Businessmen attending an event in Glasgow earlier this month heard how entrepreneurs need to “consider relinquishing some control and diversifying their leadership to scale up their businesses”.

The event was held to discuss a report (compiled by Barclays Bank plus Oxford and Cambridge universities) called Scale-up UK: Growing Businesses, Growing our Economy.

Stewart McTavish — the keynote speaker and founding director of the University of Cambridge IdeaSpace (created to help early-stage innovators and entrepreneurs) — helped to compile the research. Speaking to Scotland on Sunday, he said that start-ups must surround themselves “with the right sorts of people” and “focus on what the business does for society and the customers that it serves”.

He added that another key issue for businesses in Scotland is that they tend to sell out to bigger companies too early.

Jamie Grant, head of business and corporate banking at Barclays, said: “This is a sector that we’re now committed to. The key for us is really trying to look after companies throughout their life-cycle, from scale-up right through to IPO.”