Absolute Business Magazine

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The independent business magazine for Sussex Issue 1 February / March 2014

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Business Round Table

The Big Debate

PETER JAMES the Best-sellinG author turns food critic

Gatwick Growth Why our airport must expand

James Caan

Exclusive interview with the 2013 Chairman of the Year

Plus: NatWest Funding Guide Mergers and Acquisitions Personal Finance Guide Legal and Accounts Feature Commercial Property Business Travel Editorial Opinion Conference & Banqueting Expert Columns Networking Guide Business Motoring Business leasing Local & National News

Issue 1 February/march 2014

welcome from the editor...

Welcome to the first issue of Absolute Business Magazine.

The southeast is the powerhouse of the country’s economy, packed with successful companies and enterprising innovators.

Finally there is a regional publication which is relevant, dynamic and a reference resource for the thousands of start-up companies that open in Sussex every year.

You will find no poorly disguised advertorial features which pretend to be impartial yet have clearly been paid for. Our editorial is fiercely independent and, although there will be some that won’t agree with our opinions, opposing views and debate is the lifeblood of a democracy.

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27. The Big Debate. The ABM Round Table kicks off with six diverse business leaders from across Sussex in a Question Time style discussion on a range of the issues facing the region. The filmed version can be found on You Tube - type in Absolute Business Round Table and watch the live debate.

All our contributors are successful Sussex business leaders who are writing about the subjects on which they have expertise and experience.

We will feature exclusive interviews with leading figures in the business community, in-depth round table debates and a wide range of useful advice.

During our research for the magazine it became apparent that the region needs a strong voice to represent our businesses and entrepreneurs. We will speak out and campaign, joining forces with respected local groups including the chambers, Sussex Enterprise and Gatwick Diamond.

It is the business publication the region has been waiting for.

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12.Exclusive interview with entrepreneur James Caan who tells us what it took to be voted Chairman of the Year.

At a glance 4 Local and National Snapshots 8 Campaign - Expand our Airport 11 Ethics in Business 12 James Caan 16 Mergers & Acquisitions 18 Natwest Funding Guide 21 Business Scene 22 Personal Finance and Investments 24 Gatwick Diamond 27 Round Table 39 Accountancy 40 Corporate Travel 43 Education 44 Universities and Business 47 Conferences 48 Legal 50 Commercial Property 54 Brighton Chamber 55 Sussex Enterprise 56 Networking 59 Business Scene 60 Motoring 65 Business Scene 66 Platinum Car Club 68 Business Signage 71 Books 72 Cinema 77 How to Relax 78 Peter James reviews Jeremy’s Restaurant 80 Wine - Business Profile 82 Wise Words

Editor and co-Founder - Ian Trevett

Editor

Ian has over 15 years experience in regional publications, including five years as editor at Sussex Life, Surrey Life and Kent Life. He is currently the editor of Absolute Magazine, the leading lifestyle publication in the Brighton area.

ABSOLUTE LIFESTYLE LIMITED Premier House 11 Marlborough Place Brighton BN1 1UB Tel: 08707 707 765 Fax: 08700 052 082 ian.trevett@absolutemagazine.co.uk www.absolute-business.co.uk

PINNACLE ExCELLENCE IN vIsuAL CommuNICAtIoN

Absolute Lifestyle Limited would like to thank the advertisers that appear in this publication for their support and wish them every business success. The contents of this publication are believed to be correct at the time of printing; nevertheless, we cannot endorse, and readers should not rely solely upon, the accuracy of any statements or claims contained herein, without prior consultation with the service provider.

Features Editor and co-Founder - Maarten Hoffmann Maarten is the founder of the region’s top networking forum, The Platinum Club, which is currently in its third year and expanding rapidly. After many years with the BBC, he is also a journalist producing hard hitting and insightful editorial features.

Publisher - Alan Prior Alan is Group Managing Director of the Pinnacle Media Group, which has offices in the USA & Australia as well as offices in the UK. Pinnacle publishes for over 200 of the country’s top golf, yacht and cricket clubs as well as regional publications including Absolute Magazine, From The Sea End and The Yachter.

Commercial Property: Lynne Edwards

Writer: Daniel White

Designer: Frida Clementz

Printed by Nick Pigott of Afinis Design and Print, Telephone: 01903 875940, Email: nick@afinis.co.uk

ITS GETTING CROWDED A plan to help alternative lenders and Crowdfunding sites compete with banks is being drawn up by government ministers as part of an initiative to boost small businesses. The new lenders, which allow the public to back companies directly, have complained about the behaviour of big banks. They say some have blocked fledgling businesses from borrowing from them. Proposals from financial technology innovators such as Funding Circle, Market Invoice and Crowdtube are being considered by a panel formed as part of the Challenger Business Programme. The panel includes ministers Oliver Letwin and Michael Fallon as well as Lord Young, the PM’s advisor of enterprise. ‘Banks need to appreciate that where they are unable to support their business customers they should proactively refer them to other providers who may be better placed to help them’ said James Meekings, co-founder of Funding Circle, who since 2012 have lent over £200 million and supported over 3200 businesses in this way. This is supported by NatWest in our Funding Guide in this issue who have committed to giving customers advice on alternative funding options.

CURE THE NHS

The health secretary Jeremy Hunt has launched a national ad campaign to recruit ‘can do’ executives from the private sector to help shake up the NHS. They will be paid £110,000pa to train at Harvard and then within a NHS trust for 10 months before taking up posts as senior NHS executives on the NHS Fast Track Executive Programme.

A medical director of Cancer Partners UK said ‘The best managers l have seen have come from outside healthcare’.

Andrew Haldenby, director of the Reform think tank, said ‘Some people will be resistant to the idea that private sector experience is relevant to the NHS, but it is that kind of thinking that got us into this mess in the first place.’ If you are one of those that like to complain about the health service, now is your opportunity to do something about it.

For more information, contact www.leadershipacademy.nhs. uk/fast-track

MINIMUM WAGE Officials in Vince Cable’s business department fear that a big rise in the minimum wage would cost jobs. They have also dismissed the ‘living wage’ as impractical.

Cable has asked the Low Pay Commission to look at whether economic conditions would justify a bigger rise. The rate for adults, £6.31 an hour, has risen by less than inflation since the recession and is now 5% below 2007 levels in real terms. However, George Osborne warned that a big rise would be ‘self-defeating’ if it cost the low paid their jobs.

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February/March 2014

ROARING AHEAD OF EUROPE

every other country in Europe.

Britain’s growth rate could hit a scorching 3% this year as the recovery accelerates.

This would be the fastest rate since the third quarter of 2007 and would outpace

Growth as high as 3% would also raise fears of an early rise in interest rates although most analysts think Britain will enjoy a ‘virtuous circle’ of improving growth but lower inflation, which would ease pressure on the Bank of England to lift borrowing costs early.

COTTAGE INDUSTRIES The start-up loans programme was set up two years ago as noted

by Chairman James Caan in his exclusive interview in this issue.

The scheme was designed for the 18-30 age group but since that age restriction was lifted in October, over £2 million has been handed to the over 50’s who now comprise a huge proportion of the recipients.

The forced retirement age means that there is a large number of highly experienced people out there with a lot left to give and this could be the start of some fascinating new companies coming to market.

- Business|News -

snapshots THE WORLDS LARGEST COMPANIES

A NOVEL BUSINESS PLAN

(Sadly, none in Sussex)

I went in to chat with my bank manager last week with this stunning offer: ‘My company has been trading for eight years and has never turned a penny in profit but l would like you to value it at £1.4 billion?’ Funnily enough, he threw me out and requested that l never darken his door again.

Facebook is ten years old this year and that is EXACTLY what Mark Zuckerberg would have said to his bank manager had he required a loan. Funny old life!

ROYAL DUTCH SHELL EXXON MOBILE PETRO CHINA BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY GENERAL ELECTRIC ICBC CCB JP MORGAN CHASE HSBC HOLDINGS ABC

NL USA China USA USA China China USA UK China

$476.2 bn $420.7 bn $308.9 bn $162.5 bn $147.4 bn $134.8 bn $113.1 bn $108.2 bn $104.9 bn $103.0 bn

ENERGY SAVING SCHEME LAUNCHED

LLOYDS BANK FOR SALE Lloyds Bank has confirmed that private investors will soon be able to buy shares in the bank, in one of the largest ever public flotations. The taxpayer still owns a one third stake in the bank and assuming the public was offered a 10% stake, that would be worth more than £6bn. Not since the privatisation of British Gas and the water companies, in the late 1980’s, has there been a sell off of such a valuable public asset. And there are reasons to be optimistic about Lloyds. Underlying profits, after provisions and exceptional items, are expected to be in the region of £5.8bn.

PPI WINDFALL News that new car registrations hit 2.26 million in 2013 brought speculation that this is PPI driven growth. The pay-outs, which began in January 2011, now total £12.9 billion and is seen as the driver of increasing consumer expenditure on luxury items, such as cars.

In effect though, this is fund transfer, from the banks to the public, which is great for the public but bad for banks shareholders and bank workers’ pay. In effect this makes all recipients of PPI pay-outs, bank shareholders for the day. Few will shed tears for the banks I’m sure, but we should be careful of what we sow today for the reaper might be along tomorrow. Bashing banks might be jolly good sport but we need them healthy and lending.

Businesses in Sussex could benefit from thousands of pounds of savings on their energy bill thanks to a new Energy Audit programme from NatWest and RBS. Over 60 businesses with an annual energy spend of between £10,000 and £200,000 a year took part in a pilot, achieving an average projected potential saving of £23,000. This includes annual savings on payments as well as potential refunds from overpaid energy bills.

Greg Jones, Managing Director, Commercial Banking – London & South East at NatWest said: “We are committed to supporting a sustainable future for our customers, suppliers and communities. The audits look at the behaviours of businesses from helping them tackle the small things like encouraging staff to switch off lights and appliances, as well as implementing energy saving initiatives such as better insulation and equipment to regulate energy flow into buildings.”

A survey carried out across the UK by the bank at the end of 2013 showed that although 85% of businesses agree that the rise of energy costs is a concern, less than a quarter carry out regular reviews of their energy consumption. In London and the South East region, over a quarter (36%) of businesses claimed to never review their spend and see energy as a fixed overhead with nearly half (48%) saying they had not considered renewable energy. www.natwestmentor.co.uk/services/energyaudit.

SOUTH EAST CONTINUED GROWTH Firms within the South East are continuing to show enhanced levels of growth across a number of sectors within the region. That was the message from Lloyds bank’s business activity index, which reported December registering more evidence of steady economic improvement.

Its regional study, which measures the region’s manufacturing and service sectors, recorded a result of 60.1- that was slightly lower than the November figure of 63.3.

According to the bank, this was the 12th month in a row that positive results had been gained, with an index marker of 50.0 indicating no growth, which comes as the recruitment industry reported that demand for permanent jobs was at a 15-year high. Andy Lee, Lloyds area director SME Banking in West Sussex and Surrey, Lloyds Bank commercial banking, welcomed the encouraging results. He said, “Driven by a sharp expansion of new business in the latter half of 2013, business activity entered a twelfth successive month of growth in December, whilst employment expanded at the strongest level since July 1997.”

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February/march 2014

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175 YEARS OF SUSSEX CRICKET

GATWICK NOISE Gatwick airport has extended its offer of sound proofing grants of up to £3000 to a further 1000 people living near the airport. The noise boundary has been extended by 9 miles at both ends of the runway from April 1st.

No doubt this initiative is to strengthen their case for expanding the airport after 2015 and not just an April’s Fool joke.

SECRET ART AUCTION A host of stars have thrown their support behind an innovative scheme to raise money for a Sussex charity. St Wilfrid’s Hospice and the Towner Art Museum in Eastbourne will hold an auction at which art will be auctioned without knowing who painted it. Artistes such as David Cameron, Grayson Perry, David Dimbleby and Graham Norton will be available on eBay with a starting price of just 99p on March 14-23rd.

FDM forces support

Leading Sussex IT employer, FDM Group, has formally signed the Ministry of Defence’s Armed Forces Corporate Covenant, cementing its commitment to the Armed Forces community. By signing, FDM pledges to support the British Armed Forces by upholding the Covenant’s key principles: · No member of the Armed Forces Community should face disadvantage in the provision of public and commercial services compared to any other citizen · In some circumstances special treatment may be appropriate especially for the injured or bereaved Chief Executive Officer Rod Flavell said: “We are honoured to be showing our support and recognising the contributions made by those who serve in the British Armed Forces by signing the Covenant..”

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th

Brighton had the 7th highest number (7499) of start-up companies in 2013.

Others in the region include: Guildford 5950 (18th) Portsmouth 5661 (22nd) Tonbridge 5769 (19th).

London was highest with 136,939.

DRAGON AWARD IN WORTHING A pet boutique owner from Worthing has caught the eye of Dragon Den star Theo Paphitis and won a small business award on Twitter. PuddyPooch is one of hundreds of companies from all over the country that tweet the entrepreneur each week which sees him select the top six that catch his eye. Company founder Amanda Hodges was invited to meet Theo in Birmingham and took part in a questions and answer session. It is satisfying to see successful businessmen such as Theo giving his time to mentoring and assisting new business and we need many more experienced business leaders to urge the next generation forward.

INNOVATION VOUCHERS WORTH UP TO £2000 The University of Brighton is offering Innovation Vouchers worth up to £2000 to help part-fund the development of technology, processes or services for SMEs. Vouchers are available to part-fund projects up to 50% that need access to science and engineering expertise, academic expertise and university facilities. Contact s.e.campbell@brighton.ac.uk

Sussex Cricket Club celebrates its 175th birthday on June 1st 2014, which makes it the oldest county cricket club and, possibly, the oldest professional sports club in the world. To celebrate, Sussex will be playing Notts on the day and there will be lots of celebrating as only SCCC can do. Sounds like a great company day out to us.

DID YOU KNOW THERE IS A SUSSEX DAY? June 16th is officially Sussex Day and there is a call out for Town Champions to be appointed to come up with ideas on how to celebrate ‘our’ day. If you are interested in more details, go to their Linkedin page at: www.linkedin.com/groups/Sussex-Day-16June-2014 or mail Martin Ellis at martin@ corporatehandyman.co.uk and get involved.

CRAWLEY RETAIL FEARS A new £1 billion retail development in Croydon has created some fear amongst Crawley retailers that shoppers and big name shops could be lured away from the town.

Crawley was on the way with phase two of the Town Centre North regeneration scheme for which planning was supposed to be submitted by last summer, but its failure to secure a retail anchor store has delayed this by at least six months, although Primark recently opened their new 37,800 sq.ft store in County Mall. Ian Harper, who is in charge of economic development at Crawley Chamber of Commerce believes that Crawley needs to focus on what it has to offer rather than worrying about what Croydon has to offer.

Might it make sense to go the other way and develop Queens Square into a niche shopping experience with independent boutique shops offering products that are unique and cannot be found anywhere else. It will not be long before the consumer is sick to the back teeth of identikit malls all over the country and begin to seek a more traditional and unique experience.

News pages compiled by Maarten Hoffmann 6│

February/March 2014

- Business|News -

snapshots Graphic fleet

SPEED TRIALS SAVED

Crawley based wide-format media specialist Papergraphics celebrated the delivery of a new fleet of Mercedes. Nine of their national managers drove away from Mercedes-Benz Gatwick, with a new C220CDI EXEC SE Estate.

Steve Harrington, Purchasing Manager at Papergraphics, said, “The Mercedes brand, as with our company, is known and well respected for its product quality and all-round excellence, and it was therefore an easy decision to approach them for our new fleet requirements. “From our initial meetings with Mercedes right through to handover, Mercedes offered Papergraphics a product package that exceeded, in quality and service, our expectations. They also clearly demonstrated how a leading-brand delivers customer care and support and provided us with an after-sales care management solution that is second to none.”

Brighton’s daft anti-car Green council have been beaten into submission again. First was the angry fight to stop the imposing of 20mph speed limits across the City and now, after a vociferous battle supported by Sir Stirling Moss, Tiff Needell, Nick Mason and the majority of Brighton residents, the historic Brighton Speed Trials, that have been held in the City since 1932, have been saved after the Greens tried to ban it. What they fail to understand is that quite apart from the heritage of this event, it brings in a much needed economic shot in the arm for the City as every hotel, bar and restaurant benefit from a 100% occupancy for the event along with train services, taxi firms and tourist attractions. It would appear that Brighton residents have had quite enough and a vote of no confidence is on the agenda which could see the back of this failed experiment in local government.

AND THEY’RE OFF….

Brighton Racecourse has a new boss. Stuart Dorn has gone to pastures new, to Windsor Racecourse and a Regional Directorship no less and we welcome his able replacement Davina Wells.

Interestingly, Davina comes from a hospitality background and will oversee the transition of all catering in-house. Using her considerable experience as cluster manager with Premier Inn, this great historic venue will now benefit from increased attention from the corporate entertainment market with a strong new hospitality focus. I held a Platinum Club event there last year and combining business with fillies charging past, interspersed with

screams of excitement from the stands, was a memorable day out.

If you would like to meet with Davina,

- Business|News -

mail to dwells@brighton-racecourse.co.uk or the equally new BDM, Dan Smyth at DSmyth@brighton-racecourse.co.uk.

February/march 2014

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TIME TO GET OFF THE FENCE T

he South East needs more airpor t capacity, of that there is little doubt, but the thorny question is where?

Following the initial findings of the airpor t commission repor t chaired by Sir Howard Davies, we are left with two options, Gatwick or Heathrow, with the final report going to government in 2015.

Expanding Heathrow would seem to be totally out of the question as its current location is already deemed ludicrous and therefore expanding it would be madness – and political suicide for David Cameron, as he campaigned on the promise that he would never allow it. Accepting that politicians go back on their words more often than a fiddler’s elbow, this is one promise that he would be unlikely to break if he values his political skin. Although a little birdie told me that as Zac Goldsmith has threatened to resign from his seat in the safe Conservative borough of Richmond and Cameron is seeking

‘As a Sussex business magazine, we fully support the Gatwick option due to the highly significant increase in jobs, more new companies, expanding existing firms, higher council tax receipts, a domestic and corporate building boom and the effect on the general business health of our region.’

such a seat for Boris Johnson’s return to Parliament. It might be politically expedient for him to announce Heathrow, have Goldsmith resign, imbed Boris and then change his mind and pick Gatwick. I wonder, does that make me a cynic? So, we are left with Gatwick.

On the premise that you can never please all the people all the time, there are of course many people with very justified fears of this plan but if we are to continue to live in a democracy, then the rule of the majority will have to prevail – and might l say the rule of common sense. Gatwick is the only sensible option and will cause far less impact regarding noise and air quality, impact fewer residents and will cost a fraction of the alternative, at somewhere between £5 and £8 billion.

As a Sussex business magazine, we fully support the Gatwick option due to the highly significant increase in jobs, more new companies, expanding existing firms, higher council tax receipts, a domestic and corporate building boom and the effect on the general business health of our region. I might go so far as to say that we need the expansion.

Of course there will be people negatively affected but this is unavoidable as the increased runway

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February/March 2014

- ABM|Opinion -

capacity will have to go somewhere as will the economic benefits and we should all be fighting to ensure that it is Sussex that benefits. Any development causes pain to some.

You can be assured that when Stonehenge was built there was a farmer moaning that he would go out of business or residents complaining that they would face ruin when the Tower of London went up. With our 24 hour news media desperate for fodder, we now have a smear campaign running, quoting that we will need 40,000 new homes, and how the conservationists suck it up and regurgitate it into press releases and local briefings. But look at this clearly and one can see it to be poppycock. The highest figure of new jobs created by the LGW expansion is 19,000, therefore we might require 15,000 new homes. But the government have already stated that we are likely to see 10,000 new homes in the South East just to cope with the current increase in the UK population, so this expansion might

create a further 5,000 homes and most importantly, jobs for them all.

This means a thriving, contented and economically viable workforce that would cement the reputation of Sussex as one of the powerhouse regions of the UK. More crowded yes, but the EU entry crowds are coming anyway so why not plan jobs for them?

Brendon Sewill, chairman of the Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign, recently stated that ‘West Sussex County Council had been lured by economic benefits and had made a rushed, undemocratic decision to support expansion’. This decision has taken the best part of 20 years and will probably still not be made until 2015 and l thought that local councils were mandated to make decisions based on economic benefits to the residents. And let us not forget that the vast majority of workers in Sussex companies are Sussex residents, therefore it’s to their benefit that the economy of Sussex is

strong, stable and preferably, booming.

Others have stated that it will lead to the ‘urbanisation of Sussex’ and Labour Councillor Brenda Smith states ‘There isn’t enough infrastructure and local roads and hospitals do not have the capacity – it’s crazy’.

Might l remind you, and Ms Smith, that it was Labour who threw open the doors of UK PLC to anyone that fancied popping in and laid on an irresistible gourmet buffet of benefits, free housing and complimentary healthcare. Now we need to build some houses and supply some jobs near her house, it’s suddenly crazy, unworkable and the fault of the current government.

‘It was Labour who threw open the doors of UK PLC to anyone that fancied popping in and laid on an irresistible gourmet buffet of benefits, free housing and complimentary healthcare.’

The hypocrisy is stunning.

There is no doubt that some lives and homes will be damaged by the expansion of Gatwick Airport and there will be oversubscribed GP’s, longer waiting times at hospitals, crowded schools and congested roads but the hordes are coming

- ABM|Opinion -

anyway, thanks to the politicians’ open door policy, and at least with a bustling and thriving local economy, we will be able to build more hospitals, re-design roads, improve public transport, increase school capacity and perhaps avoid a repeat of the worst recession we have seen for a generation.

The recently announced GDP figures of 2.4% show that we are the fastest growing economy in Europe and only a few points behind the US, and when one considers that the US has a population of 316 million compared to our 61 million, l think we can be rightfully proud of what we have achieved. But we will not sustain this growth without continual investment, and investment creates employment. There are currently 22,000 unemployed in Sussex and with current rates on immigrant flow into the county, we need jobs.

The Gatwick expansion could supply 19,000 of them.

Maarten Hoffmann ABM Features Editor

February/March 2014

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Sussex-based Skerritts received the coveted Citywire award for a record fourth successive year from comedian Ed Byrne at the awards ceremony at the Park Plaza in Westminster.

Business consultant Sarah Hopwood will be writing a regular column on business ethics.

She emphasises the importance of Emotional Intelligence and Business Sense. Sarah is also the moderator for the Absolute Business Round Table Debate. www.sarahhopwood.com

Do the right thing

Don’t ask if your business can afford to uphold Business Ethics.

The question should be flipped. Can you afford not to?

Have you ever walked away from a person or business because you deemed them to have sub-standard business ethics? We’ve all seen bad work ethics - when people don’t do what they say they are going to do. Maybe we have been guilty of it ourselves. Bad ethics are bad news.

Bad News travels fast.

When times are tough, the softer skills are often challenged, people become ‘self centric’ rather than ‘client centric’ – looking in, rather than out. Upholding our Business Ethics can take time, emotion and cost money. Additionally at times of trial, we don’t feel like doing things right, perhaps recalling times we have not been treated properly, promising ourselves our conduct will improve once things recover – or ‘go back to normal’.

Well there is no ‘normal’ anymore – things have changed and changed for good. Yesterday’s logic will not serve us tomorrow.

Weakness often creeps in - people are tempted to commit fraud, dropping CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) maybe dodging paying tax, or further delay late payment of debts – even compromise internal behaviour

offending the very staff we need to keep the business going. This key member of staff, often biding their time – has actually been preparing to move. This can then knock the business back again and so the circle begins again. Whether staff stay or go – the ethics they have been exposed to will stay with them forever.

be flipped. Can it afford not to?

I am an advocate of EQ, emotional intelligence, which can really empower us to deliver excellent Business Ethics. I wonder what is more important to you…your character or your reputation?

Trust is key. We shouldn’t be too quick to judge and I do believe we should let someone know if we are not happy with the experience we are getting.

Getting it right isn’t always easy no one ever said it would be.

EQ is fundamentally about understanding the relationship we have with others and ourselves. Using this deeper understanding we can stop ourselves from making knee-jerk decisions, taking a more considered approach to internal and external business matters. We feel more able to be deliberate, doing things on purpose, with purpose – acting in a heightened state of awareness - with higher intelligence. I will be explaining more about EQ in my regular column in Absolute Business.

I believe rather than asking if the business can afford to uphold Business Ethics the question should

Have the courage of your convictions – stick your neck out, challenge and be different. Once our values are known the Law of Attraction kicks in. Virgin Atlantic’s mission statement ticks this box by stating in their mission statement ‘where people love to fly… where people love to work’.

Putting things right is a good reflection of character. I think it would be naïve to say we all get it right, all of the time. We tend to have a clearer conscience. If we get our character right it will look after our reputation. “Character is formed in the middle of the night when no one is looking,” Joyce Meyer. This statement really keeps me on my toes.

Business ethics. these are reflected in the way we treat our staff, our suppliers our community and our customers or clients. our Business ethics are our values, our purpose and our business culture – our mission.

Let us be bold; through thick and thin strive to do what is right so we can be proud of the legacy we leave.

I’d say Character is more important than Reputation – what say you?

- Business|Ethics -

February/March 2014 │11

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH Words by

Maarten Hoffmann ABM Features Editor

JAMES CAAN

Interview

James Caan came to national prominence during his time on the television series Dragons Den but for many years prior James had been a highly successful entrepreneur, beginning in the mid 1980’s with the formation of recruitment company Alexander Mann, which he successfully grew to £130 million turnover with 30 offices worldwide. During the same period, he realised that the international franchise model had enormous scope and he launched Humana International, establishing 147 offices in 30 countries. He subsequently sold both businesses in 1999.

With so much pressure these days on the future generation to attend university, it is interesting to note that James left school at 16 with no qualifications whatsoever and despite an easy route being offered, in following his father into his leather goods manufacturing company, he decided to resist the lure and fulfil his dream of running his own business. Although few of us would recommend that to our children, there can be no denying that James has done rather well.

Although common sense will get one so far, he realised that a good foundation was required and subsequently graduated from the Advanced Management Programme at Harvard Business School in 2003.

Born in Lahore, Pakistan, James’s family emigrated to the UK when he was two years old and his father subsequently established his clothing company in Brick Lane, East London. Other than a Saturday job at Mr Buyright, he had no formal experience of work and so went to a recruitment agency in search of a job. His first was door to door sales, which he found tiring, wet and cold and at this point, decided he wanted to work in an office. He went back to the recruitment agency and asked for something that was indoors

and worked for several recruitment companies before deciding he had to realize his dream of starting his own company and recruitment seemed the obvious choice.

His first office was in Pall Mall but was so small that the door could not be fully opened as it was blocked by his desk. He purposely chose the prestigious address to convey an image that the company was bigger than it actually was to attract clients.

As he had no meeting rooms, client meetings would often take place in coffee shops and he would tell them that they were so busy that all the rooms were full. At this time he also changed his name from Nazim Khan to James Caan, after the famous actor, and an alternative way to spell Khan, which also helped him in his recruitment company as the name was more easily recognizable.

James’ current mainstay business is private equity firm Hamilton Bradshaw, based in Mayfair. The company specialises in leveraged buyouts, venture capital, turnarounds and real estate investment in the UK with a portfolio of 44 businesses and revenues of over £400 million. Not bad for a boy from the East End with no formal education!

James’ well-earned success was capped in 2010 when PM David Cameron asked him to run the governments Star t Up Loans Initiative with £117 million available to new companies, in addition to a mentoring system, to

afford them the best chance of success and the cherry on the cake came last year when he was voted Chairman of the Year.

I caught up with James, which is no easy feat, to congratulate him on this accolade.

Congratulations on being voted Chairman of the Year. Our magazine is read by business leaders from across Sussex and I am sure they would be very interested in learning what leadership qualities you feel it takes to achieve such an accolade? Thank you! I think the people at the top set the tone for the rest of the company, so they should live and breathe the business and dedicate themselves to making it a success. This often rubs off on the rest of the team – leading by example may be a cliché but it is so true. If you can get everybody else to buy into your vision for the company, it can really take you on to the next level. It’s also impor tant that you have the ability to stay close to the ground and know what’s happening across the business. Trust the opinions of those at the coalface who deal with the customers and operations on a daily basis. I’ve never been somebody who refuses to listen to people just because they are not senior members of the team – although I believe in being decisive and confident, I feel everybody should feel like their opinions are valued.

‘I think the people at the top set the tone for the rest of the company, so they should live and breathe the business and dedicate themselves to making it a success.’

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February/march 2014 │13

Interview The latest GDP figures are hugely encouraging and seem more than just green shoots. Do you feel we are out of the recession or just being lulled into a false sense of security? We are genuinely recovering – I think consumers are gaining more confidence and from an entrepreneur’s point of view, there are more finance opportunities available. There’s also more of an emphasis on people getting out there and starting their own business, which is a huge asset to the economy.

Of course there is still a long way to go and we can’t rest on our laurels but when I think of where we were a few years ago, I’m personally very enthusiastic about the future.

There is much talk of bubbles – do you feel that we are walking towards the same problems that caused the 2008 debacle or have banks and financial institutions learnt a lesson? Banks are now a lot stricter with who they lend to, which I think is absolutely right. When you consider the impact of the recession and the criticism they received, I don’t think we’ll see the same mistakes.You can never say for certain what will happen in the future but I do think lessons have been learnt.

‘And of course, with the launch of Absolute Business Magazine, there is now a great voice for businesses in the region, which can only be a good thing’ 14│

February/march 2014

As with the entire UK, the south east has suffered its share of pain over the last few years yet we have a record number of start-up businesses in the region.

What would your advice be to the brave souls that are attempting to develop their business at this time? First and foremost you must believe in your idea. If it is something you have a real passion for, this increases your chances of success. When I’m investing in an entrepreneur, I look at the person as much as the product or service and I always look for people who have the right drive to both start and grow a business.

Also make sure that your cash flow projections are watertight. Think about payment terms very carefully, as a lack of liquidity is the main reason a lot of businesses fail. There should always be enough cash in the bank – an invoice isn’t going to pay your staff ’s wages.

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You are involved in the Start Up Loans initiative with £117 million available.

Can you tell me if you feel that this has made a significant difference to the success prospects of the recipients?

Absolutely. We’re starting nearly 1000 businesses a month in sectors ranging from IT to hairdressing. In each case, there are people who had a real passion for entrepreneurship but lacked the means. The key thing is, they each receive guidance and mentorship as well as capital – I don’t think you can underestimate how important this is.

The scheme notes that each candidate has access to a mentor. How does this work in reality as surely, you cannot possibly have enough mentors? Many mentors mentor more than one loan recipient. Additionally, group mentoring is also provided, which means more than one loan recipient at a time will get access to a mentor.

The delivery partners often double up as mentors too (staff mentors), so all in all, we make sure every entrepreneur has access to guidance.

A rising number of new businesses are being launched by people with no university education. As someone who did not attend as an under graduate prior to Harvard, do you feel that this is a drawback or that the right business at the right time will succeed regardless?

Business is a learning curve – even I am still learning new things after all these years! People who haven’t been to University can be a success, because I think experience is just as valuable as anything else.

What would be your response to the view that encouraging young people to start their own business is effectively robbing established businesses of their most promising potential employees? Getting out there and starting your own business isn’t a negative thing. It has a stimulating effect for the economy as a whole, as more jobs are being created. The more businesses we start, the more people we employ, the more growth we see. I also think that, from an individual’s point of view, starting and running a business is great for personal development.

The whole journey is absolutely

Interview

unique and the skills and lessons you learn will stay with you for the rest of your life.

With your long history in the recruitment industry, do you feel that such companies have a larger role to play in preparing the candidate for the interview? Absolutely – a candidate should go to an interview safe in the knowledge that they have prepared thoroughly and a part of this is down to the consultant giving good information.

However, it’s also down to the candidate to make sure they have prepared as well as they possibly can.

What do you feel are the key challenges facing SMEs in 2014? Technology is constantly evolving and customer needs are increasing all the time.

SMEs need to adapt to and use this technology. Find ways to provide a better service. On the last series of The Business Class, I met a firm called Shutl who offer delivery within 90 minutes of online orders. They spotted a gap in the market and made use of technology – now they have just been bought by eBay. Talent acquisition is also picking up I feel – as the economy recovers we will start to see employees move around more, so there will be more emphasis on this area over the next year.

Your CNBC Programme the Business Class looks to assist and advise new businesses to flourish in a challenging environment.

What would be your primary advice to new entrepreneurs? You should always try and think like an investor.

Scrutinise every single aspect of

your business over and over again. I always tell people to apply the “smell test” – look at the one thing in your business plan which, if it goes wrong, can have serious consequences.

Every business plan has one; you need to find yours and fix it.

Do you think that Crowd Funding has a future or is it just a flash in the pan? I think it’s a fantastic concept and one that could have a real future. It provides another finance option, which essentially removes one of the biggest obstacles for entrepreneurs. We may only just be at the tip of the iceberg.

‘Business is a learning curve – even I am still learning new things after all these years!’

With the caution being exercised by banks in their lending policies, what other sources of funding do you think that SME’s should explore? This was actually discussed in the final episode of The Business Class and there are many options available. I have already spoken about Crowdfunding – but angel investing and invoice discounting are all other ways to secure funding. There are of course initiatives such as Start Up Loans as well – so certainly, when I compare the SME landscape to when I started all those years ago, there are a lot more options available.

Do you have any specific knowledge of business in the South East? At Start Up Loans, we have launched quite a few businesses in the area. One of the most recent ones is Kid’s Café in Gravesend. A mother from Sevenoaks found it really difficult to take her daughter to cafes or

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restaurants because other customers would get disturbed and she would have nothing to do. So Kid’s Café is essentially a family friendly café where both parents and children can feel at ease. There’s also a company called Brainbook in Sussex – a really intelligent and entrepreneurial idea which specialises in health and educational software programmes.

The entrepreneur behind it had his own struggles with dyslexia, so his experiences are at the heart of this business. Just a couple of months ago it won the Best Startup Award for Business and Mentor at the Enterprise Mentoring Awards, so things are very bright at the moment.

What’s your general advice to companies in Sussex for 2014? We are seeing genuine recovery in the economy; consumers are more confident and finance is available regardless of what one might read in the media. I think 2014 is set to be a great year across the entire country and, with Sussex being one of the key business regions of the UK, this is an excellent time for the many entrepreneurs there to trade. And of course, with the launch of Absolute Business Magazine there is now a great voice for businesses in the region, which can only be a good thing. I wish you the very best of luck!

James can be seen on the new CNBC series The Business Class on Mondays at 10.00pm on Sky channel 505,Virgin 613 and Freesat 210 www.startuploans.co.uk

February/march 2014 │15

After 5 years of depressed Merger and Acquisition activity,

what’s the outlook for 2014?

Since the start of the recession and the withdrawal of our banking system from anything other than secure asset lending, the M&A sector has suffered. Not only has activity been depressed by the lack of any acquisition finance but also valuations have dropped to an unappealing low.

Particularly in the SME sector values have dropped to 3-5 times EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) for anything other than high growth or protected sectors and often the buyers have just not been there.

Acquirers have been protecting their own cash or looking for distressed bargains. This is evidenced by the record reserves held on corporate balance sheets.

During the last five years our Private Equity and Venture Capital sector have, however, stepped up to the mark, often 100% financing of a deal through equity and showing a real appetite for any business with sustainable and growing profitability led by an ambitious and proven management team.

2013 has certainly been, as with much of the economy, the year of recovery and hopefully the start of a sustained period of increased volumes for M&A transactions as well as the strengthening of values giving vendors a better chance of realising sensible exit values. The value gap has also been exacerbated by low interest rates increasing the amount of capital required to be invested in order to achieve the necessary income replacement to allow retirement.

At the lower valuation end of the market a sum of £2m - which was previously considered adequate to

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February/March 2014

Most businesses with sustainable profits over £500,000 are finding good buyers

more than provide for retirement - has been considered woefully inadequate in many cases in recent periods.

Before any disposal or sale of your business is considered you must run the numbers to ensure that you will be able to live from whatever net of tax proceeds you might eventually receive. All too often vendors only do this calculation properly once they are into the process when time, effort and cost may have already been wasted.

Throughout 2013 we have seen strong month on month growth in both M&A and ECM (Equity Capital Markets) activity in the UK. The last quarter’s total deals announced of 1342 was the highest quarterly recorded total since 2011. The upturn has been fuelled by a 20% plus increase in the small value sector (deals between £500,000 and £10m) with more than 400 transactions completed in quarter 4. Financial services continue to be the most active sector with manufacturing and professional services following on with double digit growth. The South East still dominates and even down here in Sussex we were pleased to contribute with 11 of our own transactions completed in 2013. Values also hardened slightly with strong interest in businesses producing more than £1m EBITDA per annum and continuing demand from the PE sector.

Nik Askaroff, Chairman of EMC Corporate Finance Ltd looks ahead

Eastbourne Office 01323 410144 Maidstone Office 01622 685734 Crawley Office 01293 440366 Brighton & Hove Office 01273 945984 www.emcltd.co.uk

Throughout 2013 we have seen strong month on month growth in both M&A and ECM (Equity Capital Markets) activity in the UK. The last quarter’s total deals announced of 1342 was the highest quarterly recorded total since 2011.

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Most businesses with sustainable profits over £500,000 are finding good buyers, but below this figure companies are struggling to find value and acquirers. The market ended 2013 significantly more active and firmer,value wise, than at any time in the last 5 years.

As we enter 2014 the outlook is certainly positive. Sussex companies continue to benefit from their proximity to London and the UK as a whole will benefit from the

continuing growth in US activity. The UK is the number one target for US investment and number two for acquirers.

Sussex companies continue to benefit from their proximity to London

As global markets hopefully continue to prosper we will see a further increase in activity and value. Another important factor is the slow but sure return of banks to the M&A sector. At last we are seeing some evidence of acquisition and mezzanine finance returning and this will certainly support

SME CORPORATE FINANCE FIRM OF THE YEAR EMC Corporate Finance has rounded off a spectacular 2013 by being named the UK’s SME Corporate Finance Firm of the Year in Acquisition International Magazine’s prestigious Finance Awards.

It’s the second time in 12 months that EMC has been lauded by the leading international journal for dealmakers.

Earlier this year it was also named among the winners of Acquisition International’s M&A Awards which are held each year to recognise the achievements of all those involved – corporate finance advisers, investors and service providers – in successful deal-making.

AI’s Finance Awards are the only awards that celebrate achievement, innovation and brilliance from an

stronger values in the future.

We don’t expect 2014 to be significantly different from 2013 and there will continue to be opportunities for acquirers as well as options for vendors. Transactions will continue to take 3-6 months to complete but as long as the economy continues to grow and there is no global hiccup, we can expect a strong and active M&A sector in 2014.

international perspective.

EMC CEO Nik Askaroff said: “We are absolutely thrilled by this double success particularly as the original nominations will have come from our clients and/or peers.

“Being named the UK’s SME Corporate Finance Firm of the Year caps what has been an excellent year. Despite the market turbulence and challenging economic conditions around the world, we have been successful in concluding a number of very good deals.

“There is still plenty of scope out there for both sellers and acquirers, but only if you know how to go about it.

The unprepared or unwary can very easily come unstuck.

We have handled well over 250 transactions since our formation in 1989, so we know what works and what doesn’t.”

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February/March 2014 │17

Borrowed Time

How to source vital funds for your growing business

T

his guide will provide a general overview of many of the types of business funding now available in the marketplace, and in subsequent issues we will look at these in more detail. The aim is to help you to make informed choices on the finance options available for your business and to let you know what information any funder is likely to ask you to provide. There are many forms of finance available to SMEs, available from Banks like NatWest, as well as sources of non-bank finance. Indeed there is perhaps more choice and availability than for many years and with low base rate and the Funding for Lending Scheme, borrowing costs for some types of finance are at historic low levels.

Whatever the wider economy does, access to funding will remain important but access to expertise is vital. Running a small business can be lonely and is certainly demanding, even in the good times. These guides aim to provide support to local businesses, allowing you to make informed choices for your business. At NatWest we have also committed to do the following things to help SMEs that are thinking about accessing funding for business growth: • We will write to thousands more SMEs setting out clearly how much we are willing to lend to their business. We have already offered £6.5 billion of lending opportunities this way and following the positive response to these letters we are now extending the programme.

• A dedicated website will be developed to show clearly what information NatWest uses to make a lending decision and set out simple, clear steps in its lending process.

• The bank will begin work to enable bankers to make all but the most complex lending decisions in just five days of receipt of all necessary information – this process can

18│ February/march 2014

currently take weeks and months in some instances.

• NatWest will ensure two thirds of its lending decisions are made locally and by sector specialists.

• We will continue to invest in building the capability of our people with at least 90% of Relationship Managers and Credit Managers professionally qualified.

• NatWest will start a programme to make all customers whose loan applications are declined aware of the appeals process, and will continue to work with the Independent Appeals Chair to improve the support it provides to customers going though this process.

• The bank will commit to pointing businesses to alternative sources of finance where it cannot support a loan application.

Whilst the economic outlook remains challenging we are now seeing sustained growth with reasonable expectations that this will continue through and beyond 2014. Sussex is a great place to live and to do business, with the local economy outperforming the national picture. Even during the recession I saw many examples of Sussex businesses looking after their customers and being successful.

Across the County there is a great diversity of businesses and a culture of entrepreneurial flair. The banking sector, including me and my team of independently accredited Relationship Managers at NatWest, is committed to helping Sussex businesses continue to flourish.

I hope that you find these guides helpful and that you have a successful and prosperous 2014.

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Over the coming issues, Robert Clare, NatWest Regional Director for Sussex and Surrey & South West London, will present a comprehensive guide to sourcing funds for businesses of all sizes.

The natwest FUNDING GUIDE “There is perhaps more choice and availability than for many years and with low base rate and the Funding for Lending Scheme, borrowing costs for some types of finance are at historic low levels.”

Below is a short summary of funding options available in the marketplace, and each subsequent guide will provide greater detail on some of these options: Overdrafts: Flexible, accessible funds when you need them. If you want to boost your working capital to keep your business moving, e.g. for a one off purchase or to cover day to day cash flow, an overdraft may be right for your business.

Commercial Mortgages: Are you currently looking to expand and evolve your business facilities, or thinking about purchasing your own premises rather than renting?

In either instance, a Commercial Mor tgage could help you achieve your business ambitions and can be tailored to suit your own business finances.

Loans: Finance is borrowed over a set period of time and repaid with

interest in agreed instalments flexible, accessible funds when you need them.

Loans can be based on variable rates (linked to base rate for longer term loans – can be simple to arrange and easy to understand) and fixed rates (easier budgeting with known future costs - fixed rate loans help you plan your future interest payments).

Invoice Finance: Grow, acquire or help to ease your cash-flow. Even when business is good, cash isn’t always in abundant supply. Your cash may be with customers while your suppliers are demanding payment.

If customers aren’t paying promptly, your organisation may lack the cashflow it needs to finance important activity – such as recruiting new staff, relocating, introducing new products and services and investing in marketing. Invoice Finance gives you access to the money your business is owed. It can also help in

day-to-day cash-flow management, and acts as a key element of the funding mix.

Asset Finance: Can help you finance a wide range of business assets, from cars and vans to IT and plant and much more. Asset finance frees up your working capital, by allowing you to spread the cost of your asset over time. If you choose to lease, rather than purchase, you also eliminate any depreciation risks or disposal issues at the end of the asset’s useful life.

International Trade Finance: The opportunities for international trade are growing and UK companies are increasingly taking advantage. RBS research shows that two-thirds of UK businesses feel now is a good time to further develop their overseas trading activity. Maintaining a healthy cash flow is important for any business, but when importing or exporting with companies in other countries, the processes involved can sometimes take longer than trading within the UK. Importing/Exporting also creates challenges. International trade – particularly with newer, emerging markets – can present regulatory, financial and cultural barriers. The right solutions can help you identify the best market for your import/ export and services and connect you to the right partners, mitigate risk, maximise efficiency, identify the opportunities and help you achieve your strategic goals.

Examples of International Trade Finance include; • Currency loans • Import loans • Pre & Post export finance

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February/March 2014 │19

The natwest FUNDING GUIDE

Funds and Schemes: Enterprise Finance Guarantee: If you have a viable business proposition, need working capital or money to fund capital expenditure but don’t have any assets to offer as security for a conventional loan, the UK Government Enterprise Finance Guarantee Scheme can help. The Enterprise Finance Guarantee is only available to businesses with a turnover of less than £41m. Under this scheme, the Department for Business Innovation & Skills (BIS) will guarantee 75% of your commercial loan, which means you don’t need a large amount of security to back your borrowing.

Many UK banks – including NatWest – have signed up to the EFG. Your Relationship Manager can help.

Funding for Lending Scheme: A local fund for local businesses. As one of the UK’s biggest lenders to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), NatWest is committed to making it easy and affordable for businesses to access finance. That’s why, as part of our commitment to the Government’s Funding for Lending Scheme (FLS), NatWest launched a £2.5bn fund specifically to support SMEs. This is a limited fund and all loans approved under the fund will be fee-free and offered on a firstcome, first served basis.

Regional Growth Fund: We’re supporting the Regional Growth Fund (RGF), an initiative created by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The Fund supports local economies by encouraging investment in the private sector to safeguard existing jobs and create new jobs. RBS Group successfully awarded £70m of Regional Growth Fund Round 1 grants to English businesses and has been allocated a further £25m in Round 3. Round 3 grants can be accessed, subject to availability, by qualifying SMEs located in England (excluding London and 20│ February/march 2014

RBS research shows that two-thirds of UK businesses feel now is a good time to further develop their overseas trading activity.

the South East). Support from the RGF can only be made available if certain eligibility criteria are met.

Business Grants: A range of government grants, administered by a number of different bodies.

Government grants don’t have to be repaid, so they won’t be a drain on cash flow, but you will have to meet strict qualification criteria.

Reference websites: Start Ups www.ukbusinessangelsassociation.org.uk www.bvca.co.uk www.startuploans.co.uk

Social Enterprise www.cdfa.org.uk

Investment: Offering a share of your company for an investment by a third party can be an effective way to raise cash. In contrast to a business loan from a bank, you won’t have to make any repayments on the money invested.

However these investors can require a large share of your company that they take in return for their investment – often used for financing growth plans.

Crowdfunding: The collective effort of individuals who network and pool their money, usually via the internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organisations.

Crowdfunding is used in support of a wide variety of activities, including start up companies. Crowdfunding is an alternative means of funding that allows individuals to take their ideas forward and make them a reality with the power of the crowd and change the world around them.

Whether you own an existing business, want to launch a new one, are a school, work in the creative industry, need funds for a social enterprise, are a charity, or are just an individual with a fantastic idea then crowd funding could help you raise the funds needed for your project.

www.inspiringenterprise.rbs.com www.princes-trust.org.uk www.psybt.org.uk www.grantfinder.co.uk

Investing in the local economy www.eib.org

Established Businesses www.businessgrowthfund.co.uk

UK businesses trading internationally www.ukti.gov.uk

Access to a range of finance providers www.betterbusinessfinance.co.uk www.businessfinanceforyou.co.uk www.mentorsme.co.uk

Community development finance institutions www.findingfinance.org.uk

Funds and Schemes www.gov.uk/understanding-theenterprise-finance-guarantee

Funding for Lending Scheme www.gov.uk/government/getting-bankslending

Regional Growth Fund www.gov.uk/understanding-the-regionalgrowth-fund

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Business Scene

1

The 90Th BirThday Ball held By CarpenTer Box in WorThing

2

Sussex-based Chartered accountants, Carpenter Box, celebrated 90 years in business and raised over £2,500 for the ‘love your hospital Charity’

3

1. Bruce Waelend, Sandy Waeland, Lesley Anne Lloyd and Sabine Margason

4

2. Distinguished guests 3. Vintage Dancers with Charlie Chaplin, Annemarie Parker, David Crowter and Roxanne Board 4. Sam Ede, Diane Evans, Robin Evans, Tracey Dowling and Robert Dowling 5

5. Nicola Swanson, Stuart Noakes, Ellen Zoratti and Eddi Zoratti

6

6. Charles Wiggins,Tony Clark, Lynne Clark, Charlie Eve and Janine Wiggins 7. David Godsmark, Karen Sykes and Martin Godsmark 8. Victoria Pettitt, David Greenough, Rosie HolmanNicholas, James Bryan and Charlotte Borg

7

9. Sam and Alan Edwards

8

9

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February/march 2014

│21

Does Size Matter?

The signs are that smaller companies out-performing the big names

Market report by Andrew Merricks, Head of Investments at Skerritts Last Summer we spotted a pattern of behaviour we considered to be of interest from an investor’s perspective – namely the outperformance of the smaller companies sector of the stock market relative to larger companies.

We put together a paper portfolio of UK Smaller Companies funds (12 equally-weighted of our favoured funds) and we found that not only had they comfortably outperformed the FTSE All Share index over most periods of 1 to 5 years (the most telling outperformance occurring in the period since June this year) but that the portfolio of smaller companies was some 20% lower risk than the index too [Source: FE Analytics]. This is contrary to the general belief that investing in smaller companies is a higher risk approach to investing in large cap companies.

When we first published our findings we wondered if it was a fluke. As you can see from the graph below, the August trait has been repeated in November and now January too. Where the FTSE All Share index has lost value in each of these months, our smaller companies portfolio has made a gain, so it appears that there is no fluke about it. Is it a sign that stock selection is currently in the ascendency over passive investment?

the smaller UK companies that lie behind the provision of this silent recovery have been modestly reaping the rewards.

apparent depar ture from the investment norm. We think that there is a link to the downturn being experienced in the emerging markets; perhaps local Sussex businesses could confirm our thoughts.

Everyone appears to have been spellbound by the Great Tale Of China throughout the last decade, and with the ever-growing expansion of the middle classes in the emerging markets as a result. Perhaps they’ve taken their eye off the low interest rate ball and its effects on corporate profits, especially at the lower end of the market cap.

If things have been quietly getting better domestically, which sector is most likely to benefit? Probably not the larger FTSE 100 companies, for during the emerging market boom we were told consistently by fund managers that the majority of the UK large cap earnings were derived from beyond these shores in exotic lands far, far away.

Maybe the long term low interest rate environment is finally having an effect on the smaller UK business community as recovery begins to (slowly) gather pace.

We’re always keen to exploit any oppor tunity for our clients but we need to understand what is shaping our investment decisions, so we’ve been puzzling over this

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February/March 2014

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According to Neptune Investment Managers, only 19% of FTSE 100 companies’ sales are to the domestic UK market. When we drop to the FTSE 250, this percentage rises to 38%. So how high does this percentage of sales to the home market rise if we consider only smaller companies? We have not got the figure but we’re certain that it would be comfortably over 50%.

So if we bashful Brits have been surreptitiously spending our cash without letting on that the recession wasn’t quite as bad as we’d thought, the smaller UK companies that lie behind the provision of this silent recovery have been modestly reaping the rewards.

So if you do not have any exposure to smaller companies in your investment, ISA or pension portfolio, perhaps it is time to address this as we feel that the trend will most likely continue, particularly as interest rates look set to remain low for some while yet.

It is worth noting that the UK is at least six months ahead of Europe in its recovery, so if UK smaller companies have been rewarding we feel that it is highly likely that European Smaller Companies funds can also be a happy hunting ground for above average returns.

Auto Enrolment – Are You Ready?

Auto Enrolment is a new term set to strike fear into the hearts of many if not most employers. By 2017, every employer in the country will have to have in place a scheme and procedures to deal with Auto Enrolment for their employees.

Whilst Auto Enrolment may seem daunting, if broken down to its constituent parts, it is relatively straightforward. It is generally recommended that companies should have a plan in place at least 6 months before their staging date. The website www.thepensionsregulator. gov.uk has a section that will let you see your staging date and lot of other useful information.

The main obligations for Auto Enrolment are: • Appoint someone within your firm to deal with Auto Enrolment • Evaluate the workforce to determine who is eligible for Auto Enrolment • Review any existing pension schemes • Decide on a Pension Scheme going forward to deal with Auto Enrolment staff (either use the Government backed NEST or it may be beneficial to use another provider) • Communicate with staff – it is very important that this is done

compliantly and at the right time • Establish the new Pension Scheme • Enrol eligible jobholders into the Scheme • Register with The Pensions Regulator

Have we been spellbound by the Great Tale Of China and the ever-growing expansion of the middle classes in the emerging markets?

• Make the relevant payments to the scheme on behalf of employees • Keep full records of payments, opt outs, communications etc

Company money – this is one of the areas an employer should seek advice on.

If you are looking for advice on how your company will deal with Auto Enrolment, Skerritts are geared up to assist you. We can assist with all of the areas above and make the process as painless and cost effective as possible. Give us a call on (01273) 204999 for a no-obligation discussion.

Some large companies may look to do this in-house if they have staff with the necessary knowledge (and time). Many medium and smaller companies will look to outsource this, in the same way that they do with their payroll or accountancy requirements.

For example, many employers are not aware that they can postpone their Auto Enrolment for up to 3 months, potentially saving the

Skerritt House, 23 Coleridge Street, Hove, East Sussex BN3 5AB T: 01273 204999 F: 01273 204480 www.skerritts.co.uk

- personal|finance -

Skerritt Consultants Limited is Authorised and Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority

February/March 2014

│23

Gatwick Diamond

Business

Jeremy Taylor on the Business Group's 60th anniversary

24│

February/March 2014

- Diamond -

Jeremy Taylor Chief Executive of the Gatwick Diamond Business

Lunch with the delegation from Atlanta, meeting with our MP, Henry Smith. Pictured are (l-r) 1. Noah Downer International Affairs Liaison, City of Atlanta - Office of the Mayor 2. Kevin Johnson - Sr. Economic Development Officer, Invest Atlanta 3. Henry Smith, MP for Crawley 4. Candace Byrd – Chief of Staff, City of Atlanta – Office of the Mayor 5. Jeremy Taylor, CEO Gatwick Diamond Business 6. Jason Terreri – Director of Business Development, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport

Formed in 1954 as Crawley Industrial Group, Gatwick Diamond Business celebrates its Diamond Anniversary this year.

The original organisation was, for many years, a place for the business owners on the newly founded Manor Royal Industrial Estate to meet and share ideas.

Over the course of time the organisations reach and influence grew until it was renamed Crawley & District Industries Association in the early 1990s.

To find out more, Absolute Business sat down with Jeremy Taylor, the Chief Executive, who had been appointed in 2004 when the organisation was a mere 50 years old!

My appointment coincided with the launch of the newly created Gatwick Diamond identity and I could immediately see a synergy between our membership area and the Diamond. Over the course of time, we have worked in parallel with the organisations promoting the Gatwick Diamond region and now we sit at its core as the voice for Gatwick Diamond Business, hence the current name.

I had worked for CADIA in the 1990s and so knew that we had the networking and events skills but we needed to take that in a new

Gatwick Diamond Business is a membership led organisation with nearly 350 businesses employing around 50,000 staff.

direction with a new energy. Last year we delivered 61 events in all shapes and sizes, bringing together thousands of business people across the Gatwick Diamond.

There is now a wide range of networking events from meeting over a pastry at South Lodge to the sell-out Gatwick Diamond Business Awards, where over 600 of the Region’s top business people are represented. Other events include the invite-only Diamond Lunches where the largest and most significant businesses gather to network and discuss key issues of the day.

The other key part of the work is in lobbying & influencing those who need to be encouraged towards an economic viewpoint. Acting as advocates for economic growth we constantly talk to politicians at all levels and contribute to the debates on local, regional and national infrastructure, housing, transport and skills. It is vital that the business view is expressed and heard.

Gatwick Diamond Business is a membership-led organisation with nearly 350 businesses employing around 50,000 staff. The very biggest and the very smallest of companies have a place and all have been able to gain real commercial benefits.

- Diamond -

Over recent years, we have taken a lead role in hosting inward investment visits, creating real links to business communities around the world. With Gatwick Airport on our doorstep, the opportunities for members are many. Most recently we hosted a visit

by Invest Atlanta, the Mayor’s Office of Atlanta and Atlanta Airport, while we will shortly be leading trips to Jersey and Guernsey. Vietnam, Abu Dhabi and Indonesia are all on the radar so there is no excuse not to get involved. And that’s what we ask you to do; get involved. Membership is excellent value and covers the whole business. There are a number of free events included each month as is publicity in the bi-monthly magazine and on the website, The Source. We take direct intervention on Planning and other issues that affect the members as well as provide accelerated access to all sorts of agencies and other bodies that can help businesses grow.

Being our 60th Anniversary we have a number of exclusive events lined up for members and will be working even harder to provide great commercial opportunities across the Gatwick Diamond and the wider region.

For more information please call on 01293 440088 or visit www.gatwickdiamondbusiness.com.

February/March 2014 │25

g nch tin au or r l pp ei su th be on to ss d ne se usi ea B P l te lu so Ab EMC is the leading independent provider of corporate finance, interim management and operational support to SMEs across all business sectors in the South East.

In the last 25 years we have: Completed 250 business sales and acquisitions Raised over £400m of debt and equity finance Set up and supported more than 100 sales and marketing teams Assisted and reviewed the finances for more than 500 businesses Completed over 1,000 strategic reviews Advised on and assisted with over 100 management buyouts.

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The Absolute Business Magazine Round Table debaTe Hosted by The Grand Hotel, Brighton Leading regional business and political personalities joined us in January to debate the pressing business and economic issues of the day. Over the following pages we bring you the highlights of the debate. It is essential reading for anyone interested in business in the south east.

Nik Askaroff Chairman of EMC Corporate Finance

Amanda Menahem HR Director of Hastings Direct Insurance

Moderator: Sarah Hopwood Business consultant and international speaker

Clarence Mitchell The prospective Conservative Parliamentary candidate for Brighton Pavilion

Keith Jackman Marketing Director of Lookers/Mercedes Benz

John Healy Chairman of Healy’s Law Firm

Bruce Hayter Managing Partner and Head of Commercial Law at Rix & Kay

The Debate Guide to speakers: Sarah Hopwood = SH Clarence Mitchell = CM Amanda Menahem = AM Bruce Hayter = BH Keith Jackman = KJ John Healy = JH Nik Askaroff = NA SH: Welcome to the inaugural Absolute Business Magazine Round Table debate, being held at The Grand Hotel in Brighton. My name is Sarah Hopwood and I am delighted to say that we have been joined by six of the leading business figures across the region to debate a range of subjects relevant to business in Sussex.

In our survey, ahead of the magazine launch, the following questions were those most often heard, so I am going to start with the recession. The UK seems to be pulling out of the deepest recession in a generation, which will be a huge relief to our readers, could I ask you, in turn, if you share this optimistic view and if you feel your business sector is seeing evidence of recovery? Amanda, as HR Director of our largest employer, do you see increasing employment opportunities and what is your view about the standard the candidates coming through?

AM: I’m often asked about quality of candidates, education and employment opportunities and certainly it’s a really important topic for us as a business because we recruited over 600 people in the year and we create approximately 250 jobs a year. We don’t have trouble recruiting, which is a surprise with that many people - you would think that it would be something that is incredibly difficult for us. There are people coming out of school, colleges and universities looking for jobs and we have found we are able to fit them in somewhere.

We have a variety of different opportunities so there is usually something we can offer to accommodate the particular skills and needs of candidates coming through. One of the things that we’re working on, that lots of businesses need to be conscious of, is how we partner with education and institutions very early on. We have a good understanding of the students that are in the education system, we partner with them early on and 28│ February/March 2014

we work with those institutions to help them give them the skills that will help to be successful with us. Where we do struggle is when we are looking for professional and specific skill sets at more senior levels.

We can struggle to recruit marketing professionals, actuarial experts, maths skills sets, underwriting and the more specialist skills at a senior level.

BH: In terms of the recession, I think we’re optimistic in seeing that there are real green shoots coming through. We’ve certainly been recruiting over the last 12 months, our numbers at the moment are 125 including the partners, and that’s up 15 on this time last year. I would echo Amanda’s concerns on recruiting at the professional level. There are a number of solicitors who are available but it is the skills sets which we look for which are perhaps slightly different from other solicitor’s practices in core areas. We have seen a good flow of school leavers and students coming out of university and some are of a really good calibre.

JH: The London market is more buoyant for lawyers; it’s easier to recruit in London because there is a greater choice. Certainly I’d echo Bruce’s thoughts that to get the right professionals with the right experiences is more difficult to achieve and we struggle, certainly in Brighton, to find the right calibre of person. I think that’s a reflection on the recession and the way lawyers have had to downsize but we are certainly growing in terms of numbers and we’ve added 10 percent to our work force in the last 12 months and we’ll be continuing to do so.

NA: There is no doubt about the green shoots, I think we’re even into phase two.

The green shoots were there last year and we weren’t sure about them, but confidence has now been restored.

We’ve got eight or nine acquisition mandates where people are looking out to buy companies to grow. Companies are carrying out the investment policies that they were fearful of doing in the last couple of years and now they’re moving ahead in terms of buying equipment, opening new offices and looking at expansion.

On the employment side it’s a massive challenge. I think the big fear of companies now is not so much ‘will we have the money to grow,’ but ‘will we find the right people to get in the right places before we ring the bell on the bus.’ That is a challenge and I don’t think the right skill level is around.

John made the point that it’s easier in London where you’ve got a huge catchment of available staff and it’s more difficult as you get towards the coast.

The intern programme has been very positive, a number of companies have been taking on several interns in order to help the recruitment process as to who they keep on at the end of the six months. This has been beneficial for the younger graduates, who maybe don’t have a lot of experience but have some quite good technical skills.

KJ: With our core employees it is not so bad as we have got quite a good retention in Gatwick and Brighton but it is recruiting professional business people where it is definitely a struggle for us. I think key for us is retention within a sector which is expanding year-on-year. We’re trying to employ more people but there is also a lot of movement between businesses and it’s how we keep our key people which is important.

AM: Actually keeping the right talent is almost a bigger challenge for many businesses.

Clarence Mitchell The prospective Conservative Parliamentary candidate for Brighton Pavilion

If staff retention is an issue, then obviously that is the sign of movement and a buoyant jobs market. It is down to the individual companies to make sure that they have the most attractive prospect, the most attractive offer.

- Round|Table -

CM: It’s very encouraging to hear what everybody had been saying. Politicians have been wary of talking about green shoots in the past for fear of getting it wrong but it is quite clear that the national recovery is now underway. We are seeing very positive data across all sectors, not least services, construction and even manufacturing is beginning to pick up, but a lot more still needs to be done. Unemployment is falling, employment is at its highest level nationally, 30 million people now in work, which is great news and it’s fantastic to hear that that is beginning to filter down locally into Sussex but there is a lot more work to be done, particularly with youth unemployment.

Opportunities are there and younger people need to be encouraged to be in a position to go for those.

If staff retention is an issue, then obviously that is the sign of movement and a buoyant jobs market. It is down to the individual companies to make sure that they have the most attractive prospect, the most attractive offer.

The Conservatives are the party of business so we will always support enterprise and we are doing our best to ensure the fiscal retrenchment that’s been on-going to recover from the recession continues. The challenge we have over the next 15-16 months is to make sure that businesses and indeed consumers, begin to see a difference in their salary levels compared to inflation but it’s very encouraging at the moment and it’s all moving in the right direction.

Sarah Hopwood: Can I quote you on a discount in business rates?

Clarence Mitchell: You can. £1,000. There will be a £1,000 discount for small businesses if there is a Conservative government next time out.

We want to make sure that as many of the independent businesses down here have an easier time as possible. We want to see discounts in business rates, we want to see lower jobs taxes, so national insurance for the under-21s will be abolished and we need to see the young people finding work again.

There are so many thriving, independent, vibrant businesses down here, they need every support we can get to make sure that those jobs come in to them.

SH: So can I quote you on a discount in business rates?

CM: You can. £1,000. There will be a £1,000 discount for small businesses if there is a Conservative government next time out.

SH: Moving onto the next question, so the green shoots of recovery are clearly visible as you’ve all just reflected. The - Round|Table -

big question is, how do we prevent this now from happening again?

NA: We need to remember this recession is different as we ran out of cash. Previous recessions were a lack of demand, soft demand, that caused a lack of consumption and as a result manufacturing suffered.

This was very different and we must also remember that we’ll never stop it happening again; recession is cyclical, we’ve had one in the 70s, one in the 80s, one in the 90s and we had the recent one. What was different was it lasted for seven years and it started due to a lack of finance and the banking system actually collapsing; or very nearly collapsing if it wasn’t for government support.

So I think we can stop this happening again with better regulation and better monitoring and stopping our city brethren taking too many risks but I don’t think we’ll ever stop a recession happening again. What we need to do is get some structures in place that February/March 2014 │29

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05/02/2014 12:16:52

Nik Askaroff Chairman of EMC Corporate Finance

The recent recession started due to a lack of finance and the banking system actually collapsing; or very nearly collapsing if it wasn’t for government support. I think we can stop this happening again with better regulation and better monitoring and stopping our city brethren taking too many risks but I don’t think we’ll ever stop a recession happening again.

will give us continuity, sustainability within the economy.

If the government, whichever government is in position, gives consistency, businesses will find the way through. We’ve been particularly good at that over generations.

CM: We need to keep delivering the programme of fiscal responsibility that’s been on going since the 2010 election to make sure we do reduce the deficit.

Deficit reduction is all; if we get that right the government’s borrowing comes down, it will enable us and the Bank of England, independently of course, to keep interest rates low for as long as possible. Once the economy, nationally, begins to turn, that prosperity will flow into the south-east particularly, given that there are so many opportunities and firms down here. We need more time and we’re a long way from succeeding in that battle but the deficit reduction is the core intent of the philosophy that the coalition is working towards at present.

On top of that the Prime Minister made it clear recently that pensioners will have their pensions safe-guarded with the triple-lock so that is one of the first clear cut commitments ahead of the next election that we will stick to. Everything flows from the prosperity that comes through the proper deficit reduction.

We’ve got to continue that and be given more time to do that.

NA: But Clarence we’re not going to get the public sector deficit under control until we cope with public sector pensions are we? The public sector pension burden hasn’t been addressed, it is on-going and it is a massive challenge. It is not so much to our generation but the next generation of workers are going to have to pay the burden of that.

CM: That’s true. The public sector, in many respects, is still bloated and it needs to be brought into line with the private sector

as best we can. We’ve seen that with pay freezes and likewise with pensions, action needs to be taken. I agree on that point but essentially government spending has been out of control in the past. Frankly, national debt at the moment is £1.5 trillion - that’s nearly 100 per cent of GDP. Every year the deficit adds to that. We’ve got to reduce that rate of the addition to the national debt and pensions is just a part of that overall equation.

AM: The pensions question is an interesting one, we’ve just gone through the autoenrolment procedure which I think is great news for the economy and we all know that with the aging population, we are heading towards a disaster if that is not addressed. It has been a great move from the government, it has been a challenging process to implement but from an employment perspective I think it’s absolutely the right thing.

CM: We have been giving smaller firms more time to implement it. Bigger firms are doing it now but the smaller firms won’t have to do it until after the election.

Essentially, it will help at least 9 million people to start saving for their future where they haven’t been able to in the past and that is why auto-enrolment was brought in.

AM: It shows that it’s working because we’ve seen a massive uptake - people had the ability to opt out and they haven’t.

SH: In these uncertain times, would you say it is brave or foolish to start a new business and what advice would you give to Sussex start-ups to avoid the pitfalls?

KJ: I think we’re fortunate we are in a sector of retail where we’re seeing an upturn, 2.2 million new cars sold last year, and the industry is having to employ people deliberately to look after SMEs, it’s great for us. Mercedes Benz have gone out and done - Round|Table -

just that, obviously the same with Audi, a lot of the prestige markets are enjoying fantastic performance at the moment.

JH: I’m not sure the start-ups will be buying Mercedes Benz cars straight away! The most important thing with any start-up is to ensure that you’ve got proper planning, you can’t just think on a whim ‘I’ll start a business.’

It takes a substantial amount of research and proper advice. Needless to say, lawyers play a part in that but so do accountants and bankers. You’ve got to get your business plan down on paper, you’ve got to make sure that it’s tested as far as you possibly can before it’s launched. As a means to make a career I would say it is a wonderful thing and I would recommend self-employment for anybody who has the ability to harness their talents with the reality of finance and hard-work.

SH: Yes. hard work is the key and not everybody appreciates that.

BH: Yes absolutely. The key, as John has indicated, is planning and really understanding your business and getting advice. I think there is plenty of free advice available at the moment and the Internet is a great source.You’ll also find that there are lots of organisations who are willing to give time to start up businesses and in terms of legal advice, it is always an expensive area for start ups. We have been running some free online advice for a few months. I’m sure other businesses will be doing much the same, it’s that time to encourage new business.

SH: Amanda, do you tap into the knowledge online and do you use social media to help recruitment?

AM: It’s really important that we are out there, everywhere and using whatever media and methodology is available to use. We have a combination of online and traditional methods. Direct advertising, being out and being active in the community; I find all these different methods help and this mix is very February/March 2014 │31

important when starting up businesses. There is ever more information at our fingertips and I think it’s easy to assume you know what the customer needs, so we all need to always ask if we really, really understand what the customer’s needs are.

SH: Nik, brave or foolish to start up a business?

NA: You probably need to be both to be successful. I think star t-up is a fantastic way to go. What John and Bruce have said about planning and suppor t is vital and it is a difficult challenge. It’s interesting what Amanda said because we get star t-ups coming to us all the time for finance and lots of people come with a good idea but they haven’t really thought about what the customer wants and whether they can sell this at a profit.

We’ve also got to challenge the idea that finance isn’t available. Funding for start-ups is at a low but things like crowd funding are filling that gap, private investors are filling the gap because they can’t get a return for their money from the bank so they’re putting it into private venture. We’re lucky enough to be in Brighton which is the capital of start-ups in the UK because of our digital and creative industries and I think it is a way forward.

The challenge for the country is going to be what the start-ups do next. Lots of companies grow to £300,000 - £500,000 and become lifestyle companies, employ one or two people and don’t go on from there. As a country, the growth has got to come through these start-ups and they’ve got to go to stage two. But yes, it is definitely a good time to be starting if you’re thinking of it.

CM: Nik’s absolutely right. There is a vibrant, digital economy in Brighton, which is fantastic news and a great example for the rest of the country,. The government will always support anybody who is prepared to get out there and work hard, do the right thing and rely on their own resources. We have always supported self determination to that degree and Brighton is a living example of what can be done with the right thinking. We will again

Keith Jackman Marketing Director of Lookers/Mercedes Benz

we are fortunate to be in a sector of retail where we’re seeing an upturn - 2.2 million new cars were sold last year, and the industry is having to employ people deliberately to look after SMEs.

do everything we can to ensure the banks are fully behind those that are prepared to take that risk. I wouldn’t say it’s foolish to consider starting your own business. I would say it’s brave but it’s as good a time as ever now with the way the economy is recovering and the way that you are instantly connected to your potential customer base through social media. You have that ability to get instant feedback and develop your business plan accordingly than you did in the past.

SH: I’ll move onto the next question because that does incorporate social media. Many new companies have a great product or service but fail to market themselves properly. What would your advice be to companies regarding marketing and PR? CM: Social media is ignored at an individual or a company’s peril, whether in terms of basic marketing and advertising structure that will help to promote your idea or your product, or whether it’s in terms of defending your reputation and making sure your reputation is protected online. There was a little bit of a slow uptake, certainly among more established companies just a few years ago because it was felt to be something of an add-on, something that wasn’t really necessary, they didn’t quite understand Facebook or Twitter.

It is clear now that effectively your customer base has been weaponised. They can come

back at you instantly if they don’t like something and boy will you know about it very soon. Rather than take that as a negative and be frightened of it, use it as a positive and make sure you are out there in the conversation. I’ve always said, in my role in public relations, that if you don’t get out there and tell your story rapidly, somebody else will and you won’t like what they’re saying - so get out there and get into the mix quickly.

KJ: Interestingly enough I went to a start up business a couple of weeks ago and I wanted to go on their site and write a fantastic testimonial. But it was very hard to find the website and when you did find it, it was atrocious and the links didn’t work. It is so key, if you can’t get on and say something nice then people won’t hear about you.

SH: I think people often refer to it as the moment of truth, somebody will Google you and those first few seconds will be their first experience with the business.

Do you use social media as a business or do you encourage members of staff to be involved on social media such as using LinkedIn? KJ: We find LinkedIn is very good for networking. With regards to advertising and getting the business message out there, for us it doesn’t work so well. We’ve done a lot of research on that and we don’t find it brings us a lot of interest but Facebook does. Facebook is so easy to sign up to, everybody sees it, you

It’s the application of health and safety and the regulation of it that goes wrong, where we get over-officious civil servants taking it to the letter of the law not the intention of the law and I think that’s what we’ve got to cut back. I think a lot of the time it’s not that we need to get rid of the basic legislation, we need to see how we manage that legislation 32│

February/March 2014

- Round|Table -

write something and it is shared across such an audience that it’s quite key really. Again it’s push-pull marketing, so we shouldn’t be out there telling about this great opportunity and how much per month it is but when people see that we deliver a great service and that we react very quickly to comments and criticism, that’s what’s key for us.

BH: LinkedIn is key in terms of networking.

All of our teams are on LinkedIn and we use Twitter to lead into our website. We have a Facebook presence as well and we use blogs on a regular basis and if we think it’s highly relevant to particular sectors or clients we will send it direct to them via LinkedIn or via their own email, it’s a standard process I think these days in business.

NA: I’m an anti-LinkedIn person I will declare. I’ve tried cancelling my account five times, I was getting 120 emails a day with people trying to get to me and it was a raving nightmare. Having said that, as a firm we use it a lot and we use it for marketing and, in terms of a social media connection, we all know how important it is. It is a fantastic tool in terms of finding business.

I don’t do any of it. We use Facebook in the firm all the time, we use it for vetting all the employees, but it is not for me. I hate the whole lot of it.

JH: I think you need to embrace the technology that is available. For me the website is the most important tool, whether it will ever be replaced by Facebook I doubt.

CM: A website is a form of social media in one sense anyway, you’re still communicating.

SH: So many businesses fall foul of red tape, bad debts and legal minefields in their rush to market. Could I firstly ask both John and Bruce, what advice would you give to such companies regarding legal protection and preparation in advance of trading?

JH: I’ll go back to the point that I was making at the beginning about planning, you need to do the research in order to establish what

the bits of red tape are that you are going to be encountering and unless you’ve got an understanding of your market sector and how many licences or certificates that you need to put in place for your particular business, then you’ll fail at the first fence. We have to deal with it, there’s no getting away from it.

Health and safety is my particular bugbear, I think we’ve gone far beyond what is necessary from a health and safety perspective. Every single business that operates has to deal with health and safety as a fundamental area. In my own area of law we are over-regulated by the solicitors regulation authority and I imagine that would be endorsed by accountants in relation to their current regulations. They’re there for the benefit of the consumer but I think the pendulum is swinging too far towards the consumer and it needs to rebalance to get a better position in the market.

SH: Pendulum swinging too far Bruce?

BH: I think there are arguments to support that but if you were looking at small businesses, micro-businesses, I think those types of businesses will really struggle with the raft of legislation and regulation. John’s mentioned health and safety and you have data protection, working time directives but again the advice is seek the information that you need.

NA: I think, having sat on a deregulation committee about ten years ago on how to try and get rid of some of the red tape, when you look at the papers they always have common sense, whether it’s health and safety or working time directive. When you read the papers you think ‘actually this makes sense’ and ‘we do need it’. It’s the application of it and the regulation of it that goes wrong, where we get over-officious civil servants taking it to the letter of the law not the intention of the law and I think that’s what we’ve got to cut back. I think a lot of the time it’s not that we need to get rid of the basic legislation, we need to see how we manage that legislation.

A small example of that was the other day when I spoke to a tax inspector and the tax

inspector said that we consider any underpayment of tax to be fraud. Businesses do make mistakes.

AM: It’s often the unintended consequences of good intent and, personally, I’m delighted that the government has recognised in recent years that employment legislation, in particular, has been a victim of that. I think that’s really improved over the last couple of years.

CM: As always it just needs some common sense and frankly some humanity brought into it but you’re right, some of the frame works that is there is there for a very good reason. Nearly three years ago the red tape challenge, as it was coined, was launched and it’s been estimated that it saved around three billion in reduced bureaucracy already and that work very much continues. For example, the qualification period for an unfair dismissal tribunal has been doubled to enable companies to be able to take on people more easily. We will always work to reduce the burden on business wherever possible.

KJ: There have been changes in human resources and now we’ve got more flexibility in that. I think an awful lot of time we were scared to take action where necessary because there was all this protection behind employees which actually wasn’t really there.

It was ‘you can’t do this, you can’t do that’ and, with reference to our HR colleague in the room, people get very scared of it and we shouldn’t be. We need to be observing it and we need to be respectful of it but if we have something to deal with we should just deal with it without reflection of ‘well what will happen next and can we do that and what will the newspapers say about it.’ If it’s wrong we should deal with it.

NA: The one that is getting me at the moment is getting rid of the retirement age,

If we are looking at immigration from new Europe, then that is well regulated. I think it’s about the contribution that is made and we are seeing a growing economy at the moment with London the focus for growth.

- Round|Table -

Bruce Hayter Managing Partner and Head of Commercial Law at Rix & Kay

February/March 2014 │33

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as the governor for a further education college, I know the apprenticeship scheme has been endorsed by many businesses and it has been a very useful stepping stone for people to come out of education into a workplace environment. which seemed like a sort of fairly good idea at the time but we’re already now seeing the first cases of people who are past retirement age becoming less effective at what they do but wanting to stay in a job because they haven’t got a pension and they need the money. That’s doing two things, sometimes the company is quite happy to a certain extent but it’s blocking the younger ones coming up and it’s blocking the re-employment of younger, brighter, more aggressively ambitious employees and how do you handle that Amanda?

AM: Well, I’m in the luxurious position of having a company that is big enough that we can usually find an alternative role that that individual will remain effective in but for smaller businesses I can absolutely see that that would be a real challenge.

SH: In this, the first issue of Absolute Business Magazine, we have an exclusive interview with James Caan, who has just been voted Chairman of the Year and has been handed £117 million by the government to lead the charge on apprenticeships. What is your view on apprentices and education and how best we can nurture and retain new talent?

CM: Apprenticeships are absolutely vital if we are to begin to dent the problem of youth unemployment. It is a vital way to gain experience and skills that hopefully will set young people up in that particular sector very well. On top of that it gives them a sense of purpose, it gives a sense of direction and incentive for young people to get out there into the world of work as quickly as possible. We’ve already created, as a government, more than 500,000 apprenticeships since the last election, something like 520,000 in 2011/12 alone, far more than the previous government ever did, so that’s why we are investing, that’s why we are bringing the apprenticeship back.

They’d fallen somewhat out of fashion I think in recent years and always were associated with engineering and the manufacturing side

of the sector. We see them as far more widely applicable than that, they can be in all sorts of specialist areas. They may well vary in style depending on the sector but the concept of getting into the world of work early, quickly and effectively, is to be supported and, as the economy grows, as more companies begin to employ people, we hope more and more apprenticeships will be taken on and created and we will always support those as well.

SH: Amanda I see you nodding as Clarence is speaking, do you, as a business, tap into the apprenticeship scheme at all?

AM: We do but not as much as we would like to and that is something we want to get more involved in. In the past when we’ve looked at it, it was very difficult to actually administer and I think it has got to be made easy for businesses to take advantage of it and we found that that wasn’t the case a couple of years ago. I think apprenticeships have a fantastic opportunity to help businesses and certainly that is something that we want to do.

SH: Have you seen or heard of any experience contrary to what Amanda just said, where businesses have taken on apprentices and used them as cheap labour, rather than sticking with the principle of actually engaging an apprentice and then developing them within that role?

JH: I’ve heard stories but I haven’t had any personal experience. In fact, my experiences range over not only my own firm but also several other firms that I know have taken on apprentices and have done very well with them. They’ve retained them after the end of their apprenticeship as indeed my firm has and one of the points that I think was made earlier by Clarence was that originally the apprenticeship scheme seemed to be locked into engineering and those sort of areas and I think that is now gone completely.

Wearing my other hat, as the governor for a further education college, I know that the apprenticeship scheme has been endorsed

- Round|Table -

John Healy Chairman of Healy’s Law Firm

by so many other businesses and it has been a very useful stepping stone for people to come out of education into a workplace environment. So it’s an excellent scheme.

SH: As we know from recent months, immigration has been a hot topic with many feeling that immigrants are good for the country’s economy, with an equal number feeling that it will damage the economy. It’s reported that the southeast is to accommodate an increasing number. I wonder what your views are on this subject, Nik? NA: Being a son of an immigrant family, my views are that I’m pretty positive about it.

I think the question more is, what do the immigrants do when they get here? If the immigrants come to work and fill the job vacancies, of which there are many, and will continue to be many at all levels, then I’m all in favour. If the immigrants come to sponge off our welfare system, then I’m against it.

But we must be clear as an island and with the growing economy we need immigration, at some level.

SH: Bruce, do you agree and does it create challenges for the legal profession?

BH: I don’t think it creates challenges for legal profession. If we are looking at immigration from new Europe then that is well regulated. I think it’s about the contribution that is made and we are seeing a growing economy at the moment with London the focus for growth. London is going to be drawing in a lot of resources, whether it’s from Sussex, or indeed from new entrants to the UK. So I think it’s going to be a very positive thing.

CM: I think the tone of some of the coverage in the media recently around the

February/March 2014 │35

arrival of the free movement of the Bulgarian and Romanian immigrants has been not only sensationalist, inaccurate and plain wrong.

It has also been quite shameful, verging on racism. Immigration is a good thing, it’s positive for the country as long as those coming here are net contributors to GDP, are paying their taxes, what is the problem?

How far back do you want to go? We have been a nation of immigrants, we are all effectively immigrants, do you want to go back the Vikings, the Anglo-Saxons, the Romans, the Normans, you name it, this country was founded on different races coming in and contributing both to the cultural and the working life of the country.

Also, in fact, net migration is actually falling overall, there is the occasionally monthly blip, but it is falling and the government is right to try to make sure that it doesn’t get to the levels we saw under the last government where there was the massive influx of more than two million people, many of them from Poland. That is not going to happen with some of the new nations coming in and it isn’t happening already. The figures will bear that out but Nik is quite right, benefit tourism, health tourism, coming here just to use the NHS, coming here just because your benefits are going to be better for you is wrong and will be dealt with very firmly.

SH: Can I ask more than that? My understanding is that the statistics from the police will connect crime rates with immigration. Do you think there is any truth in that? Or do you think again that it is more sensationalism?

CM: There may well be individual cases or individual areas where one or two problems have occurred. I’m not denying that there will be some of a criminal mind but that is just as true with the indigenous population, it’s just as true when movement of various

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February/March 2014

people comes into an area, petty crime can rise. But the point is, the principle here is to be defended.

Immigration is a net asset for the country and as long as they are contributing and as long as they are paying their taxes and paying their way, many of them will want to earn money for their families back home and then leave as we saw with one or two of the Romanians who were interviewed when the so called influx didn’t happen recently. As well, apocryphal but when I was campaigning recently in Eastleigh, on the south coast, people would say to us ‘Oh, we are going to have an influx and they are taking our jobs and they are all here’ but when you actually ask ‘where are they and which jobs have they taken? Exactly how is it affecting you?’ ‘Oh, I don’t know, I’ve heard about it, oh it’s all in Southampton.’

It’s apocryphal, it comes around, we even had copies of the Daily Mail waved in our faces on the doorstep. It’s fear but once the facts are known a lot of that dissipates and people understand and as I say, we fully support proper immigration for the right reasons, where people contribute and add to our society.

SH: Another feature in upcoming issues of Absolute Business Magazine will be women in business. We will ask the question, is there still a glass ceiling and do women still have to fight harder than men for their rightful place in the boardroom?

AM: I think things are really changing but having said that, there is still a long way to go. It’s not all that long ago we were in a working environment where there was direct discrimination against women and, as a society, in the first part of the century there were clear differences in how males

- Round|Table -

and females were treated. Obviously we have come a long way since then. It takes a long time to undo some of those things. There are no longer practices in the workplace which make it difficult for women, however, I think what we now need to focus on is the fact that there are unconscious and subtle ways in which businesses are still run which means that women end up opting out of those senior positions.

Females, in general, are outperforming males coming out of universities and there is lots of statistics and research to show the competences of females are being much more overtly recognised in workplaces and at the same time, there are lots of mentoring programs, which help women specifically to overcome some of those environmental factors, which might cause them to opt out.

Things are changing, things are getting better but it will take some time.

SH: And Nik, can I ask you, have you noticed a difference in the ratio of men to women coming to you?

NA: Yes, I have Sarah. Essentially, just living and working in Brighton you see far more women on boards and running companies because they are getting advantages from creative sectors but when I saw this question coming up, I had a look at our clients and at our 50 or 60 active projects there are 22 women on the main boards, which surprised me in terms of the ratio and the number that were there so I think women are given the opportunity. I have never in my whole career seen a sexist effort made to keep women off the board. Sometimes it is a question of : ‘Is just being a woman enough?’ They have got to have the qualities and other skills.

I think the bigger challenge for us is how we manage motherhood and working women because that is a natural challenge that we can’t get over and it can disrupt a business. It

there are unconscious and subtle ways in which businesses are still run which means that women end up opting out of those senior positions.

Amanda Menahem HR Director of Hastings Direct Insurance

can be disruptive for the individual but I think companies are far more sensitive now with flexible working. Nobody wants to lose a good member of a team and I think there is a brilliant opportunity but we won’t get over the natural barrier that might be there, which is children and work together.

SH: Keith, can I ask you, first of all. How many women are there on the board of Mercedes?

KJ: I’m glad you asked that because unfortunately we are still one of the businesses where the proportion is dramatically out. The amount of women in our business is very few and far between, if they are there they are generally in admin roles rather than management roles. The managers we’ve got are clearly as good if not better than the others but I think Nik is absolutely right - how do they manage a family as well? We work Saturdays and Sundays, as a lot of businesses do and traditionally people want to be with their families.

SH: And do you have any initiatives that support working women in any way to negotiate that family role?

KJ: No we don’t, to be fair. We try to offer the same opportunities to both male and females.

Everything is there, we are trying to recruit.

Mercedes Benz, for example, made a stand to recruit more women last year and this year but it’s so difficult to get them into the motor industry, whether that’s a stigma of the business, I don’t know. 55% of the decision makers are women when you buy a car. We want more women to be working with us.

They just don’t seem to want to come.

JH: In my own business we have seven partners and one of them is a woman. My practice employs more women than men

by far and with the lawyers applying for jobs there are certainly as many women, if not more than men. The glass celling doesn’t exist in my profession as far as I’m aware but the issues of family are certainly there and once they have come back from families, perhaps it’s easier for them to move forward or if they are a non-family woman as obviously there are quite a lot of professional career women now. They stand as equal chance to get to the top, as far as I’m concerned.

SH: Glass celling, do you think there is still one, Bruce?

BH: Not in the legal sector, I think. I believe the figures are that there are more women qualifying as lawyers than men and within Rix & Kay we have 18 partners, 8 of whom are women and 4 of those work on a flexible basis and within our Fiona group we are almost 50/50 on male and female and by the summer I think we will be slightly more female than men.

SH: I think the political world is going the same way too?

CM: It is indeed. If there ever was a glass celling in my own company, which I don’t think there ever was, it was comprehensibly shattered just a few months ago by the promotion of Amanda Pierce to CEO. She was our practice chair in the corporate and crisis practice.

But to come to your question directly, yes there is concern within the Conservative Party. Frankly, across politics, there should be far more women candidates coming through and far more women MP’s. That ultimately is down to the individual associations to select the best candidate and if they happen to be a woman, fantastic. Recently the conservatives have tended to be choosing men as candidates. The party hierarchy are very aware of the need to improve that ratio. Ultimately

- Round|Table -

it comes down to the ability of the person concerned regardless of their sex. If they are the right candidates for the job they should be selected. I agree with Amanda’s point that, even if things are improving overall slowly, women, perhaps, are a little bit reluctant or think ‘well I’m not going to get that promotion, I’m not going to do that so what is the point of going for it?’ So, things are moving in the right direction but I think women themselves need to begin to realise the opportunities are beginning to move our way, to begin to capitalise on those.

SH: Amanda, in the business world, there are still networking groups who are just women only. Do you think sometimes women don’t help ourselves or do you think there’s nothing wrong with a women’s only group?

AM: I completely agree with you Sarah, I kind of cringe when I hear about those sorts of initiatives.

CM: Like an all women’s shortlist.

AM: I don’t like that at all but having said that, what I do think is important is that there is access to coaching and mentoring for women who, without a doubt, need to give their career and how they are going to progress in an organisation, some thought, in a different way than you might if you were a man and I think that is important.

SH: Thank you very much. So, to the final question, as Absolute Business Magazine is the first new publication for many years, could I ask each of you what you feel are the relevant hot topics for Sussex businesses in 2014 and what would you like to see in our new magazine?

February/March 2014 │37

I would like to start please, if I may, with John?

JH: Well, this is an interesting hot potato isn’t it? I guess from the business point of view the green issues are very much alive and that’s with a small ‘g’, rather than a big ‘G’. Although the bigger ‘G’ perhaps also is relevant to Brighton particularly.

The environment is high on the priority and then energy issues and so forth. We’ve got flooding to deal with as a current issue with the environment and, of course, business rates that we touched upon earlier in the discussion is also an issue for businesses. They are extremely high and a huge burden so I’d like to see attention on some of those.

How do we deal with flooding in the short term? I don’t think it’s possible, it’s longer term and it’s obviously a countrywide issue not just a local issue. The green issue, in terms of how we recycle and so forth is clearly something we will have to apply our minds to and businesses are having obligations in place on them to make sure they are greener than they used to be. So, there is a cost involved there.

The burden of business taxes, business rates, is something that we have to tackle. I think there is too much reliance placed by local government and the government generally on businesses to maintain the cash flow. So, just a few topics there from me.

CM: I think for too many young people, the world of business feels somewhat closed to them and the same applies to people who are already established and are further down the road in their career.

I would like to see the new magazine become a champion of internships, apprenticeships, a those companies helping young people to get that foot on the ladder. Let’s see how young people are being helped into

Nik Askaroff Chairman of EMC Corporate Finance

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the world of work. And lets see that the business community that consumes the media, consumes the magazine understands their problems and is actively assisting them to get that foot on the ladder. So youth champions, across Sussex is something I would like to see in different issues.

AM: I do support that and speaking as a Brighton & Hove resident rather than, necessarily, working for Hastings Direct, I think it would also be great to see a focus in the magazine that really reflects the culture in Brighton and that we’re so community orientated. I’d love to see something which encourages ethical business, the merging of business goals with the needs of the community and I think you are starting to see that in Brighton and I would like to see more of that.

KJ: I think for me, really, it’s around travel and parking, we spoke about this previous to the meeting and it becomes everybody’s main issue now where can you park? How long it takes you to get there? The roadworks, we know there have obviously been a reduction on costs to repairs to the road but it just stops you from travelling.

I now travel a lot less between sites, which is great for the green issue, but actually I need to be on site, I need to see these places and make sure they’re how they should be and help and coach people on site but we worry about travelling because it takes so long. As much as we can talk about communication through other networks, we need to be on site.

NA: I think the one thing that the magazine really can do is to pull Sussex together and effectively become the voice of business in Sussex. Brighton’s a massive centre, but it still takes too long to get from Brighton

to Eastbourne to Hastings to Chichester because of our road network. Our train network is falling to pieces, it can’t cope with the volume going up to London and we’ve got huge numbers of commuters across Sussex.

There are huge infrastructure problems for Sussex as a whole, there’s investment questions for Sussex as a whole and I think if the magazine can pull together the interested parties and lobby for Sussex business it would do a great job. I think the regular topics that were covered this morning, which are covered on a general basis or a specific basis, should go alongside it and I think if we can have champions for all kinds of sectors by identifying the success stories across the county, I think that is going to be of interest to the readership. The one thing I’d like to see is a lobbying voice that pulls together the SME and the larger sector to fight for our county.

BH: With Rix & Kay having offices in Uckfield as well as Brighton and Hove, we’re quite well placed being in mid-Sussex for travelling around but it is a major problem for, I think, retention of people working in the Sussex area.

I’m sure as we come out of recession London will be taking more and more of our really good people, at all levels, and we’ve got to find ways of demonstrating that Sussex is a great place to live and to work and I think highlighting some of the best companies in Sussex, highlighting some of the real core issues that need to be addressed as Nik has alluded to in transport. I think the magazine has huge opportunity to really make an impact in a whole raft of areas about keeping people working as well as living in Sussex.

If you would like to be on a Round Table, email absolutebusinessmagazine@gmail.com

the one thing that ABsolute Business magazine can do is to pull Sussex together and effectively become the voice of business in Sussex...

There are huge infrastructure problems and investment questions for Sussex as a whole. if the magazine can pull together the interested parties and lobby for Sussex business it would do a great job.

February/March 2014

- Round|Table -

Thumbs up for 2014

Chris Coopey, Partner at Carpenter Box LLP, on a welcome upsurge in business optimism.

sussex businesses hit 2014 with all guns blazing There is optimism in the air, palpable, bold as brass optimism.

Sussex business has launched into 2014 with an appetite for recovery and growth in a fashion that we haven’t seen since before the 2008 crash. Our just published Corporate Finance survey repor t, together with straw polls taken at recent Construction, Proper ty and Manufacturing events, gave an overwhelming thumbs up to prospects for the coming year.

Growing business the right way Growth has consequences.

Hopefully most are good but unfortunately some can potentially cause problems, that’s why planning for growth is always a good idea. As things stand, difficulty with accessing funding is often the perceived barrier to business growth. The answer to the so called funding barrier is to be innovative. First of all though, make sure you have a professional looking business plan where the financial projections are sound and supportable and secondly, be prepared to look at more than one solution to make up the whole. Your accountant should be able to help you write a good business plan covering the essentials that most banks and finance houses will want to see.

‘Growth has consequences. hopefully most are good but unfortunately some can potentially cause problems, that’s why planning for growth is always a good idea.’

be innovative and flexible Once you look to find funding, remember that there are often more ways to skin this particular cat than might be apparent.

Unfortunately, it is the case that businesses are sometimes not willing to invest the time to prepare their case for funding properly, or when offered a loan, meet the cost of raising the finance.

Again, talk to your accountant to help you along the way. If they are worth their salt they will have their finger on the market pulse and have a good network of banking and finance contacts – and whilst Bank A may not have a preferred solution Bank B or another finance business may have. Whilst the position of the banks remains a problem for some, the situation does seem to be dynamic with banks re-engaging with sectors of the market on an on-going basis, so be patient. Do remember that risk management by the banks has tightened up considerably and whilst your local relationship manager may want to help, it’s not always in his or her gift to do so.

Other routes to finance include crowd funding which might provide a solution (but take care, there is no real regulation of crowd funding as yet). Grant funding is useful but is par ticularly difficult to access in the South East.

There are pockets of help available

- Accountancy -

though, par ticularly where job creation is a factor. As far as grant funding is concerned, keep an eye on the Brighton and Hove Council and the East Sussex and West Sussex County Council websites as well as the Coast to Capital LEP website for signposting as to what is available. Local Chambers of Commerce can also signpost.

merger and acquisition It’s a fact that there is more deal making going on than has been the case for a long time. Buying or merging with a competitor or looking to bolt on a business whose product line or a service line complements your own is a tried and tested way to increase market share. Again, take the right advice and understand your market and its potential and downsides. Having the right advisers will stand you in good stead in terms of both the price you might pay and the structure and affordability of the deal.

Carpe Annum! So, the message is seize the year! We have a great opportunity to dust off our businesses, put our best foot forward and turn 2014 into a year to remember – this time, for all the right reasons.

If you would like a copy of our 2014 Corporate Finance Report email chris.coopey@carpenterbox.com

February/march 2014 │39

Business Travel Travel remains dynamic and ever changing, with the emergence of the multi-screen generation impacting on Travel Management as never before. Travel Management Companies, Travel Managers and individual Stakeholders are constantly under pressure by the digital body language of their travellers.

This signals a new dawn where the attitude of travellers has shifted.

The landscape with respect to the old concept of B2B and B2C with the blurred lines has now finally disappeared, which is down to travellers now having access to multiple channels of purchase.

This simply means that there is a greater demand on purchasing departments, resulting in Travel Management Companies needing to find innovative means of generating real savings by promoting sustainable measureable travel programmes.

Some of these savings and valueadds will come in the form of driving online adoption, redesigning the existing travel policy to achieve greater cost avoidance, providing better place utility with effective mobile strategies and improving approval processes by favouring automation. Along with reinforcing more sustainable Corporate Social Responsibility, ensuring that this also forms a part of the vendor selection process, including end-to-end optimisation of the travel process and big data.

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Whilst big data isn’t a new thing, there is a massive buzz around it at the moment. Big data seems to be the new oil; however, it’s usually how the data is used which will determine whether you reap the most benefits.

Business Intelligence has emerged and has a role to play in aiding organisations to take advantage of the masses of data available to them and learn more about the unique nuances of their travellers, adapting their travel programme and policies accordingly. We cannot make informed decisions without numbers, and as such we need not be blinded by big data but move to further understand information discovery, where model data and unstructured data is merged. Most companies do not know what their travellers think of the travel programme for two main reasons. Profiles are limited and do not understand the personal journey of the multi-screen generation and hence are unable to recognise the digital body language.

Most Travel Management Companies, and even some Travel Manager’s, share the view that open booking is one to fear, however, if we are to understand the journey of our travellers we must start by collecting all possible data relating to the travellers digital footprint.

London

‘A travel policy must be designed with the unique nuances of the business and its travellers in mind -this is not a one concept fits all scenario.’

A travel policy must be designed with the unique nuances of the business and its travellers in mind, this is not a one concept fits all scenario. The travel policy must remain fluid if maximum benefits are to be achieved, with the information - Business|Travel -

readily available, companies can easily access information that will indicate policy items that can be changed.

Interpreting the data available should aid in the process of designing a travel and expense policy ensuring that your policy reflects the needs of the business and its travellers.

The reason for creating a policy is simple. Having proper guidelines in place is critical to maintaining control when it comes to one of the largest spend category’s for most organisations. Creating a travel policy is not enough; the effective communication of the policy is of vital importance. Gamification is one way of communicating the policy where increased engagement with travellers can be achieved. Using unstructured data such as social media to listen to your travellers may provide surprising information.

Driving growth in online adoption is seen as an effective means of reducing costs and also provides travellers with the 24hour coverage and place utility that is expected in

John Burroughes

T: 0845 180 7817 E: sales@uniglobepreferred.co.uk W: www.uniglobepreferred.co.uk

a fast paced environment. The new generation of booking tools are equipped with such features as total trip and total cost view, end-to-end expense, travel options, trip duration, carbon emissions calculator, trip tracker and mobile access. Travel Managers will benefit from reduced transaction cost, lower average ticket price and increased policy compliance. However, we must be honest, not all forms of travel are best booked online. During the evaluation and travel programme creation it should be decided what portion of travel is best booked offline and determine the value of this decision.

Mobile technology offers greater potential options in the Travel Management environment and should be considered an integral part of travel management best practice. It further enhances the place utility and provides valuable information such as visual insight on hotels, automated mileage tracking, mobile expense, map directions and proximities, giving the traveller

access to what they need when they need it. With the proliferation of consumer travel apps increasing, business travellers are tempted to book outside of their corporate booking channels. Where compliance on most categories remains very high there is a general exception with hotels, which is one of the main areas where mobile technology can add real value.

End-to-end integrations are key components in driving efficiencies.

Expense management is only one of the facets of the end-to-end process; however, this is one of the fastest growing automation adoption areas which is down to the tangible results that companies are achieving.

The benefits are multifaceted, they include but are not limited to improved data consolidation, increased policy compliance, risk and fraud management, demand management, cost avoidance saving, improved user satisfaction and card collaboration.

‘Travel Managers will benefit from reduced transaction cost, lower average ticket price and increased policy compliance.’

- Business|Travel -

Corporate Social Responsibility is still not taken seriously by a host of companies. Experience has shown that some clients travel profiles demand a more holistic approach to Corporate Social Responsibility and others less so. However, ensuring that your brand champions are taken care of and that the organisation is exhausting all possibilities to ensure that they are reunited with their family might not be a necessity but it should definitely be a priority.

In the end it takes both parties to make it work. It takes a proactive Travel Management Company that relentlessly strives for early adoption to innovation, one that keeps investment in training and the view that its clients are an extension of its own assets. And a client who’s organisation has an engaged Senior Management team with an allocated single point of accountability that is willing to invest time in continuous improvement. Therefore the simple question is, are you one of us.

February/March 2014 │41

Hurstpierpoint College

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Spring Open Morning 15th March 2014 We invite you to see what Hurst can offer your child To find out more, visit our website www.hppc.co.uk

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Bridging the skills gap Heather Beeby Director of Communication Hurstpierpoint College

What can businesses do today to help prepare tomorrow’s workforce for employment? Last summer, The British Chambers of Commerce described employers’ concern about the poor levels of literacy, numeracy, communication and timekeeping skills they identified in school leavers and graduates.

In the same year the Government made the decision to cut the £200m school’s careers service, leaving schools to provide careers advice out of their own limited resources. Where does this leave the pupils, those who will provide the workforce and ultimately the pensions for those currently in work and how can we best prepare these pupils for the workplace?

Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education, has stated that he is convinced local employers are best placed to provide both inspiration and advice. So how can businesses in Sussex make a difference to our local young people and what are the benefits for the businesses themselves?

What most young people want is one to one guidance from someone who understands them, helps them to understand themselves and suppor ts them

on their journey from school to university or to the workplace and this is primarily the role of a careers advisor or tutor at school. Young people often find it difficult to recognise the skills and qualities they have and may not realise that playing netball or rugby demonstrates the ability to work in a team or that being a school prefect demonstrates leadership potential.

Businesses, and in par ticular recruitment agencies, can help these young people by coming into schools, speaking to the pupils about preparing for work, providing advice on writing a good CV and giving interview practice.

Some agencies are happy to provide workshops on the use of assessment centres and may even give the pupils practical experience which in turn builds confidence.

Providing careers talks in schools can be extremely helpful as can suppor t within specific school depar tments such as science and IT and some businesses are happy to offer ‘taster days’ for young people which will help them as they star t to make decisions about their future careers.

Hurst Pupil testimonial: “Not only have I learnt CV and interview skills but I have also learnt ‘work skills’. It might sound silly but I feel more able to communicate with others, I can answer the phone and make calls, I can use my initiative and make decisions.

This experience is more than finding out about a profession. I feel I have matured as a person.”

Work placement employer comment: “I have really enjoyed the process. I have had work experience people with me for many years and Hurst’s system of interviewing and the candidates provided were streets ahead of the competition. More employers should get involved.”

So what do the businesses themselves stand to gain from this investment of time and resources? Working with the young is intrinsically rewarding as they give so much back and for many companies there is an explicit expectation that they contribute to the community. This raises the company profile but there are more material benefits too. At the highest levels there is great competition to recruit the best graduates and a positive work experience or the start of a relationship with a pupil whilst still at school can leave a lasting impression, which may lead to future recruitment opportunities.

Recruitment agencies working in schools meet many young people who, if they remember a good experience, may be keen to join them in the future and this of course provides the agency with the pick of the best.

Ultimately partnerships between schools and the business community can only be beneficial to the young who are our future.

The Department of Education, 2010: “Excellent careers advice is too important to leave to chance because it is essential to personal and economic wellbeing. We owe it to all young people to give them the best possible support in making decisions about their future learning and work.”

Careers evening at Hurst - the format is similar to speed dating!

- Business|Education -

A pupil being mentored by a teacher

February/March 2014 │43

How businesses can work with universities

By Robbie Vella, Marketing Manager – economic and social engagement, University of Brighton Sussex is home to three universities, with many more close by. But to many in the business world, particularly SMEs, the benefits of working with a university can be little known, or at best fuzzy.

One thing that emerges in virtually every conversation I have with our clients and business partners is that when they initially approached the university, they had no idea of the extent of the opportunities on offer.

It could all start with a simple job advertisement to employ a student, or advice about taking on a graduate intern. But from that dipped toe, a flood of other possibilities often arise. One client recently described the experience as ‘like peeling an onion - when you start at the outside, you have no idea how many layers there are, and every one you peel back reveals another more interesting direction.’

So what are these opportunities?

To start with there is the longestablished Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP), part-funded by government, which most universities offer. This gives businesses access to university experts and the knowledge they have generated through their research. The project also funds a graduate to

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‘There are many different types of funding on offer which can help businesses with the cost of working with a university.’

lead a project that is strategically important to the business and which contributes to economic growth.

This could be researching new processes or markets, or developing a new product; up to two thirds of the cost of a KTP is funded by government.

One of our clients, GB Electronics, has completed two consecutive KTP programmes, the most recent of which resulted in a 36% increase in turnover and improved net profit by £100k by redesigning an existing product. The company has now formed a joint venture, nGauge, with the University of Brighton to develop and bring to market specialist medical diagnostic devices.

If you want to recruit but are perhaps not sure of the job role, or the type of person you need, you might find an internship useful so you can get used to having a graduate around – many internships are part-funded too. Or if you want to ensure that graduates with the skills you need will be available for you to recruit, you might want to get involved with one or two relevant university courses – perhaps providing projects for students to work on, or advising on the course board. In fact, technology innovation firm Ricardo provided a student project to the University of Brighton in the 1990’s, this led to

- Business|Education -

r.vella@brighton.ac.uk www.brighton.ac.uk

the company placing some of its test equipment at the university and then developing the relationship further to create the specialist Sir Harry Ricardo Laboratories at the university in 2006.

When it comes to education, universities don’t just teach degree students. Many will bring tailor-made versions of their courses to you, delivering training at your premises to suit the needs of your business as well as your employees. These can be short courses in specialist areas such as environmental auditing, innovation management and change management, or much longer-term university accredited courses. Global IT company FDM has been running a tailored Masters’ degree programme for some of its new employees for several years and is currently developing a second programme with the University of Brighton.

There are many different types of funding on offer which can help businesses with the cost of working with a university, whether for research, recruitment or training.

Most universities will have dedicated business-facing staff who will help to guide you through the available offers and assist with your application.

This could be for a small business improvement project, or a major piece of academic research. For example the Brighton Fuse project involved both the universities of Brighton and Sussex, Wired Sussex

GB Electronics has formed a joint venture, nGauge, with the University of Brighton. and many businesses working in the arts and digital industries, and analysed the interplay between the arts and digital technology to explain how these factors lead to innovation and business success.

Now that all European funded research projects require the involvement of a commercial partner or end-user, there has never been a better time to get involved.

‘We helped to re-design a product for GB Electronics, which resulted in a 36% increase in turnover and improved net profit by £100k.’

If you would like to find out more about getting involved with the University of Brighton please contact our Business helpdesk on 01273 643098 or at businesshelpdesk@brighton.ac.uk

FDM currently developing a second degree programme with the University of Brighton.

- Business|Education -

February/march 2014 │45

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CONFERENCE GUIDE

T

he quality of a property’s conference and banqueting facilities is a key influencing factor for businesses looking for a hotel. The style of management, food and beverage service and operations within a hotel all influence the overall decision.

Other factors that sway decisions about which hotel is chosen are location, a meeting and events capacity, accommodation for delegates and if the organizer has a pre-existing relationship with the conference and banqueting hotel team.

Hilton London Gatwick Airport is a popular choice because of its unbeatable location and excellent business conference and banqueting facilities that are able to meet a wide variety of needs.

Ultimately though, it is the service that differentiates good from great hotels. Every business wants to be known and understood by its host for delivering the best guest experience possible. With hospitality brands such as Hilton Hotels & Resorts to turn to, individuals and business guests have come to expect competitive rates and packages without compromising quality, efficiency and, above all, a personalized service.

The key always, is communication. If a business is conscientious towards all aspects of conferencing and communicates regularly with clients throughout the process, then an organization will be interpreted as efficient, which is a key element to providing a successful service. It is paramount that venue staff are experienced in every aspect of the service offered. No attention to detail can be overlooked.

Group attendees are more refined than ever, with the desire that their conference or meeting provides healthy catering options.

Therefore conference facilities have had to develop flexible menus to cater to this. Hotels, with an emphasis on hospitality, will be particularly conscious of offering options that also please a variety of cultures as travelers’ tastes have been expanded due to the easy availability of global travel. Meeting planners have also had to become more aware about portion size, menu balance and fresh ingredients to ensure a healthy and balanced dining experience.

When planning your conference and business needs, it is important to remember that the hotel or venue conference and meeting teams offer expert knowledge and experience that can benefit any event. They are also able to customize meeting packages to suit individual needs and are aware that clients are continually looking for creative and unique ways to deliver an event. Accessible and easy to use technology has become infused in today’s conferences meaning venues are required to provide secure environments, WIFI accessibility and sockets for recharging portal devices.

‘Whether you are planning a small meeting or hosting a reception for hundreds of people; it is vital to be confident in delivering an event that creates a personal and authentic experience that one can be proud of.’

segments that are showing signs of recovery including education, medical, bio tech, high tech, not-forprofits and financial services.

Whether you are a micro, small, medium or large business, you will want to ensure success in whatever you do. Whether you are planning a small meeting or hosting a reception for hundreds of people; it is vital to be confident in delivering an event that creates a personal and authentic experience that one can be proud of.

Guy Hilton General Manager

2013-2014 Recovery. From hoteliers and in particular, the C&B standpoint, conferences and meetings are more in demand from those business - Business|News -

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LEGAL ISSUES SIMPLIFIED Setting up a business It can be easy to get swept away in the thought of setting up a new business without properly addressing all the issues that come with embarking on a new venture. The process can be a daunting prospect where suddenly you are faced with multiple legal hurdles and uncertainty as to how to overcome them.

The points set out below are issues to consider to help make the journey a smooth and painless experience, ensuring you are on the right road to forming a successful business.

What type of Business?

The type of business structure you choose will be paramount in guaranteeing that the business’ objectives and goals are met, and the first important decision that will have to be made. Most businesses are incorporated as limited companies or limited liability partnerships and are best suited to structure businesses involving a lot of individuals, where liability can usually be capped to the amount a person has invested in the business.

This allows greater security over each individual’s personal assets, than say a sole trader or partnership between two people where the risk to personal assets can be greater.

Contractual Relationships Whichever business structure you opt for, it is essential that all the agreed terms and relationships between the parties are recorded in writing. Depending on the set up of the business, there are a number of arrangements to accommodate all types; shareholder agreements,

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partnership agreements and LLP agreements. Each agreement is designed to document key issues such as: • Decisions affecting the business and how control of the business is managed • Changes in shareholdings – permitting and restricting transfers of shares and options to buy-back • Resignation and appointment of directors/members and restrictive covenants post-termination • Division of profits and dividends Complying with the Law Some businesses will need a permit or license to trade, particularly where there is a risk to the health and safety of the general public.

Industries employing hazardous substances or providing catering and hospitality services to people will have more stringent guidelines and regulations to abide by. Permits and licenses are needed to ensure dangerous materials are handled correctly and pubs/restaurants have satisfied the necessary criteria to serve food and alcohol, as well as being covered for late opening hours and being authorised to provide entertainment on site.

Insuring Protection from Risks A business’ duty of care will not only include the general public, but the employees of the business themselves. It is vital to take out Employers’ Liability Insurance if it is your intention to employ people to work in the business. The law imposes hefty fines for each day the business is uninsured, not to mention making it easier for employees to bring claims. Ensuring your business

- LEGAL -

‘A business’ duty of care will not only include the general public, but the employees of the business themselves.’

Bruce Hayter Managing Partner and head of commercial law at Rix & Kay Rix & Kay is a leading regional law firm with offices in Brighton & Hove, Seaford, Sevenoaks and Uckfield. The firm has grown significantly over the last decade which bears testament to the strength of our client relationships and progressive attitude.

Recognised in the latest editions of The Legal 500 and Chambers and Partners in thirteen and eight practice areas respectively, the firm also boasts eleven Leaders in their Field.

We serve individuals, organisations and businesses across the South East and further afield.

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is adequately protected significantly lessens the chances of being found responsible for negligence. Both Professional Indemnity Insurance and Public Liability Insurance maintain financial security for the business in the event of an unforeseen circumstance during the course of work. Taking a risk and not insuring your business can have severe detrimental effects in the long-run to not only the wealth of the business, but also its reputation.

Taxation and VAT Requirements Operating a business of any sort will result in tax requirements. The legal formalities will differ depending on the way your business is structured, but companies and limited liability partnerships will have to file Annual Returns and Annual Accounts with Companies House. In addition to tax, some businesses will also have to be registered for VAT purposes. It is also possible to voluntarily register for VAT for any business if you feel future projections of annual income could exceed the current VAT thresholds.

Next Steps Whilst the process of setting up a new business should be an exciting one, the issues outlined can pose real dangers if not addressed. Talking through a possible business venture with one of our solicitors in our Company Commercial department will ensure help is at hand every step of the way. Our solicitors have assisted in the start up of many new businesses, varying in structure and complexity, and will ensure that all legal agreements and advice are tailored to meet the needs and requirements of your business, as well as being legally compliant.

TUPE Changes – A Disappointment?

Employers hoping for a complete overhaul and greater flexibility in the transfer of employee rights following a company sale or change of contractor, under what is known as the TUPE legislation, are likely to be disappointed when the new regulations come into force last month.

The new Collective Redundancies and Transfer of Undertakings (and Protection of Employment) Regulations 2013 went live on 31st January.

Employers have viewed the previous regulations as over bureaucratic and inflexible and it had been hoped that the reforms would simplify the TUPE process. TUPE is based on European legislation to protect employee rights when a business, or the undertaking that employs them, is transferred to a new employer.

TUPE has been in place since 1981 and was last reformed in 2006. They extend to even the smallest business and include teams employed by one company to work on a particular client contract being transferred to another company if they take over the contract, in what is known as a “service provision change”.

The Government had proposed for appealing the “service provision change” rules – which apply when a client outsources activities to a contractor and then replaces them with a different contractor or takes the work in-house – but instead has opted for an amendment saying that a service must fundamentally be the same for TUPE to apply. It is less than helpful, but it will give incoming contractors more scope.

The other main changes for employers under the new TUPE legislation include:A change in the place of employment will now be classed as a justifiable, economic, technical or organisational reason to terminate employment, allowing for redundancy and will not lead to automatic unfair dismissal.

The dismissal of an employee under Regulation 7 of TUPE 2006 will now only be automatically unfair if the reason for the dismissal is the transfer itself.

Where there are less than 10 employees and no recognised independent union or existing representatives, employers can consult directly with employees, a move designed to ease the burden on micro businesses.

Pre-transfer consultation can be counted when calculating collective redundancy timelines.

A tightening up on the timeframe in which current employers must provide employee liability information – this will have to be provided at least 28 days before transfer instead of the current 14 days.

Collective agreements will be allowed to be varied by the new employer after one year as long as it does not result in variations that are less favourable to employees.

For further information please contact Miranda Martin in our Employment team at our Uckfield office on 01825 744642 or email mirandamartin@rixandkay.co.uk

For further information on forming a new business, please contact the Rix & Kay Company Commercial team based in Uckfield on 01825 744447.

Recent posts - http://www.rixandkay.co.uk/news-social-media/ Twitter - @RixandKayLaw LinkedIn - http://www.linkedin.com/company/rix-&-kaysolicitors-llp

The Courtyard River Way Uckfield East Sussex TN22 1SL

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The piTfalls of

COMMERCIAL PROPERTY When I was asked to write an article by Absolute Business on the pitfalls of buying commercial property I thought to myself, well there’s a challenge, as the term commercial property covers such a broad market from small office suites to distribution centres!

There is a lot of red tape and legislation in the commercial property world, which can trip even the most experienced business person. Your business premises is one of your most important business tools so getting it right, not just in terms of its location. The key to success is maintaining flexibility, allowing you to adapt the premises with your business over time.

Most commercial property is leased rather than purchased, for exactly this reason. Plus it avoids tying up large amounts of capital.

That said, buying your own commercial property can be a sound investment, as there are some very tax efficient ways to purchase.

If you do buy rather than lease, make sure you get the location right and that the building offers room for expansion. Remember, your business may contract, so consider if the property will let well, can it be divided so you can share space, does it have other future potential?

If you do buy, it does not necessarily need to be owned by your business. It can be owned in your own pension fund and rented to the business. Always check what’s best for you with your accountant!

With the majority of businesses leasing, it is very important to focus

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upon your future needs at the outset of negotiations. A lease commitment can be for a long time, get it wrong at your peril.

Take professional advice, it should pay for itself in the long term.

The relationship between landlord and tenant has spawned an entire legal industry, which is fraught with pitfalls and the potential for dispute.

‘The relationship between landlord and tenant has spawned an entire legal industry, which is fraught with pitfalls and the potential for dispute.’

There are many issues to watch out for, one being the length of lease. Think about your company’s business plan and ensure that the lease allows you to expand over time. If you over commit on the lease you don’t want to be stuck with a rent and repairing obligation you can’t fulfil.

Often, to get the right property you may have no choice but to commit to a longer lease, so think about break options.

They can be very useful in offering you flexibility. However, be careful as, if you don’t serve your notice to break on time or observe your lease commitments, a break option can become ineffective.

The repair and insurance of a commercial property is another big area for dispute. It is critical to ensure that you are not taking on a repairing obligation which is going to both prove expensive during the term of your occupation and also cause disruption to your business.

Another major area of dispute

- Commercial|Property -

Chris Oakley MRICS Oakley Commercial

is the manner in which you hand back a building at the end of a lease (dilapidations). Rather than the landlord presenting you with a surprise bill for putting the property back into good repair at the end of your lease, take some time to carefully agree at the outset what your responsibilities will be when the lease ends.

There are numerous other potential pitfalls such as the rent review provisions contained within a lease, your permitted use, hours of operation, etc. All of this needs negotiating properly before you sign on the dotted line.

Ultimately there is one golden rule with property which proves right time and time again. This is location, location, location. In the commercial property world planning, planning, planning also runs a close second!

The role of the commercial agent, who will often be a qualified chartered surveyor, is to advise tenants on the most suitable terms upon which to take on commercial premises, value them and negotiate the terms of the transaction, ensuring that your business is paying the right price and is protected for the future.

Christopher Oakley is a chartered surveyor and the Executive Chairman of Oakley Commercial.

Business Scene EMC CorporatE FiNaNCE ENtrEprENEUrs’ QUEstioN tiME EMC’s second free Entrepreneurs’ Evening was a resounding success.

More than 70 people were at the County Cricket Ground, Hove, to hear a talk by Nigel Jenkins who founded Unijet in 1981 and sold it 17 years later to First Choice Holidays for £110m. He was a member of First Choice’s Group Management Board until his retirement in 2006.

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1. Ian Poysden- IEP Financial, Ian Fletcher Price - Posturite Ltd 2. John Packer - EMC Ltd 3. Barry Carden - Cardens , John Burrroughes - Uniglobe Preferred 4. Howard Jenkins - Woolf Sung 4

5. James Shore - Close Brothers, Harry Rimmer- Stephen Rimmer LLP Isabel Rimmer - Stephen Rimmer LLP, Nik Askaroff - EMC Ltd

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6. Nigel Jenkins, James Shore Close Brothers 7. Patrick Spencer - IEP Financial, Matt Warren - Travel Places, Camilla Askaroff - ASB Law 8. Graham Shore , Stephen Rimmer Stephen Rimmer LLP 6

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BRIGHTON CHAMBER what’s it all about?

I’mIf you’re one of the hundreds of businesses in the city who are already members of the Chamber, you’ll have already been along to one of our events, and maybe got involved in some of the ways we represent the city’s business community, making Brighton a better place to do business.

If you haven’t joined yet, or maybe you were a member years ago and got out of the habit of coming along, I want to tell you about some of the great things we do, and how being part of the Chamber would be good for you and your business.

Lots of great events If you want to meet and learn from other businesses, Brighton Chamber is the place where you’re going to meet the most people, and the widest range of other businesses.

Maybe you want to talk to some of the city’s bigger businesses, or maybe you want to find new customers and suppliers locally. Our sell-out Inspirational Breakfasts at Carluccio’s have 75 business people each month, and you get to meet lots of different people each time.

Learning from others One of the most exciting things about running a business is that there’s always something new to learn. One of the best ways to learn about what to do (and what to avoid) is to be around other business people, especially people

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who have had different experiences to you or are a bit further on in their business journey. That’s one of the reasons why I really like being part of the Chamber, you get to hear what other people have done, and you make business friends who can help you out when you’re stuck.

As well as coming to our breakfasts and other networking events (we do about 5 of these a month) we have regular Bite Sized Learning sessions where you can learn in depth about the skills you need to run a business.

The Bite Sizes are run by real business people, and are excellent value at just £29, and I’ve learnt lots of really useful things at them.

The voice of business As well as running all these events and getting business people together, we work hard at the Chamber to influence the Council, government and developers to make our lovely city an even better place to do business. We run regular debates, put out information on our website, and get businesses involved in what’s happening in the city.

Come along Brighton Chamber is a great place to promote your business, and get involved in one of the most dynamic organisations in the city. I wouldn’t want you to miss out, so why not come along to one of our events and see what’s happening.

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‘we work hard at the Chamber to influence the Council, government and developers to make our lovely city an even better place to do business.’

www.businessinbrighton.org.uk

Words by Julia Chanteray, President of Brighton and Hove Chamber of Commerce.

Julia runs the business consultancy company, the Joy of Business.

SUSSEX ENTERPRISE Explained by Wendy bell, general manager Sussex Enterprise is the accredited Chamber of Commerce for East and West Sussex, and we work with businesses all over the county to help them with four vital areas for all businesses: We help them make money by providing opportunities for businesses to meet and work with other like-minded businesses and our aim is to help you find the contacts that count in the sectors that are important to you. In March, we’ll team up with Surrey Chamber of Commerce to bring you a unique Aviation Debate with the CEO’s of Gatwick Airport and Heathrow Airport ready to debate the merits of additional aviation capacity in the South East. Our ‘sold out’ monthly lunch clubs provide the perfect opportunity to meet other businesses and make useful business contacts but if lunch isn’t your thing then join us for breakfast, where fellow members provide bite size chunks of useful business information; whether you’re interested in protecting your intellectual property or want to know how to market your business - more effectively, then this is the place to find out.

We help businesses save money by utilising the combined buying power of over 100,000 UK businesses to negotiate fantastic savings on the essentials of business from membership with the AA

to exceptional rates for users of merchant services - there really is something for all businesses to be delighted about!

Even the most experienced business can sometimes face unexpected issues or disputes and with the backing of the members Legal and HR Helpline, you are not alone.

There is someone at the end of the phone 24 hours a day 356 days a year to assist with any legal matter, providing support and advice when businesses need it most.

Lastly but by no means least, here in Sussex our active and vibrant economy contributes hugely to the British economy so your voice should be resounding through parliament and being part of the British Chambers of Commerce means that we can help businesses make sure that their views are heard and, using the collective voice of companies in the South East, we have helped to influence legislative changes to how businesses, large and small, are taxed and operated in the UK as a whole.

‘Our ‘sold out’ monthly lunch clubs provide the perfect opportunity to meet other businesses and make useful business contacts.’

Unit 4 Victoria Business Centre, 43 Victoria Road, Burgess Hill, West Sussex. RH15 9LR 0844 375 9550

So if you want your business to make money, save money, be protected legally or you want your business’ voice heard then come and meet us at one of our free events.

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THe Business Network Emma Pearce’s guide on where and how to network.

Part One. East Sussex.

Networking is a valuable marketing tool for most SME businesses.

annual subscription and some may have a lock-out (one business per category).

We all know the saying that “people buy from people”.

Networking enables you to be face-to-face with other business people in a relatively relaxed environment – although it is still important to be productive! You can raise your profile (so that other people will recommend you too), win new business and develop relationships with suppliers and new business partners.

Fellow network members may provide you with great support too. It’s always good to be able to share ideas and issues and get feedback from other business owners.

• Some meet for breakfast, others for lunch and some in the evening – some groups have options for all three!

About the list The first few names in this network list relate to organisations with multiple groups around the area. The rest of the list is broken down by town. This month we focus on East Sussex.

• Some networks in this list are pay-as-you-go, others require an

• Many networks have social media groups (on Facebook, LinkedIn etc.) that you can interact with – so even if you do not go to the faceto-face meetings you are still ‘seen’.

• There are also business networking groups that only exist on social media – but that’s a whole separate list! I talk about how to utilise groups to maximise your visibility on these platforms in my social media training sessions.

This list is not exhaustive I am sure but should give you a good list of options. If you know of more networks, please do let me know and I will add them to my network listing blog. www.pearcemarketing.co.uk/blog/

NETWORKS OPERATING IN MANY TOWNS:

in East Sussex at this point is in Battle www. bobclubs.com/Club/Battle. Many others are in the ‘formation’ stage – see www.bobclubs.com/

groups in Brighton, Hailsham and Crawley – see www.fabulous-women.co.uk

4 Networking There are many 4 Networking groups around the country – times of day vary, meet fortnightly. See a full list here www.4networking.biz/Events/Map. Basepoint Networking Hub Some Basepoint Business Centres host Networking Hub events – two local ones are in Newhaven and Crawley.

uk/region/South-East

First Friday Network Free entry, no lock-outs, lunchtime event at a local pub/hotel (typically). See www.firstfridaynetwork.co.uk/meetings. (Some now on other Friday’s in the month!)

www.basepoint.co.uk/locations/newhaven/ networkinghub www.basepoint.co.uk/locations/crawley/ networkinghub

Check out other Basepoint locations in the South here www.basepoint.co.uk/locations BNI List of Sussex BNI chapters – weekly – typically breakfast, but some now meet at lunchtime. Note: some towns have more than one Chapter – eg Eastbourne has Eastbourne BNI and The Royal BNI. www.bnisussex.co.uk

BoB (Business over Breakfast) These clubs exist all around the country – meet fortnightly. The only active club 56│

• One or two networks are specific to an industry sector or gender.

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Business Biscotti All around the country but the only one in Sussex so far is in Eastbourne . www.businessbiscotti.co.uk

Chambers of Commerce Each chamber will offer its own mix of networking events as part of your membership. Look up your local Chambers online. There are chambers in Battle, Bexhill, Crowborough, Eastbourne, Hailsham, Hastings, Heathfield, Lewes, Newhaven, Peacehaven, Rye, Seaford, Uckfield (and Sussex Enterprise) and others in West Sussex.

Fabulous Women (Men are welcome) Groups operate in a number of counties in the South. In Sussex, to date , there are

FSB (Federation of Small Businesses) There are three branches in East Sussex in 1066 Country, Eastbourne /Lewes/ Wealden and Brighton & Hove. www.fsb.org.uk/east-sussex/events-calendar

There is also a Surrey and West Sussex region for the FSB – see www.fsb.org.uk/ regions.

Ladies Lunch Clubs These operate in several locations including Eastbourne, Worthing, Lewes & Uckfield and Brighton & Hove – find out more at www.ladieslunchclubs.co.uk.

You can usually go along as a guest a couple of times to decide if a network suits your business (and some are just pay as you go anyway). If you attend networks where you have a 1-minute slot to ‘sell yourself’, do make it count!

Visit my website blog for tips and ideas for your pitch.

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“I help businesses with an affordable and flexible outsourced marketing solution and social media training. If marketing is on your to-do list but never quite reaches the top, I’m your woman!

“There are no fixed term contracts or retainers – just great service as you need it, whether that is for just a couple of hours or ongoing projects. My social media training is for small groups and individuals on platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook. In a two hour hands-on session you will learn how to set up and use these tools effectively. You too could win business from using them!

“I help SMEs from a wide variety of industries working locally, nationally and internationally.”

Emma Pearce. www.pearcemarketing.co.uk

Lady Golfer Club Golf and networking events for members and non-members on various golf courses – Eastbourne, Uckfield, Haywards Heath, Brighton, Worthing and more promised. Find out more at www.ladygolferclub.co.uk

Speed Networking Unique speed networking format by Sussex Business Bureau. Events run in Brighton, Eastbourne and Lewes. www.sussexbusinessbureau.co.uk

Sussex Business Clubs There are three clubs – Brighton & Hove, Crawley & Gatwick and Eastbourne & District. Open to the bosses of businesses with a turnover of £2m + with 10 staff +. www.sussexbusinessclubs.com

The Athena Sussex Network (Women Only) Monthly lunch meetings and additional networking/learning opportunities – Brighton, Crowborough, Eastbourne, Falmer, Hassocks/ Ditchling, Hove and Southwick, Lewes and Seaford.

The Mumpreneurs Networking Club (Men and women who are not parents are also welcome) Groups are operating in many areas including Arundel & Littlehampton, Brighton, Burgess Hill, Chichester, Crawley, Haywards Heath, Horsham, Lewes, Shoreham and Worthing. www.agoodgossip.co.uk/articles/dates

Women Unlimited Business Club (Women only) Monthly meetings – “inspiration, motivation,

It is really important not to forget your marketing measurement. Make sure you note where all your business leads come from so that you can judge which groups are the most productive for you. Don’t forget to volunteer to be a speaker at networking groups to raise your profile quickly. This really worked for me. Make sure you have a good angle for your presentation so that it is attractive to the event organiser. education for women business owners” Several locations around the country – the nearest are in Brighton and Hastings. www.womenunlimitedworldwide.com

EAST SUSSEX NETWORKS The list below does not include events by those groups already mentioned above, many of which are active in a number of these towns.

Alfriston Business Cornerstones – fortnightly business breakfast for B2B businesses. www.businesscornerstones.co.uk

Bexhill Bexhill Curry Club – bexhillcurryclub@ gabyhardwicke.co.uk – Organised by Jonathan Midgley at Gaby Hardwicke Solicitors Bexhill Lunch Club – organised by McPhersons Chartered Accountants. www.mcphersons.co.uk

Eastbourne 19th Hole in One Business Club – learn to play golf and network too. www.19thholeinone.com

#WiredEB – Eastbourne’s meet-up for creative, digital & media professionals,

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quarterly, organised by Cohub. www.cohub.co.uk/events

Anglo French Business Group – for businesses with French and English interests.

Organised by Caroline Cole from Savoir-Faire Accounting – www.sf-accounting.co.uk Borough Means Business – monthly lunch – organised by Eastbourne Borough Football Club www.boroughmeansbusiness.com Eastbourne Curry Club – eastbournecurryclub@gabyhardwicke. co.uk Organised by David Getty at Gaby

Hardwicke Solicitors and Chris Stevens at FRP Advisory.

EBO – Eastbourne Business Owners – www.ebo-networking.com/. Breakfast twice a month on the second and fourth Thursday of the month.

In Business Networking Events – contact Rachel@bespoketrainingeastbourne.com

New Connections Networking – www.espressoevents.co.uk/social-events

Pick n’ Mix Network. The interactive event is designed to encourage problem-solving, share learning and offer peer support. www.picknmixnetwork.com

Property Club – organised by Mike Reid from Reid + Dean. mike@reiddean.com Sunrise Business Breakfasts – at Sunrise Senior Living – Contact Vicki Pickering at Eastbourne.dcr3@sunriseseniorliving.com

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THe Business Network If the law is an ass

Hailsham Business People – www.chapter12winebar.com/join-the-chapter-12community/business-people

Hailsham Breakfast Club – contact Andrew Rannie at Hart Reade Solicitors: arannie@hartreade.co.uk Hastings & St Leonards Ashdown Hurrey Women in Business Lunch Club – quarterly meeting. www.ashdownhurrey.co.uk

Bizzybirds (Women only) – monthly meeting mid-morning – www.bizzybirds.co.uk

Hastings Curry Club – organised by Bibby Factors Sussex Ltd – contact Emma Lodge elodge@bibbyfinancialservices.com Networking over Cake – evening event, first Thursday of the month. www.sugarrushbakers.co.uk Networking Together – evening events – contact Vicki Chisholm: admin@tigerlillysadmin.co.uk or Gary Williams: gary@ambiencecateringsolutions.co.uk

Do you run a networking group?

Email info@pearcemarketing.uk

WOW Exchange Networking events – bringing businesses and community groups together. www.wowexchange.org/#/events

To kick some you’ll need a good lawyer

Heathfield and Blackboys Heathfield Small Business Network – lunch on first Monday of the month – contact Barbara Hibbart Tel : 01435 865135, email barbara@barbarahibbartcoaching.co.uk

The Grove Networking Breakfast – Blackboys, second Friday of the month, contact thegroveblackboys@gmail.com Lewes Lewes Lunch Club – organised by Knill James Chartered Accountants. Contact:Tinam@knilljames.co.uk Lower Dicker Professional Networking – Fortnightly networking at lunchtime – www.professionalnetworking.org.uk

S O L I C I TO R S A N D N OTA R I ES

Uckfield Uckfield Curry Club – run by Dawson Hart Solicitors – call 01825 762281

01903 229999

www.bennett-griffin.co.uk

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Wealden Dist Council Business Breakfasts Periodically there are business breakfasts and seminars – supported by the FSB. www.wealden.gov.uk/Wealden/Business_and_Regeneration

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Business Scene

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Platinum Club networking Party

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grand Hotel brigHton 1. Dan Smyth (Brighton Racecourse) Sophia Spencer Lee (Callisto Associates) 2. Jane Doswell (Image Matters) John Kelly (Square One Financial) Becky Sharp (Harvey John Recruitment) 3

3. Rachel Hutchinson (The Grand Hotel) Maarten Hoffmann (The Platinum Club)

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4. Maarten Hoffmann (The Platinum Club) Fiona Marley (File Express) Clarence Mitchell (The Conservative Party) 5. Peter Stewart (Baker Tilly) Freya de Jonge (St James’s Place WM) 6. Robert Wakeford (Bank Leumi) Sue Windham (Allied Irish Bank) Kevin Smyth (Burt Brill Cardens) 7. Sarah Hopwood ( Professional Speaker) David Waddell (Harvey John Recruitment) 5

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8.Paul Sheffield (TC Digital) Lisa Henning (Beautiful Ink ) Jeremy Woolwich (Independant Perspective) 9. Clarence Mitchell (Conservative Party) Fiona Marley (File Express) 10. Andy Percival (PSG Southern) Lee Hills (Mayo Wynne Baxter)

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The Platinum Club is one of the most effective groups in Sussex and meet at the Grand Hotel Brighton each month.

To join The Platinum Club, contact info@theplatinumclubbrighton.co.uk

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“This is the slipperiest car in the world”

The E Class Merc has been with us for quite a while and one of the best and most practical cars l ever owned was the huge E Class estate, that would swallow up half a house and all the kids and there was still an occasional echo from a corner unfilled. The kids absolutely loved it too as they could sit on the two rear jump seats that actually faced backwards and make silly faces at the motorists behind – at least l hope their gestures were just silly faces!

So they have quite a job on their hands to bring on a new model but Mercedes tend to be one of those manufacturers that just keep their heads down and plough their furrow, unlike the likes of Audi and BMW who seems to fill any available niche with a new model – often successfully and occasionally not. Mercedes have been making big graceful coupes since the dawn of time and yet in 2013, they find that they effectively have this arena all to themselves. The Audi A5 and BMW 4 series don’t have the size and presence to really challenge and the BMW M6 is just too expensive to compete.

The E coupe is a seriously good looking car and as you walk around it, parts sometimes look a little too angular and harshly hewn but the sum of those parts is very impressive.

Inside, it is even better and at last we are turning the corner of modernity and harking back to those good old days – an actual real live clock, would you coco. And not just any clock, but a really stylish little number buried in the dash, while the gear stick has gone and finally we have the space in the centre console that we should.

I recall many old cars had the gears on a stalk off the steering column and Mercedes have gone back to

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that, therefore freeing up the centre for cup holders and the like. Now, it does take a bit of getting used to l must say, as we are brainwashed into using our left hand to change gear, so l was constantly reaching left to change and knocking over the coffee and then attempting to change gear when l needed the wipers but l can assure you that you will get used to it and then you’ll love it. Who on earth ever put the damn thing in the middle in the first place?

‘For Neanderthals like me, there is also a 5.5 litre V8 that will most likely rip your face off – politely, of course!’

It is a lovely drive and the first thing l notice is the lack of wind noise. I always expect it in a coupe as the windows are frameless but somehow they have got over this and it is calm, relaxed and luxurious. My model was the entry level CDI and it was one of those rare cars where the base model does not leave you wishing you had ticked all those expensive extras to get it to where you love it. It is really

- Motoring|review -

well equipped and there are three main trim options with SE, AMG Sport and AMG Sports Plus. SE gets sat nav and the active parking system that sent my girls into hysterical giggling. As you line up to park, hit the button and the magic of parking just happens whilst you sit on your hands - or tickle little girls! The AMG adds bodykit, larger alloys and the AMG Plus is everything mentioned with the word bigger in front of it.The attention assist is bloody annoying but the cruise control with distance warning is a marvel as it automatically slows you in line with the car ahead.

It’s bad enough crashing a car but imagine what a total twit you would feel if you pranged this one!

Engines are four and six cylinder petrol and diesel and my 2.1 litre diesel had all the pulling power l needed and l must say, it is difficult to believe it is only 2.1 litre, as it has surprising get up and go.

Motoring Editor – Maarten Hoffmann

The stats are eye popping – my 2.1 diesel delivers 204bhp, does 0-60mph in 7.3 secs, coughs out only 135g/km and still returns an average 47.9mpg.

For old barnstorming Neanderthals like me, there is also a 5.5 litre V8 that will most likely rip your face off – but politely and smoothly of course. It also spent much of its development womb time in a wind tunnel as at 0.24 drag factor, it is the slipperiest car in the world!

The drive is calm and refined with a firm ride, eerily accurate steering and on the motorway it glides wherever you point it and, at all times, you can see that lovely clock. Enough l hear you say, there must be something wrong with it? Well, it does have one drawback in that it is only 4 seats, which l guess is caused by some coupe design feature but what a bonus it would be if it had five.

Mercedes lost their way for a while a few years back with a proliferation of models and styles but they have learnt the lesson of following the pack – don’t. If you are one of the oldest and most prestigious car manufacturers in the world, let the pack go where they will and follow your own path.

Merc were always known for bullet proof build quality, supreme comfort, utmost safety and style, with a healthy dollop of panache – welcome back Mercedes, we missed you.

TECHNICAL STUFF Engine: 2.1 litre SE CDI Performance: 0-62mph in 7.3 secs Top Speed: 146 mph Economy: 47.9 mpg Price: £35,095.00 OTR Best Lease Deal: £ 339.00 plus VAT Mercedes Benz contact Brighton 0844 704 1538 Gatwick 0844 704 2561 Eastbourne 0844 659 3080 Tonbridge 0844 539 2066

- Motoring|review -

February/March 2014 │61

UNDERSTANDING LEASING

By Keith Jackman, Marketing Director, Lookers Mercedes-Benz Leasing is a long-term rental agreement offering the exclusive use of a vehicle for a set period of time at a fixed monthly charge. Leasing helps you avoid any unexpected costs by offering a fixed monthly payment for the term of the lease, meaning you don’t have to worry about depreciation or selling the vehicle as this is taken care of by the leasing company.

At the start of a leasing contract, you will pay an initial rental fee - usually equivalent to the sum of three monthly payments and then make monthly payments for the duration of the contract term. At the end of the contract, usually 24-48 months, the vehicle can simply be handed back without

There are a number of different types of leasing contracts available to cater to your business or personal requirements: Contract hire is a finance solution available to sole traders, par tnerships and limited companies. It’s a very popular choice for VAT registered companies as they can claim back fifty percent of the VAT on the finance element. Rental costs take into consideration estimated annual mileage, selected models and optional maintenance packages. Once the agreed term has finished you can return your vehicle at no extra cost, provided the vehicle has not exceeded its mileage allowance. This leasing option is an excellent choice for businesses with quick changing or updating fleets, who are looking to minimise their shor t-term expenditure.

any further obligations.

Driving a new car every two, three or four years is just one of the benefits to leasing.

Not only will you be driving a brand new car every few years but leasing also allows you to drive away with fixed lower monthly payments, lower deposits, inclusive road tax and breakdown recovery, flexible contract duration and mileage terms and all vehicles include standard manufactures warranty.

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- Leasing -

Lease purchase allows your business to gain eventual ownership of your chosen vehicle. The arrangement consists of a series of monthly repayments, culminating in a “balloon” payment at the end of the contract where you can decide to own the vehicle outright or hand the vehicle back. Your business will also benefit from having the time to assess whether they want to take permanent ownership of the vehicle and this can be particularly useful to smaller businesses that want to confirm the reliability and practicality of the vehicle before committing to ownership.

Contract purchase allows you to choose whether or not it is in the best interests of your company to take ownership of the vehicle when the agreement ends. With contract purchase your vehicle has a value guarantee; you are also protected against a future drop in the value of used cars. As such, companies benefit from increased security and flexibility. This makes a contract purchase agreement an excellent option for businesses that are looking to take ownership of a vehicle, without risking its value depreciating, or the financial commitment being too restrictive.

Hire purchase begins with the payment of a deposit, which is usually between 10 and 50 percent of the retail value of your chosen model. A term of repayments, usually between 12 and 60 months, is also negotiated. The level of monthly expense that you pay is dependent on three factors: the retail price of the vehicle, the size of the deposit paid and the length of the repayment period. In the short-term, hire purchase can appear an expensive option but in the long run if your company is looking at taking ownership of the vehicle it can work out considerably less expensive in the long term.

Whatever car you choose, we hope this information has been useful and if you are considering a Mercedes-Benz car, please contact us and we would be delighted to help at any one of our 4 locations across the region.

Brighton 0844 704 1538 Gatwick 0844 704 2561 Eastbourne 0844 659 3080 Tonbridge 0844 539 2066

- Leasing -

February/March 2014 │63

McLAREN 12c Built in Surrey, Powered by Sussex Until very recently, if you wanted a beautifully crafted supercar that was a rock solid financial investment, you sent your Euro cheque off to Italy. But no more, as there is an upstart from Surrey calling your name – as long as you have a spare £170,000 knocking around.

The McLaren 12c is pure British engineering at its very best and produced from a magnificent new lakeside factory in Woking, Surrey by a boss with obsessive compulsive disease. Ron Dennis, having left the Formula 1 team in subordinate hands, has taken on the herculean task of building a Ferrari beating world-class supercar and having just had the pleasure of driving the little tyke, all l can say is he’s done it, with bells on.

Under the hood is a relatively small twin-turbo V8 of unprecedented efficiency and power, a carbon fibre tub chassis using a revolutionary design process and totally

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0-60 coming in a blurred 3.3 secs and 100 in 6.7!

independent double wishbone suspension, so widely adjustable that the 12c can drive like a soft saloon or a pure-bred race car. And all from a factory without a hair out of place, with no dust or oil stains and an obsessive attention to detail.

McLaren’s unique engine produces a spectacular 616bhp at 7500rpm and best of all? The engine is designed and built at the end of the runway at Shoreham Airport in Sussex, by discreet engineering firm Ricardo.

0-60 in 3.4 but this is from a 4.5 litre engine with ‘only’ 562bhp. Quite how McLaren have managed this feat of technical genius would take several pages to explain, but wow!

Drop into the cabin, or rather launch control, and you will find quite a business-like interior with few of the flashy Ferrari touches. The steering wheel is small and pleasantly thin and is free from any buttons – it is reserved for steering and steering only with all controls being on the stalk. It is apocalyptically quick with 0-60 coming in a blurred 3.3secs and 100 in 6.7secs. I drove the Ferrari 458 last year and posted

If your company has done exceptionally well this year and £170,000 is simply not enough, then you could order the all new McLaren P1 hypercar - it is faster, sleeker, rarer and only £866,000 – go on, you know you deserve it!

- Motoring|review -

We should be rightfully proud of British, or dare l say, Sussex engineering – the 12c is set to trump Ferrari and all their fanfare and Italian pomp – the 12c is faster, cheaper, more economical and a revolutionary step forward.

The McLaren 12c – in short, a Ferrari killer.

Motoring Editor – Maarten Hoffmann

Business Scene NSPCC FuNd RaiSiNg awaRdS Held at donatello Restaurant, Brighton 1

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1. Paul Feist (Plus Accounting), Liz Barnes (NSPCC), Vicky King (Plus Accounting) 2. Michaela Ward (STG Travel Group ), Liz Barnes (NSPCC), Josie Brown (STG Travel Group) 3. James Bell (Michael Bell Ltd), Paul Feist (Plus Accounting), Vicky King (Plus Accounting), Miranda Goodenough (Michael Bell Ltd) 3

4. Ros Bird (NSPCC), Keith Jackman (Lookers Mercedes Benz), Gemma King (Be Creative)

4

5. Rob Head (NatWest), Matt Daley (Site Visibility), Helen Ripley and Emma Pumfrey-Selman (both DMH Stallard) 6. Tracey Bravo (NSPCC), Amy Stevens (Higgidy), Jason Woodford (Sitevisibility), Georgina Rose (Education Travel Group/ NSPCC), Liz Barnes (Envoca/NSPCC), Jeremy Spiller (White Hat Media), Kevin Buck MBE (Southern Water)

5

7. Anita Morris (Southern Water), Liz Barnes (NSPCC), Kevin Buck MBE (Southern Water)

6

8. Natasha Decote-Green (Ocklynge School), Aaron Timms (Leading Edge Design) 9. Keith Jackman (Lookers Mercedes Benz) , Liz Barnes (NSPCC) 10. Alice Clarke, Joanne Turnball (both Total Orthodontics)

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Photos: Stephen Lawrence - Business|scene -

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The Platinum Supercar Club is designed for those with an interest in fast cars and car-based events, but without the inclination or budget to commit to an outright purchase.

Membership brings a smorgasbord of outrageous motoring delights and rewards, such as:

SUPERCAR RENTAL: Choose from a mouth-watering selection of vehicles to be delivered to your door for two days of outright fun. In addition to the Supercars, we also have a range of timeless classics such as AC Cobra, Thunderbird and E Type.

BRITISH GRAND PRIX: An exclusive Platinum venue is supplied in the Paddock Suite along with reserved seats at Luffield Corner, assigned parking and all meals and drinks for the day of a lifetime.

Helicopter transfer available.

TRACK DAYS: Throughout the year we have arranged track days in Sussex and supplying a gorgeous range of cars for members to drive. Instructors are on hand and there might be just a smidgeon of competition between members!

Exquisite catering supplied all day.

Track Day 1: Gentlemen’s Racing at Goodwood in a range of timeless classic cars such as E-Type, Aston Martin DB4, Ferrari 360, AC Cobra, Shelby Mustang, 911 RS and Lamborghini Diablo. Superb catering supplied and the opportunity to drive the famous Goodwood Track.

Track Day 2: A comparison day of six of the world’s finest and fastest supercars, such as: Audi R8, Porsche Turbo, Lamborghini Murcielago, Aston Martin DBS, Ferrari 458 & Ariel Atom

Corporate MeMbership: There are great benefits in corporate membership whereby the Company Directors can share the events throughout the year or make them available to clients or as a staff incentive, with all the corresponding tax benefits.

All events will be attended by a maximum of 20 members.

All the above and more, for one annual membership fee – for further details of the three categories of membership available, please contact info@theplatinumclubbrighton.co.uk

AND YOU THOUGHT THAT SPEED NETWORKING WAS BORING!

A GUIDE TO PROFESSIONAL SIGNAGE Identity’s Top Tips to Create Engaging and Functional Signage One of the most frustrating things when driving around Sussex is the lack of signage, their lack of personality and the confusing message they often convey to customers.

Signage should be front and centre when you are creating a display. You don’t want a customer looking at a confusing graphic where they have to figure out what you are trying to sell them or which direction they should be travelling. Good signage tells your customers why they are looking at your products or services or which direction to go.

A great sign has to capture the customer’s interest enough to read it; just like a great email subject line gets someone to click it, a great headline in a newspaper gets someone to read it or a great magazine cover makes someone buy it.

Here are eight tips to create compelling signage:

Don’t be AfrAiD to leAve some spAce Leaving space around the edges and not filling the space completely with your text will add impact. Put a minimum of information with contact information (such as a phone number or web address). Be concise but make sure all necessary information is included.

less is more; keep it short AnD to the point We used to think it was tough to come up with an update for Twitter that was under 140 characters or to create a YouTube video that was under two minutes.Attention spans continue to shorten – your customers are in a hurry - you must respect that.

People are shortening text messages down to a couple of words, sometimes a couple of letters, or a single emoticon. As a society we are all getting used to short, succinct messages. Edit your copy ruthlessly until your message remains but the fluff is gone!

mAke sure fonts Are eAsy to reAD Some retailers can get away with a hand-written chalkboard, but getting away with and driving sales are two different things. Clear font characters – without fuss and multiple colours – allow a customer’s attention to first gravitate to your message and then to your product.

Make sure you have chosen a font size that is appropriate for the distance it will be viewed - consider where it will be located and what obstacles may be in the way.

Visibility is the most important part of your signage. If customers can’t quickly read it instantly, they’ll move on.

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- Signage -

Choose the most appropriate Colours for your baCkground and text When choosing a background for your customer, don’t use anything that will make it difficult to focus on the main message. There are many colour combinations that have similar contrasts and as a result do not work well together, for example blue and green. Alternating colours, such as blue and yellow, produce the best combinations since they have a good strong contrast. Black contrasts well with any light colour and white works well with colours having a dark value. Highest visibility colour combinations to use on your sign according to the Outdoor Advertising Association are as follows: BLACK on YELLOW / WHITE YELLOW on BLACK / BROWN / RED WHITE on BLUE / GREEN / BROWN / RED GREEN on WHITE BLUE on YELLOW BROWN on YELLOW / WHITE RED on WHITE / YELLOW

be Clear on the Customers’ reasons for buying your produCt or serviCe What is the customer buying this for?

To make things easy in the kitchen? To look good for a date? To have easyto-manage hair? Then tell them…

“Cooking made easy!” “Make heads turn!” “Manage curly hair with this”.

test your sign

use the words you or yours Customers buy when they start visualising themselves using your products. One way to help them is to incorporate the words like you or yours. Notice how much stronger the signs become with the addition of you or your… “Your cooking made easy!” “You’ll make heads turn!” “Manage your curly hair with this.”

It is fun to have a new sign on the top of a window display that you feel is perfect… until you notice that it is too faint to be seen through your tinted window, or the font is too small to be seen by cars going 25 mph. If you are on a busy street, have a friend drive past and tell you what your sign is about. If they can’t get it – edit, edit, edit.

keep fun Boring signs are, well, boring. Remember that your aim is to grab someone’s attention. Double entendre, puns and jokes are great ways to show you are a fun business.Yes, some people will say you’re not funny, but the bulk of your customers will appreciate it. They might even take a picture and post it on Facebook! Creating memorable, functional signs that sell your product or service is truly one of the most fun aspects of sales!

For more information please contact sales@signage-printing.com or call 01323 469111.

Identity Signage & Printing, Identity House,Westham Business Park,Westham, BN24 5NP

- Signage -

February/March 2014 │69

COMMUNICATING YOUR BRAND

Graphic and 3D Design Project Management Commercial Signage Interior Environments Exhibition Design & Build Way Finding Retail Branding Our clients

+44 (0) 1323 469111 www.signage-printing.com

Business By the book THe Top 10 Best Selling Business and Management Books at Waterstones (As at start of Feb 2014)

1

The Decision Book: Fifty Models for Strategic Thinking (Hardback)

By Mikael Krogerus, Roman Tschappeler The Decision Book distils into a single volume the fifty best decision-making models used on MBA courses and elsewhere that will help you tackle the important questions in management.

2

It’s Not How Good You are, it’s How Good You Want to be: The World’s Best-selling Book (Paperback)

By Paul Arden A pocket bible for the talented and timid alike to help make the unthinkable thinkable and the impossible possible.

3

Strategy: A History (Hardback)

By Sir Lawrence Freedman An overview of the most prominent strategic theories in history, this masterful volume sums up a lifetime of reflection on strategy.

4

The Lean Startup: How Constant Innovation Creates Radically Successful Businesses (Paperback)

By Eric Ries The Lean Startup is about learning what your customers

really want. It’s about testing your vision continuously, adapting and adjusting before it’s too late. Now is the time to think Lean.

5

The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation (Paperback)

By Matthew Dixon, Brent Adamson.

The Challenger Sale argues that classic-relationship building is the wrong approach to sales.

Every sales rep in the world falls into one of five distinct profiles but only one – the Challenger – delivers consistently high performance.

6

What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets (Paperback)

By Michael Sandel.

The author asks: Is there something wrong with a world in which everything is for sale? And how do we protect things that really matter?

7

Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products (Paperback)

By Leander Kahney From his early interest in industrial design through his education at Newcastle Polytechnic and meteoric rise at Apple, discover the principles and practices that led Ive to become the designer of his generation.

- business|books -

8

Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography (Paperback)

By Walter Isaacson Walter Isaacson tells the story of the rollercoaster life and searingly intense personality of creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionised six industries.

9

Strategy Safari: The Complete Guide Through the Wilds of Strategic Management (Paperback)

By Henry Mintzberg, Bruce W. Ahlstrand, Joseph B. Lampel.

No other book synthesizes the entire history and evolution of strategic management in so lively and entertaining a fashion.

10

Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers and Challengers (Paperback)

By Alexandwer Osterwalder,Yves Peigner.

The book explains the most common Business Model patterns, based on concepts from leading business thinkers, and helps you reinterpret them for your own context.

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Big Screen Business

The Wolf of Wall Street Business doesn’t always get a fair deal at the cinema. Businesspeople are often portrayed as greedy (and sometimes even boast that greed is good!) and lacking in compassion. Business owners may not always be seen as the good guys, but there have been some great films with a business-focus.

Bill Murray of Murray Media picks his favourite ten business films.

The Wolf of Wall Street It’s based on the true story of Jordan Belfort, from his rise to a wealthy stockbroker living the high life to his fall involving crime, corruption and the federal government.

Mar tin Scorsese opens The Wolf of Wall Street with a succession of quick scenes, which tell us exactly what is in store for the us over the next three hours; fast cars, massive houses, private boats, beautiful and disposable women and drugs - lots and lots of drugs.

Not even three minutes in and we see our narrator and lead douchebag Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) sucking cocaine out of a hooker’s derriere. Why? Because he can afford to and he has nothing better to do with his time and money and this is a motif seen repeated throughout the film. When

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you’re earning nearly a million dollars a week (and it annoys you that it’s not exactly a million dollars a week) everybody, it seems, wants what you’ve got.

The Wolf of Wall Street pitches the debauchery and outrageous lifestyle of Belfor t and company as a black comedy because anything else would be an unwatchable, sexist attack on America itself wouldn’t it??

Directed by Martin Scorsese it also stars Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie, Matthew McConaughey, Kyle Chandler, Rob Reiner, Jon Bernthal and the sublime Jon Favreau.

The other films feature far less drug abuse and debauchery but are business based classics in their own right: What Women Want Nick, a somewhat chauvinistic adver tising exec hot shot, has his life turned haywire when a fluke accident enables him to hear what women think. At first all he wants to do is rid himself of this curse, until a wacky psychologist shows him that this could be used to his advantage! His first target is Darcy McGuire, the very woman that got the promotion he wanted. But just as his plan is beginning to work, love gets in the way...

- Film -

The Devil Wears Prada In New York, the simple and naive justgraduated in journalism Andrea Sachs is hired to work as the second assistant of the powerful and sophisticated Miranda Priestly, the ruthless and merciless executive of the Runway fashion magazine. Andrea dreams to become a journalist and faces the opportunity as a temporary professional challenge. The first assistant, Emily, advises Andrea about the behaviour and preferences of their cruel boss, and the stylist Nigel helps Andrea to dress more adequately for the environment. Andrea changes her attitude and behaviour, affecting her private life and the relationship with her boyfriend Nate, her family and friends. In the end, Andrea learns that life is made of choices.

The Devil Wears Prada

only “closers” will get the good sales leads.

There is a lot of pressure to succeed, so a robbery is committed which has unforeseen consequences for all the characters.

Office Space A tale about three men and their woebegotten story of misfortunes at a fictitious computer company, it knows it has a place in most movie lovers’ personal top 10 lists.

Wall Street Wall Street Bud Fox is a Wall Street stockbroker in early 1980’s New York with a strong desire to get to the top. Working for his firm during the day, he spends his spare time working on an angle with the high-powered, extremely successful (but ruthless and greedy) broker Gordon Gekko. Fox finally meets with Gekko, who takes the youth under his wing and explains his philosophy that “Greed is Good”.

Taking the advice and working closely with Gekko, Fox soon finds himself swept into a world of yuppies, shady business deals, the good life, fast money and fast women; something which is at odds with his family including his estranged father and the bluecollared way Fox was brought up.

How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days Benjamin Barry is an advertising executive competing with two female co-workers for a major campaign for a diamond merchant.

He cuts a deal with his competitors that the account is his if he can make a woman of their choice fall in love with him in 10 days.

In comes Andie Anderson who, in turn, is writing a story on how to lose a guy in 10 days as a bet with her boss to be allowed to

How to lose a guy in 10 days

write more substantial stories.

With a hidden agenda in each camp, will either party be able to complete their mission?

Broadcast News Basket-case network news producer Jane Craig falls for new reporter Tom Grunnick, a pretty boy who represents the trend towards Rogue Trader entertainment news she despises. Aaron Altman, a talented but plain correspondent, carries an unrequited torch for Jane. Sparks fly between the three as the network prepares for big changes and both the news and Jane must decide between style and substance.

Glengarry Glen Ross Times are tough in a Chicago real-estate office; the salesmen (Shelley Levene, Ricky Roma, Dave Moss and George Aaronow) are given a strong incentive

by Blake to succeed in a sales contest. The prizes? First prize is a Cadillac El Dorado, second prize is a set of steak knives, third prize is the sack! There is no room for losers in this dramatically masculine world;

- Film -

Working Girl Released in 1988, it’s an obvious choice. Tess McGill is a frustrated secretary, struggling to forge ahead in the world of big business in New York. She gets her chance when her boss breaks her leg on a skiing holiday. McGill takes advantage of her absence to push ahead with her career. She teams up with investment broker Jack Trainer to work on a big deal. The situation is complicated after the return of her boss.

Rogue Trader This tells the true story of Nick Leeson, an employee of Barings Bank who after a successful spell working for the firm’s office in Indonesia is sent to Singapore as General Manager of the Trading Floor on the SIMEX exchange. The movie follows Leeson’s rise as he soon becomes one of Barings’ key traders. However, everything isn’t as it appears — through the 88888 error account, Nick is hiding huge losses as he gambles away Baring’s money with little more than the bat of an eyelid from the powers-that-be back in London....

Has Bill missed any business classics? Email Bill@murray-media.co.uk Murray Media is a full service Marketing, Communications and Public Relations agency. www.murray-media.co.uk

February/march 2014 │73

For All Your Business Travel Needs Enriching life through proactive travel management & customer experience UNIGLOBE Preferred Travel is part of the largest single brand Travel Management affiliation in the world. Our unique structure allows for entrepreneurial leadership in each of our locations, ensuring a committed local ownership at the point of service. We combine this with all of the strengths a competent global company can offer, delivering a seamless global service under a single brand you can trust.

UNIGLOBE Travel, we are where you are.

0845 180 7817

sales@uniglobepreferred.co.uk

www.uniglobepreferred.co.uk

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the publication the region has been waiting for FEATURE

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Women in Business.

We investigate the glass ceiling or is there now a glass floor? We speak 209C with female business leaders and uncover the truth.

MOTORING We gets our hands on the F Type Jaguar and take it over Beachy Head!

I.O.D Dean Orgill of MayoWynneBaxter discusses the Institute of Directors and what role they play in Sussex.

POLITICS We thought we had to cover it! We will offer two leading politicians, from opposite sides of course, the Big 5 questions that concern businesses.

IT This kicks off our Business IT section where we attempt to unravel the complexity of the commercial IT scene with the assistance of the leading IT firm in the region.

AND MORE – but we are still thinking about it and listening to the voices of Sussex – feel free to contact us and tell us what we have missed and what you would like to see in the next issue.

We will be launching our business advice section featuring the expertise of some of the region’s leading businesspeople. Do you have a question about finance, funding, legal issues, HR, accountancy, training or any other business matter?

Please Email Maarten Hoffmann at absolutebusinessmagazine@gmail.com Would you like to advertise in ABM? Call Ian on 07584 023635 or email ian.trevett@absolutemagazine.co.uk

Next issue out iN early april

2138_The Grand Brighton_229mm x 149mmhalf page ad.pdf

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05/02/2014

12:13

ESPA & CARITA TREATMENTS | JESSICA NAILS | THERMAL SUITE | RELAXATION LOUNGE | SPA CAFÉ

RELAX WITH ME, SPA WITH ME. JOIN ME. Your exclusive invitation to join Brighton’s most spectacular Spa

Limited membership places available

Spa memberships C

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A RANGE OF EXCLUSIVE MEMBERSHIP PACKAGES AVAILABLE INCLUDING: Unlimited use of spa & leisure club

Up to £170.00 monthly spend on treatments

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Make Time To Spa...

Studies show that as a nation we work up to two hours longer per week than our European counterparts. Pair this with the demands of daily life, and the challenge of finding some sacred metime becomes quite a feat.

According to many health experts an overwhelming amount of illnesses are directly related to internalized stress, so taking time out to relax really should be a necessity. A spa experience, from a simple stress busting massage, a reviving facial or simply an invigorating sauna/steam really shouldn’t be something to feel guilty about. This sacred spa time is the perfect antidote to the hustle and bustle of life and carry many health benefits too.

Senior Spa Therapist at The Sp@ The Grand, Jessica Burley specializes in ESPA and Carita treatments. Jessica shares with us some spa wisdom and solid reasons why making that spa appointment is the smart thing to do.

Spa/pampering experiences are as much about how it makes you feel as how it makes you look.

“Beauty comes from within and we look how we feel. Many highend products such as ESPA work systemically with your emotions as well as how your skin looks and feels.

Massage oils for example, can be tailored to your needs and mood at the time. A good spa will offer a full consultation before your experience and tailor the products/techniques used to your mood and needs at that specific time.”

Massage reduces stress and tension.

“Many of my clients that work long hours find a full body massage

And Feel The Benefits

a great stress-busting remedy. A great treatment is the hot stone massage where the warm volcanic stones ease aches and tension. The powerful oils we use and rhythm of the stones on the skin help you to unwind and switch off. In fact one stroke of the stone is like nine strokes of the hand! Many clients who have problems sleeping, feel the true benefits of having regular hot stones massage.”

How to relax

by Senior Spa Therapist at The Sp@ The Grand, Jessica Burley

Treatments detox your system.

“Regular massage is a wise thing to do because it can actually help to detoxify your system. That’s because when pressure is applied to the body, it stimulates the organs and also increases your blood circulation which can help to remove toxins as a direct result. Exfoliating is key and removes dry, dead skin cells allowing better penetration of products into the skin – try ESPA Refining Skin Polish for the face and Exfoliating Body Polish for the body.”

- work|balance -

Spa treatments invigorate in many ways.

“In this busy world many of us not only want to feel relaxed, but need to be energized and invigorated.

ESPA achieve this by the use of uplifting essential oils such as Peppermint, Eucalyptus and Lime which can be found in our Energising Shower Gel, Body Lotion and Invigorating Body Reviver which are designed to stimulate the body and awaken the mind. In ESPA treatments we would use faster and more stimulating techniques to encourage the circulation and the lymphatic system as well as working on any depleted energy centres to help to rebalance the body.”

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Seeking The holy grail It much easier to find now Jeremy Ashpool has made Borde Hill his long term base. Review by Peter James

By the international best-selling author Peter James

W.C. Fields chose for his epitaph: All things considered, I’d rather be in Philadelphia. I was there recently; nice city, great on US history, a giant Macy’s with a stunning, white marble-atrium and, for reasons that were not immediately clear, housing the world’s largest working organ – playing full blast to Saturday afternoon shoppers. ‘You must have a cheesesteak,’ I was told. It is the dish of Philadelphia. So I did. A kind of elongated cheeseburger in a massive bread stick, that could have fed a team of Sumo wrestlers for a week.

Delicious but it left me feeling as stuffed as a Strasbourg goose – and I’m still feeling full a month later…

I’ve noticed a tendency for regional and national dishes to be filling – but then again, that’s what food should be – a long good riddance to the worst con ever perpetrated on diners – cuisine minceur. No danger of that in Munich, where I’ve spent the past week on book promotion. The regional dish is the weisswurst – white sausage.

Traditionally eaten with sweet mustard and a pretzel, and washed down with a litre of weissbeer, this was a breakfast staple of all manual workers – and still is for many, beer included! Tradition dictates that, because 78│

February/march 2014

weisswurst is freshly made early morning and is highly perishable, it must be eaten before midday. Many restaurants won’t serve it after, but if, like for me, sausage is too heavy for breakfast and midday too early for lunch, head for the stunning Hofbräuhaus – a stunning, historic place that you think at first must be a tourist trap, until you notice it is full of locals. They’ll serve it to you all day.

Munich is one of my favourite cities in the world. It is handsome, walkable, with the stunning park, the Englischergarten, right on its edge, and the beautiful river Isar running through. Most importantly it has great food, wines and beer. Germany is the only country in the world where meat consumption is on the rise, and whilst they have some delicious fish, meat is dominant. In another of its glorious hostelries, the Ratskeller, although it was high season for asparagus, I had no option but to have my huge starter portion served with cold roast beef. Not, in my view, the most fitting accompaniment. But in general food in Munich is fabulous. My favourite restaurant there is Brenners, a great atmosphere in a huge, lively room, charming staff, and the best version of tuna tartar – marinated with the lightest touch of sesame oil - I’ve ever eaten. I always try to stay at

- Restaurant|review -

the Kempinski Four Seasons – a glorious hotel offering great luxury and courtly old world charm, just minutes walk form the beautiful old city centre, Marienplatz.

And now to Sussex. Jeremy Ashpool has, for over 30 years been, in my opinion, the best chef in the county. Back in the early days he was pretty much the Stig of restaurateurs.

There were all kinds of rumours, then, about his background – one was that he had learned his craft from the fabled Roux brothers at their Waterside Inn, Bray.

Another that he had trained at Paul Bocuse in Lyons, another even grander, that he had been the head chef at Paris’s Tour d’Argent and had come to England to “do his own thing.” Actually he was none of those. He was a failed rock star and self-taught chef.

And no one could find him.

In the early 1980s I set out on a mission to sample this man’s offerings, which was a task on par with hunting the Holy Grail. I finally tracked him down to his modest gaffe – a bunch of tables in a back room of a pub in Cuckfield. He could only open Monday to Thursday, because the pub needed the space for drinkers at the weekends! If you were lucky enough to secure a table, you

could have sold it on for a fortune, had ebay existed back then. He then took over an entire pub at Lower Beeding, before finally setting into his eponymous restaurant in the most glorious location, the former orangery at Borde Hill, where he has now been for over a decade. His wife, runs the wonderful, adjoining Café Elvira – once the humble tea rooms, but now, as the Michelin guide might so elegantly put it, worthy of a detour.

Actually, much more than worth a detour – it’s worth an entire journey!

I’ve always maintained that restaurants are not just about the food or the wine but about atmosphere, conviviality, the whole experience – and crucially the feel-good factor you should experience on arrival. If I was awarding points out of ten for this, Jeremy’s at Borde Hill would get all ten. It is an elegant building in a glorious country setting, with a huge terrace outside that is a joy on a fine day. The interior has a real sense of occasion: It is large enough to give a sense of space, yet small enough to feel cosy in – without that claustrophobic feeling of so many restaurants that make you feel you have to whisper to avoid being overheard by the next table. Everything about the room feels elegant, and I’m including the delightful and faultlessly efficient staff.

Four of us recently went for Sunday lunch.

Good, I thought, we can try out four different starters and mains. Wrong. Everyone opted for Jeremy’s signature starter of fried squid with cuttlefish risotto. It was just as well, there would have been serious food envy, probably leading to food rage (!) – this was a triumph.

Pieces of the squid are seared on a barbecue then, separately the tentacles are deep fried in the lightest batter that has an almost nutty taste, and the risotto, cooked in the ink, contrasts wonderfully in taste and texture. It would have been worth the trip to Borde Hill for this dish alone – without question the best squid dish I’ve ever eaten – and both my partner, Helen, herself a former chef, and my two trenchermen companions agreed.

Everyone had also chosen the same main – the roast beef – but this did allow me to give a true test to the kitchen. Each of us

and crème fraiche ice cream, rhubarb was so good that ski journalist Arnie Wilson nearly ordered a second helping. Poached and sorbet of pear, slipcote cheese mousse, hazelnut had lyrical comments from both Helen and Arnie’s other half Vivianne. I had the selection of artisan cheese and biscuits and spent the next twenty minutes fending off the others who suddenly found they had even more room than they thought for these brilliant, unusual and perfectly kept cheeses.

The wine list has been chosen with as much love and care as the cooking here. We drank

‘I’ve always maintained that restaurants are not just about the food or the wine but about atmosphere, conviviality, the whole experience’ ordered ours differently done. I like it rare, almost bloody, the others ordered medium rare, medium and well done. Normally restaurants never get it right, with all four emerging from the kitchen in just four of the fifty shades of indifference… but here each ample portion was absolutely spot on. They were accompanied by exemplary Yorkshire puddings and perfectly cooked vegetables.

No one had room for pudding but I insisted.

And when they arrived, happy smiles all around. Chocolate pave, blood orange

a quite stupendous Chilean Chardonnay that had all the qualities of fine, aged white Burgundy, and I spotted a NZ Margaret River Pitchfork Chardonnay at a fine value £25 and more upscale, a wonderful 2009 Meursault at an equally reasonable £65. There is a wide and seriously tempting selection of reds, including a very fine Italian Barbera D’Alba, and all at reasonable prices. One real bargain, and a rare find on a wine list these days is a terrific Portugese Douro at £28.00 There is also a small but excellent range of fizzes, and good to see the local and truly excellent Ridgeview featured on both the white and rose lists.

The price for Sunday lunch is £25.00 for two courses or £29.50 for three. On the evening menus, starters are £8-10 and mains £15 - £23.

The play of Peter’s novella, THE PERFECT MURDER starring Les Dennis and Claire Goose is currently on national tour www.theperfectmurder.co.uk His 1981 spy thriller Dead Letter Drop has just been republished after 25 years!

Jeremys won the Best Eating Experience in the Sussex Food and Drink Awards at the Amex Stadium in January

- Restaurant|review -

February/march 2014 │79

A Rare Pleasure Ulrich Hoffmann talks to Daniel White about the world of wine making.

“

If you ask me if you can have 15 bottles I will say no.” Had I heard him right? Was Ulrich Hoffmann, the owner of winemakers Hoffmann & Rathbone, really telling me that I couldn’t buy his wine?

“You can’t. There is not enough for everybody,” Ulrich explained. Engrossed, I had to delve deeper, why not?

“We only sell in three or six bottles of wine, not more,” he clarified.Was this not limiting his business though? “We don’t want to sell 500 bottles to one person, we want to sell 500 bottles to 500 people because that’s what spreads it, that makes people taste it and talk about it.”

However, there is always an exception to the rule.

He said: “If it is a business, that is different. If they want to send out a Christmas present for their clients and need additional bottles, that is possible because they’re spreading the message for us.”

Ulrich, a wine tasting judge for international competitions, moved to Sussex in 2009 after an education in the art of wine making that took him all over the world.

“I grew up in Berlin and I studied wine making in the south of Germany,” he recalled. “I worked as a wine maker and an assistant wine maker in different parts of the world, from Spain to France to California.”

With more than 15 years of international experience that has taken him from the prestigious Rolf-Willy Estate in Baden to the Chateau de Fieuzal in Bordeaux, why is it that he chose to settle down in England?

“My wife, at the time my girlfriend, was already living in England, so we had a long distance relationship for quite a while. I came over and said ‘lets start our own thing and go for it’,” he explained.

“At the end of 2009 we started the business and in 2010 we started to invest in the winery. It took us quite a while to look for the suitable building in the hub of the English wine industry, which is right here in Sussex.”

Once settled, the couple combined their surnames to produce the brand of Hoffmann & Rathbone. While Ulrich is now highly regarded amongst the winemaking community, there were always fears when starting up the business.

He said: “There were financial risks because as an agricultural business you can’t project the years to come.

46

“You “Youget getaa truly trulyEnglish, English, hand-made, hand-made, home-grown, home-grown, awardawardwinning winninglocal local product.” product.”

The financial outlay, because of of all all thethe equipment wewe brought andand putput turning The financial outlay, because equipment brought heads.

Only ever producing a maximum of of 5,000 bottles of of each turning heads.

Only ever producing a maximum 5,000 bottles each in in here, is high andand then there is three years oror more waiting while thethe wine here, is high then there is three years more waiting while per-year, why is his sparkling wine from West Sussex rated soso highly? wine per-year, why is his sparkling wine from West Sussex rated highly? wines mature in in thethe cellar forfor some wine critic to to telltell you your wine is is wines mature cellar some wine critic you your wine notnot good.

Hopefully with your experience it won’t bebe butbut thethe risk is high good.

Hopefully with your experience it won’t risk is high andand you never know what is around thethe corner.” you never know what is around corner.”

“Because wewe areare smaller I can take a lot of of care of of thethe singular lots,” hehe “Because smaller I can take a lot care singular lots,” said.

“I can dodo more blending decisions andand I can dodo thethe right things at at thethe said.

“I can more blending decisions I can right things right times, exactly when it isit needed andand notnot have to to worry about 15,000 right times, exactly when is needed have worry about 15,000

Since starting thethe business, Ulrich hashas won a number of of awards forfor hishis oror Since starting business, Ulrich won a number awards 50,000 litres hanging around.

Everything wewe dodo is handcrafted, hand50,000 litres hanging around.

Everything is handcrafted, handwinemaking, including a gold medal in in both thethe China Wine andand Spirit winemaking, including a gold medal both China Wine Spirit made, hand-labelled, everything is done from hand, it’sit’s classically English made, hand-labelled, everything is done from hand, classically English Awards andand thethe 2013 Decanter World Wine Awards, as as well as as having Awards 2013 Decanter World Wine Awards, well having andand it’sit’s only from limited releases.” only from limited releases.” one of of hishis wines served onon thethe Royal barge forfor thethe Queens Diamond one wines served Royal barge Queens Diamond Jubilee lastlast year.

Jubilee year.

With a limited stock, thethe allocation of of bottles is something thethe company With a limited stock, allocation bottles is something company takes with individually takesvery veryseriously, seriously, witheach eachbottle bottlebeing beinghand-labelled, hand-labelled, individually

After many years of of hard work, hehe is now reaping thethe rewards andand Ulrich After many years hard work, is now reaping rewards Ulrich numbered andand tissue-wrapped before being sent outout straight from their numbered tissue-wrapped before being sent straight from their feels as as though it isit justification forfor thethe time he’s putput in.in. feels though is justification time he’s “It’s what you hope for,” hehe enthused.

“How else dodo you measure yourself “It’s what you hope for,” enthused.

“How else you measure yourself

base in in Sussex. how dodo you getget allocated a bottle of of Hoffmann && base Sussex.SoSo how you allocated a bottle Hoffmann Rathbone’s sparkling English wine?

Rathbone’s sparkling English wine?

onon thethe world stage?

You cancan push it as much as as you want butbut at at thethe end world stage?

You push it as much you want end “You gogo onto thethe website, you gogo onto thethe allocation page, you fillfill in in “You onto website, you onto allocation page, you somebody willwill taste it and they either likelike it or not. somebody taste it and they either it or not.

“If “If you getget in in those international competitions with really highly rated you those international competitions with really highly rated

your details, if there areare stillstill ones available you willwill getget some allocated,” your details, if there ones available you some allocated,” hehe explained. explained.

judges andand they taste it it blind andand they all all score it it high, you can’t askask The judges they taste blind they score high, you can’t company recently announced their inaugural release, a 2010 Rose The company recently announced their inaugural release, a 2010 Rose forfor more.

We’ve gotgot quite a lot of of medals right now andand it shows thethe Reserve more.

We’ve quite a lot medals right now it shows Brut, andand Ulrich is is confident hehe hashas made something worth Reserve Brut, Ulrich confident made something worth consistency of of quality.” consistency quality.”

Despite being based in in Sussex, farfar from thethe province of of Champagne oror Despite being based Sussex, from province Champagne thethe Mediterranean climate of of Napa Valley, Hoffmann & Rathbone wine is is Mediterranean climate Napa Valley, Hoffmann & Rathbone wine

tasting.“With hand-made, home-grown, tasting.“Withours oursyou yougetgeta truly a trulyEnglish, English, hand-made, home-grown, award-winning local product andand that must bebe worth something.” award-winning local product that must worth something.”

www.hoffmannandrathbone.co.uk www.hoffmannandrathbone.co.uk

4747

WISE WORDS In this regular feature, we ask business leaders from across the region to share words of wisdom they might of collected over their career. Words that have carried with them and used to great effect for their own career, or to help motivate their team.

This month we feature Amanda Menahem, HR Director of the largest employer in East Sussex, Hastings Direct Insurance, based in Bexhill. As the HR Director of such a substantial and hugely successful company, we asked Amanda to share with us words of wisdom that she might of gleaned over the years.

I’ve been lucky enough to work with so many wonderful and talented mentors. Wise words that have consistently served me well are: So what?

Obvious, but easy to forget. I constantly use this with my team and to check my own thinking.

Anything we do as HR professionals should be boiled down to the ‘So what factor’ for the business.

Sometimes you have to ask this a number of times before you get to the real benefits to the business.

It’s about having the right people on board One of my early mentors – a hugely successful and inspirational global HR Director – said that this was the single most important thing. It never fails to amaze me how true this is. I can track most organizational successes and failures down to this principle. Jim Collins talked about ‘getting the right people on the bus’.

Talent recruits talent. Bad people recruit bad people.

Seek first to understand before being understood In the past there have been times I’ve regretted jumping in with an

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February/March 2014

answer, view or solution when I would have been better off asking more questions to fully understand the situation, the other perspective, the unspoken needs. The most successful leaders do this naturally or learn this lesson early on.

Take action – don’t over think.

A brilliant trainer, coach and author Jamie Smart said: “There are things you will learn, discover and innovate through taking action that you will never stumble upon in the privacy of your own head.” The perfectionists out there will relate to this. It’s easy to delay action because you want it to be perfect. Just start doing it!

Often the 80% solution is the best.

‘There are things you will learn, discover and innovate through taking action that you will never stumble upon in the privacy of your own head.’

Our insecurities come from comparing our ‘back of house’ with everyone else’s ‘show-reel’ I learnt this in an acting class once and it’s struck me how applicable to business this is. Most people, no matter how successful, have moments of self-doubt. As human beings we often think others are better than we are. Sometimes this can hold us back. When I realized how true these words were it made a real difference.

I have since shared this quote with others I coach and mentor and it always blows them away.

- Wise words -

Amanda Menahem HR Director of Hastings Direct Insurance

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