About Creating Better.
Creating Better is a strategic business advisory built on thirty years of running, fixing and growing businesses, with a specialist care technology arm for health, social care and housing. It is small by design, led from the front, and still being built. This page says how it got here and what you can expect from it.
From the shop floor to the boardroom, by way of the dugout.
Harry MacLean started as a graduate buyer at Sainsbury's and went on to Sports Direct, learning early that a business is only as good as what it sells and what it pays for it. Then came the chief executive's chair at Dundee FC, a business like any other except that the whole city has an opinion on it, and a director's role in Aberdeen running supply chain and business improvement.
Seven years with Hendrik Veder Group followed, the leading manufacturer of lifting slings, first in the UK and then in the Netherlands as the only non-Dutch board director and finally Group Managing Director. After that, five years as chairman of Alexander Sturrock, a family maker of timber windows and doors, and the founding and eventual sale of a sensor technology company.
Creating Better is where all of that now goes to work for other people. It began as a strategic business advisory, became known for care technology, and has come back to being both.
Alongside you.
Alongside you.
Alongside you.
How we work, in all we do.
Alongside you.
In the team, not above it. The person you meet at the start is the person who does the work, and there is no deck, no juniors and no hand-off to someone you have never met. If a named associate joins, it is because their expertise fits, and you will know who they are and why.
Straight talking.
What we actually think, said plainly and early. If the plan is wrong we will say so, and we expect you to argue back. Nothing useful comes from an advisor who agrees with everything, and nothing lasting comes from one who cannot be challenged.
Sharp thinking.
To the point, then on with it. The job is to get to the real problem quickly, decide, and move, not to admire the problem from every angle. Most of what makes a business better is not complicated, it is just hard to do, and that is where the work is.
Quiet strength.
Calm, warm and unshaken when it matters. Boards, families and football crowds have all had their say over the years, and the useful response is the same every time. Listen, keep your head, and do the next right thing. Humour underneath, not on top.
Still being built. Deliberately.
Creating Better is not a finished thing and is not meant to be. It grows a service at a time, when there is a client who needs it and someone who can do it properly, and it stays small enough that the person you speak to is the person in the room. It is Dundee born and based, works across the UK, and is comfortable in a boardroom in Rotterdam or a care home in Fife. The plan is to keep it that way.
Dundee born, and proud of it.
I grew up in Dundee, went to school here, ran the football club here and came back after years in England, the Netherlands and Spain because it is home. It is a city that has had to reinvent itself more than once, from jute and jam to games and life sciences, and it has done it without losing its sense of humour or its manners. That is not a bad model for a business.
Even the colours on this site come from here. The dark grey is the Tay on a normal day and represents what has always been beside us, the background is the stone the city is built from and is about resilience, the green is the Sidlaws and the Law which surrounds us with nature, and the blue in the logo is the river with the light through it, which is grey-blue rather than silvery, whatever McGonagall said. They were chosen to feel calm, grounded and outdoors, which is what we want the work to feel like. They are also, deliberately, nobody's football colours.
Creating Better is based in the Flour Mill on Commercial Street, and the kettle is usually on.
Who does the work.
Harry MacLean
Founder and the person in the room on every engagement. Thirty years of running businesses, from retail to industry to sport, and the one who answers the phone.
Software and Platform Consultant
Brought in where the question is which platform, what it can and cannot do, and what it will cost to make it work with what you already have. Name to follow.
Project Management Consultant
Brought in when a decision has been made and now has to happen, on time, on budget and without the people doing the work losing the will to live. Name to follow.
Care Technology Consulant
Brought in on care technology engagements where a second pair of hands is needed in the service, alongside the staff who will use it every day. Name to follow.