Thank you for downloading this edition of the bottom line. In this program, Evan Davis and guests discuss whether companies perform better if they are turned upside down.

Hello and welcome to the program. Today we ask what happens when you turn companies upside down and get the people at the bottom to run things while the people at the top just sit back and watch what the results are. It's a radical approach which has been called upside down management

and although I've oversimplified it a bit, it is built on a philosophy that says companies

perform best when power is handed down. The man who wrote a book called upside down management

and who runs his own family business that way is John Timpson.

He's one of my guests, we'll find out from him, and two other seasoned bosses, whether it works.

So let's take a few minutes to meet all of them.

And first, Sir Jerry Robinson.

And, Jerry, you've led a number of businesses.

You presented TV business programs

currently you're the chairman of Moto so tell us about motors motorway service area yeah

motto is the largest of the operators on the motorway service outlets what's the turnover

in a year of a motorway service I'm going to have no idea you're looking at a business that

generates upwards of a couple of million pounds some at at the larger end. They generate a lot of income and run properly. They generate a lot of profit. How many of you? How many does Motto? We have a total of something like 98 outlets, but there are some either side of the road. There are some slightly separated from others, but a total of it 98 outlets. Okay. Thank you. Well, also with us is Nikki King. Welcome back to the program, Nicky. Thank you. Thank you. Chief Executive of Suzu Truck UK. And we've heard a little about Jerry's business. Just give us the sort of geography of Suzu Truck UK. Well, Issu Truck UK is the UK arm of one of the biggest truck manufacturers in the world, Isuzu.

And in fact, we are now in March this year, I actually sold the business back to Isuzu.

So I'm now a Japanese salary man and we're now actually a wholly owned subsidiary.

Right. And it's dealerships.

Yes, we operate through 63 dealerships across the country, all of whom are independents.

Let's turn now to John Timpson, who is chairman of Timpson's best known as a chain of shoe repair shops.

John, we should start by, I think, just hearing a little about the company.

Again, a company that is lots of smaller agents.

How many of them are there?

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