You have to be in it to win it!

With just over a week to go until the deadline for our 2013 Inspiring Hertfordshire awards, we are getting very excited about discovering some new centres of business excellence, outstanding individuals and showcasing some amazing talent in the County!

For some experienced award winners, it isn’t just about delegating the task of completing of a form, and hope and see, it’s part of a strategic journey to showcase the organisation as an excellent employer, and or outstanding company to do business with, or to gain recognition for outstanding performance and achievement. This not only gains a huge amount of publicity, leading to new business opportunities but also plays a significant role in attracting the cream of talent, and boost confidence and morale internally. For SME’s that may find they really haven’t got the time, we learnt from finalists last year in the same position who claimed by investing time into the business, to analyse where it had come from, what it had achieved this year, and more importantly the vision for the future, was worth every penny in time.

What was evident was the consistent approach across all the finalists and winners in how outwardly facing they were in the local community, with board level commitment to engaging with the local community, building local relationships with schools, and local charities, and embedding a culture that fosters supporting local prosperity. Whatever category the finalists and winners entered there was a clear vision for growth in this area, they weren’t merely reacting to local opportunities but had a clear business plan and strategic objectives for raising customer excellence, or growing International trade , and even a KPI for winning awards.

If you haven’t yet downloaded your entry form, there’s still time, www.hertschamber.com and we are delighted to have the support from leading businesses across the county as 2013 sponsors and judges;

Server Choice, Smart source, Ashridge, Goldsmith Centre, Breeze and Wyle’s UH , Exemplas, Simply health, Aldwyk Housing, and Cllr Sharon Taylor, Locality budget and Stevenage Borough Council, and Dacorum ‘Look No Further’ sponsoring our new Tourism Award.

I hope 2013 will be an Inspirational year for Hertfordshire businesses and hope we will have the opportunity to showcase many of you at our awards dinner on the 16th May, at Porsche Hatfield, and wish you further success in the Comets’ own Hertfordshire Business Awards launched later this year.

Business people ask for little other than to be able to operate on ‘a level playing field’

Over the years I have noticed an increase in the impact of holidays, sporting events and other national celebrations on doing business in the UK. Come Easter it seems as though someone has fired a gun and then, as a nation, we metaphorically prepare to pack our buckets and spades. This year, though, we are experiencing the phenomena ‘with bells on’. An additional bank holiday, the Euros, the Olympics followed by the Paralympics added to the usual menu of Wimbledon, the ever growing number of cricket matches and so on.


What the impact of all this is depends very largely upon who you ask. The more optimistic will argue that all this activity encourages people to stay at home and spend their money here rather than on one of the Costas or some Greek Island. At the other extreme those with a somewhat curmudgeonly disposition might argue that all this jollity is more likely to result in hell and damnation raining down upon us all. If you work for Transport for London I guess it’s an opportunity to threaten strike action unless their employer’s handover payments additional to already agreed overtime rates.

For most employers the only choice is to manage the impact as best they can within the confines of the already penal legislation governing employment. No one seems to be too concerned as to how all this affects them and now, joy of joys, we find that they are also required to compensate staff struck down by disease or injury, whatever the cause, whilst they are on holiday. Goodness knows what those dear people in Brussels will think up next.

Actually I enjoy all these supporting occasions as much as the next man, and it was a delight to take part in the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, but I do strongly believe that we need to consider the impact of all this on small businesses in particular. Business people, and I don’t mean the greedy few that are regularly featured by the national press as being representative of the business community, ask for little other than to be able to operate on ‘a level playing field’.

Our competitors in other parts of the world look upon our employment laws with incredulity, the Americans simply do not comprehend how businesses on ‘this side of the pond’ can afford to allow such generous holiday entitlements. Nonetheless I am not arguing that entitlements be reduced, just that the employers obligation to compensate staff for being sick whilst on holiday be wiped from the legislation. It is, frankly, nonsense.

Businesses Need Support Too!

As the Government calls for business to lead the country out of the economic difficulties we have faced over the past two or three years I am inclined to ask the question ‘can it do it on its own’? Whilst I am absolutely positive that business will give it its best shot I am becoming increasingly concerned that collectively British society needs to do more to help. I know it’s tough out there and, that for perfectly understandable reasons people are concerned about the future, but the truth is we all need to knuckle down and do our bit.

Over the years I have visited parts of the world where the local population would give their eye teeth to be able to enjoy some of the advantages we have. Anyone who has walked the back streets of a Chinese city or parts of Eastern Europe would be staggered at how people eke out a living without complaint and certainly without expectation that someone else will bail them out. Here our default position seems to be that someone else should find a solution for us.

Most business people, particularly those running small businesses, understand that if they are to succeed they will need to do so through their own drive and determination. I am yet to meet a successful business person that has factored in support from government as being key to their growth, nor have I met one that has folded at the first sign of adversity. The fact is that successful people get on with it and make things happen but they need support and encouragement the same as everyone else.

Several times in recent weeks I have heard people snipe at businesses. Whether it be the man in the street, a journalist or Trade Union leader, ‘they are only in it to make money’ seems to be a frequent refrain. It would be easy to respond that any business that does not make money will soon go out of existence and, perhaps more appositely, will not be able to create the jobs we all need to exist. More fundamentally, though, the remark totally misses the point that making money is a by-product and rarely the initial objective. It also fails to recognise that it is the business people who have backed their own judgment and taken the risk.

Of course the people who have supported them should be able to share in their success but at the end of the day it is people with entrepreneurial drive and eye for innovation and hard work who will make the difference. We need to get behind them.

Ross, Brand or the Economy?

It’s been an interesting week; the fall out of the credit crunch rolls on, house prices continue to fall, various wars continue to take their toll around the world and what do the BBC, Gordon Brown and David Cameron choose to lead on? The rude and boorish activities of two overpaid radio presenters.

Oh well at least the Chamber has been doing it’s bit, meeting Members of Parliament, challenging the government on the payment of rates on empty business premises; calling for cuts in interest rates; and particularly looking at support for smaller businesses during the current economic upheaval.

Smaller businesses play a key role in the county employing high numbers of people , introducing innovative new ideas and as a vital link in the supply chain for their larger brethren. To many of the people running smaller businesses the word challenging no where near reflects the current situation.

Anyone who has put their house up as security to support a business will know the stresses on themselves, their families and life in general. People running small businesses can’t just lock up at night, go home and forget all about it.

Last Sunday I read the papers as usual and found myself becoming more and more angry as I read the various accounts of why we had got into the economic pickle in which we find ourselves. Angry because many of these so-called experts were the very people who had caused the problem. I don’t suppose many of them had put their house on the line.

Now the banks who largely caused the problem, those that courted the small companies whose businesses they so avariciously sought only a few months ago, are withdrawing their support. Not surprising I suppose when they don’t even have the confidence to do business with each other.

It is clearly naïve to expect things to return to normal overnight but surely the key ingredient we require now is confidence. Isn’t it about time the experts in the City and the banking community began to do something about it?

Oh, and what about Messrs Brown and Cameron? It’s probably better that they stick to worrying about the BBC.

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