWORKS MECHELEN BECHTLE DIRECT NEERPELT BEKAERTDESLEE INNOVATION WAREGEM BELCOTEC BELFIUS FLERON - VISE VISE BELFIUS NOORD-BRABANT - BELFIUS BRABANT ASSE BELGISCHE SCHEEPVAARTMAATSCHAPPIJ ANTWERPEN BELGO HOME CONSTRUCT DUISBURG BELLE'S POETSBUREAU WAREGEM BEMATRIX BEVEREN-ROESELARE BE-MOBILE TECH MELLE BENVITEC PIPING KRUIBEKE BENVITEC PLASTICS KOERSEL BIBLIOPOLIS BRUSSEL BINHOME BRUSSEL BIO MINERALS DESTELBERGEN BIOPLANET HALLE BISTRO 4 BJS.SERVICES BKCS BLAKE & PARTNERS BRUSSEL BLECKMANN BELGIE KRUISHOUTEM BNP PARIBAS LEASE GROUP BRUSSEL BOEHRINGER INGELHEIM ANIMAL HEALTH BELGIUM BRUSSEL BOPLAN GULLEGEM BOREALIS ANTWERPEN PAAL BORVAL IEPER BOSQ MECHELEN BOUW- EN CONSTRUCTIEWERKEN SWINNEN BOUWMATERIALEN DE GROOTE - HOUTBOERKE GENT BOUWMATERIALEN VAN BOUWWERKEN DE RUYCK BOVA ENVIRO+ HEUSDEN (O.-VL.) BOZARC BRASSE - TEMPS DIFFUSION FROYENNES BRASSERIE DU GRAND ENCLOS SENSENRUTH BRASSERIE TROLL & BUSH PIPAIX BRICOLAGES JARIS GEMBLOUX BRIGHTNET BRUSSEL BRYSSINCK SINT-PAUWELS BUBBLE SINT-KATELIJNE-WAVER BUILD PARTNER BRUSSEL BUMACO KOELTECHNIEK BURDOCK CONSULTANTS BELGIUM BUROCAD PEER BUSENCO KRUIBEKE C SYSTEMS HOUTHALEN-HELCHTEREN C&G OOSTHAM C. OUTDOOR HASSELT C.JC.B.M. C.M.E.CONSTRUCT CAMBRE ASSOCIATES BRUSSEL OurCAMCO solution TECHNOLOGIES to your specific needsHEVERLEE CARE TALENTS KORTRIJK CAREHO CARGILL MECHELEN CARRELAGES GILLET NOVILLE-LEZ-BASTOGNE

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