Spring to Action Ltd

New statistics released on female owned & ethnic minority enterprises

 

The government has released its latest publication, updating information about women-owned ethnic minority social enterprises (of which we are proudly one). 5.7% of small to medium sized enterprise (smes) employers are social enterprises, equating to about 68,000 smes. 15.5% of smes are owned by women and 6.3% of smes are minority ethnic group led.

Hopefully more detailed research will follow, indicating peaks and troughs in different areas so that comparisons to population sizes can be made. 

Wouldn't it be interesting to know how many of the general population understood what a social enterprise was? Not as many as we'd like to think, I suspect.

 

The Absent Talent

Business advisors are soon going to be an endangered species.  Currently, Business Link is the major employer, but with many an enterprise agency, social enterprise development company, quango and local government officer employed to support businesses there are a range of business advisors out there.

But from November or even earlier, many advisors will have lost their funding or been made redundant. Many will have to re-train or enter the private sector perhaps in a related but different career.

What worries me the most however, is where is the next generation of advisors coming from? The current entry routes vary, but commonly people enter the sector through becoming project officers, administrator, information and guidance staff or similar occupations.  As the coalition governments spending cuts hit these entry routes will drastically decline.  Who else would enter the fray?

My own view is that at some point government will realise (perhaps through a bump on the head or worse, a complete drop in entrepreneurial activity) that they need funded business support, in some cases.  My argument of course assumes this, it assumes that we need business advisors, coaches, mentors and the plethora of business support that’s out there. But I would say that wouldn’t I?  That argument is for another day.

Any thoughts?

Cameron's StartUp Britain: A Help or Hindrance?

David Cameron has announced the launch of StartUp Britain, a package of measures to encourage people in Britain to start up businesses.

The main focus of this package is support from 60 leading brands offering a range of freebies - from free access to hotdesking to 1 months free broadband. The sort of stuff you'd expect from major brands wanting to promote their products to small businesses. 

This will "drive growth by accelerating, inspiring and celebrating Britain's startup talent".

This strikes the chord of a government wanting to avoid spending money wherever possible.  The simple reality is that for startup businesses this will do very little.  Startup costs can be prohibitive, so I guess every little helps, but this really is a very little.

Research shows us that startups, especially those from regenerating communities, need face to face advice from people they can trust and who will challenge them to market research and test their idea.  I worry that we are setting up yet another generation of entrepreneurs to fail. 

Not only will this cost us all in the long run (think of all those suppliers who'll never get paid, all those people declared bankrupt, and the ever-increasing benefits queue) but we will damage individuals confidence which is easy to damage, hard to repair.  

This is short-term thinking, which will do little to impact the Growth agenda Cameron espouses.  Businesses need real people, with real skills and a real passion to help them.

Worrying.

Budget for Growth?

Yesterday George Osbourne and Co announced the budget for 2011.  There was a focus on talking up 'Made in Britain' and 'Manufatured in Britain' goods and services, which seems to follow a key trend already alive and well in some the major brands.

Business support was sadly but glaringly missing. For those of us working in business support and economic regeneration, its difficult to see how UK growth can improve when nationwide free (to the end user) business support is being removed from November 2011, and the majority of businesses will be reliant on a website for information and advice.  As fantastic as the Business Link website is, most businesses want face-to-face support where they can seek answers to their specific problem in their sector.  Will businesses start to pay for this support?

There were announcements of cuts in coroporation tax, business rate relief holiday for small businesses, £100million of funding for Science Parks and Apprenticeships.  This sounds like the return of the Future Jobs Fund by any other name, but surely welcome given the high rate of young people out of work.

A good start but for me, a case of must do better!

Vince Cable has just announced a network of 40,000 business mentors who will help businesses to start up and thrive.

Business and Enterprise Minister Mark Prisk said:

“In the current economic climate, it has never been more important to promote an enterprise culture in the UK, and mentors play a crucial role in advising, supporting and encouraging entrepreneurs and small businesses. This new mentoring network will be invaluable for businesses all over the country.”

Mentors can offer guidance, support and most of all the reasurrance of someone who has been in business before.  You can usually ask for someone who's run a similar business to yours before, someone who has expertise in an area of the business you're concerned about (e.g. marketing) or someone from a completely different sector.  Mentoring relationships can be short or longer term, depending on your needs.

You can also find your own mentor - perhaps someone who's inspired you and you look up to. It can be an informal mentoring relationship, perhaps where you share a cuppa once a while and use them an unofficial sounding board. Often people have lots of these relationships, but perhaps don't label it as mentoring. It's just a valid, either way. 

I know we at Spring are lucky enough to have lots of colleagues, partners and contacts who are kind enough to act as unoffical relationships and we try to learn as much as can from everyone we meet.

Who are your mentors and how do they help you?

One Size Fits All?

Wouldn't it be fantastic if every business just had a one stop shop for all their business needs? Everybody would have a clear point of contact and would know where to go for information.  What's more, it would be pretty straightforward for those organisations tasked with monitoring business support, because there would just be one contract to monitor.

Ah, but wait! We have Business Link. The brand tasked with supporting all businesses to grow / develop.  I say brand, because for those of you blissfully unaware of the intricacies of public policy, Business Link is  several organisations working under one banner.

My problem isn't that the brand, one with differing reputations in different areas of the country.  I'm more concerned with the customer/s.  Because every business has different needs, approaches and skills.  I'm concerned that this current government will be looking to cut business support further, reducing the number and size of organisations delivering support to just a small few.

I think this doesn't make sense.  Currently in Leicester alone there are at least five organisations offering contracted business support.  They all support slightly different segments of the market and it works pretty well.  Ok so it's a bit confusing.  And yes quality is an issue.  But believe me, the customer is confused by Business Link and quality can be an issue there too (ofcourse, not in Leicester).  Let's continue to make savings where we can, but keep the range of breadth of organisations who deliver quality support that businesses want, where they want it.

How would you propose that business support is delivered? What changes would you make to ensure you get the support you need, when and how you need it?  Or should we just chuck it all away and save the pennies & pounds for the NHS, education or frontline services?

Regen Roundup

The Coalition government seem to be releasing news at a rate of knots we haven't seen for years.  To help you keep up, we've compiled a quick list of some of the most important items:

• The government has announced it's intention to start a Regional Growth Fund and seeks your views
• How would you like to see Skills policy in the future? BIS starts a consultation
• Local Enterprise Partnerships are moving forward - Mark Prisk met local government representatives and business leaders to hear their views
• Meanwhile, David Cameron begins to set out his vision for the Big Society, launching it in Liverpool

What do you think the Coalition government should so about it's growth fund, how should it focus limited resources yet improve skills for all and what do you think about the Big Society? Let us know.

How Do we Support High Growth Businesses?

Much has been made of late about where business support is heading, that is, should the government pay for it? The focus appears to be heading toward high growth businesses who apparently will be employing the masses of ex public sector workers who are likely to be laid off as a result of the cuts.

Sounds fair, doesn't it? Let's incentivise high growth businesses to employ lots of new staff, cutting the welfare budget and the public sector wage bill.  Win win, eh?

Little discussion or focus appears to have been made around how these high growth businesses will be found. How do we decide which businesses have the potential for high growth, and indeed which don't? What has worked either at home or abroad to 'make' these businesses dramatically improve their profits and employ more people (are the two always linked?).

There is another important question for me.  When we've helped these high growth businesses grow, and they are ticking along nicely, how do we assist the next generation of high growths? 

This is a discussion which will probably roll on, but it's important we start the debate anyway. And then let's continue the debate about how we should support all people, regardless of background, to start new businesses because that's a very important point. Something we at Spring are very concerned about.

Tomorrow is D Day for the Budget

Finally the day arrives when we all get to hear about where the budget cuts are falling and just how fast.  Is anyone else feeling a little nervous?

Already we've heard snippets of news, that Business Link's regional offices will be shut, that public sector pay and pensions will be frozen, that startup support will drastically change, and that local workspace capital developments have been stopped.

Indeed, when I wrote about this a few months ago, I asked what would you cut?

The question is developing as the days go past...now I would ask what would you cut and WHY? Let's face it, we can go ahead and cut everything that costs a significant amount of money, but we really need to ask ourselves what projects does this country need to prosper?

Which projects or developments will help us create jobs, build more prosperous communities and businesses, make the UK a better place to live and work in these tough economic times?

I just hope these aspects are being considered alongside the monetary aspects. Otherwise it really will be a return to the 80's of boom and bust. 

Training for Startups: Skills, Knowledge or both?

Today I led one of our workshops again in Leicester for startups.  It occured to me that several things were happening during the course. Experiences that aren't always evaluated using our usual tick-box methodolgies that we're encouraged to use by funders. 

Not only were participants learning specific knowledge (e.g. what breakeven is and why it's important) but also learning to learn.  What I mean by that is, practising and playing out the understanding that at times in business there will be things you don't know the answer to.  And that's ok.  In fact, that's great.  The important thing is knowing who to ask to help you learn new things.

Often during startup workshops we tell people that by the end of the course they will know how to start a business.  We even encourage them to think that they will have started a business by the end.  That they will have all the expertise and knowledge required to run a successful business.

This is a lie. I don't think we mean to do it, but we do.  We raise expectations that can't be matched. Sure, there are people who will have started by the end.  But realistically it takes time for most people to research, learn, understand what's required, check out their finances / benefits situation.  And often things will come along to blow their best laid plans off course.

So what are the important things to learn or cover during a course? My ten penneth is this:

• What you bring to a business - your life experience, communication skills, knowledge of the customer (if you have it), any specific talents or expertise, any financial backing you might have
• What you don't yet have, but can work on - finances, skills gaps, expertise, confidence, contacts
• What it takes to run a business - time management, finance management, understand of laws / regulations, insurances, taxes, web / IT strategy

What do YOU think - have I missed anything? Or do you agree with the (present) government's Business Start up/business simplification workshops agenda?  What would you write into a course online?