Fundamentals of Supply Chain course

I shall be running a 4 day Fundamentals of Supply Chain course 15th to 18th October in Hastings, which is a lovely UK sea side town on the south coast.  This is going to be a small number  of delegates so any one interested in joining in please let me know - it will be a chance to have a course in a really small group and get personnalised support. 

Details are here.

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.

Free Purchasing suport for SMEs

Through our partners at Oakwell Management Services, we are able to provide free purchasing consultancy to eligible smes in Lincolnshire through the SUSTAIN programme - click here for details. Businesses will be able to attend a number of seminars but more importantly to have one on one support to help them improve their procurement process.

Our element has to be completed by the end of September, and the number of places is strictly limited, so I strongly recommend signing up as quickly as possible. If for no better reason than that this sort of fully funded project is probably going to become very rare in the future. There is no contribution required apart from your time and committment.

What are the benefits? Well it is always possible that you are doing everything perfectly already, and there is nothing to improve. Generally though we find that there are easy to achieve improvements possible on the bottom line - they may be small in percentage terms, but who does not want to improve their profitability for lalmost no effort? In these difficult times a couple of percent on the profits is always welcome.

Often there are much bigger saving possible with a little effort, and large improvements in risk management.

Fuller details and a launch website will be available in a few days, but if you are interested please call me asap. This project is for companies in the Lincolnshire County Council catchment area - I hope you know whether that includes your business or not.

A similar scheme is being run on a limited basis in the East Midlands, called MATREC and focussing on materials businesses. If you want to know more, get in touch.