Are Two Heads Better Than One?

The controversy surrounding Sir Stuart Green's stewardship of Marks & Spenser by combining the Chief Executive and Chairman role has resurfaced once again with shareholders up in arms that so much power resides with one man. They are right to be agrieved that anyone, however good, believes they alone can be relied upon to deliver superior returns for shareholders.

Any good CEO needs a good chairman - the two roles are different and necessary. Even small SMEs can benefit from the perspective an external chairman or mentor can bring to the company. It is widely recognised that a CEO can perform even better with a sounding board for his or her ideas. I would be with Sir Stuart in resisting having an executive chairman on board. Anyone full time in the role is simply going to get in the way operationally and loses that all important external perspective.

Similarly, I am not a fan of joint roles and responsibilities, which just serves to be divisive and confusing to other staff. If you have functional heads accountable for the performance of the company in that area then that focus is beneficial and good. Everyone needs to be part of the team, but in the end someone needs to do something to move things forwards in specific areas. I do hope that Sir Stuart is a good delegator because doing the work of two people (as soon as you can afford not to) ain't a smart move in business, however good you are.

Taking The Plunge In A Recession

Some top tips if you are thinking of starting your own business:

1. Do not be put off by the downturn. Many companies will be reconsidering their cost base and you may be able to offer a more cost-effective solution. Adversity stimulates change.
   
2. Don't leave your job too soon. Develop your new project at weekends, in the evening or in your lunch break for as long as you can. You need to keep the cash coming in and when you make the leap, make sure you are not going to run out of it.


3. Do not take on overheads. Fancy offices and expense accounts can wait. Be ruthless about keeping fixed costs low.


4. Do not spend money on shotgun advertising. PR and targeted advertising is a much better bet for a young company.


5. Do not engage expensive professional advisers too soon. Learn the basics yourself and tap into free advice available from the likes of Business Link and Connect Yorkshire!


6. Do not rely on bank debt exclusively (chance would be a fine thing). You need a range of sources of finance. Equity, leasing, invoice discounting, customer discounts to pay upfront (or even before you can ship anything to them if you can).


7. Do not be too ambitious, too soon. By all means dream, but set achievable goals and realistic targets. You need to get to base camp before trying to reach the summit of your ambitions.


8. Know your customer. Every product needs tweeking once the first customers get their grubby hands on it - don't expect to get it right first time nomatter how hard you try.


9. Know your market sell into it well. No matter how good you think you are, you need to beat a path to the customers door and not the other way around.


10. Keep going. You have to be in the game to win it.
    

To find out more about getting fit for finance and developing your business idea, come to our upcoming Investment Readiness seminars.

Reflections On The Enterprise Show

Having spent a day at the Enterprise Show it reminds me of the need to have an alignment from encouraging entrepreneurs to providing the right start up advice, access to finance, and networks to inspire enterprise and growth ambition. The right business support made available at the right time, especially so at the early stage, is essential for innovation to flourish. Most importantly, innovation requires strong and effective business networks. The evidence is that building a successful business is a contact sport and partnerships, teamwork and community are essential.

Physical closeness is undoubtedly important. Silicon Valley and the Cambridge cluster, the rise of the high-tech community around Boston and San Diego all have things in common, not least the active involvement a dominant research-led university. Yorkshire is blessed with not one but at least five world class academic institutions which not surprisingly tend to vie with each other for superiority which with this catalysing focus in mind is not necessarily entirely a good thing. Good networks and geographic focus can help to foster commercialisation and growth.

The Enterprise show is a good example of a key element that fills one of the gaping holes in provision - which is help for the general public to get their business idea off the ground. This is also the space where Connect primarily operates. It will be interesting to see whether the new innovation voucher scheme leads to more engagement between the general public and the universities in pursuing enterprise and innovation. They have thirteen in the region to choose from...

Is Research Opinionated?

Coming from a scientific background, my idea of research is to have a question, then collect evidence to inform it. The opinion formed or conclusions is the real crux of any research project and the ability to analyse and organise information to further the understanding of a subject - by whatever small amount - is what really matters.

Is a bunch of statistics and facts however well laid out a sufficient body of work to be classed as research? A recent piece of market research for one of our companies consisted of over 100 pages of information primarily extracted from Mintel reports. Similarly, I recently read a commissioned report that purported to be a piece of research, but again was just a collection of pertinent facts relating to a particular market and geography.

While no doubt this information is highly relevant and informative to certain readers, I question whether this should be called research. Or am I just being too protective of the phrase?