Inside Track Q&A

Margaret O’Connor is joint managing director of Quigleys Cafe/ Bakery, which has 16 retail outlets in 11 locations in Munster and Leinster and a 25,000sq ft food facility in Nenagh

What’s the most unique thing about your business?

Quigleys is a fifth-generation Irish business. It was on my husband John’s side of the family. His mother was a Quigley and she took over the business from her father.

I joined when I got married, at which point we decided to branch off into other areas, including the cafes. Before that, it was solely baking five or six different products.

John would have started by delivering bread to the different old-style shops which were still around at the time. It was on the front-of-house HR side that I started.

What was the best piece of business advice you’ve ever received?

When I participated in a business development programme run by Blaise Brosnan on behalf of the North Tipperary County Enterprise Board, I learned the importance of time management.

The enterprise board has been a big help because when you’re involved in business for 24 years, sometimes it can be a lonely place, and I got a lot of help from them, especially in the early years of starting up. You could always turn to them and they’d help you on your way.

What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made in business?

I made many mistakes, but it’s mistakes that provide you with a learning curve. It’s by the mistakes you learn – and the hardest knocks you learn the most from.

And your major success to date?

I suppose it would be recently when I won the Existing Business award in the Network North Tipperary Businesswomen of the Year awards. That gave you the recognition that, even in the tougher years, you were able to keep things going and it provided a boost for staff morale as well. The most important thing is the team behind you.

Who do you most admire in business and why?

I’d have to say Darina Allen. I’ve gone on many courses in Ballymaloe and how she’s built that school, how she’s developed it and what she’s done for Ireland is great. I was always invigorated by her work ethic, her attention to detail and her promotion of simply delicious Irish food.

Based on your experience in the downturn, are the banks in Ireland open for business to SMEs?

Fortunately, our business was never dependent to any great extent on bank finances.

There’s no doubt smaller businesses are finding it tough, though, and people who go in will be turned down for loans of even €20,000, which is difficult. These are tough times for those with small and medium business to keep afloat in.

What one piece of advice would you give to the Government to help stimulate the economy?

The Government should offer incentives to employers to encourage them to recruit more people. At the moment, trying to recruit is very difficult because you’re up against what’s being offered to people under social welfare. There has to be greater incentives offered to them.

I don’t want that come across in the wrong way because there are people out there who genuinely want to work, but in some case it’s just not worth their while.

What’s been the biggest challenge you have had to face?

Ten years ago, we invested in the expansion of our business to a 25,000sq ft state-of-the-art facility in Nenagh. That was a difficult and demanding change for both the management and our employees. The expansion has turned out to be a great success, but it was many years before we saw the reward. There was a lot of change required and change is difficult.

The second challenge is where we are at the moment. Over the past four years, we have seen many challenges because of the downturn. It’s about trying to keep your business afloat. We have invested in a marketing campaign but these are difficult times because the spend isn’t there, so we’re trying to keep sales on target.

How do you see the short-term future for your business?

I see it as challenging, but nevertheless with food innovation, marketing, IT and training, our company is in a position of continued success and expansion. You have to keep the quality up and what I always say is, if it’s not good enough for me, it’s not good enough for the customer. You have to be passionate about it.

There are many elements to business, but you have to have the quality, you have to have something that’s unique and you have to be able to change with trends. We’re still baking the traditional pan bread and soda bread, but we’re also baking the newer health breads – GI bread and spelt bread.

We’re producing and, because of that, when trends change we’re able to change as well. On the cafe side of things, you have to be continually changing as well – your menus have to change, our employees are entering into barista competitions as coffee-making is a big part of our business. you have to be innovating all the time.

What’s your business worth and would you sell it?

I should hope it’s worth a lot of dough! But it’s not for sale.