Business Advice | Anything for a clear desk

"Hey! I am a consultant!".

Don’t do what I do, do what I say! The reason I know about this problem in any detail is business experience – my own experience. Before we had fancy online efficiency modules we used to examine efficiency in the corporate workplace by manual statistics and measurement called ‘Work measurement’.

It was interesting to see what you did actually do all day. One difficulty was recording it consistently; another was the interpretation. For example, the patterns showed that customer flows usually dropped away at certain times of the day on certain days of the week. Therefore, staff were presumably not needed at those times and we would save money by using part time staff and giving others non time related jobs to do at those times. Result? Utter shambles!  To read the full Bob Shepherd Associates LinkedIn article, just click here.  Simple really,

Business Expansion Has To Be Balanced

One of the greatest enemies of business expansion is simply the business balance. It is no good, for example having the orders come flooding in if the company cannot handle the work-flow. Equally the business resources are finite and you cannot have resources waiting for an expected work-flow which doesn't materialise.

Retail is an easy one to judge as we all use shops. Have you ever noticed a shop closing down and thought you knew why? Was it location? Or was the location right but just not for that sort of shop? If the business owner compromises on location because of cost perhaps the results can be disastrous.  To read this article in full on LinkedIn, just click here 

The muddy waters of an SME

The muddy waters of an SME

Of the 5.2 million businesses in the UK, 70% plus are "SMEs" - Small and Medium Enterprises. They form a major component of all that gives life to business and especially so in South Wales. If you stand in a major supermarket and consider the amount of money going through the tills, realise that all this is less than a couple of per cent of what goes on! These small or start up businesses go from A - Accountants to Z - Zookeepers and there is no single definition of what an SME actually is.

Neither is there much agreement as to when a business stops being "small" and starts being "medium". The 2006 UK's Companies Act defines a small company as one that does not have a turnover of more than £6.5million, a balance sheet total of more than £3.26 million and not more than 50 employees. A medium-sized company is one with less than 250 employees and a turnover of under £12.9 million.  To read the full LinkedIn article, please click this link.

'Pub Talk'

Banks get a mixed press and I for one have been very disappointed in a number of things I have seen with my clients in recent months. However sometimes the bank is justified in its view. I was once called upon by an SME to advise them because their bank was suddenly taking away their £65k trading overdraft.

The reality was that they had had a £25k overdraft which had been increased after consultation to £65k for a 3 month period to cover the circumstances. That 3 months had expired and an extension had been granted to cover some further crisis and so on. 6 months after the first expiry the bank was saying 'this can't go on, we want to revert to £25k at the end of the month'. Not unreasonable when you examine the case and quite different from what I was told initially.

By producing information, preparing forecasts and approaching the bank properly Bob Shepherd Associates managed to get the £65k retained as their normal overdraft. While I was at it I noticed the company's leasing arrangements for equipment were all over the place and I re-sheduled that lending creating £4k extra cash per month in the business.

I call it 'pub talk' where an ill informed half story gains currency. Banks are wide open to it all the time and often cannot answer without breaking confidentiality.

Bankers Not Getting Their Feet Muddy

The BBA ( British Bankers' Association) held a conference in Cardiff last week hosted by the SW Chamber of Commerce. It was a good event but I was left with a feeling of depression. Amid all the rhetoric, and the unintentionally patronising declarations of openness for business, intentions to be accommodating, and figures defending the banks' position as a key player in the economy ..... there is a fundamental lack of understanding going on which is either staggering or cynical, depending on your view point.

Bank Lending Figures 
An example is the BBA figure 85% of lending applications for SMEs are granted. Accurate I don't doubt, but far from being evidence of banks pulling their weight in this sector I think it's an appalling admission and a patronising complacent assertion.
-  It ignores those propositions that the local business manager hasn't given a nod towards.
-  It ignores the BBA's own figure earlier this month that 55% of SMEs didn't even approach their bank last year because they thought they would get turned down anyway.
-  It ignores the fact that the local business managers don't have time to spend with their sme customers who are borrowing less than £500k (say..) to knock a proposition into shape.
-  It ignores also the indifference or ignorance of the local business manager towards referring possible projects to a paid consultant who can spend the time with them to get them into shape.
-  It ignores the fact that most small business SMEs have no idea what 'shape' is in the banking sense.
To say ( as was done at the conference) that 2/3rds of SMEs did not seek finance last year as corroboration of the Banks provision of service being okay in a straightened market is paradoxical at first glance and a head in the sand concept at second glance.

Banks and Project Merlin
Banks are not in the business of not lending. A good phrase to use but not backed up by observations on the street. The Project Merlin ( banks agreed to have targets for SME lending imposed) figures are all behind. No surprise there. Then you realise that most of what has been cheerfully put forward as banks doing their bit despite the reluctance of customers to come forward with sensible propositions, is accounted for by repeated lending and renewals of facilities and not new money.
It is the reluctance of Bank seniors to get their feet muddy that bothers me.

Bank Lending To Small Business SMEs

Business lending by the UK's largest banks fell during the last quarter (BoE  Q2 2011) despite what Barclays says about its own performance. Of course it did - any consultant working on a local scale will report similarly.

Until Banks get training for their local business managers and then trust them to exercise some discretion to liaise with the Credit/Lending department the position will remain. So too will the belief out there that Banks aren't lending to small business. Therefore the business economy will remain flat.

The first signs that someone is thinking they should do something about it that I have seen came at a local level with an invitation to talk by a Regional Business Manager for one of the big ones. His new on the block business manager had 4 years in the Bank and 3 weeks on 'the Business Side'. An awareness course and a clip board to follow, is all he had, plus a few ideas he picked up from the family shop. Oh dear. Who is going to talk to him with any expectation of understanding? 

As it is, a report has said that last year 55% of businesses didn't even bother to go to their Bank because the word is out that they will be turned down. 

A Template For Success?

The index used for Inflation calculations is based upon a basket of purchases that most households are likely to buy. Not only is that a nonsense for an individual household but the shopping list alters as life evolves. The different requirements of families at each stage alter and hopefully their circumstances improve as they rise in their chosen occupation. Fashions change and technology develops. It is only a few years since people had routine access to a computer or even found the need to do so. Likewise they saw no particular urgency for a mobile phone.

As a benchmark for prices it is flawed but you have to start somewhere and every so often the basket of products changes to reflect the current society requirements.

So a template for a shopping list is not a particularly useful idea for an individual. Each shopper has different pressures, arrangements, and preferences.

This thinking hasn’t made it to the world of a small business. The business plan is downloaded, purchased as a sort of form or questionnaire, to be filled in as best as seems right and very likely stuck in the drawer and forgotten.  

The point seems to be that every business needs a business plan and many small business owners and starters don’t really know why. Sometimes it is done to appease the requirements of the Bank. Sitting on the other side of the desk in a former life my heart used to drop when seeming intelligent customer presented me with a business plan that was a badly drawn up or even a badly photocopied template on some occasions. The questions had peremptory answers in a misunderstanding of the point. ‘What are your Marketing aims?’ Answer – ‘To get more customers’. I could go on. You could almost hear the young people’s impatient catchphrase ‘duh!’ implying stupidity of a rare order.

The point here is that you cannot really have a template for a business plan any more than you can have a standard shopping list for anyone. That means a business plan (the clue is in the title, Duh!) has to be made for each business idea and development . What a disservice you do to you and your business if you present anything else to the bank for consideration!

The other get out is that the business is small enough or simple enough for you to run it on natural cunning. Not very impressive either is it? If it is ever going to grow and develop on a sound base then some thought needs to go in there on a continual basis.

The business plans I do with clients (not ‘for clients’ please note) bring them through a process of preparation and thought that ends up as a written document but has its main value in the process. There are many examples of this even to the point where it has been proved on paper that the business idea cannot proceed successfully. How much better to find that out with a good business plan before investing much time and effort? 

Bob Shepherd Associates gives every client an individual business plan - it is normally done with the client rather than for the client and it stays on the desk as a working document afterwards.  

Management Speak

I don't say that language should always be plain though that is admirable in many cases. Using the rich heritage we have in the English language for effect, for humour or to emphasis to a point is a wonderful thing. An articulate facility with language is useful and valuable. It bothers me greatly that we have somehow gone so wrong with Education that 25% of the Welsh population is functionally illiterate. (50% is functionally innumerate which is another disaster). (Figures from the Institute of Welsh Affairs)

I am always interested in language use and there is a case for jargon and short hand speech within any particular industry. When that spills over to a wider audience it can be annoying or amusing depending on your perspective and perhaps your mood that day. Those who trot out the latest business clichés raise questions about their understanding of their subject and their own security about their position within their business world. Are they trying to impress? Might they be sheltering behind familiar terms to show they belong to some sort of tribe or society?
I consider myself lucky to have met two people in my business career who were originators, apparently of these clichés. It must begin somewhere and I was amused to see people making a discreet note with the obvious intention of repeating those terms later. These were original metaphors to illustrate a point and the audience was amused and interested.

Some interesting examples I have come across lately are phrases such as:
'Within the SME landscape...'
'Build new solutions in the alternative space...'
'Create an atmosphere for solutionising the problems...'
'What are the key takeaways?'
'...that is less, on a relative basis.' 

‘Cosynergistic operations...’

You get the idea. What on earth are they talking about? 

An SME needs sensible help to promote its business and Bob Shepherd Associates is well placed to do this.

Paperless Or Just Less Paper?

In the 1980s we were promised a paperless office. I am not the best at technology but I have some of the tools and make an effort. Nevertheless, I have just spent 2 days sorting through some of that stuff that has accumulated. In the old days there was a pile on the end of the desk. ‘That’s interesting, I’ll read that later’ sort of pile. I have a pile like that and I have the equivalent in e-newsletters and emails as well.

When it comes to reading masses of text on screen I hunch up and eventually go to sleep. I need to make notes to keep myself awake and interested. So I still have masses of paper…

My Bank wants me to accept statements on line, others email invoices and bills to me or if I order anything I can print off the invoice. And I do. I still maintain a paper based accounting system. It is actually easier as I don’t have dozens of entries. You can write on it, tick things off, make sensible notes in the margin.

There could be good reasons for a business going paperless. Computers list and re-sort things very well and adding up vast numbers of numbers doesn’t phase them a bit. Then there are environmental reasons for going paperless if you are in a business with a rampant demand for paper records. Not just in the manufacture of the paper but in the disposal.

Cost is difficult to justify, because paper is still a cheap resource but ease of communication across distance and varied sites is a good reason for looking at the technology more.

  

Cultural anticipation is a problem. Still a large proportion of the population did not grow up with computers and is not intuitive in their use. Computers do sort things exactly. You can’t flip a few cards either way to pick out what you need. Then there is something nice about paper. The Folio society still secure a section of the buying public with well crafted books at several times the cost of a cheap paperback edition.

Fliers and leaflets are best in paper. The distribution is different. We have the technology to push out an advert for offers when a mobile phone owner walks past the shop, but who wants that?

In the business world we all have seen people losing their data on a failed hard drive and we don’t exactly trust it all that much. You can lose a piece of paper too but you know how to look for it. Plenty of people print off those important emails. ‘Keep a copy for the file...’

Preparation of reports, documents, letters etc. is so much better on the computer if you can type fairly fast. You can change things and alter the presentation easily. All good. No more carbon paper, tippex strips under the typewriter keys and blue and green copies.

Dual monitors on your desktop computer would enable you to spread out your work so that it can sensibly be seen side by side. More cost, and more energy but better in some cases.

I believe we print more paper now than we ever wasted typing and filing. Some suggest that

our paper-usage is 4-5 times greater now that we all have our own computers and printers.

The truth of it is the opportunities with computers are fine but sometimes it has to be paper for all sorts of reasons. Apple’s new I-pad attempts to close the gap (as have several page readers beforehand) but still doesn’t exactly get there entirely. We just have more alternatives now. That means more communication, more information overload and less defined ways of reaching your target audience. You now have to check your emails, your SMS messages, your ansafone messages, on your phone and then pick up the ansafone in the office, the fax, the post. Information comes in by post, by email, by various phone systems, by fax, by post, and indeed in person, by courier, by messenger, by notes left on the desk, sticky notes on the screen, as well as the calendar, the diary, outlook or similar, with whatever you have managed to synchronise and so on.

Lucky you if you have a PA. No wonder I have a pile building up. If you want direction and feel you can't see the woods from the trees seek help with Bob Shepherd Associates @  www.bobshepherdassociates.co.uk

All Change Is Not All Good

The call for cheques to be abandoned as a method of payment by 2018 is an inevitable step in the direction dictated by progress. Over the last 40 years the methods of payment have multiplied along with advancing technology and it is a wonder that cheques have maintained such a stronghold. Some 663 million transactions were conducted by cheque last year apparently.

What I have not heard mentioned however is the knock on effects. Is this also another nail in the coffin of the Royal Mail service? What are cheques used for nowadays? Shops do not take them anymore. The big supermarkets abandoned them a year or two back. I recall surprise at my own irritation when a customer paid by cheque in front of me in the queue and I wondered how it had crept up on me that the lengthy process of paying by cheque had become unacceptable.

Cheques are used for payments by post mainly. Of those millions of transactions possibly 75% were postal payments. That’s a lot of revenue for the post offices to lose. A good proportion of those payments are possible by some other means. The minority without a computer these days will necessarily be fewer by then. Those with an antipathy towards technology will have come to terms with on line banking.  Everyone will learn their pin number.  I witnessed an elderly lady checking with her daughter in a shop ‘Is my pin number 2036?’  There was an embarrassed shuffling all round at this flagrant breach of security etiquette.

So changes have a rippling effect beyond the obvious. The introduction of card payment mechanisms meant distance ordering became more available. Cash machines meant initially the availability of cash outside banking hours and then as machines were installed in remote locations the need to visit the Bank disappeared almost entirely.  The effect of this was that the Banks no longer have a captive audience they once had and sales targets assumed a greater importance. The banks have long been sectioned off into Retail and Commercial with the Retail arms dumbing down their longstanding staff and recruiting new staff as sales people. Gradually any expertise you might have found in the Branch has retreated with the retirement of experience leaving training anomalies all over the place.

I had an argument in Lloyds TSB a few months ago about a simple procedure with Executor and Trustee accounts.  The experience of the supervisor I was allowed to see was limited to some form filling and the processing centre she consulted at my insistence was not giving way. I should not have bothered. The understanding was not there anymore. I had dared to step away from the script on the clip board and no reasoning was to be tolerated from a mere customer. 

So the technology is useful. It speeds things up. The volume of transactions through the Banking system these days would never have been possible without it. It increases security enabling checks and counter measures no one would have thought possible a few years ago. The other face of the coin is that eCrime has become the subject of a special team for small business awareness. Frauds are still there, a tiny proportion of the overall figures, but enormous in their own register. Technology also standardises things, introducing efficiency but losing individuality and flexibility. It makes things possible. It makes things impossible. 

Change is good but not for its own sake. There are always losers. Quality, service, value (and not just the price) are all affected. As a small business you have to keep up with what is around if only to dismiss something as not relevant yet. Be aware of the market, your resources and the change in the wind. Your customers will too, so listen when they pass comment and do not dismiss them.  In the midst of it all there is advantage to be had by getting it right.

See Bob Shepherd Associates for practical help and guidance for small business. 

You Get What You Pay For

The problem is they don’t know there is a problem. South Wales Business Support directly and indirectly through the Welsh Assembly is beaurocratic and time consuming. In some cases it is worth working around and waiting around. In many cases it is not.

The stories are legion of businesses going some way down the road of business support only to see it fizzle out after months of misplaced effort. In some cases the only gainer is an ‘adviser’ or ‘relationship manager’ who has drawn a salary from an agency.

The idea seems fine. A bunch of Not for Profit agencies combine with a government backed support system to deliver much needed advice and guidance to new and existing businesses. There are grants as well, bigger ones through the Welsh Assembly directly and smaller ones delivered in various forms through local authority Economic Development Departments. (Already it is sounding complicated.)

At the time of the launch of the revised support system the Chartered Institute of Business Consulting gave a platform to the main architect of the revised support plans. He started by saying that he had come to the job from the outside world. A collective sigh of approbation was heard around the room. The fact that he made that point is indicative of the general opinion of the support system previously. Next he said he approached the reorganisation with the intention of making it simpler. Again a collective murmur of approval went round the room. Two ticks on the list so far and we are doing well.

He said the Assembly’s grants would all be placed in one pot (The Single Investment Fund) and the applications for whatever flavour assistance would all be directed through it. This received neutral reaction. Interested to see whether they could really pull that off the audience of professional consultants and independent business advisers were prepared to give it a chance. From there on the layers of beaurocracy were disappointingly replaced. It is public/euoropean money after all and some accountability has to be accepted.

Any thoughts that the newly established Relationship Managers were there to actively help anyone were quickly dispersed. They have unwieldy paperwork to justify their existence, they are poorly trained and in some cases with little experience of business. In effect they are there to police the applications as a filtering layer.

The FS4B set up is the revised and streamlined Business Eye. If you haven’t been paying attention that was set up out of the old Business Connect, itself spawned from Business Gateway) It is intended to be a posting network of useful operators who can resolve the biggest gripe of the ordinary business – we don’t know where to go. A good idea in theory and hardly worth the money in practice. The Assembly say "Since the 1st of April over 6000 businesses have accessed support from the Flexible Support for Business Regional Centres and 7,000 individuals have accessed support from the Start Up programme.”

Sounds wonderful. They will say also that 71 % were satisfied with the ease of the process and 88% were satisfied with the quality of advice given to them. I don’t know what questions were asked, but something is wrong here. Even experienced FS4b local Managers will scoff at that. Informed advisers will roll their eyes to the ceiling.

An article published by the BBC under their Politics Show is to be found at http://tiny.cc/ebPnf which adds weight to my views. The defensive statement by the Assembly displays a self satisfied complacency at worst and a woeful ignorance at best. Brian Morgan, Professor of Entrepreneurship at UWIC, said the business support offered by the assembly government was "overly bureaucratic, top-down and lacking in real focus". He was being very polite.

The front end publicity is excellent for Welsh Assembly Business support. The delivery does not match the expectation set. Having sat at meetings and heard the senior Enterprise managers talk about business support they are either following the company line with a large spoonful of cynicism or they are blind to the level of incompetence that seems to be rife. The old special consultancy grant is now referred to as the ‘small SIF’ and a manager was pleased to inform us at one meeting that 70% of the applications were rejected, making no mention of the dozens that never got that far.

The training courses have some generic value. But they are inadequate for anything but the basics for a brand new would be entrepreneur. FS4B will not understand your queries or your situation if it is at all complicated and the most of best advisers have left the agencies. The Relationship Managers are a joke to most people and the time scales for any assistance are enough to put you off. Any serious business intent is going to be misdirected, poorly advised and sent up some cul de sacs.

In short, there are two rules

- most businesses are not eligible for most of it most of the time

- and much of the time you are wasting your time.

The attraction of free support is misplaced economy. You are far better off going to a knowledgeable consultant who will require payment but will help you with practical support and realistic advice. Bob Shepherd Associates can help the small business with practical understanding and business advice to get the best out of a badly weighted system if it is available to you and link it to the rest of the finance world.

Banks And The Clipboard

Apply a solution to something and Pareto’s 80/20 rule kicks in every time. In the world of ‘Business vs. The Banks’ - which is how many people see it - there are 2 things that are happening with banks that are not well realised.

I don’t like either of them. This is not a case of ‘take me back to the good old days’, though I am tempted to suggest we did not carve it up so badly then. As a business on one hand or a Bank manager on the other, you knew where you stood.

The point is that Banks have taken away most of the local discretions. There were reasons for doing so, some of which were brought on by the severing of the old trodden path of promotions that gave a manager an all round education in both handling people and handling business circumstances over a number of years. The tutelage of senior managers by example was part of the mix and usually the result was a manager who had been round the block, knew the Bank’s operations intimately and had had time to build his own skills in gauging business propositions for the Bank.

There are not that many managers left who came up through the ranks in this way. Those that are, tend to be in senior roles, and the majority of businesses are left far beneath them. Even for them the discretions are heavily managed from above. This means 2 things. It gives the Bank a stronger control over the lending book. Policies and Directives can be applied evenly and technology can be used to grade and report on track record to give a measure of risk. 

At the sharp end the business manager has to submit an application for approval to a lending centre often far away. The applications are processed and reviewed according to set measures by relatively junior officers before signing off by a senior lending officer. Neither has seen the customer, or been to the premises, or looked the business in the eye in any way at all.

So, as a business manager, with half an eye to protecting a reputation and building some kind of career, there is a disincentive to submit anything for approval that isn’t ‘watertight’. Despite having targets and other steering mechanisms to attend to, and the more junior the manager the less forgiving they are, he/she is disinclined from the start to put up anything that is not liked and does not possess a belt, braces and a safety chain.

Again there are good reasons for placing a note of caution centrally on such industries as construction, transport, retail, leisure and entertainment, but the caution sticker has branded everything in those less favoured sectors. The balance of risk and probabilities has been skewed too far. It is all very well for the Government to issue exhortations to the banks to lend more freely, and the Government’s loan guarantee scheme has a helpful place, but that overall cautionary inclination is paramount. The Banks can say they are open for business, they are lending and they welcome approaches. All of that is true, but the mechanisms that have developed do not support this in practice.

The local discretion has gone along with a need for much experience. And so too the inclination of the local manager to bother with anything that is not going to get a straight ‘approved, on the basis submitted’ has gone too. The clip board now rules and it is not particularly okay.

Blame Society generally. Blame Globalism. Blame the Economy. It’s why everything is controlled from a far away call centre who has no idea where you mean;  it is why services cannot cover the needs of locals. It’s why it isn’t worth complaining a lot of the time because ‘they’ don’t know what you are talking about. Local service is a luxury no one seems willing to provide because 80% of the time an overarching half baked gloss will do. But that is another topic.

For an informed view of your business banking and finances see www.bobshepherdassociates.co.uk

Business Lingua Franca

I happened across an article on the use of the Welsh language and although I should have been doing other things I got sidetracked. There lies the path of procrastination which is one of those concepts anyone starting in business needs to be wary about and manage carefully. Time is your biggest resource.

But what an interesting debate! Most of the major arguments are being aired here. http://cambriapolitico.com/2009/02/welsh-language-lco-a-plea-for-sanity/ is the on line link.

There are one or two observations I have and I do not pretend to a debatable opinion. They all stem from an in- principle opposition to positive discrimination of any sort. I find it equates to a negative discrimination against a majority view. We see enough of that with no reference to languages.

I believe it is in the interests and to the economic and cultural advantage of Wales to encourage the use of Welsh language wherever possible. I do not believe the existing blunderbuss approach is helpful however. Much of the post that arrives from what used to be known as public services – that is Utilities and Government agencies of many kinds have the whole message repeated in Welsh either in a separate copy or in a reverse section of the booklet. I think it is economically perverse to assume everyone wants this. I am all for communication in Welsh where it is wanted . It is surely not beyond the modern technological wit to have either an opt out or an opt in (there’s another argument!) and distribute these communications appropriately from the likes of SWALEC, DVLA, HMRC, Companies House, Local Authorities etc etc .

A couple of further points of interest. The major bank I used to work for had most of the main leaflets available in Welsh placed in the Public Space. In SE Wales in all the branches I worked the only time they were taken was when children scribbled on them.

As a business consultant I helped and advised a Welsh speaking secondary school as part of a scheme where there was a business plan competition. They (not me) decided the plan needed to be presented in English. The plan was good, the ideas were good and the English was not. There were words that would have sounded right but used the wrong version when written. The grammar was ’spoken’ and of course the spelling was all over the place. They could not communicate effectively in English. It was “English, as she is spoke”.

There is a comment about place names cobbled in to spurious Welsh. I happen to live in a Welsh place that until the late 1800s was Welsh speaking. However its name is derived from Old Norman French for many reasons. You can’t do much with that. There are a number of Welsh place names that appear to have been manufactured and to a non Welsh speaker that just seems fatuous and trying to make a silly point.

There are areas of Wales where the demand for Welsh is seen as an obstacle. Monmouthshire and Newport itself has been in and out of England through the centuries. That does not mean we should not have some Welsh speaking schools but there is an argument about compulsory Welsh in schools in the border towns. To accommodate such feeling in some secondary schools the compulsory lesson is given lip service (no pun) and scant regard. Where is the sense in that?

One thing the University in Newport does have a good reputation for is Teaching and the students all have Welsh lessons starting from zero. How many recruits from that bigger place next door or abroad are going to be put off I wonder? Important income for the University shot in the foot it seems to me. Perhaps they should have an opt in or opt out and award a different degree accordingly.

A point is made by one of the contributors about multi cultural communication in our diverse world. That opens the door to exchanges citing English as the lingua franca of the modern commercial world. ( It is odd that the term for such a language should strictly refer to French instead.) In fact the debate veers away from there. Working for one of the local authorities a while ago I was given a card with 54 languages on it saying translation facilities were available. All very laudable except that translation facilities were not available as no one had asked for the service for a number of years. If anyone ever did we would have had to go looking. Such considerations do not apply to Welsh as there are no speakers that do not also speak English.

So is it good for Welsh business to have the language? Probably it is so long as the 90% majority are not disadvantaged by it. Historical and cultural facts of life should be influenced and encouraged one way or another for all sorts of good reasons and if valid will find their own substance in a modern alternative. Trying to force the issue is always wrong. I have no evidence that positive discrimination is a good thing.

For a practical outside view on business and the path you might take see Bob Shepherd Associates.

Changing Values

Harry Enfield did a wonderful take off Stafford Cripps wondering about inflation in one of his black and white parodies of early fifties public information films. After the ravages of war most working people were unaware of economics in those days as a subject, needing to focus their interest on their take home pay.

In 1952 Colin Brine was 15 and started work on the Railways at £1.17s.6d for a six day week. Teenagers hadn’t been invented and he had only essentials to spend his money on. He probably gave his Mum most of it for his ‘keep’, saved some and went to the cinema on Saturday evening. Translated to decimal currency that is around £1.87 a week. The nearest equivalent now is a 16 year old, below the age for minimum wage rates and earning £140 per week or £7280 per year.

Curiously though it doesn’t translate. Things have changed. The only way you might find a comparison is to examine wages and spending power. That can only be done with things that are available in both registers. So a pint of beer would have been about 2d, less than 1p. Minimum wage (47 hours a week then) was £5.8.1d (£5.42) a week. Presently it is about to go up to £5.80 per hour for ages over 22.

Roughly then wages are about 50 times what they were in 1952. The price of a pint of beer is not. Later in 1971 when decimal values for the pound were adopted, a gallon of petrol was 33p. At the time an average wage was about £15.00 per week. Trying to make comparison with today’s petrol price of around £5 per gallon and the present day average wage of about £450 per week makes no sense. Petrol was far more expensive then than it is now evidently.

The differences in life style, expectations and living arrangements generally make comparisons very difficult and hugely subjective. From the book that cited Colin Brine I read that the crossing keepers in Somerset who lived in the railway houses had two large cans of water delivered by one of the passing freight trains each day. They were not on mains water in the late 50s and early 60s. Until the late 1950s television was very limited and not common. My own in- laws were given a television in 1955 which sat in the corner for a year because they had no mains electricity. Refrigerators (‘Fridges’ in modern parlance) were only common from the 60s onwards. The history of every day private life is only recently coming of age as a study. We probably have the war to thank for that. The idea of enforced rationing and the notion of evacuating your children away to the countryside to spend 4 or 5 years away from you is fascinating for the television writers.

The Land Girls were largely unsung and just family tales from Grandma’s repertoire until it was noticed they were disappearing fast. Now they have a certificate signed by Gordon Brown and a badge to wear. So the television is only reflecting a general resurgence in interest. All the retro programmes and interest in past re-enactments is an attempt to put it all in focus and give perspective. Was it all better then? Some of it was, most of it was not. The things that were better seem to be attitudes and work ethics. What is known as the Fabric of Society.

Why is it that once unassailable aspects of British society that earned world wide respect evidenced by emulation across the world no longer stand scrutiny and are subjected to howls of criticism from our own press and media? Recent attacks and criticism have been aimed at a dysfunctional education system, a ruined Royal Mail, an NHS that does a poor job in many cases, a police force that no longer can be trusted, bus companies that are not there to provide a service any more, railway companies that just can’t cope, banks and financial worlds that fall over, MPs that can't organise their expenses honourably, a farming industry dying and other national institutions that are on their knees, either through inefficiency and an inability to adapt to modern needs or as victims of political dogmas that have not seen the advantage of a commercial strength. The Newspapers themselves are dying on their feet and struggling to adapt old methods of income to new channels of news delivery.

It’s not just globalisation (for which we are in large part responsible) or the fault of one political party or another. Nor is it the dying flickers of a once unbelievably powerful empire that is now allowed criticism and vitriol from those with a particular angle of view to support. I don’t feel it is the old ‘uns complaining things aren’t what they used to be, much to the frustration and exasperation of the young. It might be a mixture of all these aspects and probably more besides.

The same changes in values allow the discrimination laws, health and safety, and any other sort of ‘Rights’ generally to be abused and mocked for the very clip board mentalities they promote, bringing even the standards that we thought were taken as read, into disrepute.

Any sort of fractionalised approach, in industry, education, transport, health, defence, has a short term gain and a long term loss of way. The answer is not to re – nationalise everything. I do think it is to encourage a positive view of what is good and not to drag everything down. The thought is not new. In the seventies we had an ‘I’m Backing Britain’ campaign for just the same reasons. It was good for morale if nothing else, and was not condemned out of hand.

Some positive views are needed, and the rest will slowly follow.

See Bob Shepherd Associates for a positive yet practical view of your business tempered with a realistic perspective.

The World Moves On

Barclays bank reports the results of research which indicates the Recession has spawned more new businesses than ever before. That is not difficult to imagine. Anyone with initiative who perhaps could not get another job easily (the media has had tales of job applications being over subscribed by several hundred ) who has had a good idea has thought, ‘Maybe now’s the time to have a go.’

The research people all missed that one. For years the status of the UK entrepreneurial spirit has been lamented for its lack of enthusiasm. In particular the Welsh contribution to owner business has apparently suffered from long term historical precedent where the large heavy industries were the natural path. Those large scale employers have left in a sulk. Time has passed and the traditional track has grown over, as have the slag heaps.

Recession is the mother of entrepreneurialism it would appear. Anyone with a bit of an idea can make something of it perhaps. It is hard work, and stressful if you are thinking you need a certain minimum amount each week or month to feed your troops and keep the roof over their heads. However it is a different stress because it is yours alone. That is good generally.

Forget the regular wage. Forget the regular hours. In the first years you can probably forget the family holiday. Our great grandfathers would have scoffed at that hardship. What you can look forward to is personal development. You will do things you never thought you would, never thought you could, or would ever entertain.

As a consultant dealing with Business development I am often surprised at the things some people find they can do and other people find difficult. It is very interesting. Someone who has never had to do what they would call ‘public speaking’ might need to do a business presentation, with slides and timings and leaflets. Some have a go and make a total hash of it. Some are natural deliverers. Some see it, some can’t.

Some people are very comfortable on the phone and have the knack of gaining business. Others have no idea. I came across an answerphone message that was unbelievably incompetent. Unbelievable, not because it was incompetent, but because the business owner obviously thought it would do.

There are many of these subtleties. An outside view from an experienced consultant can help you past many of these pit falls. When ( if!) you do your sums in the first place, allow a place in the budget for advice and help. It will pay you back many times over. View the free services with reservation. They will take you some of the way, but you do get what you pay for. Pay nothing and you will not get much.

Tread carefully and with forethought. That much is the same now as it ever was. Let Bob Shepherd Associates guide you and share your new pathway.

Fixed Or Floating?

A long time solution for a bunch of loans or an overdraft that has become solid is a Consolidation Loan. With it the Bank gets reassurance that the debt is actually making progress, the customer gets a manageable outlay that is reducing their debt each month and sometimes the repayments can be less overall than what has been gathered along the way. It only works if it is done in time, collates all the debts into one package and is actually affordable monthly.

The banks are under pressure to build up their Balance Sheets after a period of loose living, but they are also under pressure to help the business community by lending more readily. The two things are incompatible forces and something is not right here. In the days when a local manager knew his customers and was largely responsible for keeping a paternal eye on their excesses he had a discretionary limit within which he was allowed to operate. There were checks, and monthly printouts and lending reviews of varying depth in which the manager’s lending was held to account and if necessary was placed under report to the Area Office.

During the last few years a drive for cost cutting involving a comprehensive move to centralised working has left the local manager with no discretion and the newcomers, without the skills and experience of old. No longer are the principles and canons of lending drummed home. The clipboard has taken over, certainly for the lower rankings. If the customer fits the latest criteria set, then help is available. If it does not, then there is no leeway. Unfortunately the lack of discretion has meant a lack of flexibility as well. In a strange paradox, while it is all centralised the policies could be set at a level but there is still a reliance on the local manager agreeing to put forward the proposition. Is he going to risk his career advancement with string of frilly business ideas?

But having frightened themselves the banks are not about to loosen the central lending reins anyway, no matter how many meetings the Chancellor hold for the chaps at the top. And the system is not flexible enough to do so quickly.

What they can do however is give out consolidation loans. Helpful sometimes, but I have recently observed a sting in the tail. The rates have been of the order of 7% above the Base Rate, which used to be considered a penal rate for commercial lending at one time. Lately I have seen that rate agreed as a floating rate. That means what still is a relatively expensive rate now, with Base Rates low, will become injurious when the rates rise again over the next few months. These are locked in for 3,5,or 10 year loans perhaps. It is not hard to see those rates approaching short term Credit Card rates when the Base Rates go up again. Those rates should be 7% FIXED. That means they will stay at 7% for the life of the loan which is quite a different matter.

The naive customer will be unaware that the nice Bank who has helped him out with his consolidation exercise has effectively stitched hi m up and built in a cushion of protection for its profits to help feather its balance sheet nest.

Bob Shepherd has contacts and an in depth knowledge of Banks in the Business community. He has lectured in Corporate Finance and written courses on the relationship of Business with its Bank. A number of articles on practical banking matters have been published and many appear in these pages. Using this knowledge and others Bob Shepherd Associates is in an excellent position to help with Business finance and relationships with the Bank.

The Big Business Battle

‘The bigger they are the harder they fall’. So says the old saying. It applies in business. The problem is that little companies only become big companies by committing themselves to expansion. In good times that works well. They make some profits and the investors and the staff are happy. The wheel turns on.

Study the battles of history and you find the components of the armies shaping up to be in the best position, taking charge of their equipment and devising a strategy.

In the computer world some giants are shaping up for battle. Microsoft has 90 % of the world’s operating systems and seems only there to be shied at. Massive fines have been levied for the odd misdemeanour - well, they can afford it can't they? And who likes a smart arse?

Google has so far managed to keep a lot of goodwill but has grown to reckon it is nearly ready to challenge the giant in open warfare. The Google troops have been drawing up. Its PR is working overtime. It has been working on an operating system that will eventually draw swords and charge into open battle against Microsoft.

Others are overlooking the battleground wondering where to gain the best ground. Twitter is growing fast and has failed to achieve satisfactory integration with anyone huge as yet. Nokia is moving in with its own approach and is ready to exploit anything it can get away with, operating systems and applications. Well Microsoft have been having a go at phone systems lately, so blood is ready to be spilled. All the other big computer names are also out there setting up position in the applications market the hardware market or the clever gadget markets.

Unbelievable sums of money are involved and whether or not the consumer comes off best in the end is questionable. The giants are on their mettle. Their products must be good and have perceived value for money. They must work, be useable and be flexible and reliable. On the other hand all the marvellous developments will quickly become outmoded and out of date. Competition is healthy but obsolescence is a problem in the strive for bigger and better products that will out do and out sell the competition. At least with the one major provider the consumer got some continuity and didn't have to open the wallet so often.

So as the phone giants produce more phones that perform like computers , the computer giants expand their applications to be more useful and part of everyday life, the social networks find new ways of harnessing the youthful consumer, the manoeuvring for battle advantage is taking place. Not content to make a shed load of money they all want to take over the world and its doings. Tin hats on chaps... we're going in.

Nose In The Clouds Or Nose To The Grindstone?

I am interested in the apparent disassociation between Arts and Business at all levels when plainly both sides need each other. The official line is that Creative Industries account for 8% of business when plainly everything has to be designed, illustrated promoted and marketed and that 8% actually takes an essential part in the other 92%.

Equally the bankruptcy courts are full of 'Creatives' who just cannot understand why money is important to all aspect of the reaction with the world outside. As a measure of resource, size of involvement and a measure of success money is always there and needs to be understood as a basic ingredient of any business dealings. Many Creative Businesses and others fall by the wayside because their owners have not found the patience to understand the business world or have not found anyone with the patience and understanding to explain it to them.

As a consultant I find I am fulfilling that role more and more. I get introduced to a company to aid the search for finance and I find before we go down that route there are basic cracks in the structure that need attention before any funder or lender will even look at their proposition.

Few people can be good at everything and with most business in South Wales being conducted by small enterprises the need is nearly always there to cover some aspect of their business that is a make-do and get-by at present.

Both for development of existing business and starting from scratch I emphasis the value role of a good business adviser who can give an outside view and perspective, can validate the assumptions you have made, who can bring expertise and contacts to you that you do not have from your own world. In short it is worth paying a little for a part time management colleague to run with you in support for a while.

Whether you are a down to earth methodical left brainer or a butterfly mind that will never have the ability to sit still the same principle applies. You cannot do everything well yourself. Have a talk to Bob Shepherd Associates to see what we can do for your business, to lift your view to your horizon, or bring your view back to earth, or to find out which of these you need!