ACT launch: ‘Now more than ever we have to show people the way.’
At the inaugural ACT conference in Nottingham, over 100 business support professionals from across the country are gathered. Grey-haired men and highlighted-haired women, the average age is around 50. They’ve seen recession before, maybe twice or three times, and have more answers than most to the current predicament.
On the stage a banker – also with grey hair – gives one of the most honest and clear accounts of how we got here. Peter Ibbetson, chair of small business at the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, has been helping the government with its response to the current downturn. During the previous recession was also there too; indeed he says, only he and Peter Mandelson were represented both times.
He takes the audience through the unsustainable nature of banking before the downturn, fuelled by an endemic of greed. The SME sector is as solid as ever, however, he says, but affected, as all business has been, by the collapse of liquidity.
But the path out is gaining shape and focus. Ibbetson says the current government has done a lot so far to help small businesses – from the enterprise finance guarantee, to the working capital guarantee and asset protection scheme - and has learned the lessons of previous recessions. ‘There’s far more engagement and dialogue. They’ve learned to listen to what customers say and act on it. It’s so important to get confidence back.’
Others in the room are not convinced that enough is being done to help keep enterprise on track at this critical time. If the pattern of previous recessions is to be repeated, many of the enterprise agencies represented in the room will start seeing a glut of clients, fresh from redundancies, looking to start new businesses.
Those made redundant usually spend the first three months looking for another position before considering self-employment. If this recession conforms to type, those people will very shortly be banging on doors seeking advice and financial support. Bootstrap Enterprises, based in Blackburn, has already seen a vast increase in start-ups since the downturn began to take hold, and its experience is far from unique.
There should be no shortage of advice out there to accommodate the expected demand. As John O’Reilly, business support director at East Midlands Development Agency explains, the business support simplification programme is currently putting in place a simpler structure around publicly-funded business support, previously crowded with products. By 2010, those seeking business support will be directed via Business Link to a personalised service.
There are issues around accreditation of the business support industry, currently the subject of a review by Sfedi, and problems that could emerge due to the shortage of business mentors.
Rachel Elnaugh, former chief executive of Red Letter Days and now a business coach and mentor herself, warns against the ‘fairy godmother, quick-fix approach’ to enterprise promoted by celebrity entrepreneurs but also rails against a waning of hope and aspiration as recession digs in.
‘Without positive energy it will be hard to get business and entrepreneurs back,’ she says.
There’s no shortage of positive energy from Royston Guest, chief executive of Pti Worldwide. He leaps into the room telling his audience to raise the bar in their personal and professional goals and to help their clients do the same. The room falls silent to the story of Charles Blondin, who crossed the gorge below Niagara Falls on a tightrope in 1859. In one variation of his walk, Blondin carried his manager Harry Colcord on his back across the gorge, sitting down mid-tightrope to eat an omelette, his manager still perched behind him. The intense level of trust between manager and aspirant is not lost on this audience, who are urged to inspire similar levels of confidence in would-be entrepreneurs.
‘Now more than ever before we have to step out onto the rope and show people the way, let people climb on our back and let them see for themselves,’ urges Guest.
The launch of ACT by National Federation of Enterprise Agencies as a new networking platform for those in the business of inspiring and guiding future entrepreneurs has already been a success. It has brought together a group of seasoned business support professionals who, despite their years of experience, understand the importance of continued networking, continued peer-to-peer support and, now more than ever, continued hope.
Posted on Wednesday, 29th April 2009 | This entry has 7 comments
George Derbyshire | Friday, 1st May 2009 | 08:17 AM
This is a great report on a great day. I particularly liked Royston’s suggestion that we should spend time analyzing what goes well, rather than concentrating on what goes badly. Much more positive.
But can I just suggest (speaking as some-one whose few strands of remaining hair are gray) that we shouldn’t let a bit of short-hand go to our heads ( so to speak.) We need experience, but it needs to be married to true professionalism, and I was personally encouraged to have some younger generation bsuiness support professionals with us.
mike chitty | Friday, 1st May 2009 | 04:21 PM
I am glad the launch of ACT went well. When I was invited to become a supplier for ACT the prime criteria for selection was a willingness to pay NfEA several thousand pounds for the privilege! Of course others do this kind of thing to - but that does not make it the best way to secure high quality and innovative learning for business support professionals. When I managed BLU th eonly criteria for being inlcuded as an associate was that you had something great to deliver and that you consistently got great feedback. Selection as an associate was based on a rigorous and open selection process - againts priorities and learning needs identified by advisory groups consisting of civil servans and business support professionals who were collaborating to deliver public policy as effectively as as possible. It was not based on ability/willingness to pay.
I am glad that SFEDI are reviewing the ‘issues’ with the accreditation of business advisers. As the lead body with responsibility in this arena it will be very interesting to see what they come up with! My money would be another ‘much has been achieved but much remains to be done’ report. I am not anticipating any turkeys voting for xmas on this one! I have sat with SFEDI in many a meeting where both standards and assessment procedures have been dumbed down significantly by those ‘charged’ with improving skills and enterprise just to make sure that they have an ample supply of affordable, accredited advisers to deliver the latest government funded business support wheeze. The reality is that this is about hitting the numbers promised by politicians and civil servants, rather than ensuring that the owner manager gets access to high quality business support.
NFEA, SFEDI, IBC/A/C have been working to improve the standards of business suipport for decades and in that time have presided over a general decline in the quality of advice and support available through the public purse, primarily in my opinion because of political interference and the impostiion of the successive waves ofm ‘reform’ in the delivery of business support.
George is right, there are some very good advisers out there. Some younger than others. But in general I believe that both the quality of the advisers, and the power of the business support process to inspire and transform our entreprepenruial base have been significantly eroded by short term thinking, too many initiatives and political interference.
Am I the only one that sees it this way?
mike chitty | Friday, 1st May 2009 | 04:54 PM
Whoops, apologies for the fudgy finger syndrome in my earlier rant! I hope that my typing skills do not detract too much from my points!
A further observation if I may. Anyone who seriously believes that effective business support is about ‘showing people the way’ - based on knowledge and experience of previous recessions is seriously off the pace. Our job is not to show them the way - IT IS TO HELP OUR CLIENTS TO FIND THEIR WAY - in a world that is massively different and rapidly changing. To help them develop their vision and follow their intuition and insights. To adapt and innovate, not to mimic and comply. Our job is not to tell and show. Nor to diagnose and broker. It is to facilitate and enable.
I remember a few years back when I was assessing business advisers watching one tell a young entrepreneur that he should obsess less about his need for a laptop. “I ran my business for decades without using a laptop” he said.
And another who said that we should not worry too much about developing a good online presence for business support services because “proper business people don’t have time to surf the web”.
Web 2.0 is a very different world. Yet how many business advisers have read Cluetrain Manifesto? Or even Tom Peter’s Re-Imagine?
How many have the courage and the skills to bring these insights to the world of informing, diagnosing and brokering. Nope, much of business support is stil in a world dominated by the technologies of the past - like benchmarking. In a world where we believe that academic institutions and training providers can develop qualification that keep up to date with emerging technologies and provide us with a workforce with the skills need in todays’ world. In the modern world technologies move too quickly to be codified into qualifications and training programmes. Skills have to be learned on the job. Most providers are teaching tomorrows’ workforce how to use yesterdays’ technologies.
I look forward to the business support industry giving up fighting the last war and recognising that there is a brand new one to be fought requiring very different methodologies.
My bet is that no-one live twittered the ACT conference!
Mike Chitty
http://localenterprise.wordpress.com
http://twitter.com/mikechitty
Albert Wright | Tuesday, 5th May 2009 | 03:42 PM
I enjoyed the conference and the comments of the 2 main presenters.
I totally share the sentiments of Mike Chitty above on the “dumbing down ” of business support standards.
Having been Tecassured, Technology Means Businessed and on the Business Link National Consultants Register I decided to stop wasting my money and deliberately refused to be Sfedied or attain the Certificate or Diploma in Business Support.
Most of these schemes were a rip off.
Never once in 17 years in the industry was I asked by a real, “paying for the service businessman” for my “accreditations”.
I have delivered workshops on Developing Business Counselling Skills and Finance for Business Advisers on behalf of the IBA and the range of knowledge of those who attended was vast, even among the accredited.I believe I was able to facilitate some useful information to those who attended and despite the New and Improved IBC, the content of these courses no longer seems to be available leaving a huge gap for new, would be well trained advisers.
Most of the accreditation schemes have been part of the “smoke and mirrors” of government, to give the semblance rather than the reality of improving quality in the delivery of business advice.
In my opininion, they are a waste of tax payers money.
The main problem of those who administer them are they would not recognise an entrepreneur if they fell over one.
Paradoxically the schemes generally suffer from the worst of both worlds. They “test” and measure what is easy to test and measure rather than what is important while at the same time they are sometimes “assessed” by those who know little about the practice of business advice, the “one eyed leading the blind”.
If we must have “evaluation” then ask the person receiving the service and relate the results to the business impact in terms of sales and profit and business survival - not a stupid measure like Gross Value Added.
Helen Lazarus | Wednesday, 6th May 2009 | 09:52 AM
Glad to hear you felt the conference was of value Albert, and to see the debate continuing thereafter!
To correct a factual point in Mike’s first comment regarding ACT training provision. NFEA went out to a very small number of organisations who had specialist experience and expertise in the sector - our brief very clearly asked potential providers to submit proposals based on particular areas of expertise, which submissions we then considered and had meetings with the providers before taking matters any further. A comparatively small licence fee was part of the deal for which NFEA offered branding and marketing. We have deterred several organisations who wished to use ACT to sell their wares, and will maintain that stance - at present we are only working with two providers who have been selected for their ability to deliver appropriate, relevant services to the network.
mike chitty | Wednesday, 6th May 2009 | 11:59 AM
Helen
Thanks for your ‘factual correction’. I am interested in which world an annual fee of £5000 per annum (albeit reduced to £3000 in year 1) plus a £10 ‘levee’ per trainee is deemed ‘comparativley small’?
mike chitty | Wednesday, 6th May 2009 | 01:42 PM
Thnaks to Helen for pointing out afactual error in my ealrier comment. I wrote:
“When I was invited to become a supplier for ACT the prime criteria for selection was a willingness to pay NfEA several thousand pounds for the privilege!”
This was factually incorrect. It should have read:
“When I was invited to become a supplier for ACT a prime criterion for selection was a willingness to pay NfEA several thousand pounds for the privilege!”
Sincere apologies to all concerned!