Book Review: Intervention - The Battle for Better Business

As the economic continues to bump along the bottom in the UK, there is a continual focus on the ways to increase entrepreneurship and stimulate the economy.  Many of the people who have found themselves outside of regular employment are setting up in business for themselves, creating a new wave of business start-ups.  There is considerable academic (and far from academic) debate about how best to support entrepreneurs, whether we should, and if we do what types of entrepreneur to support.  Should support be focussed on so called “high growth” prospects, which have the capacity to grow rapidly from a few founders to companies employing hundreds?  Should we instead focus support on the large established companies that employ significant numbers of people?  Or are those businesses types of business able to support themselves, and should we focus on the small one man band new entrants to the commercial world?

These arguments are not new, and I have just finished reading a book that covers some of this ground.  Intervention – the battle for Better business (by Elliot Forte) covers the history of the BusinessLink business support group in the UK since its introduction by Michael Heseltine to the effect abandonment of the model under the current coalition government.

In the name of full disclosure I should point out I was both a client of and supplier to a variety of Business Link organisations, and so benefited greatly from their activities during the past 15 or so years.

The book is written by a Business Link insider who obviously valued their activities, and sees it as a shame that they have been closed down to be replaced by a website containing basic business information.  He is hardly uncritical of the way the organisation(s) operated, and in particular the way they had to adapt to constantly changing political priorities.  (one Business Link Operator I worked with closely changed its name, remit and organisation every 2 years for a decade – which was hardly beneficial for productivity).

I tend to agree with his conclusions that Business Links were particularly beneficial for the smaller operators.  There is an argument put forward that most of the information needed to setup and run a successful small business is available on the web – but many people setting up for themselves are practical people who benefit from a conversation rather than trawling through web pages.  For the same reason the excellent books provided by banks to new starts tend to sit on the shelves.  I think these micro start-ups are the ones who benefit from business advisors – but they are exactly the people who do not have the money (or self awareness) to employ one.  The larger and potentially more successful businesses can buy in their own support rather than using a government subsidised service.

Perhaps the biggest problem is the 10 to 50 man business that would benefit from external business advice, but is sceptical of consultants and will not employ them.  Here the Business Links provided a good introduction at subsidised prices, often free.

The book highlights the relatively low cost of Business Links and the large number of businesses that they touched – however lightly.   The current Business Link website largely duplicates and consolidates  information available in other places.  The government is focussing resources on companies with potential for rapid growth through the Regional Growth Fund, which is equivalent to the running costs of Business Links for a decade.  So we are placing quite a large bet on companies meeting their potential.

My concern is that we have a new community of small scale entrepreneurs starting in business during the depths of a recession.  Those that come through this will be the foundations of Britain’s next entrepreneurial community – but many will fail when their redundancy money or savings runs out.  A little bit of government funded support could increase the percentage making it through, and give a stronger business community in the future.  I too think the Business Links were a useful, if far from perfect, contributor to business success in the UK.

Book Review in Supply Management

My book with Stuart Emmett “Excellence in Public Sector Procurement” has been review in Supply Management.  See here.

If I can take the author’s usual creative care in picking out bits of reviews, it describes it as  “a fine book” but would like to see more focus on actual Excellence.  Comments like that are actually very helpful in the plans for a 2^nd edition, if there is sufficient interest/demand.

The book itself is available at Amazon here.

"The future is already here..

it's just not evenly distributed."  William Gibson.

One of my favourite quotes (I shoehorn it into quite a lot of presentations - sorry).

An example of the truth of this can be found in a recent blog entry here, by Mark Evanier - writer of the very funny Groo the Wanderer comics, and much else.    He listed the technology he used on a recent trip that was not available say 10 years ago.  It is an extensive list. 

We often don't notice the incremental changes in our world brought about by technology - apart occassionally to laugh at the huge mobile phones that people carry in 80s movies.  Or is it 90s movies?  We don't notice how the plots of movies have changed because technology means we can send a text message to the Police for help, or something similar.  How would the end of The Italian Job have been if Michael Caine's idea had been "I'll get my phone out and call the Italian AA"?

The world keeps changing.  Do try to keep up.

Further details of Market Research Course 2008

Further details are available by contacting either Paul or Rob. An outline is given in the attached picture.

Sustainable Packaging - 10th May 2012

I have the pleasure of speaking at a Seminar on Packaging Sustainability at the IOM3 in Grantham on Thursday 10th May 2012. 
I started out as a physicist, then slid over to a PhD in Polymer Physics, and onto work for ICI on Polyethylene, Polypropylene, PET and PEN.  During that time I increasingly appreciated the contribution that polymers made to our world, and how much packaging adds to it too.  Packaging, particularly plastic packaging, is seen as a modern scurge to be eliminated.  The good it does in protecting in the value of materials in transit, particularly food, is never mentioned.  The potential for further value from the materials through reuse, recycling or energy extraction is rarely mentioned for anything but glass (and don't get me started on why PP and PET are better than glass).

It is a key, and emotive issue.  But to get real sustainable environmental improvement we need to focus on the real issues, and not just the emotive ones.  The percentage of oil used to make plastics is about 7% last time I checked - of which packaging is only a part.  We burn the rest for heat and in cars.  Of course you can use plastics, and then burn them for heat.  The real issue is use of oil in heating and transport.

Of course with all packaging we should also be aiming to reduce the use (or weight), increase reuse and recycling - and this is not just environmental sense, it is good business sense.  There is no law that says that sustainable packaging has to be a cost to a business when compared to standard packaging, though suppliers may try to convince you to pay a sustainability premium
Anyway, that will be the general tone of my presentation - I'll put it up here when it is finished.

The UK Public Procurement Opportunity

About a year ago the government came up with some large numbers about the potential savings for councils by improved procurement.  The number was widely publicised as over £400 off each council tax bill, about £10bn which is about 20% of UK local authority spend.

These claims have been investigated by Private Eye, and are skewered by Ben Goldacre in his Bad Science blog and column on the Guardian (last year), and by the Local Government Chronicle here yesterday.

The initial piece of research by Opera Solutions was based on just 3 categories at 3 councils, and really is nothing more than a promotional piece pointing out that savings can be possible.  The 20% headline figure was derived from mobile phone rates (and the other 2 categories were only 10% savings).

Now we are probably going to get the political process here saying some combination of;
- the research was valid (no it's not)
- it was only presented as indicative (no it wasn't)
- it is a long time ago and things have moved on (well yes and no).
- this is political point scoring (well, yes but on both sides)
- let's forget about it.

It is not the only set of government promoted data that is under scrutiny  - see Peter Smith of Spend Matters, on the role of SMEs in supplying government.

My point in dragging these things up from other blogs is that this is important.  There are clearly savings to be made in local authority procurement, but they are unlikely to be as easy to realise as is being suggested.  Likewise there are benefits from engaging SMEs in public sector procurement processes, but they take time to delivery value. 

The first victim of the political process (from either side) is truth, in the form of accurate data.  But without accurate data we cannot make good procurement decisions and set appropriate strategies.  I hope (probably in vain) that all sides will recognise the need for good, clear, accurate data about public procurment.  It will take time and money to gather, but it should pay back the costs many times over in savings.  Just not £10 bn worth.  Probably.  I don't know.  I'd have to look at the data.

Principles and Practice for Public Procurement

CIPS and NIGP have combined to come up with  a set of Principles and Practices for Public Procurement, which should be applicable on a global basis.  They have worked with a range of practitioners (not including me) to develop them, including people from outside North America and the UK.  They are available for free here