What does a business need more - innovators or sales people?

Posted by Jeremy Middleton on July 20, 2011 11:59 AM

What does a business need more - innovators or sales people?

This conundrum came to the fore in the recent series of The Apprentice where inventor Tom Pellereau beat consummate sales people to seize the prize of a £250,000 investment from Lord Sugar.

However, the answer actually is that businesses need a combination of the two.

Companies that rest on their past successes and fail to innovate and develop new products or services will stagnate and die as more dynamic competitors steal a lead.

Equally, you can have the best product in the world, but if you do not have a team with the ability to sell its qualities to potential customers then it will be doomed to fail.

Analyse most successful businesses and you will find that they employ a range of talented people in different disciplines to enable a new product or service to evolve from an idea to reality.

Inventors cannot work in isolation; they need to collaborate with smart sales professionals, astute financial advisers, experienced investors, and knowledgeable legal experts.

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Growth figures demonstrate the country is not back in recession

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• growth figures
• Jeremy Middleton
• recession

Posted by Jeremy Middleton on May 3, 2011 4:10 PM

The doom-mongers' predictions have been dispelled with the growth figures demonstrating that the country is not back in recession.

The announcement that the economy is growing is excellent news. A 0.5 percent increase will help instil confidence in to industry in the UK.

It is all too easy for the country to talk itself into a recession. That is why it is important that business and commerce should take heart from the positive data.

The latest statistics demonstrate that markets are responding to the measures being put in place to get the country back on economic track.

However, we cannot be complacent. There is no doubt that hard work, vision and the ability to look for new opportunities and develop new products, processes and services will be needed to maintain the current economic momentum.

But I hope that the heartening news about the UK's Gross Domestic Product from the Office of National Statistics encourages businesses to consider expansion and recruitment.

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Thoughts on The Budget

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• Chancellor George Osborne
• Jeremy Middleton Enterprises

Posted by Jeremy Middleton on March 16, 2011 2:30 PM

With the Budget looming, my attention has turned to the corporate environment that I believe the Chancellor George Osborne needs to create to help stimulate the North East's economy.

The only sustainable way to have more jobs is if there are more private businesses start-ups which then go on to innovate, invest, and grow. This is particularly important as it will be the private sector that will have to fill the employment gap as public organisations contract and reduce their workforces.

This means we need enterprise to be encouraged, we need finance to be available, we need costs of employment and regulation to be low, we need the taxes on companies and entrepreneurs to encourage not stifle enterprise, and we need good transport links.

I would like to see the re-introduction of an Enterprise Initiative offering those with ambitions to run their own business the chance to receive funds equivalent to their unemployment benefit for up to a year while they establish their commercial venture.

The introduction of Enterprise Zones in certain areas of the North East would act as a catalyst to attract new investment and new companies in to the region.

Such tax free zones would cost the Exchequer very little, but could attract a level of inward investment that could make a real difference to employment, investment and wealth.

I also support expansion of the regional growth fund. This could allow public money to be leveraged with private money to provide seedcorn and expansion capital for private companies. This type of funding can most directly boost job creating businesses....whilst the private risk capital provides reassurance that these investments make commercial sense.

I am convinced that people in region have the talent, initiative and entrepreneurism to deliver a private sector-led revival and that this can be achieved with targeted Government support.

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Scheme to encourage enterprise and entrepreneurship is good news

Posted by Jeremy Middleton on January 10, 2011 12:51 PM

The news that an initiative to encourage enterprise and entrepreneurship is to be doubled in size is good news, particularly in the current economic climate.

It has been announced that the New Enterprise Allowance, which will make £2,000 available to people who have been unemployed for six months or longer if they want to set up their own business, now has a target of creating 40,000 start-up businesses by 2013, twice as many as originally planned.

The scheme is due to be launched this month on Merseyside and I look forward to it being rolled out nationally by the autumn.

A lack of finance can stifle the ambition of people who are out of work but have the potential to be their own boss.

Another financial advantage of the NEA is that recipients will receive their usual benefits for the first three months and a reduced amount for the next three months so that they can support themselves while they launch their businesses. There is also access to start-up loans of £1,000 to help with expenses.

People, with the skills to run a commercial venture, often do not need a lot of money to get them started. The NEA seed funding, along with its access to advice from those already running successful companies, will help cultivate and nurture the small business sector.

The UK needs to develop an enterprise culture and frameworks, such as the NEA, will contribute to making that happen.

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Region has ability to step up to the mark

Posted by Jeremy Middleton on October 29, 2010 9:36 AM

There has been a lot of talk in recent days about the North East's ability to absorb the expected job losses in the public sector that will come about on the back of the Comprehensive Spending Review.

There is no doubt, that a tough time is ahead, but one that is entirely necessary to help balance the country's books and get the economy back on track.

The private sector is already demonstrating it has the ability to fill the gap left by the redundancies in the public sector.

Since September, North East newspapers have reported:

- The creation of 6,968 private sector jobs in the region
- £510.64m of new investment by private sector business in the region
- £571.8m of new contract wins by private sector businesses in the region
- 42 firms recruiting for new jobs

These involve jobs that will suit a range of abilities and includes Tesco's banking arm creating 1,000 jobs with 500 already recruited and another 500 over next two years, at a customer contact centre in North Tyneside and Air Products is seeking planning approval for gasification plant on Teesside that will generate 700 construction jobs and 50 permanent positions.

For our economy to thrive, low interest rates must be maintained and for that to happened public expenditure needs to be curtailed.

The private sector announcements, during the last few weeks, clearly show that region has the resilience, skills, and talent to step up to the mark.

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Posted by Jeremy Middleton on September 22, 2010 5:36 PM

Whichever political party was in Government was going to have to reduce public expenditure dramatically. Indeed, the bulk of the savings being looked for by the new Coalition Government was already planned by the last Labour Government.

This is going to have a significant impact in the North East. Despite spiralling Government expenditure in our region, our rate of business start-ups has been amongst the lowest in the country. The private sector, although thriving in parts, is smaller and less well-placed to compensate when the public sector shrinks than other parts of the country.

The Regional Development Agency, One North East, is going to be replaced with Local Enterprise Partnerships, and many people in our region are very exercised about structures

I think we need to get as much tangible support for new and developing business in this region. However, I am rather more concerned about how many businesses we can help rather than which body is established to distribute funds.

The region has secured large sums of money for business through the "Geremie" Funds. These are being distributed to businesses in the North East through five "approved" venture capital funds. This is money going direct to business creation, often matching private investment funds.

Surely the most significant opportunity for our region is to win as much as possible of the Coalition Government's new billion pound Regional Growth Fund. Shouldn't we be making the case to secure at least 20% of this - say £200m for our region? Wouldn't we have the best chances of winning the most money if we sent any money we can win direct to businesses and as little as possible is spent processing it.

I am not convinced that we need RDAs, LEPs, councils or any other type of bureaucrat with these funds. However, we would need business organisations in the region to come together and make the case to get the maximum amount of help and to direct it to the publically approved venture capital funds we already have.

I don't know about anyone else, but the sooner we focus on increasing the size of the pie we have, rather than fighting over how we share it out, the happier I will be.

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Posted by Jeremy Middleton on August 5, 2010 9:04 AM

There has been, what seems to be, a universal outcry over a recently published report that says a million UK citizens cannot read.

But there is other criteria that is as important as the ability to read and write when recruiting new staff.

Potential recruits, as well as being sound in the three Rs, also need to demonstrate aptitude, enthusiasm and common sense.

What I hear on a regular basis from people in the business community is that a big problem is a lack of motivation.

There is a tendency among a significant proportion of young people, starting work for the first time, to want to come in late and leave early.

This attitude is perhaps fuelled by the fact that the school or college day is usually shorter than traditional working hours.

In fact, one high school head teacher has advocated that teenage pupils should be given an extra two hours in bed to boost their learning abilities, claiming that continuous early starts created "teenage zombies" in the classroom.

He said research showed allowing teenagers to begin lessons at 11am had a "profound impact" on learning

But this is the wrong sort of message to be sending out to students.

Whether at school, college or university, they need to be helped to prepare for the hours that will be expected of them when they get out into the world of work.

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Apprenticeships

Posted by Jeremy Middleton on July 26, 2010 2:49 PM

It is the time of year when young people are leaving school and entering the next stage of their life.

Too many, I believe, are being steered in the direction of university. The academic route is not suitable for everyone, but in recent years this has been the over-riding focus for school leavers.

Becoming an apprentice is an option that has been greatly undervalued. More needs to be done to get the message across in schools and to school leavers themselves that Apprenticeships are a worthwhile alternative to college or university.

Apprentices earn while they learn so that those taking this career path are unlikely to end up thousands of pounds in debt like many of those who decide to go to university full-time.

They gain the knowledge and skills to secure industry-recognised qualifications through practical experience as well as being taught the necessary theoretical aspects of their chosen trade.

At the end of the three years, that they would have spent at Uni, they will have made great strides in their chosen career.

Apprenticeships also benefit businesses. They are an ideal way to recruit and retain motivated enthusiastic students, and having an apprentice can boost the morale of the existing workforce as it demonstrates investment and commitment to the company's future.

Apprentices can also be trained to a company's exact requirements and while they are doing their practical training they make an effective contribution to a company's performance.

HomeServe, the home emergency company, is one business which fully appreciates the benefits of taking on trainees. It plans to invest £1 million over the next three years in apprenticeships, which will result in 20 per cent of its national engineer network coming from apprenticeships. I would urge more businesses to follow this lead.

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Posted by Jeremy Middleton on June 30, 2010 5:28 PM

The £1bn fund to promote private enterprise in regions hit by public sector cuts will, undoubtedly, be of great benefit to the North, which currently has a disproportionate number employed in the public sector compared to the private sector.

The Regional Growth Fund will be open to firms and public-private partnerships in areas most dependent on public sector employment.

It is imperative that enterprise and entrepreneurial individuals are encouraged and nurtured and that is why this fund is such good news for the North.

Continue reading "" »

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Regional Growth Fund - Good News For The North

Posted by Jeremy Middleton on June 22, 2010 4:32 PM

It was good to see the Government acknowledging that not all regions are the same with the announcement of a Regional Growth Fund in the Budget.

It has to be recognised that a different approach from that employed in London and the South East is required if the economy in the likes of the North-east is to thrive and prosper.

This sense of regional perspective should help boost the economic fortunes of this region.

Continue reading "Regional Growth Fund - Good News For The North" »

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The Eyes Of Business Will Be On Emergency Budget

Posted by Jeremy Middleton on June 16, 2010 10:05 AM

With only days to go until the emergency Budget on June 22, the eyes of business are on what the Government is planning to do to rein in spending and make inroads into Britain's record £156bn deficit.

Many businesses in the North have had to make painful decisions during the recession, with some feeling that the public sector has been allowed to escape unscathed.

In a recent national television report about the latest Monetary Policy Committee decision, bosses in the North East were advocating that stiff new curbs on Government spending would be better for the economy than raising interest rates.

Continue reading "The Eyes Of Business Will Be On Emergency Budget" »

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