BQ West Midlands Autumn 2015

BUSINESS QUARTER

BUSINESS QUARTER

West Midlands: Autumn 2015

Exploring our canals

Bottling success Old business in a new age

Live debate

Security in the cyber age

Confecting for the community

ÂŁ4.95

West Midlands: Autumn2015

Baking a difference Business Quarter Magazine

Celebrating and inspiring entrepreneurship

Water courses

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EN T R E P R EN EU R I NT E R V I E W S

B U SIN ESS U P DAT E

IN SIGHT

LIFES T YLE

E VE NT S

BUSINESS UPDATE bqlive.co.uk

EDITOR’S VIEW WEST MIDLANDS ISSUE 11 Several great writers have been busy creating material for this latest edition of BQ West Midlands, and I hope like me that you find the results impressive. The cover story has come from award-winning feature writer Maureen Messent, who’s been plying her descriptive skills across the West Midlands since the 1960s. She met Rosie Ginday, the social entrepreneur who makes sweet delights with her Miss Macaroon company, at the same time helping to re-introduce marginalised young people to the workplace. When we’re so often talking about turnovers and profits, it’s refreshing to read about such a human dimension. Next we have Ros Dodd – another experienced scribe, but not quite as long-in-the-tooth as Maureen! – exploring the cellars of Connolly’s Wine Merchants, now owned by Chris Connolly, but with the family business history stretching back to Victorian times. Then ex-Fleet Street hack John Lamb heads out onto the canals to meet Peter Mathews, the managing director of Black Country Metals Ltd, who in his spare time chairs West Midlands Waterways. He describes how the canals that were once a crucial part of the region’s transport network are slowly coming back to life.

Talking of the Black Country, John Duckers goes over the border to interview Stewart Towe, managing director of Hadley Industries, and the chair of the Black Country LEP. He explains why the emerging West Midlands Combined Authority will work, and how the Black Country has a huge part to play.

You’ll notice we’ve got a Black Country theme, and that continues in our interview with Johnathan Dudley, the regional managing partner of accountancy firm Crowe Clark Whitehill, based in Oldbury.

Johnathan is also the firm’s national head of manufacturing, and he discusses his passion for industry.

We come back to Birmingham for this quarter’s Business Lunch, interviewing Paul Faulkner, the new chief executive of the Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce. Paul, the ex-chief executive of Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest, explains why he’s left football behind, and reveals his digital communications plan for the chamber. There’s all the above and so much more to read: a 20-page ‘Legal and finance’ section, the BQ ‘Live debate’ that saw more than a dozen experts discussing cyber security, and pages and pages of news updates. As well as the content, you’ll notice something different, hopefully more appealing, about this edition of BQ. Yes, it’s had a makeover, introducing a more contemporary style that we think is easier to look at and read.

So please let us know what you think. As always, I’d be delighted to receive your feedback at steve.dysonmedia@gmail.com Steve Dyson, Editor, BQ

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The multi-platform brand currently reaches entrepreneurs and senior business executives across the North East, Scotland, Yorkshire and the West Midlands. BQ has established a UK wide regional approach to business engagement reaching a highly targeted audience of entrepreneurs and senior executives in high growth businesses both in-print, online and through branded events. All contents copyright © 2015 room501 Ltd. All rights reserved. While every effort is made to ensure accuracy, no responsibility can be accepted for inaccuracies, howsoever caused. No liability can be accepted for illustrations, photographs, artwork or advertising materials while in transmission or with the publisher or their agents. All content marked ‘Profile’ is paid for advertising. All information is correct at time of going to print, August 2015.

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CONTENTS 26

Autumn 15

CHANNELS OF REGENERATION

32

Making the most of our waterways

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36

A BLEND OF OLD AND NEW Success in the cellars

FASHION

Turning Japanese

LIVE DEBATE

Security in the cyber age

58

EXECUTIVE TRAVEL Perfect rooms in plush hotels

Celebrating and inspir ing entrepreneurship

FEATURES

REGULARS 12

BUSINESS UPDATE Who’s doing, what, when, where and why in the West Midlands

BOTTLING SUCCESS Old business in a new age

20

AS I SEE IT Glyn Pitchford argues for an icon

34

KEEPING FAITH WITH MANUFACTURING Johnathan Dudley has a passion for industry

48

COMMERCIAL PROPERT Y Behind the region’s latest deals

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MADE IN THE BL ACK COUNTRY Stewart Towe in the spotlight

51

WINE A bargain hunter samples with expert help

66

UNITING AG AINS T THE THREAT Getting together for cyber security

52

BUSINESS LUNCH Steve Dyson dines with a man with a new mission

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BIT OF A CHAT With BQ’s Bill Borde

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EVENTS Key business events for your diary, happening across the West MIdlands

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CONFECTING FOR THE COMMUNIT Y Rosie Ginday is baking a difference

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SPECIAL FEATURE LEGAL & FINANCE QUARTER With a focus on Family Law and Families in Business

62

MADE IN THE BL ACK COUNTRY Stewart Towe in the spotlight

52

BUSINESS LUNCH Steve Dyson dines with a man with a new mission

AVIATION UPDATE City’s third daily Dubai link Emirates’ third daily flight from Dubai to Birmingham landed in August, carrying passengers from more than 15 different cities.

The new service means Emirates now operates 119 non-stop flights per week from the UK to Dubai where passengers can connect to the airline’s global network that spans over 145 destinations across six continents in 84 countries.

Popular destinations on the Emirates network from Birmingham include Dubai, Australia, India, Singapore, Bangkok and Hong Kong.

The new daily service between Dubai and Birmingham is operated by a Boeing 777-300ER aircraft offering eight private suites in first class, 42 business class seats and 310 economy class seats, as well as 23 tonnes of cargo.

Laurie Berryman, Emirates UK vice president, said: “Birmingham’s an important international business hub, and the wider Midlands region is a leading tourist destination. Increasing our capacity in Birmingham will improve the city’s global connectivity and give customers across our network and in the Midlands greater flexibility in their travel plans.

“We are also delighted to be the first airline to offer first class to the region, with the introduction of our acclaimed first class private suites. It’s a positive sign for the state of the region’s economy and we’re confident there will be strong demand.”

Paul Kehoe, chief executive of Birmingham Airport, said: “We have seen the route grow from strength to strength over the last one and a half decades due to the enormous demand in the Midlands for long haul connectivity, so I thank the Emirates team for their commitment to Birmingham.”

“Increasing our capacity in Birmingham will improve the city’s global connectivity and give customers across our network and in the Midlands greater flexibility in their travel plans”

The new daily service between Dubai and Birmingham is operated by a Boeing 777-300ER

Don’t overlook the regions Paul Kehoe, chief executive of Birmingham Airport, has urged the Government to respond cautiously to the Airports Commission’s recommendations for a third runway at Heathrow. Kehoe has argued for a strategic network of long-haul airports throughout the UK, rather than concentrating everything in one place in the South East.

He said: “Given the significant levels of growth we have seen at Birmingham Airport, especially in long-haul routes, we urge the Government to move ahead with caution so as not to damage the ability of regional airports to grow.

“The West Midlands is a powerful engine of growth at the heart of our country and needs direct aviation to succeed. With our £200m investment, including our runway extension allowing for this summer’s extended series of direct flights to Beijing, we are doing all we can to support the region’s businesses and leisure passengers.

“Whilst the Government continues to review all the evidence before it, Birmingham Airport looks forward to continuing the expansion of our long-haul offering in support of the region’s economy”.

Paul Faulkner, the new chief executive of Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce, added: “Businesses tell us they want to be able to fly directly to their markets and not have

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to go through West London. We know the Government needs to deal with congestion in the South East, but we urge ministers to move ahead in a way that does not restrict Birmingham’s own room to grow.” The Airports Commission has been provided with evidence of how an Air Passenger Duty ‘holiday’ for new long-haul routes would bring over 90,000 new passengers to Birmingham Airport each year.

Birmingham Airport has demonstrated that, with HS2, it will be the airport with the largest one-hour catchment area in the country, with over 15 million people a short journey away.

Getting greener – faster Birmingham Airport has become one of the first British airports to offer fast charging for electric cars. Green energy company Ecotricity uses 100% renewable energy from the wind and the sun, allowing 35 different models of electric and plugin hybrid cars to recharge in 20 to 30 minutes. Jo Lloyd, commercial director at Birmingham Airport, said: “We’re always looking at new and innovative ways of improving the passenger experience at Birmingham Airport, which is why we have installed these electric charging points.

“The growing popularity of electric and hybrid cars means it’s vital we provide the facilities that will enable our passengers to travel to-and-from the airport as easily as possible.” Dale Vince, found of Ecotricity, added: “Installing pumps at Birmingham is the next phase of our national network which enables electric cars to drive the length and breadth of Britain.”

Extra flights at hand Flybe’s 2015-16 Birmingham winter schedule features 17 routes, up to 652 flights a week.

The schedule from 25 October 2015 and 26 March 2016, includes one way fares from £24.99 including taxes and charges. Highlights include extra flights on the Amsterdam route which will now operate up to five times a day, and extra daily flights to and from Aberdeen, Dusseldorf, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Milan and Stuttgart during peak winter periods. There’s also a return of Flybe’s weekly Saturday ski service to Chambery from 19 December. All flights can be booked at www.flybe.com

China connection strengthens More than 4,000 Chinese visitors flew in to Birmingham Airport on a series of 34 direct flights from Beijing this summer. And the airport has revealed that if a long-term daily service is developed, it could deliver an additional £81m to the UK economy each year – including £62m and 1,350 jobs for the West Midlands.

It was the second consecutive year for the flights which came on Boeing 767-300 aircraft operated by Hainan Airlines, carrying tourists on packages offered by Caissa Touristic, one of China’s largest tour operators. Paul Kehoe, chief executive of Birmingham Airport, said: “The Midlands is a powerful engine of growth at the heart of our country and needs direct aviation to succeed. As the only region to have a positive balance of trade with China, we know how much the Midlands tourism and manufacturing industries value this direct connection.

“All involved in the deal intend that these Hainan flights will build over the coming years, before becoming the first scheduled service between a non-London UK airport and mainland China.”

The economic impact that such a daily flight could bring – £62m and 1,350 jobs in the West Midlands also – figures were revealed in a new report by transport analysts York Aviation.

The first of this summer’s China flights was welcomed by transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin, who said: “Airports play a vital role in our long-term economic plan so this route between Birmingham and China is a great step forward, showcasing the West Midlands to thousands of visitors and potential investors.

“Birmingham Airport’s work towards a daily service shows their commitment to creating opportunities and new jobs in the region.”

“Airports play a vital role in our long-term economic plan so this route between Birmingham and China is a great step forward, showcasing the West Midlands to thousands of visitors and potential investors”

BUSINESS UPDATE The big picture A unique picture that shows Birmingham’s changing skyline has been commissioned

by John Lewis. What has been described as the largest-ever panoramic photograph of the city marks the opening of the company’s £35m department store at Grand Central shopping centre, above New Street Station, at the end of September.

Dubbed ‘Brumscape’, the shot was taken from Birmingham’s Rotunda tower using a format, which allows viewers to pan across the skyline and zoom in on the smallest details. The picture shows landmarks such as Edgbaston Cricket Ground, the new Library of Birmingham and the BT Tower.

The photographer, panorama specialist Will Pearson, said: “It was obvious when bringing this image to life that Birmingham is a constantly evolving city. The panorama can be viewed in detail at www.johnlewis.com/our-shops/ birmingham/birmingham-panoramic

businessteam@bham.ac.uk www.birmingham.ac.uk/partners

New staff for new challenger

Birmingham’s changing skyline, commissioned by John Lewis

Homes contract win

WMG, at the University of Warwick, is taking A building services engineering firm from on 120 new staff as it expands its work on Birmingham has won a £3m contract to help business and industry partnership projects. The drive the legacy of the 2012 London Olympics. roles include engineers, software developers, J S Wright, based in Aston, with offices in Bristol project and operational managers, as and London, will design and build a well as academic staff ranging range of services for new housing at from researchers to professors.

Chobham Farm, near to what was They are needed for various the Olympic Village in Stratford, sectors including electronics, East London. The first 173 manufacturing, transport homes are in six buildings and marketing. WMG’s of between three and ten chairman, Professor Lord storeys, and are being Kumar Bhattacharyya, developed for East Thames www.jcsocialmedia.com said: “As we continue to Group as part of plans for ...for free social grow and expand we are more than 1,000 family homes. media tips seeking individuals who thrive J S Wright is to provide heating on a challenge and who aren’t and hot and cold water services afraid to defy conventional thinking. in a 50-week project completing in July We are creating several new world-leading 2016, which will include soil vent and rainwater facilities to support new projects and need more pipework, dry risers, apartment air vents, and talented people to take them forward.” Recent a building management system. Marcus Aniol, developments at WMG include the £150m the managing director of J S Wright said: “We’re National Automotive Innovation Centre. For delighted to play such a major role in driving the more details visit www2.warwick.ac.uk Olympic legacy in London.”

WEBSITE OF THE QUARTER

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QUOTE OF THE QUARTER “The worst thing you can do with a new machine is give a Black Country engineer the instructions book. Let him play with it for a few days and he’ll find things that machine can do which aren’t even in the instructions book.” Stewart Towe, chair of the Black Country LEP Precision jobs created

customers’ needs in Britain for the first time. We Guhring, the German manufacturer of precision have ambitious plans and are aiming to treble in cutting tools, has created 50 jobs with a move size and double our workforce within five years into the Advanced Manufacturing Hub (AMH) of moving to the AMH.” Guhring has taken 3.5 in Aston, Birmingham. The £12m investment acres to build a 60,000 sq ft factory with further will safeguard another 75 jobs at the company, space for expansion available. The AMH is one which supplies BMW, Ford, JLR, of six economic zones in Birmingham Nissan, Airbus and BAE Systems.

– sites that offer tailored space After 17 years at Abingdon, and services for companies Oxfordshire, Guhring in target sectors such as moved to a central advanced manufacturing. warehouse facility in Guhring will follow Posts to more than 18 million Castle Bromwich, HydraForce, a US Birmingham, in 1990, hydraulics manufacturer, Instagram followers have been but needed more to the AMH. HydraForce scheduled within two weeks of the space to expand. The is building a 120,000 sq launch of Hopper, a new automated AMH will allow it to ft facility which is expected social media tool created by grow by accommodating to create more than 200 Turn Partners Ltd research and development new jobs during the next five in Birmingham. and a factory floor. Mike years.

Dinsdale, managing director at Cllr Tahir Ali, Birmingham City Guhring, said: “This move will be a huge Council’s cabinet member for development, step forward for our UK business, which initially transportation and the economy, said: “The focused on distributing standard products all international firms increasing their presence made by our parent company in Germany. here are helping to push our economy forward Now, we will be able to design, develop and and create thousands of new jobs for the local manufacture cutting tools specific to our workforce each year.”

FACT OF THE QUARTER

Entrepreneurs unmasked?

The entrepreneurs behind a West Midlands mask company have become millionaires after a multi-million pound takeover. Mask-arade, based in Southam, Warwickshire, was founded by local businessmen Ray Duffy, Dean Walton and Chris O’Nyan, who all featured in a major BQ West Midlands interview last year. The company has now been absorbed by Oxfordshire costume manufacturer Rubie’s, and while the exact price has not been released an insider said the trio will each bank seven-figure sums. Mask-arade first rose to fame after pitching on the BBC’s hit TV series Dragon’s Den and now boasts licences for a wide range of movie stars, sports stars and politicians. Duffy will stay with the company as commercial director, while Dean and Chris have left the business. Chris Isitt of Rubie’s said: “This is a great company producing a high quality product that has really made a niche for itself. We look forward to helping the Mask-arade achieve its potential across the world.”

TOP TWEETS Congrats @grahamsilk @GBSLEP on the Silk Report. Must be a key focus for our region @CureLeukaemia @ BrumChamber - @GBChamberBoss Demand for office space still soaring in the city centre! In 2007 the office space let in Birmingham was 662,207 sq ft now its 710,000 sq ft - @SimkissGuy Great to see @GBChamberBoss at @ orbstudio HQ this afternoon! Exciting time to be associated with the chamber! @RobertBloxham - @ABisseker “Some of the UK’s leading retail brands have signed to be part of £150m @ RW_Birmingham #whybham” - @ business_bham The arrival of HS2 in the Midlands is a once-in-a generation opportunity to do something really special - Andy Street - @GBSLEP “Loved listening to Andy Street! So much happening #Brum that I forgot to tweet! Exciting times ahead! @ AsianbizChamber @GBSLEP” - @ KangManjit The launch of Grand Central & John Lewis is just over a month away - exciting times for #Birmingham! #retail” - @SigOutdoor We’ve had another record month, with more than 1m people using @bhx_official in July - @ bhx_official

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BUSINESS UPDATE bqlive.co.uk/breakfast

More jobs on the way New job figures could rise across the West Midlands after more than half of SMEs in the region said they planned to increase workforces in the next year, a new survey has revealed.

The HSBC survey also found that West Midlands SMEs are the most optimistic about growth and have a strong desire to recruit skilled, permanent staff to support increased activity. More than half of West Midlands SMEs – 54% – expect to hire staff in the coming year, with 52% believing that permanent, skilled staff will help more than agency or casual staff. And 66% expect turnover growth in the next 12 months – more than any other UK region – with 46% expecting growth of at least 6%.

“West Midlands SMEs are the most optimistic about growth and have a strong desire to recruit skilled, permanent staff to support increased activity Funds for growth Electrical Distributors (Birmingham) Ltd – known as EDB – has secured £250,000 of funding from Secure Trust Bank Commercial Finance. The company size has doubled in the last year now employing five staff, with plans to double turnover again in the next 12 months. The funding will be used to aid cash flow and manage the rapid growth of EDB. David Henry, managing director at EDB, said: “To date, our company has been entirely self-financed, but with the demand for our products soaring, we felt the time was right to look for additional financial support.” Steve Goulden, regional sales director at Secure Trust Bank Commercial Finance, said: “EDB has demonstrated its strong performance since the arrival of David Henry. With a prolonged period of growth targeted, the business required a financial partner willing to offer a flexible package to accommodate any eventuality.”

businessteam@bham.ac.uk www.birmingham.ac.uk/partners

Milking it A 73-year-old Midland family farming business has secured its future with a six-figure funding package from Yorkshire Bank. Cole R. J., of Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire, has purchased a new milking parlour to replace the farm’s existing 40-year-old building. The investment will modernise the 250+ acre farm and allow for expansion as the larger parlour can accommodate eight more cattle. Farmer Robert Cole believes the bank’s support will help growth despite the fall in global dairy prices. He said: “It’s been very reassuring to have this flexible support at a time when the sector is working hard in the face of global challenges.”

“We will become a third generation family business when I pass the farm onto my son, Joseph, and I want to ensure we continue to modernise and grow.” The funding was arranged by Alan Miller, business development manager at Yorkshire Bank, who said: “Robert’s impressive business acumen and passion for what he does has helped the farm flourish under challenging conditions. Our specialist knowledge helps us to give small and medium sized business the support and flexibility they require to fulfil their growth ambitions.”

Firm’s personal touch Global Freight has expanded with a new department to deal with its international personal effects removal service.

The news comes as the shipping company, based at Halesfield in Telford, is predicting a record year with a strategy to grow by 20% this year. Founder Nicole Howarth said: “Moving internationally can be a stressful and traumatic time, but we will be offering a tailored approach to make sure each individual move goes smoothly.”

New chamber name The UK’s leading support organisation for Asian businesses, based in Birmingham, has changed its name. The Institute of Asian Businesses, founded in 1987, is now known as the Asian Business Chamber of Commerce. The renaming was made to emphasise the close association the organisation has with Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce.

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PROFILE University of Birmingham

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The devolution landscape: We are City-REDI If any city knows about the history of localised power it is Birmingham, and if any university has benefited from such power it’s the University of Birmingham.

Joseph Chamberlain is still remembered in the University’s clock tower and his vision of a powerful West Midlands is as valid today as it was when he was known the world over for his local government reforms. Now politicians are once again talking about giving more power to the West Midlands and the University of Birmingham is keen to support this growth in local power by establishing a brand new research institute. The City-Region Economic Development Institute (City-REDI) will be based within Birmingham Business School and will examine the social and economic factors which influence our lives. By bringing together existing and new faculty and researchers we have an ambitious plan to develop a deeper and more applicable understanding of regional economies than any which currently exists.

We are doing this because we believe that while the problems we face are global, the solutions to them are local. We live in a nation dominated by an ageing population and in an economy which is competing against huge emerging nations. But we believe that local communities are better able to understand

“By bringing together existing and new faculty and researchers we have an ambitious plan to develop a deeper and more applicable understanding of regional economies than any which currently exists” their issues and to implement solutions and we want to be able to support that.

Yet the UK is the only modern democracy which has almost no localised decision making power. Local elected representatives have almost no ability to generate income and even less freedom about how they spend it. Local elections are increasingly seen as irrelevant and local economic decisions have been allocated to unelected bodies.

If devolution is to work we must inspire communities to get truly involved in the process. This cannot be simply a series of local authority officers deciding how to reallocate central government funds. Local communities must not be merely consulted but must lead this process. That will be more complicated, it will be messier and sometimes we will, as a

community, make mistakes. However, unless this is truly devolution to the people of the West Midlands then no new bodies or structures will have the legitimacy to make them sustainable in the long term. This is an exciting time. If we can engage local communities, if we can understand who we are and what we are capable of, if we can genuinely understand our potential, then we can rebuild Birmingham and the West Midlands in a way that would make Old Joe proud.

To find out more about City-REDI, you can join the discussion at the inaugural workshop on September 17th to explore the topic, Beyond Policy Silos: Regional Transformation, Growth and Competitiveness.

For further information contact, Tim Yates, Business Engagement, University of Birmingham, 0121 414 8635, t.yates.1@bham.ac.uk

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BUSINESS UPDATE bqlive.co.uk/breakfast

Guru’s name lives on

MOVERS AND SHAKERS Midlands law firm Higgs & Sons has enhanced its dispute resolution service with the appointment of leading Birmingham barrister Carl Garvie. Garvie joins the Brierley Hill-based firm as a partner from St Philips Chambers, where he’d worked as a commercial group barrister since 2008.

Nick Moxon, Higgs’ senior partner, said: “His eminent skills as a barrister and his commercial and management experience are widely acknowledged throughout the legal sector.

Midland law firm mfg Solicitors has appointed a new partner to its employment division.

Chris Piggott will be based at the firm’s Adam House headquarters in Kidderminster, reporting to partner and head of department, Sally Morris. She said: “Chris has an immense reputation not just here in the West Midlands, but across the country. He is exactly the type of person we want as part of the team at mfg. He has extensive experience, is well respected and is someone who always puts clients and their interests first.”

The Custard Factory, in Birmingham’s creative and digital quarter in Digbeth, has appointed Piers Read as its new managing director.

Read, who founded Wimbledon Film and TV Studios, will work alongside owner Lucan Gray, taking responsibility for growth and expansion plans for both The Custard Factory and sister site Fazeley Studios. Gray said: “Piers has a strong personal entrepreneurial track record and his appointment marks the beginning of an exciting new phase for us.”

Backing with cash

West Midlands commercial property agency SP+M has recruited two industry experts to key roles. The company, with offices in Coventry and Birmingham, has appointed Roger Stanway as a chartered valuation surveyor and registered valuer, and Stephen Dallimore as a commercial valuation surveyor. Stanway spent almost 30 years working for the Valuation Office Agency, an executive agency of HM Revenue & Customs, was head of valuation services at DTZ in Eastern Europe and most recently worked on the regulation of valuation for the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Dallimore has more than 25 years experience, including 14 years as an inhouse property professional for national high street retailers including Boots and Holland & Barrett.

DTZ in Birmingham has appointed Claire Garrett and Andrew Broome as senior surveyors to its global valuation team, and Simon Broome as a property management surveyor. Garrett worked at the Derby office of Innes England, while Andrew Broome came from Daniel & Hulme and Simon Broome from Severn Trent Water in Coventry.

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Margaret Thatcher’s chief economic adviser, whose controversial role triggered the resignation of Nigel Lawson, is to have a new University of Birmingham building named after him The new base for the teaching of postgraduate business students at Birmingham Business School on Pritchatts Road, Edgbaston, will be called Alan Walters building after his widow gave a generous £2m gift in his memory.

Sir Alan Walters, who died in 2009 aged 82, worked at the university from 1951 to 1968, becoming Professor of Econometrics and Social Statistics. His wife, Lady Paddie Walters, also studied at Birmingham, graduating with a BA in English in 1970 and a Certificate in Education in 1972. She said: “My husband and I both had fond memories of our time at Birmingham. I hope this gift will inspire the next generation of Birmingham students to go on to achieve great things.

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Discount store guru Steve Smith, the founder of Poundland, has personally invested in the business idea of a young West Midlands entrepreneur.

Smith was a judge in the ‘Battle of the Pitches Birmingham’ event, held by business learning network TheHot500, in partnership with Entrepreneurial Spark, powered by NatWest, and StartUp Britain.

Six budding entrepreneurs were selected to pitch their business ideas, and after three gruelling rounds the winner was Audric Tchounai, with his online men’s fashion brand Jair-Deo. The prize was originally £2,000 worth of business support, but Smith was so impressed that he decided to donate £2,000 of his own cash.

Smith said: “I was impressed with the professional way Audric described his business model and what he has done so far off his own back. I invested in him and believe he will go far.”

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Moving on a stage Belgrade Production Services (BPS), the Coventry stage company, has secured funding for a new scenery cutting machine that will expand its business. BPS, based in Red Lane, Coventry, has purchased a £76,000 CNC Router machine that means it can cut scenery for bigger and more complex theatre productions, including shows in London’s West End. Part of the funding came after the Coventry and Warwickshire Growth Hub advised BPS to apply for a £28,500 capital grant from Coventry City Council. New work as a direct result of the machine has led to two new staff members, a new part-time machine operator and a two-year apprenticeship for carpentry.

Andy Hilton, of BPS, said: “The larger, more complex sets are very labour intensive so without this machine we would not be able to compete with rivals in the industry. The more complicated the set, the more construction time required. With the CNC machine, this will help us reduce the time it takes to build.”

(From left) Andy Hilton, Jeremy Moore and Rob Bent]

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BUSINESS UPDATE bqlive.co.uk/breakfast

Brewers accolade Purity, the growing Warwickshire brewer that featured in a recent edition of BQ West Midlands, has been named Sustainable Manufacturer of the Year at the Made in the UK Awards.The craft beer specialist is based on a working farm and uses a wetland system, where waste water is filtered and returned clean to the local river. The company’s new brewing system, installed in 2013, has increased Purity’s yield from malts and hops, reducing its carbon footprint thanks to its efficient brewing processes. The brewery also uses heat exchange and steam capture technologies, uses its spent grains as cattle-feed and its spent hops as fertiliser.

Purity’s boss Paul Halsey said: “It’s a great feeling to be representing the Midlands in sustainable manufacturing.”

Plastic trombone firm raises brass The Coventry-based company behind the world’s first plastic trombone has received more than £700,000 investment from venture capital specialists Midven and HSBC Bank plc.

Warwick Music Group currently sells around 25,000 plastic trombones – pBones – per year, making it the largest supplier of trombones in the world. The company, which started as a sheet music retailer more than 20 years ago, has received the equity investment through Midven’s Exceed Fund. The money will be used to accelerate Warwick Music Group’s development pipeline, which includes a number of new products, with HSBC providing extra invoice finance and trade loan facilities.

“Warwick Music Group currently sells around 25,000 plastic trombones – pBones – per year, making it the largest supplier of trombones in the world”

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GIVING SOMETHING BACK It was a lucky 13 for amateur golfer Matt Harrison when his hole in one at the 13th hole at Olton Golf Club won him a £20,000 Audi A1. The car was provided by Listers Birmingham Audi for a business charity golf day, with competitors making £750 donations for Molly Olly’s Wishes, supporting children with terminal or life threatening illnesses. Investec Wealth and Investment has run the event for four years, but it’s the first time anyone has managed to claim the prize.

The Get A-Head charity is holding its 21st annual Ice Ball on Saturday 28 November at the Birmingham Hilton Metropole. The event, featuring music from Detroit Soul and RPJ, with light entertainment from comedian Kev Orkian, will help the Birmingham-based charity raise more funds to help people with rare forms of head and neck cancers. For more details and to book tickets, visit www.getahead.org.uk/get-head-ice-ball-2015/ Black Country lawyers Higgs & Sons raised almost £6,000 for The Alzheimer’s Society in two events. Higgs’ annual charity football tournament at Stourbridge Rugby Club, raising more than £3,800, while the company’s choir raised another £2,000 in a national singing competition at Southwark Cathedral.

Even more funds will be raised at the Higgs & Sons’ family fun day on 20 September, when a Select XI from the Brierley Hillbased law firm take on Wolves All Stars at Stourbridge FC. Businesses are queuing up to sponsor a sell-out charity chef night that’s aiming to raise £50,000 for Cure Leukaemia. Glynn Purnell’s ‘Friday Night Kitchen with Friends’ has sold all 400 tickets to see Birmingham’s own Michelin-starred chef Glynn Purnell and Masterchef judge Gregg Wallace serve up a live culinary experience at Aston Villa Football Club on Friday, 2 October. Companies sponsoring the event include Turkish Airlines, Nuneaton-based lighting specialists Lightique, Birmingham Airport, Elonex Outdoor Media, OGL Computers, Rudell The Jewellers, Hotel Indigo, Enotria Wines and Graypaul Maserati.

Eleven staff from Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) volunteered for a day of forest maintenance with regional charity The Heart of England Forest. The team from JLR’s Gaydon site helped towards the health of around 600 trees covering 1.5 acres as part of the company’s volunteering programme, which releases employees for up to two days a year. Last year, 10,000 JLR employees donated 115,000 hours on volunteering.

Four staff from Birmingham chartered surveyors and auctioneers CPBigwood raised more than £2,000 for Cancer Research UK in the Race for Life at Cofton Park, Longbridge.

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70-year milestone for Birmingham-based Edmar Engineering A Birmingham manufacturer, set-up to help rebuild Britain’s industry after the Second World War, is celebrating its 70th birthday in style after completing a number of major new contracts Edmar Engineering has used its expertise in small quantity machining, one-offs, prototypes and jigs and fixtures to complete work for clients across the automotive, aerospace, food, pharma and utilities sectors as it reached nearly £1 million turnover in the last financial year.

Recent growth has been partly driven by a series of production line builds for a major confectionary business, testimony to the company’s ability to work with clients from initial design through to production and supply.

Strategically supported by the Business Growth Service, the firm has also redeveloped the first floor of its factory with the purchase and installation of a new Excetek V500 wire EDM, a SMX4000 Milling machine and QTS Quantum III CMM inspection equipment.

This, combined with the recruitment of three apprentices and improvers, provides Edmar Engineering with a perfect platform to make the most of its anniversary year.

“My Great Grandfather Bill Marklew was commandeered by the MoD at the start of WWII to help enlist toolmakers and engineers to aid the war effort,” explained Anna Hayton, who will be the fourth generation family member to run the company when she takes over from her mother Sue Taylor as MD next year.

“When the war ended, instead of going back to being a foreman at Dunlop, he decided to start a business with colleague Mr Edwards…no doubt using contacts he built up during those difficult years.”

She went on to add: “We originally started life in a rented Nissan army hut and two storey-building, providing specialist engineering services to a whole host of industries. This diversity is still the case today and one of the main reasons we’ve been able to overcome 70 years of peaks and troughs.”

Edmar Engineering, which employs 16 people at its Aston factory, has been significantly supported by the Business Growth Service’s manufacturing experts, who have worked with the management team on a host of best practice process

70 years in business: (l-r) Jas Bahra (Business Growth Service) Sue Taylor, Anna Hayton and Richard Dale ( all Edmar Engineering) improvements and in planning long-term strategy.

The Government-backed organisation has also played a prominent role in signposting the company to funding opportunities that have been crucial in facilitating the recent £200,000 investment drive.

Business Growth Manager Jas Bahra added his support: “This is a fantastic tale of a small engineering business evolving over the years to become an important partner to clients in numerous industries.

“Edmar is a true family-run business and a lot of these values are evident in the way it looks after its staff, the quality levels it strives for and the way it has grown steadily.”

He continued: “We have worked with the company for some time now, listening to its requirements and then delivering external advice and access to specialist programmes, such as ‘Great 200 Leaders’.

Here’s to the next 70 years!”

Anna, who will be joined in the management team by her sister Jayne Sheppard and Technical Director

Richard Dale, concluded: “The Business Growth Service is the first place we go to when we have questions about expansion or overcoming small issues within the business.

“We’ve always had fantastic advice and the fact we can leverage financial support to boost our growth plans is always welcome.”

Edmar Engineering is planning a number of celebrations to mark its 70th year, including the introduction of a production management system and planned purchase of its first machining centre.

For further information, please visit www.greatbusiness.gov.uk/mas or follow @mas_works on twitter. More details on Edmar Engineering can be found here www.edmarengineering.co.uk.

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AS I SEE IT bqlive.co.uk

Let’s have an icon Senior West Midlands business leader Glyn Pitchford explains why and how the business sector can help raise £2m for the Birmingham Big Art Project

What’s the first thing people think about when they see images of the Statue of Liberty, the Angel of the North, The Little Mermaid or the Washington Monument?

New York, Gateshead, Copenhagen and the capital of USA (or the first American president).

Because each is considered high-quality iconography, branding its location globally.

But ask the same question about sculptures depicting Joseph Priestley, James Watt, Edward V11 and Lord Nelson. For most people, I don’t think the city of Birmingham would spring to mind.

So what can Birmingham do to position itself higher on the world’s cultural stage? And why should it be bothered?

Cue the Birmingham Big Art Project, an initiative between the public and private sectors to commission a £2m work of art to be located in a public place in the city. The selected site is high profile, located inside the entrance to Eastside City Park alongside the proposed new HS2 terminal building, next to Millennium Point.

Why? It sounds like a lot of money. Wouldn’t we be better raising this amount for a worthier cause, perhaps a medical charity?

Well, in my view, this presents a massive branding opportunity for the city if we get it right. The work, which will be commissioned from a shortlist of artists, must be relevant to Birmingham, have a wow factor, be highly photogenic and hopefully will bring our diverse communities together.

It should be of high quality, enduring and capable of stirring our emotions. It is planned to involve local schools to create educational value to the project.

Increased tourism into the city would follow, underlining the city’s cultural reputation and aiding economic recovery through increased employment and inward investment.

Success would add to the city’s heritage for generations to come. For such benefits, a £2m price tag does not seem a big number.

Were this project to attract a philanthropist or a successful company maybe already headquartered in the region, I don’t think they

AS I SEE IT bqlive.co.uk

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we can call our own would be disappointed when considering the potential return on such a capital commitment.

This is such a positive and hugely satisfying public art project as to give a pride of ownership for both citizens and benefactors alike. The biggest challenge is to raise the required funding. And that’s where the private sector can help.

I’m not suggesting we choose this project to the detriment of charities researching life-threatening illnesses, which are numerous, as they should not be overlooked.

But I believe there is also a need to build on our cultural values for the benefit of generations to come. After all, public art is an important and necessary ingredient in the life and reputation of a forward-thinking city.

There are some exciting sponsorship deals which will attract the region’s business sector and help raise funds for this vision.

A unique opportunity exists to advertise a company’s brand alongside the Birmingham Big Art Project logo on the radar control tower of Birmingham Airport, located at the entrance to the long-stay car park and passed by 10 million

passengers every year.

Or maybe a business would consider putting its branding on a passenger air bridge located in one of the airport’s departure gates. Opportunities also exist for putting company logos on poster hoardings on high-profile development schemes in the city centre.

If I have managed to convince you that this is indeed a worthwhile project to enhance Birmingham’s global reputation, then don’t just turn this page; consider asking how you might contribute to its success.

Let’s all think BIG and reflect on the numerous

benefits it would bring not just to the city but to the wider region. You can find out more at www.birminghambigartproject.org.uk n Glyn Pitchford is chairman of the Birmingham Big Art Project. He runs his own chartered surveyors consultancy, and has contributed his time and efforts to various civic, educational and charitable causes during his long career.

“The work must be relevant to Birmingham, have a wow factor, be highly photogenic and hopefully will bring our diverse communities together”

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ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

Miss Macaroon creates tasty treats and helps marginalised young people get back to work. Maureen Messent discovers how Rosie Ginday’s company is baking a difference

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Confecting for the community Cupcakes, say the cognoscenti, have had their chocolate chips, been ousted by delectably dainty divas once known as monks’ navels.

Yes, we’ve entered the ‘Macaroon Age’ now, where ground almonds, sugar and egg-whites are cooked to circlets a couple of sizes up on 50p pieces, then sandwiched with butter-cream.

Miss Macaroon, a small Birmingham firm at the top of a fire-escape in a pre-Victorian factory estate, sends forth trays and trays of its goodies daily to online fans and bakeries. These are currently guests-of-honour at high-end launch parties for brands like Adidas (in Pantone colours), have appeared embossed with the Karl Lagerfeld logo, and the orders are already in to beguile guests at future openings of Pandora luxury jewellery stores.

Rosie Ginday, a lissom and lovely 31-year-old Asian woman of Sikh background, runs Miss Macaroon as a Community Interest Company,

one of about 168,000 undertakings in Britain which, in return for expert advice when starting up, pledge to help the 18-24 age group fallen on hard times by offering employment and training.

These are the young people most often overlooked. Some have been in care for years, others are the depressed youngsters from so-called ‘problem families’, weighed down by absentee baby-fathers, debt, homelessness, even criminal records.

Rosie’s small staff can turn out thousands of rainbow arrays of macaroon confections – but only after they’ve mastered the art and accepted work disciplines like punctuality. There’s no coercion used, no question of “do this or you’ll

lose your benefits”.

Candidates who reach requirements must be desperate to succeed in whatever career they choose. Then their eyes will be open to the possibilities of learning afresh, of starting all over again. No recriminations and no lectures. But no clock-watchers and mini-shop stewards need apply. “I want to tell everyone the benefits of CICs,” Rosie says. “I’ve launched several training programmes for it, I’ve met brilliant people through it. Ten years ago I worried that the marginalised were offered few incentives. I went to the Third World to work and discovered a lot to be done both there and here.

After school in a Coventry comprehensive and

“Rosie’s small staff can turn out thousands of rainbow arrays of macaroon confections – but only after they’ve mastered the art and accepted work disciplines like punctuality”

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ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

then a Fine Arts degree from Leeds Metropolitan University, Rosie was left uncertain of her future.

“I realised I’d spent so long learning other people’s theories of life that I’d had no time to experience it alone,” she says.

“That’s how I ended up in Taiwan, teaching English and failing to learn much Mandarin. If Miss Macaroon – her business, not Rosie – had a particular moment of conception, it probably came when she met her first Taiwanese beggar.

“Of course I wanted to help them, but there was nothing long-term for them,” she says. “No education or training.

“I’m no longer religious in any way, but Sikhism had inevitably left its mark on me. As a little child, I’d go to the temple, copy all those praying, then rush down to the Langar, the temple kitchen that feeds all-comers of all faiths on prayer days, and I was astounded to see that men could make chapatis as quickly as women slapped them out.

“In most faiths, there’s a food tradition – Christians have their Eucharist. So there I was in Taiwan, flirting with Buddhism, and still a bit sad that I wasn’t in-putting to our planet. With the Buddhism that fired me for a time went a strict vegan and vegetarian regime, and I set up a small pop-up restaurant. It went well but I knew I was living in the dreamy bubble world of an ex-pat, wonderful but static, everything too self-centred.

I had to get out.”

“ Our best experiences, she decided, sprang from eating with family, friends, the people we loved. What could be better than helping those who felt trapped by events earn their livings in the food industry?”

Then an illness in Indonesia sent Rosie scurrying back to Coventry, but by now she’d worked out a career-path. Our best experiences, she decided, sprang from eating with family, friends, the people we loved. What could be better than helping those who felt trapped by events earn their livings in the food industry?

Then reality bit. To start a Taiwanese cafe required just a tiny room, table and hot plate.

To see the upmarket delicacies Rosie wanted to produce meant getting qualified. Off she went for an interview at the University of Birmingham’s College of Food, where she was told there was a two-year course, even a three-year course.

Too long for Rosie. She asked if the college would issue her a certificate if she completed the course by cramming for a year. They told her it couldn’t be done. Rosie did it.

Next stop was a training place at the Michelinstarred Purnell’s restaurant in Birmingham, where she fell under the Glynn Purnell spell, worked 60-hour weeks, found a new family and new foodie ideas.

“Your colleagues become family because you see more of them than your kith and kin,” she explains, “but that Purnell time made me

smith.williamson.co.uk smith.williamson.co.uk

understand the importance of perfection in cooking. Get something wrong and you must chuck it. Glynn doesn’t allow customer-offerings ‘to get by’. It’s either gorgeously right or scraped into the bin.”

Next stop was the Hyatt, in Broad Street, where she redesigned its tea menu, dropping traditional scones, Battenburgs, and eclairs for the utterly indulgent, totally frivolous, painstakingly beautiful that she knew those who take tea demand.

“They wanted fun,” she explains. And she gave it them with little cream-filled pastries that aped volcanic eruptions, raspberry-and-pistachio tarts, unctuous chocolate tortes and, guess what, macaroons. Back she went, while still at the Hyatt, to ask the School of Cookery to lend her table-top space to make macaroons on her afternoons off. They agreed and, as far as Rosie can remember, she sold her first macaroons at a Moseley Farmers’ Market after Birgit Kehrer, another foodie philanthropist who runs Change Kitchens to help the homeless, offered her a small table in Moseley Exchange.

By now, Rosie felt her macaroons were the way ahead. She was supplying wedding favours, even

ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

macaroon wedding cakes and macaroon towers.

And a contract she landed to supply macaroons to almost two dozen luxury handbag companies convinced her that her ideas were on the right lines. The big break came at the end of 2010 when she took her business plan to employ, train and help the young who are often written-off as unemployable to a Birmingham Business in the Community’s version of Dragons’ Den. She won, and is still using its prize – pro-bono support from Shoosmiths, KPMG, PwC and Danks Cockburn.

Two years later, after she’d run workshops for the young unemployed and launched a mobile app for home bakers, she won a commended award at the Social Enterprise West Midlands Awards, then, in the same year, she scooped the Business in the Community Collaboration Award for her work with marginalised young.

With backing like this, she started her search for premises, discovering a deserted music studio, knowing a kitchen and storage space could be carved from its detritus. Birmingham City Council’s Enterprise Catalyst Fund gave her a

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match fund grant to move in. And now, Rosie’s kitchen, cool store-room, and the macaroon equivalent of a wine cellar (tall shelves full of trays in paint-chart colours) is rejuvenating the once-forgotten workplace in Hockley, Birmingham.

By now, marginalised young people were dropping into her charity-funded workshops, and were encouraged by her enormous interest in them.“This work has taught me so much I’d never even thought of,” she muses. “I’ve had youths and young women here who’ve been perpetually late, a pointer to laziness, I’d thought.

Not so. They’re late because poverty-stricken homes with no employment patterns never think in terms of buying an alarm clock. Get them to explain this, and everything falls into place.”

And Rosie’s future? “Macaroons for the moment, then new products in the same field. And absolutely no gluten in anything I sell.”

She has another search on her hands. Soon, she hopes, she’ll be opening a city centre French macaroon and luxury hot chocolate shop, staffed by the youthful seeking new beginnings.

Four years on from becoming a fully-fledged company, Miss Macaroon’s CIC-status means it’s regulated by the Community Interest Company Regulator, as well as Companies House. She says: “This makes sure we’re not committing fraud and are, in fact, sticking to the social aims as we promised.”

Meanwhile, arms as big as cured hams are flashing to and fro as ‘D’, a former London gangmember once sentenced to more than four years for violence-related crimes, squeezes the palest mauve butter-cream into matching macaroons.

“My mum tore her hair out over me,” he says ruefully, almost lovingly paternal as he ministers to the morning’s produce. “She had visions of my early death because I’d mucked round at school and made the wrong sort of friends.

“I came to Birmingham for a fresh start. I’ve my own small flat and I’m learning every day. It won’t be macaroons for me, I’m more the full English breakfast chef. A little place with loyal customers is what I really pray for. Rosie’s made everything a possibility.” n

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INSIGHT bqlive.co.uk

Our channels of regeneration Peter Mathews wants to bring canals back into the everyday lives of West Midlanders, helping us all to lead healthier lives. John Lamb reports

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INSIGHT bqlive.co.uk

As chairman of the Canal & River Trust’s West Midlands Partnership, Peter Mathews dedicates a great deal of time promoting the cause of Birmingham’s canals. And he believes that these 200-year-old waterways, once the lifeblood of the city’s prosperity, still have a big contribution to make to its future success and wellbeing.

“In the early 1980s, when someone famously pointed out that Birmingham had more canals than Venice [35 miles to Venice’s 26], it was a joke,” Peter says.

“At that time Birmingham’s canals were badly polluted, dangerous and fenced off from the rest of the city. Traditional freight carrying had collapsed and the authorities didn’t know what to do with what was left.

“Wind the clock forward three decades and just look at the difference. The city’s canals have become the focus for major regeneration activity, with new homes, attractions, offices and restaurants around places like Gas Street Basin, Brindleyplace and the Mailbox.

“Towpaths have been reopened for walkers

and cyclists, and the locks and channels have been repaired so that narrowboats can return safely to the city. We even have otters using Birmingham’s canals – that’s how much they have improved.“Today when local people say we have more canals than Venice, it’s increasingly a badge of pride – but we have only scratched the surface of what we can do.”

As owner of Black Country Metals, a committed champion for the region and a globallyrecognised expert on exports, Peter Mathews knows what he’s talking about. Three years ago he established the West Midlands Waterways Partnership for the Canal & River Trust, the charity set up to care for England and Wales’ historic inland waterways.

Made up entirely of volunteers and working alongside the Trust’s local management, the Partnership brings together a team of specialists from the private, public and voluntary sector, all committed to unlocking the potential of the West Midlands’ 218 miles of canals.

Peter explains: “The West Midlands’ waterways

have enormous untapped potential to make an even greater contribution to the local economy, improving the environment and the health and wellbeing of local people.

“But the Canal & River Trust is a charity and cannot do everything. That’s why we have put in place an ambitious three-year plan aimed at engaging with local people, communities, businesses and local authorities.

“We all benefit from having vibrant, safe and attractive waterways on our doorsteps and we all suffer when they’re not cared for.

“We need more people to get involved – either by donating money to help fund the Trust’s vital work, or by rolling up their sleeves and joining us as volunteer lock keepers, on regular towpath clean-ups, or by adopting a local stretch of canal.

“We’ve already had a brilliant response from community groups wanting to make a difference and we really need to harness that goodwill and enthusiasm to get more people involved. It helps the canals and is tremendous

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fun for everyone involved.

“The more people who take an interest in our canals, the more it will become unacceptable for the minority who dump rubbish in the water, or tag our historic bridges. These waterways belong to all of us and no-one has the right to ruin them for the rest of us.”

Originally built as arteries for commerce, and the nation’s first industrial transport network, for many people the waterways are now precious green spaces and places to escape the stress of modern lives – an analogue antidote to a digital world. Peter is keen to explore with health professionals and NHS Trusts the potential for the waterways to contribute more to people’s physical and mental wellbeing.

“We’ve already received investment of £6m into improving towpath access for cyclists and walkers across the city, and we’re looking at ways to improve access to canoeing and paddle sports across the region.”

Peter also points towards further opportunity for regeneration along the canals, using historic buildings and redundant land to create new homes, work opportunities and healthy communities.

“With imagination, HS2 could be the catalyst to create a new canal quarter around Curzon Street, and there are tremendously exciting opportunities to redevelop the land around Eastside, Digbeth and Icknield Port Loop.

“There is also, of course, an enormous amount of work going on in the Black Country. These include final preparations to improve the towpath and accesses to the Stourbridge ‘arm’.

“Other sustainable transport projects are being developed across the Black Country with the ambition of improving the whole network across the Midlands to help the hard-working people of the region to get around.

“We need businesses and local authorities to work with us to get more investment into our canals, protecting their vital heritage while being bold and imaginative in their aspirations for them.”

Thirty years after they were seen as a disgrace, the West Midlands’ canals are increasingly seen as a source of pride as the region wakes up to what a precious asset it has. So Venice can keep its gondolas and palazzi. Birmingham is steering its own path. n To find out more about the work of the Canal & River Trust visit canalrivertrust.org.uk

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Man of many parts Peter Mathews’ chairmanship of the West Midlands Partnership of the Canal and River Trust is just one of myriad duties and interests he undertakes. Awarded the CMG in 2002 for his work on boosting the UK’s exports, Peter’s company Black Country Metals Trading (BCM), trades metals internationally and he’s a world-renowned expert on recycling. Peter’s a former member of UK Trade and Investment board (UKTI) and was directly involved in its conception and launch. After his stint on the board, he was asked to chair the engineering sector and then combined it with automotive and aerospace to create the Advanced Engineering Sector Group, which he also chaired. He is still involved with the organisation as their International Trade Ambassador for the West Midlands, and is a past member of the judging panel for the Queen’s Awards for Export. Peter also chaired the World Recycling Convention and was a board member of the Bureau of International Recycling based in Brussels. He’s also a past board member of the International Re-bar Association in Istanbul, and Honorary life member of the Ulster Metals Association. He’s the official representative of the city of Wei Hai in China, and has represented the UK at the European Commission for Multilingualism His company, BCM, trades metals globally and he speaks widely on international trade. Peter’s also a member of MRAI (Metal Recycling Association of India). He trades with his Indian colleagues and travels there regularly, and so was personally involved in bringing back Air India flights from Birmingham Airport in 2013. Peter’s married to Elizabeth, a lawyer, and has two grown up children. A past chair of the Black Country Consortium, in his spare time he’s now the County President for the County of Staffordshire Royal British Legion, and an honorary life member of the Black Country Chamber of Commerce.

“He’s the official representative of the city of Wei Hai in China, and has represented the UK at the European Commission for Multilingualism His company, BCM, trades metals globally and he speaks widely on international trade”

Growing wealth outside of the business John Hodgson, managing partner of tax and business services at Smith & Williamson’s Birmingham office, explains the benefits of accumulating wealth outside of the core business.

The common thread between all family and owner-managed businesses is... the uniqueness of their businesses!

Regardless of sector and scale, the business will be centred on the core skills, knowledge and experience of the owner or entrepreneur in a particular commercial space. The blend of those skills — whether they are primarily managerial, marketing or innovative — will be unique and tightly focused on the specific market.

Those essential owner skills will be supplemented by other partners or those employed within the business or by relationships with independent suppliers, including professional advisers. All this attention is focused on the business and its objectives. However, a very different set of skills is required to manage and grow wealth outside the business and satisfy the potentially quite different objectives of the family.

Even business owners with a very good understanding of the risks and rewards surrounding their business, can find managing non-business assets a challenge, requiring a different type of expertise and skill sets. Building the personal and adviser skill sets required to manage and grow non-business wealth takes time. Moreover, there can be friction when different members of the family, business, or advisers become involved. This can be particularly acute when a business is disposed of or a business owner ‘retires’ at short notice.

Where a rapid change is made from business to nonbusiness wealth there is often a significant period of transition where ‘sub-optimal’ rewards are achieved, in terms of meeting both financial and personal/family aspirations. A planned transition is far preferable, moving from business to non-business wealth with new skills and advisers being acquired along the way.

Changing tax regime on dividends — an opportunity?

For many business owners the recent hike in personal income tax rates on dividends may be the trigger to start building and positively managing non-business wealth and embarking on the development of parallel skills. Many, if not most, successful privately owned businesses distribute surplus liquidity from the business to the owners, typically in the form of dividends.

While this may help in meeting personal living expenditure it has always, because of the leakage of higher rate income taxes, been an inefficient route for accumulating investible non-business wealth.

There are various alternative ways to separate and extract surplus liquidity from the business without income tax charges, with value staying within a company shell, albeit removed from the commercial risks of the main business.

Such companies are often known as family investment companies and afford flexibility to satisfy an owner and his family’s personal and non-business financial objectives. They can be used as investment vehicles for any activity, property investment, portfolio investment, or simple cash management and can be structured with different share classes for different family members or generations so that a range of objectives can be met.

Such separation and accumulation of non-business wealth means the new skills and sets of advisers can be used to deal with the personal finances without disturbing the main business cohort, acting in parallel, but independently, to enable the smooth transition from business to non-business wealth. This enables the main business to continue with its own agenda for development, succession or sale.

These sorts of family investment structures — and other non-business wealth arrangements such as OEICs, private unit trusts and personal trusts in all their guises — are not new to us. We have been using them for generations. This depth of experience means that we can help remove the complexity of setting up such structures.

As a firm dedicated to owners and their business entities we have expertise in all aspects of private wealth management yet, equally, we understand the importance of developing a strong relationship and bond through understanding personal and family objectives. We work in partnership with owners and their existing advisers.

...the recent hike in personal income tax rates on dividends may be the trigger to start building and positively managing non-business wealth...

By necessity, this briefing can only provide a short overview and it is essential to seek professional advice before applying the contents of this article. No responsibility can be taken for any loss arising from action taken or refrained from on the basis of this publication. Details correct at time of writing. The tax treatment depends on the individual circumstances of each client and may be subject to change in future.

Smith & Williamson LLP Regulated by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales for a range of investment business activities. A member of Nexia International.

The word partner is used to refer to a member of Smith & Williamson LLP.

A service as individual as you are Building personal relationships is paramount to what we do. By creating shared objectives with owners and their families and with our technical knowledge and experience we can help develop long-term strategies that protect and increase family wealth.

Delivering professional services for over a century, our well experienced team appreciates that differences between generations of a family need to be respected, and sometimes there can be significant tensions. We understand that it may help for an adviser to be of a similar age and background to those key family members he or she supports. We have the depth to be able to offer advisers to support each generation and branch of a family, thus building stronger links to the whole family, balancing each person’s goals with those of others.

John Hodgson t: 0121 710 5200 e: john.hodgson@smith.williamson.co.uk w: smith.williamson.co.uk

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ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

A blend of the old and new With a family history as victuallers stretching back to Victorian times, Chris Connolly’s wine business is still growing.

Ros Dodd reports At a recent networking event, a friend and fellow businessman described Chris Connolly as “someone who sells wine”. Then he corrected himself: “Actually, what he sells is a really, really good time.”

Chris chuckles as he relates this. Then he says that, actually, he’s the one having the really, really good time. “I’m working harder than I’ve ever worked since I started in this business 35 years ago, but I can honestly say that I’m also having more fun now. There’s a real buzz about it, and I love that.”

The wine trade has changed considerably since Chris joined his father Pat in running Birmingham-based Connolly’s Fine Wine & Spirit Merchants in 1980. This has created more opportunities (a far wider selection of wines;

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“Connolly’s has matured and improved with age, successfully blending old-fashioned with funky”

more wine drinkers to imbibe them) but also thrown up a lot more challenges (the rise of the internet; the availability of cheap booze).

Yet like many of the wines it sells, Connolly’s has matured and improved with age, successfully blending old-fashioned with funky. The service is traditional, but many of the wines and beers are quirky and cutting-edge.

The main store, in the aptly-named Livery Street, on the edge of the city’s Jewellery Quarter, exudes an air of retro cool: in April 2015 it underwent a major refurbishment – the first since the firm moved there 20 years ago. Situated beneath the historic railway arches carrying trains to and from Snow Hill Station, a false ceiling previously concealed this architectural gem. Removing it to reveal the shape of the arches not only gives the store more character; it also makes it airier.

Whilst working hard to retain the ‘authenticity’ of the business, Chris has also embraced the need to change and adapt. It’s paid off: in 2012, Connolly’s opened a shop in Solihull’s Dovehouse Parade, and 55-year-old Chris isn’t ruling out launching a third outlet. And with wines ranging from £5 to £500 a bottle, the company sells to customers all over the country.

Although the present-day Connolly’s was founded in 1976, the Connolly’s story goes back a lot further, to 1878, when Chris’s great grandfather, Louis, upped sticks and moved his family from County Longford in Ireland to Birkenhead. He later moved to Wolverhampton, where he found work in pubs.

“He then bought his own pub and in a short

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space of time had opened a chain of pubs around Wolverhampton,” recalls his great grandson. “Later, he sold them and set up a business called Louis Connolly Wines, winning the contract to bottle Guinness locally.”

In 1906, Louis bought another business, Scorza and Olivieri, the largest importer of Alter Wines in the UK. Based on the corner of New Street and Pinfold Street in Birmingham, Chris can still remember going there as a child.

Louis’ son – Chris’s grandfather – started working for the business in about 1912, but when war broke out two years later, he joined up. After being invalided out of the army in 1915, he returned home, bought his father out of the Birmingham side of the business and changed the name to Connolly & Olivieri.

When he died in 1960, the business was sold to Harvey’s of Bristol, becoming known as Connolly and Swift, with Chris’s dad, Pat, running it. “It was based in Highgate, Birmingham, and at the time was the biggest wholesaler in the region.”

But in 1970, the retail outlet closed and six years later Connolly and Swift went the same way, with Pat being made redundant. Rather than the end, however, it proved to be a new beginning: in December 1976, Pat launched Connolly’s Wines. “It was all he’d ever known and done, and he still had Connolly and Swift’s customers,” recalls Chris.

So, at the age of 52, Pat set up shop in Edmund Street, Birmingham, opposite what is now Hotel du Vin. As well as a retail side, the

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“And people are so much more open-minded now than they were; happy to try wines from less familiar wine-producing countries such as Romania and Croatia”

business also serviced local offices and dining rooms. After dropping out of university, Chris joined his father in 1980.

“It wasn’t my original intention to join the business; I hadn’t a clue what I was going to do,” he remembers. “I worked for an estate agency for a few months after leaving university, and at one stage I had elevated ambitions to become the 1980s’ version of Robert Peston, but that never happened. Then I decided I’d help out my old man for a little while – and that was 35 years ago!”

In 1980, the range of wines the firm sold was “tiny” compared to the wide variety – from all corners of the globe – it carries today.

“If it wasn’t made in Europe, you just didn’t bother,” says Chris. “Spain was only about Sherry; Portugal was only about Port. Italy didn’t have anything of any consequence, so it was really just France and Germany. Germany accounted for at least 50 per cent of the white wines we sold.

“Today, of course, so many countries are producing wine, and the UK – because we don’t have a serious indigenous wine industry – remains the best place in the world in which to buy wine. We have to import 99.9 per cent

of the wines we drink, so we have access to so many different types. Every wine-producing country in the world wants to sell into the UK market. And people are so much more open-minded now than they were; happy to try wines from less familiar wine-producing countries such as Romania and Croatia.”

Back then, the competition included the likes of Victoria Wine and Peter Dominic, and the majority of business came from corporate dining.

“We supplied only one or two restaurants at that time, and also did a bit of retail,” says Chris. “We did a lot of Christmas gift packs and some private client stuff.”

Connolly’s turned a significant corner when, in the mid 1980s, Chris – who was made a director of the company in 1984 – realised the future lay in shipping wine direct from the vineyard.

So Chris took himself off to the Rhône region of France to visit winemakers, and came back with the company’s first direct consignment.

“We’re still working with the Muscadet growers we first bought from in 1988 – Domaine du Bois Joly. When I first visited, I dealt with Henri. His son, Laurent, was a

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schoolboy. Now, Laurent is running it with his wife. Their wines just get better and better.”

Shipping in their own wines has allowed Connolly’s to sell to restaurants, and this – along with corporate wine tastings – now accounts for 60% of the business.

“We avoid brands as much as possible – brands are all about bling; we want to sell wines that are a bit different – our focus is authenticity,” Chris explains. “For example, there’s a Cahors we picked up two years ago: it’s a tiny property – only about two hectares – run by an English couple who moved to France to escape the rat race, and we turned up on their doorstep a couple of years ago and have been working with them ever since.

“The Champagne we ship, Gardet, we’ve been stocking since 1989 and it’s fabulous Champagne, with lots of depth and character, and no more expensive than the some of the big brands. If you look at the prices being charged for the flashy brands, you can see that it’s a triumph of style over substance. Yes, of course we stock some brands, but there are so many more interesting things with which to fill our shelves.

“And that’s really what flicks my switch – finding something that’s a bit different.

Because customers – especially younger ones – are a lot more open-minded these days, if you can find something a bit quirky, it will sell.”

But hasn’t the internet had a damaging effect on small, independent wine merchants like Connolly’s?

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“There is a lot of wine sold online and so we’ve moved into that too. We could go in for a much flashier, more sophisticated website, but it’s difficult to convey the atmosphere and approach of what we do through a website.

I’d much rather get people in, talk to them and put a glass in their hand so that they know the wines and the stories behind them.”

Connolly’s remains a family-run business: the

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nine-strong staff include Chris’s wife, Tania, who is the company secretary-cum-accountant.

Chris is excited about the future. “It’s never been a better time to be in Birmingham, with the restaurant and food scene, and we are developing the wholesale side. In terms of retail, would we like to open anywhere else?

Never say never. I’m having a lot of fun now and get a real buzz from what I do.”

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IXNYTTEXRCVRI XE YWX bqlive.co.uk

West Midlands accountant Johnathan Dudley heads up the manufacturing sector for Crowe Clark Whitehill.

Sandy Simpson reports on his passion for industry

Keeping faith with manufacturing “I didn’t want to be the scorer. I wanted to be out there, helping build an innings.” Johnathan Dudley may be talking about the latter days of his cricketing career, but the sporting analogy fits well with his approach to business, in particular the business of manufacturing.

‘Passion’ is a much overused word by marketers these days: ‘We have a passion for customer service’, et al. But thankfully there are still those for whom the word is apposite.

In Johnathan’s case, his passion for manufacturing has its roots in his father’s work.

His father was an electrochemist who trained at ICI, later becoming technical director at a Walsall business called Anochrome. He then joined a partnership called Reliance Plating which he

developed until he sold the business in 1982.

Meanwhile, Johnathan was learning the business at the weekends and in holidays during his school and college days. He cut his teeth in the plating business the hard way. Learning the skills required was one thing, what he hadn’t appreciated was the back breaking nature of the job.“When you are vat-dipping, you need to be strong enough to hold the component, whatever size, on hooks, and dip in the acid, water and alkali vats,” he explains. “Some of the guys in the works had arms like Popeye and it was work that soon sorted the men from the boys.”

Now a leading accountant for Crowe Clark Whitehill, Johnathan says: “We plated pieces for many well known Black Country names, and I

now act for several companies we used to plate components for in those days. Being on that side of the production process gave me an insight into the production cycle as we never knew from one day to another what we might be plating, and in what quantities.

“Dad would look at the orders the day before and decide how many he needed on a shift and whether overtime or even a night shift was required. This was ‘just in time’ plating before the concept was ever invented.”

“I still look at products with a different eye to most people,” says Johnathan. “I see components and note the finishes while others are admiring the design or the functionality.

R&D was something you worked out yourself by

INTERVIEW bqlive.co.uk

trial and error or by asking one of the older guys who had been around a bit longer than you.”

His father had brought him up on stories of the development of the first prototypes of the Advanced Passenger Train, and how the plating experts had been given the challenge of coming up with a finish for the metal central stanchion down the centre of the coach roof that matched the rest of the décor. There was no tapping the requirement into a computer and waiting nano-seconds for an answer in those days. Trial and error was the rule of thumb – albeit you had better keep the said digit well out of the way!

While it might seem as though a career in industry was beckoning, his uncle was a chartered accountant who eventually owned Dismantling & Engineering Services Ltd, a renowned business then based on Mucklows Hill.

And so Johnathan had found himself using his college trained accountancy skills to pull together his father’s books into some kind of order before they went off to the accountants. When he eventually joined a Black Country accountancy firm, he always found himself drawn to the manufacturing clients.“What fascinated me was not just the numbers, but what was going on in the business and in the surround. Margins, operating profit, working capital – all parts of your studies, but this was real.

But it’s important at this point to put his growing passion for manufacturing into its historic and economic context.

“Nobody was turned on by engineering and manufacturing at that time. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the prevailing ‘wisdom’ was that this side of industry was old hat. I was not prepared to accept what the politicians were saying – that the manufacturing train had left the station.”

He conducted a study and found that, generally speaking, its manufacturing clients were among the most dynamic and vibrant.

“They were far from dead. They had battled through recessions, they had cut costs, they had invested in automation and improved productivity and above all, many were producing some seriously sexy products,” he says with the glint in his eye of a real enthusiast.“The pinnacle is Formula 1 which is all based within a few square miles in this country, but every day in the Black Country and Birmingham, our manufacturers are knocking out world class products driven by innovation and passion. They are all around you, but we so often don’t see them and take products for granted.”

He was fortunate that within Crowe Clark Whitehill he found a willing audience: “While it sometimes felt that nobody outside manufacturing was interested, I was able to persuade our then senior partner that this could become a central plank of our work, and I was appointed national head of manufacturing in 2010. “This enabled me to talk to our manufacturing clients and show them where they risked throwing good money after bad, and where in other areas the time was ripe for investment. We were able to demonstrate that we could focus our skills on really helping clients and adding value to their business.”

But during his missionary work around clients in the Black Country and wider West Midlands, he noticed that manufacturers, by and large, were not talking to each other. It was a natural progression to set up the Manufacturing Business Network and since 2010 the regional event has met quarterly in our offices at Black Country House in Oldbury.” Now he notes that a number of what he describes as ‘Johnny come lately’ types have wakened to the importance of manufacturing in the UK economy. “For many of those early years it was a really unfashionable,” he says. “A bit like being a die-hard Albion fan

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in their Third Division days when Bobby Gould was manager.” But he notes both healthy and worrying trends on the horizon: “I’m encouraged

by JLR saying that their suppliers should look to supply other OEMs [original equipment manufacturers]. This is both healthy and sensible.

Years ago, you supplied either Ford or Rover, and woe betide you if you were caught supplying anyone else. No business should be over reliant on one sector, one service or product line for its future stability.” However, he worries about world currencies: “There are other issues to worry about than just the euro and whether we stay in the EU for manufacturing. Metal, for example, is always valued in dollars, and if we work in a global marketplace as we do now, we should very much have our eye on the yen and increasingly the rupee too. “The skills shortage, too, is something that we must act on. Successive governments and business organisations have talked about it, but done precious little. We can’t rely on 70-year-olds keeping the wheels turning.

We need to bring the youngsters through. We need to make manufacturing the new rock ’n’ roll.” And in timely fashion, his mobile erupts with the opening bars of Led Zeppelin’s ‘ Whole Lotta Love’. n

A career of giving back Johnathan Dudley was born at home in Egerton Road, Streetly. He only ever attended one school, Hydesville Tower in Walsall, from the age of four to 16. He moved on to Sutton College to take accountancy-related A-levels, before enrolling at Wolverhampton Polytechnic for a Foundation Course in Accountancy. He turned down a degree course at Aston University because he wanted to get to work, instead joining Walter J Edwards, now known simply as Edwards, the accountancy firm in Aldridge where he qualified in 1986. He joined what was then Clark Whitehill in 1988, becoming a partner in 1994. He clearly remembers when he was invited to become an equity partner: it was the day of his father’s funeral in 1996, and the senior partner asked him to call in for ten minutes. He recalls: “He apologised that he hadn’t been able to tell me the previous day, as it would have meant I could have shared the news with Dad.” He ran the firm’s Walsall office for four years before overseeing the merger of the Kidderminster and Walsall offices into their current home in Black Country House, Oldbury. He was appointed regional managing partner in 2011, which includes the Midlands, Manchester and Cheltenham offices, as well as being the Crowe Clark Whitehill’s national head of manufacturing. Outside work, Johnathan’s just celebrated 30 years of marriage to Tracey.

They have three children, a new grandchild, two dogs Stan and Bert and a cockatiel. His other passions for many years have been the Scout movement and Round Table, succeeded by membership of Rotary. In fact, he says he owes his existence to parental “exuberance” following the 1962 Walsall Round Table Christmas party. He was a Cub in his early years and was drawn to the activities offered by Scouts. When his own son was three he was asked to help out his local troop, which led to 25 years involvement, ten years as Scout Leader.

Johnathan followed his father into Round Table and values his membership and time there as it reflects the Dudley family’s ethos of “giving back”.

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XY TXCRXYX bqlive.co.uk

LIVE DEBATE

In association with

THE VOICE FOR BUSINESS DEBATE

The issue: Is the explosion of social media and the availability of personal information placed online causing more cyber fraud? And how can we work together to stop it?

Paul Whitehouse, a relationship director at Barclays, welcomed everybody and explained the bank’s interest in hosting the evening. He said: “There’s a huge digital agenda going on in Barclays at the moment. It really does feel like we are transforming, becoming a very much digitallybased organisation.

“We’re also trying to help our clients, both business and personal, to progress their own digital agendas. I go back to a time when we didn’t even have a computer on the desk. Even then, there was a lot of attempted fraud going on. But back then it was a stolen chequebook and trying to forge a signature.

“Over the decades, I’ve seen businesses move from a traditional model and reinvent themselves for the digital world today. Is that fraudster, with the chequebook and the dodgy signature which I was seeing 30-odd years ago, has he just reinvented himself to take advantage of what’s available and what’s possible today?”

Chris Gould, a partner at EY, said he was building a cyber-security practice across the firm

and throughout the UK. He said: “This is really an interesting topic. Because technologies are progressing faster than people are progressing to the change. And we’re seeing an explosion now in social media. If we look at what’s coming next, with interactive technologies, we’re going to be putting more and more stuff out there about ourselves. One thing is very clear: people that really understand the value of our information are not ourselves, but those that use it for various purposes.

So it doesn’t matter if it’s a small or large organisation, the information we put online makes us vulnerable, and I don’t think that people really think about that.”

Dr Emma Philpott, chief executive of The IASME Consortium, explained that her organisation has a cyber security standard specifically written for small companies. She said: “We try to help small companies understand about cyber security and then, when they’re doing the basics, then they get a certificate. We helped the government write ‘cyber essentials’, which is the new, very

basic, cyber security standard, and we’re one of the accrediting bodies.

“Most of my day is spent talking to small companies that usually don’t know anything about cyber security, and usually not much understanding of technology, trying to help them understand the very basics. What becomes clear is that most people, are doing almost nothing, because they just don’t know what to do, and they don’t understand that it’s very simple to take basic steps.”

Angela Irvine, of Adler Insurance Group, explained that she arranged cyber and data liability insurance for commercial and professional clients. She said: “We have an issue of trying to educate the clients to understand what risks they have with their data.

“Most businesses will insure their physical assets but, quite often, their data is actually where the value is. So, we’re going through a process of finding risk management solutions and mitigation, trying to work with cyber security consultants to offer that full solution.”

LIVE DEBATE

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bqlive.co.uk

TAKING PART

Dr Stephen Wright, the general manager at National Cyber Skills Centre, said: “The point earlier about ‘is it the guy with the cheque book fraud reinventing himself?’; it’s more than that. I think people that were involved in less sophisticated crime are reinventing themselves as cyber fraudsters. Because the tools are available free online, people can start to use them, and they can start to exploit the vulnerabilities.

“And people don’t know about the simple steps.

A lot of people don’t even acknowledge they need to take some simple steps. It’s why we exist. ” April Pearson-Myatt, of DRP, said: “We deliver a number of different solutions to clients’ communications, and digital has really come to the forefront over the last few years. We now work with very large corporates and have to comply with the ISO standard.

“In the past it’s always been a tick box – yes, let’s just say we’ve done it – but it’s not that any more. We really have to be delivering. And

the very big issue for us is understanding that standard, making sure that our competitors all know that standard, so we’re all running on a level playing field. Cyber is impacting our business, and it’s impacting our competitors, and it’s really something we need to follow through with.”

Rae McClelland, a cyber security consultant with defence company 3SDL, said: “Our company was successful in bidding for a Worcestershire County Council contract, which was to deliver cyber security assistance to SMEs in Worcestershire.

We’ve assisted more than 65 companies in the last year alone, ranging from one-man-bands to 50-plus staff. “I also run the cyber apprenticeship development scheme in Worcestershire, one the first of its kind. It works with three local schools – teenagers, sixth form students – and trains them up, not just cyber security technical things, but also business. I hear a lot of the time from small businesses: ‘We don’t know where to start, so help us.’”

Andrew Barnett, director of global transactional fraud strategy, Barclays Martin Butcher, commercial director, Aristi Anish Chauhan, managing director, Equilibrium Cyber Security Services Chris Gould, partner, EY Cyber Security Ruth Inglis, sales and marketing manager, Titania Ltd Angela Irvine, account executive, Adler Insurance Group April Pearson-Myatt, financial and commercial director, DRP Group Peter Loomes, director, Sandettie Rae McClelland, consultant, 3SDL Ltd Dr Emma Philpott, chief executive, The IASME Consortium Ltd Stuart Wilkes, freelance technical writer, cyber security issues Paul Whitehouse, relationship director, Barclays Dr Stephen Wright, general manager, National Cyber Skills Centre In the chair: Caroline Theobald, BQ Group Taking notes: Steve Dyson, editor, BQ West Midlands Venue: Worcestershire Cricket Club, County Ground, New Road, Worcester, WR2 4QQ

BQ is highly regarded as a leading independent commentator on business issues, many of which have a bearing on the current and future success of the region’s business economy. BQ Live is a series of informative debates designed to further contribute to the success and prosperity of our regional economy through the debate, discussion and feedback of a range of key business topics and issues.

#bqlivedebate Join in the debate online and have your say on the issues raised. If you would like us to organise a BQ round table dinner debate contact Chancelle on 07786 070772 or email chancelle@bqlive.co.uk

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Martyn Butcher, commercial director at Aristi, cyber security consultants, said: “What really bugs me is that it takes a breach for people to do something about it. It’s almost like saying, if I was a motorcyclist: ‘I don’t want to wear gloves because I like the feel without the gloves.’ But you have your first road accident, you tear your hands to pieces, you’re going to start wearing motorcycling gloves from that point onwards.”

Ruth Inglis, the sales and marketing manager at Titania, said: “We develop cyber security auditing software. We’ve got three different tools. One’s for network security devices, like firewalls, switchers and routers. The other one’s for workstations and servers. And we have a continuous monitoring tool as well, so that you’re always all in sync all the time, and it will alert you if anything changes.

“We’ve got clients from really small companies to multi-national ones, including government departments, especially in the US, like the FBI, the Treasury – all those departments. We’ve got a scaleable licene, so you can use it if you’re really small, or you can use it if you’re really large. We see a lot of companies you maybe wouldn’t expect to be really cyber aware using the software. And then some companies you would expect to be really cyber aware who don’t understand why they need it.

“One of my colleagues wrote an article about how the smoking ban has changed the way everybody thinks about smoking indoors. You’d never get a cigarette out now and start smoking it. And that’s the kind of change of mentality that we need [with cyber security].

Andrew Barnett, the director of global transactional fraud strategy at Barclays, said: “My day is spent trying to fight the bad guys when they come up with new attacks, to come up with solutions, system strategies, analytics, to try to beat them at their own game, and stay ahead of them.

“The losses to UK businesses, in relation to cyber fraud, is over a £1bn, the last figure I had was £1.2bn. I’m sure these guys are absolutely focused on this. While we’re sitting here having this lovely meal, they may be having the same sort of meal somewhere else, discussing how they’re going to attack everybody in the new way. “It’s a business to them, it’s how they pay their kids’ school fees, it’s how they take their holidays. It’s not the spotty oik in the bedroom, just doing it for a bit of a laugh, it’s definitely a business. I think I’d echo Martyn’s point, around

“It’s a business to them, it’s how they pay their kids’ school fees, it’s how they take their holidays. It’s not the spotty oik in the bedroom, just doing it for a bit of a laugh, it’s definitely a business”

customer awareness; businesses only seem to want to spend some money doing something when it all goes horribly wrong.

“We’re digitising our services and what we offer to customers. There’s a generation that will pick this stuff up really, really quickly, but there’s a generation that won’t.

“So we hold sessions in our branches after closure. People can take their iPads into our branches and we’ll set them up for them in a secure manner. So we definitely come with the mantra that we’ll leave nobody behind in this scenario. And for me, that’s crucial. Because if

we leave people behind, they’re more likely to be victims of fraud.

“And whether we give them their money back or not, that’s never a great experience, being a victim of fraud. The studies we do, whether it be a company CEO, all the way down to John on the high street, the experience is never great.

However fast they get their money back, they feel violated; they feel their whole world has crashed around them.

“The more people we can educate and make understand what the risks are in what they’re doing, hopefully, the less people we’ll have who

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become victims of fraud.”

Peter Loomes, a director at Sandettie, said: “I’m looking at cyber security from a business change point of view. It’s a part of modern day business, so every business these days is a software business and they need to be looking at the risks around that.”

Picking up on the point about younger generations knowing more about the digital world and social networking, he added: “I actually think they’re getting a little bit gung ho with their information. They don’t value it as much as we do because they’ve grown up accepting giving it away.

“Also, it’s not about the information I give about myself, it’s about the information I give about other people and the links I have and the way I can build information around those links – very, very simply with very cheap or even free software.

“One of my big bugbears is people are encouraged to give their information away, but not necessarily made aware of the risks around that. Banks told us the risks mitigation measures around [things like] false card readers, they’ve told us to cover our pin numbers, but I’m not sure when it comes to social media people are getting that same sort of instruction.”

Stuart Wilkes, a freelance technical writer, said he had an issue with the term ‘cyber security’: “When you start trying to talk to companies, ‘security’ immediately puts some of them off.

They’re all busy doing their business, they’ve got a lot of things going on and you come in and say: ‘We’re going to get all of these new policies and procedures in place.’ They see it as a business inhibitor rather than something that’s protecting them.

“However, if you change the terminology, if it became ‘privacy’, not ‘security’, you’d have a different conversation.”

Anish Chauhan, managing director of Equilibrium Cyber Security Services, said: “We’re an education mission and trying to help businesses who I think are the most vulnerable, and that’s the ones that are 250 users and downwards. Those are the ones who are the most exposed and the least savvy.

“It’s almost an age versus youth topic. We’re kind of technophobes and what’s happened is the consumerisation of IT. Products and services were only really sold to businesses that needed them.

Now everyone’s got a mobile device, everyone’s got a computer, [and that] means that the things

“The more people we can educate and make understand what the risks are in what they’re doing, hopefully, the less people we’ll have who become victims of fraud”

that are running on them are simplified.

“When people are using social media, there are a few buttons and we’ve shared something with the world. A few years ago you’d need a computer to do all of these things. The social bits of software don’t want to be secure because their popularity is driven by the amount of information they have. So the consumerisation of IT is a big concern, and people bringing their own devices into the network is pretty fundamental to the security concerns that most of us have.”

Andrew Barnett shared a case study: “There was a large corporate where the CEO decided the best thing he could do was a weekly blog, saying what he was doing, where he was and how well the business was doing. A fraudster picked up on this and actively followed the blog.

And then the CEO went out to the United States to negotiate a contract with a new supplier, and the fraudster rang the payments centre and spoke to a payments individual, we’ll call her ‘Dolly’. And he convinced Dolly through the information that was on the blog that he was the CEO and he was in America.

“He told her: ‘Look Dolly, I’m there negotiating this deal, and I really need you to be ready to make a payment to these guys.’ He waits for the next blog, reads it intensely, fills in a bit of background information by Googling things.

Then he rings, speaks to Dolly: ‘Hi, it’s me again, as you know I’m still in the States, going really well, it’s going to be a brilliant thing for our company, how fantastic, just want to make sure you’re ready because we’re going to have to execute this really quickly, otherwise we’re going to lose the business,’ etc.

“Week three, same type of scenario, speaks to Dolly. Week four, the blog says: ‘I’m back in the UK, fantastic we’ve got the business.’ So the fraudster rings Dolly and says: ‘As you know, I’m back in the UK and we need to execute a US $1.5m payment to this account number.’ And

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she does it. Bang! $1.5m dollars gone.

“From our perspective, as soon as we were made aware of it, we made every attempt to try and get the money back, which is our job in that scenario. And luckily we managed to get a lot of the funds back by a lot of chasing, and by getting some of our guys who are based in the US to knock on some other banks’ doors.”

April Pearson-Myatt said: “I just struggle with that, coming from a finance background. I’m just staggered that in this day and age, those sorts of things are still happening. I agree with the cyber aspect of it, but when you then compound that with pure internal financial weaknesses, that’s when it’s so, so dangerous.”

Dr Emma Philpott said: “You have to start insisting on things. So with cyber essentials, the government has mandated it in many contracts from October. And we have seen a complete change. Before it was just the security companies adding another certificate. Suddenly vehicle tracking companies, healthcare companies are actually looking at it for the first time.

“Some of them are already secure; they just didn’t bother with a certificate beforehand.

Others are looking at it for the first time, and so it’s opened whole new avenues by mandating it. If it really is a security issue, and if all these billions of money are going out of our banks and our companies, then mandate it.

“It [can be] associated with giving work. So if the accountant on the corner street, if more and more of her clients are coming in saying: ‘Can you show me some evidence that you’re going to look after my information?’ She would start thinking: ‘Maybe I should get that evidence, because some people are walking out the door.’

It’s not until you start saying: ‘In these supply chains, in these contracts you have to have this,’ that awareness goes up, and people start asking of their own accord.”

Stephen Wright said: “I think mandated things and regulated things is a start. But we all know when there are rules, there are loopholes and we find ways around them. The answer for a safe world is awareness and doing the right thing.”

Peter Loomes agreed: “The more we educate people and make them aware of their personal risks, we move it from security to privacy. The more they’ll put demands on suppliers, and customer demand is more than any other demand out there.”

Anish Chauhan said: “When things are mandated, organisations sometimes do the

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bare minimum. I believe that there’s a risk assessment that’s being undertaken, and that risk assessment’s badly done. It’s being done by a person in an organisation who isn’t necessarily qualified to assess a risk against cyber crime – so [they might say] if that solution’s going to cost us an extra 200 grand, then I’ll take the risk.”

Stuart Wilkes said: “Once you put that regulation in, that you will be personally, financially liable for losing this data, these companies will come knocking down the door for the certification, for the training, for the solutions.”

Martyn Butcher said: “The policing of it all is the challenge, if you’ve got the mandatory stuff in place, you’ve got to do what you say you’re going to do. You’ve got to fine people and you need to advertise the fact.”

Rae McClelland said: “If we do end up mandating things, I think it’s got to be scaleable, it’s got to be enforced and checked upon. But who’s going to do that, who’s going to finance that? That’s what a lot of my clients ask me.

They’re overwhelmed by what they’re facing and by what they’re being increasingly challenged to face by their customers.”

Andrew Barnett agreed: “We [Barclays] do customer awareness sessions – we talk about cyber, but also the more basic stuff, invoicing, the whole spectrum. I gave a case scenario today,

and I try and bring all of those sessions alive, as do my colleagues who do them with CEOs of companies, governments and local authorities.

“And then we challenge them – this happened to this company, could it happen to you? You see a number sitting there feeling confident, and a number scribbling rather quickly. That to me is the way to get it over – give live examples of what’s happened, and the impact on that company, and challenge them: ‘It could happen to you.’”

Andrew explained that banks share a lot

Discovering fraud and limiting exposure to risk In terms of actually uncovering fraud, businesses are most likely to ultimately detect it themselves. CIFAS (Credit Industry Fraud Avoidance System – The UK’s Fraud Prevention Service) stated that of all the cases recorded on their Internal Fraud Database in 2013, around 60% were discovered by organisations’ internal controls, processes and audit procedures.

Employees are one of the best fraud risk management tools available, and their instincts combined with technology can be an excellent fraud management control. Regular training sessions can help build your staff’s intuitions about where fraud could be taking place, and this is where Barclays can offer support. It is also important to remember that the majority of staff will not engage in fraudulent behaviour, and can be a valuable ally in uncovering fraud. Businesses could set up a whistle-blowing line to report suspicious behaviour, while consultation with operational staff can also allow businesses to uncover process weaknesses, and how controls might be circumvented. Where a fraud is actually uncovered – whether actual, attempted or an operational loss – it is important to review the control framework, understand where the weakness existed, and work to close the gap, or quantify the risk, accept a level of fraud and mitigate unacceptable risk by adding additional controls.

By being aware of some of the risk factors and taking steps to prevent them, corporates can help to protect their profitability and stability.

of information on cyber security: “We share accounts that have had fraudulent funds paid into them. We share bad IP addresses amongst us, we share bad devices. We do work together on these things and we work with law enforcement on the larger cases, because they’ll only take on the larger cases.

“The ‘digital driving license’ at Barclays is open to everybody and does some excellent stuff around giving overall views of cyber in general: how to use websites, what some of these technical terms mean, and trying to explain them in layman’s terms. If you get over 6,000 points you can become a digital eagle, you’ll get a cyber certificate. Internally we have competitions between teams, between departments around who can get the highest points, and it becomes quite an interactive way to engage people.”

Stuart Wilkes said: “Social media is huge.

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, Pinterest, Instagram, blogs, forums, etc. The challenge is that social media companies, who’ve been phenomenally successful, have failed by not communicating what they’re actually providing.

They’re selling to us on functionality; they’re not telling us that we’re the product. We’re giving this information away free based on what it’s going to do. They’ve not told us: ‘We’re going to use all this information to sell you advertising.’”

Ruth Inglis agreed: “It’s like Gmail, they read every single email that comes in, it’s written in their privacy policy – it’s pretty easy to find. If you say in an email: ‘I’m going to my friend’s wedding next weekend,’ the next thing you know you’ve got an advert for a wedding dress. They own that information because it’s a free service.”

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Stephen Wright said: “We teach how to use social marketing safely, how not to give too much away, how not to put your employees at risk. There’s an awareness raising course which is giving examples so people can relate them to the world they’re familiar with, so they understand where these risks are coming from. It’s finding that way to empathetically engage with people and get them to see where that risk exists.”

Rae McClelland said: “I probably work with more young people than everybody else in the room put together. Every week we have 20 young people from local schools coming to see us. I am amazed at how astute and interested and engaged they are with the subject. I think it just takes that little bit of fire for them to actually be engaged [and] interested in learning about privacy and actually caring about these things.

These young people are digital natives, that’s what they’re known as.”

Peter Loomes said: “I’m going to go back to education, education, education. It’s up to the IT industry and the cyber industry to put away the fear, uncertainty and doubt and look at how people interact with the internet, what they want to do, what they want to achieve. We need to educate them more effectively around doing that.”

Stuart Wilkes said: “I do think there are two actions we should take. I think in business we should mandate in one form or another, so it’s going to give business consumers a level of trust their data is secure as it can be. On the personal side it does come back to education – but I think it should be in the National Curriculum, so the next generation as they move into the workforce will just take it on naturally.”

Chris Gould said: “It’s education, but it’s more about cultural change and that comes with reinforcement of behaviour. We can talk about education, but we need to reinforce that with something that makes it worthwhile for individuals. If we want to be on a level playing field, businesses need to share information with each other about the things that they see. I think, when you do that, you end up in a much better position.”

Dr Emma Philpott said: “A lot of it has started happening. It’s going to take time, but I’ve talked to all sorts of schools, and they have people that go in and talk about cyber security and online bullying from really young ages. There’s an organisation called E-Safety, they are brilliant.

They aim it at the children and then often have a

“Instead of thinking that all that information that’s been stored is the enemy because there’s nothing we can do about it, let’s utilise that information to help us” session for the parents and they give really good advice. So much has happened, but it’s only just started happening in the last couple of years and it all takes time.”

Angela Irvine said: “From an insurance point of view, we need to educate our clients and prospective clients of the risks they’ve got involving their data. We need to make sure that people are aware of what they can do to protect themselves, not just with the insurance product but with everything else that’s available to them.

From a social media point of view, make sure that our corporate clients and our SME clients have a social media policy in their staff handbook, so that there’s some control of what employees are putting on Linkdin, Facebook and Twitter.”

Stephen Wright said: “We don’t go down the street and shout our address and that we’re going on holiday for the next week. But in the cyber world there are people still doing that. I’d build on the monetary aspects within business and there is a place for some legislation around that, but it’s only a small part of the solution.

There is stuff going on in schools but for those who don’t have children, for the grey-haired people, that level of education is not getting into their homes.”

April Pearson-Myatt said: “From a corporate point of view I think that organisations have that responsibility, and I’d like to see more organisations working with young kids and bringing them into the corporate environment so they can see first-hand how it works. From the legislation point of view, it has to come in, there has to be some definite standards in there.”

Ruth Inglis said: “The FBI is using GPS signals on phones to combine with people inputting pin numbers on cash machines to make sure it really is you. Could we use check-ins on social media to pinpoint people and make sure they are in Rome, if they just said they’d been to the local pub and their card’s been used in Rome? Instead of thinking that all that information that’s been stored is the enemy because there’s nothing we can do about it, let’s utilise that information to

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help us. The banks need to tell people when fraud has happened to them and not just cover it up for fear of reputational damage. That move would have a massive impact because people would know that it is happening to them.”

Concluding the evening, Andrew Barnett thanked all guests and said: “I agree education is something we have to do. The sceptic in me, having been in security fraud, means we can lead people to water but we can’t make them drink.

There will always be people that never listen.

We need to protect people from themselves, we need to have cloud security systems in place.

We should mandate that when you set up social media, the security setting is the maximum. If you want to amend it and tell the whole world everything, well so be it on you.

“People are genuinely lazy, if you set something up and it’s got the maximum settings, they’re generally not going to bother to change it. But at the moment, Facebook and Twitter is completely the opposite, they set it at the lowest and then you’ve got to raise it. We need to create people who are smart sceptics so that they’re sceptical of the things which people tend to trust too much in the modern age.”

Referring to Ruth Inglis’ point about “the force for good”, Andrew agreed, and said: “Unstructured data and proximity are two things that we, as an organisation, are looking at, to help you on a financial journey. Not annoying you on holiday and blocking your card just because you’ve decided to visit somewhere and the last transaction you made was in Tesco’s, and why would you suddenly be in New York. We can use that data in stopping more fraud, but also allowing more of our customers’ genuine transactions to go through without interrupting that journey.” n Worcestershire Cricket Club, County Ground, New Road, Worcester, WR2 4QQ. Tel: 01905 337922

#bqlivedebate Join in the debate online and have your say on the issues raised. If you would like us to organise a BQ round table dinner debate contact Chancelle on 07786 070772 or email chancelle@bqlive.co.uk

Join in the debate at #bqlivedebat e bqlive.co.uk

42

PROFILE Santander

Helping hundreds of businesses achieve their goals Santander made a real difference to hundreds of SMEs who attended the bank’s week-long Breakthrough Box Festival at the Molineux Stadium in Wolverhampton in July. Steve Dyson reports The sheer number of tasks to complete when SME companies are expanding can often overwhelm overworked bosses. The aim of Santander’s Breakthrough programme is to introduce SMEs to its five pillars of ‘knowledge’, ‘talent’, ‘international’, ‘connections’ and ‘finance’ that can help them achieve their goals.

Susan Davies, Santander’s regional director for the South and West Midlands, said: “Our Breakthrough Box Festival in Wolverhampton in July did just that – helping ambitious businesses understand how we can assist them to grow their workforce, launch new products and enter new markets.

“We see ‘talent’ as a really important factor for companies entering a growth phase. Because quite often the bosses are so busy actually running and funding their businesses, they simply don’t have the time, nor often the money, to spend on developing things like websites or other marketing projects.

“That’s where we can help, for example by providing skilled internships, with top graduates sent in to funded by the business with a contribution from Santander. We have a number of great university relationships across the country and work closely with Keele, Birmingham, Aston and Warwick in the Midlands.

“Working with us, they identify graduate interns who are best-suited for particular projects. This is a real, tangible way to demonstrate how we provide support to businesses that’s not financial, but may help to improve revenues by changing something specific.”

Susan’s just as enthusiastic about the other ‘pillars’ in Santander’s Breakthrough programme.

She said: “A big focus for Santander is its huge global presence, with more branches worldwide than any other bank. We’ve developed the Trade Portal tool, accessible to our Corporate and

Commercial customers.

“This helps businesses to identify top markets where they can sell their products across the globe. It not only lists countries but also specific business customers, opening a network of more than five million customers worldwide that can lead to new opportunities. It also provides up-to-date rules and regulations for trading in those countries, all the ‘need to know’ information.”

Susan said this overlapping mix of the ‘international’, ‘connections’ and ‘knowledge’ pillars is then added to by the subsidised Trade Missions that Santander leads across the year. In 2015, this includes taking customers to explore trade in Spain, Poland, the USA and the United Arab Emirates.

Within the UK, Santander pulls together a continuous programme of free masterclasses, inviting top firms like Saatchi Masius, Innocent Foods, McLaren, Experian and Autotrader to share ‘knowledge’ with its customers.

Susan said: “These events are about getting the right people together to share their expertise, learn from each other and make new contacts.”

Banking is ultimately about ‘finance’, of course, and another one of the Breakthrough pillars is Growth Capital. She explained “Santander has committed £200 million of funding to support high-growth SMEs that have advanced comfortably beyond start-up stage into profitability. Growth Capital is debt finance which means you rarely have to sacrifice any equity in your business. You also don’t have to put further personal assets at risk. It is flexible too - you can use it to support your development to funding capital expenditure. Any business that qualifies for Breakthrough Growth Capital will find the due diligence process to be quicker and less expensive than for equity funding. What’s more, it comes with

ongoing support in the form of Breakthrough’s training, mentoring and seminar programme. Our Growth Capital loan is an innovative way for you to obtain funding to invest in the growth of your business.”

Susan said that Santander’s Breakthrough Box event at the Molineux Stadium in Wolverhampton was itself another example of the programme’s ‘connections’ pillar.

She said: “We connected with 250 businesses across the week, bringing them together and enabling them to meet with each other. That was a great way of showing how we can create opportunities to network, to find leads, and for businesses to promote themselves, letting businesses get their brand out there to a wider audience.

“But it’s not just a one week event for us.

Breakthrough is a day-to-day discipline – always focused around those five pillars with whatever we do. That’s how we differentiate ourselves, and we’re getting recognised in the market for doing that.”

Lending is subject to status and lending criteria.

For more information about Santander’s Breakthrough Moments Festivals visit santandercb.co.uk/breakthrough

PROFILE Santander

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“Santander has committed £200 million of funding to support high-growth SMEs that have advanced comfortably beyond start-up stage”

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PROFILE Santander

Creating constructive ways to support economic growth

PROFILE Santander

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Santander’s is holding its next Breakthrough event in Leicester at the end of October.

Steve Dyson takes a look at what’s planned

Nick Pulley, Santander’s regional director of corporate banking in the East Midlands, plays another key role in the regional business community. As well as his bank position, he’s also the chair of the Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership (LLEP).

This link means Nick’s been able to plan Santander’s Breakthrough event to coincide with the first week of the Leicester Business Festival, which is being organised and run by the LLEP. Nick said: “This is about Santander being part of the wider economy, rather than just holding its own Breakthrough Box Festival by itself. It’s important that the bank’s embedded with the local community and working with it closely to know what’s going on in the economy.”

Santander’s Breakthrough Box Festival is taking place in Leicester city centre in the week starting Monday October 26. It will be based in Jubilee Square, opposite the King Richard III Visitor Centre.

Like all the bank’s Breakthrough events, Santander will hold various sessions around its five pillars of ‘knowledge’, ‘talent’, ‘international’, ‘connections’ and ‘finance’; subjects which often overlap.

One session will see leading Santander economists talking about the current state of the UK economy, and discussing how it’s developing. Another will be an interactive masterclass with a big-name IT provider, looking at the next big steps for technology and business.

There will also be a marketing masterclass run by Rock Kitchen Harris, a leading Leicester media agency, explaining subjects like advertising, design, public relations and web design.

Nick said: “The idea of our masterclasses is to give SMEs exposure to companies and agencies that

they would otherwise not see. For instance, PR and marketing is something smaller SMEs might not have time or money for, so this masterclass will give them access to really smart and creative people.”

International expansion will be another theme explored at Breakthrough, working with the UKTI. This will look at trade relations with India and China, two key markets with economies that are hugely important to global markets.

Nick said: “These international sessions really excite and inspire SMEs who can come along and ask questions in a safe environment, and networking with other people, bouncing ideas off each other and sharing experiences.”

Nick said this networking was an integral part of the ‘connections’ theme in the Breakthrough programme: “This often sparks off international decisions or creates partnerships where SMEs and supporting agencies end up working together.”

Nick gave the example of Huub, an East Midlands firm which specialises in high-performance wetsuits, who Santander took on an international trade mission to Brazil last year.

He said: “Huub’s boss, Dean Jackson, came along to one of our round-table events and was inspired to come on our Brazil trade mission. He came back with some super new contracts and says that the trip was transformational for his business.

“He also attended one of our masterclasses run by the Saatchi & Saatchi communications agency, a company of such a global size that Huub would not normally have had access to. Dean was also really positive about what he learned from that experience.”

Other events at Santander’s Breakthrough Festival in Leicester include ‘Women in business’, with a

“It’s about demystifying some of that finance world, pointing out what is available and what SMEs might qualify for. This might be an enterprise loan from the LLEP loan, or training vouchers, or high-speed internet vouchers.”

local, high profile speaker, and an ‘Access to finance’ session.

Nick said: “The finance session is about taking businesses to the next level, not just answering the: ‘How do I borrow money?’ question, but explaining what’s the best fit for any particular scenario, and what options are available.

“This can be anything from working capital finance to international trade finance, and discussing how we can work with local agencies who might have grants available.

“It’s about demystifying some of that finance world, pointing out what is available and what SMEs might qualify for. This might be an enterprise loan from the LLEP, or training vouchers, or high-speed internet vouchers.”

Santander’s Breakthrough Festival will also be holding an event with the Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS), looking at various sectors in the East Midlands in detail, such as manufacturing and engineering.

The bank will be inviting businesses in those sectors to talk about what’s relevant and key for businesses wanting to expand in those markets – whether that’s exporting, supply chain or currency issues.

Nick said: “Breakthrough is about Santander not just providing banking products but contributing in other constructive ways to wider economic growth.

Banks can just sit there and provide debt. But at Santander we’re creating additional support that provides real value, and our customers just love it.

“And by being at the heart of the Leicester Business Festival, we’re offering something extra that’s really valuable for businesses and the local economy.”

Lending is subject to status and lending criteria.

For more information about Santander’s Breakthrough Moments Festivals visit santandercb.co.uk/breakthrough

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PROFILE Rudell the Jewellers

A sparkling jewel in Harborne high street Rudell the Jewellers has spent more than £250,000 redeveloping its Harborne showroom. BQ’s Steve Dyson found out what staff, brand directors and customers all thought at the VIP opening “I’m really impressed,” says a beaming Mark Hearn, the UK managing director of Patek Philippe, the Swiss master watchmaker, sipping from a glass of champagne.

“This is the first time I’ve seen the redeveloped store and it’s excellent. A lot of thought has gone into the design. It’s a Rudells store but with great supplier displays.

“We have a beautiful area which we love. It’s one of our biggest outside of London, but is offering the same experience as the capital. And that’s going to make a real difference.

“Customers will be saying: ‘Do I need to go to London to experience the best quality?’ And the answer, if they come to Rudells, is: ‘No, because I can get the same here in Harborne, Birmingham.’

“This store is now a West End experience in Birmingham. And that’s important in terms of bringing new business and people to the store, a real pull factor.”

Mark’s talking quite loudly because scores of customers, other brand directors and staff are buzzing around the refurbished showroom of Rudell The Jewellers in Harborne, Birmingham, sipping champagne, nibbling canapés and looking genuinely impressed at the new-look premises.

At the entrance to what’s known locally as Rudells, you’re greeted by a stunning crystal chandelier hanging down from an oval, recessed ceiling. This striking focal point – which I’m told cost £2,000 itself – then introduces you to smart display cabinets showcasing Rudell’s sparkling collections of diamond jewellery.

The mirrored walls, white floor tiles and neutralcoloured carpeting all marry to provide a contemporary look, the shiny products of world class jewellery providing the final touch of class wherever you look.

As you walk around the showroom, each brand

Rudell's MD Jon Weston, Mrs Karen Crossley and Mr David Crossley*

“It’s lovely, beautiful, a very nice, high class set up. Rudells is the perfect partner for us, and we have a very good project together.

Our display sits perfectly with this style of shop.”

Gina Feng, Mr Tony McLean and Mrs Lisa McLean

PROFILE Rudell the Jewellers

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Craig Jones, Ricky Rudell, Jane Dixon , Jason Spencer

hosted by Rudells has its own section of stunning displays: gold and diamonds from Fope stand out in one corner, and there are rows of shining watches

by Cartier, Omega, Tag Heuer and Rolex. Then come cascades of pearls from Mikimoto, and then yet more watches from IWC Schaffhausen and Patek Philippe.

Giuseppe Marcheluzzo, international sales director of Fope, the gold and diamonds brand from Vicenza, near Venice in Italy, has flown in to attend this VIP event.

He says: “It’s lovely, beautiful, a very nice, high class set up. Rudells is the perfect partner for us, and we have a very good project together. Our display sits perfectly with this style of shop.”

For those who don’t know Rudell the Jewellers, it was founded by Justin Rudell on Valentine’s Day in 1938, quickly becoming firmly established across the Midlands, building a strong reputation for excellence in quality products and service from its Wolverhampton showroom.

In 1986, the company purchased premises on the High Street in Harborne, expanding Rudells customer reach into Birmingham. Before long, the Harborne showroom’s success meant it had to grow to meet the demands from discerning clients.

Expansion began in 1996, with more space added in 2009 when the store became nearly three times its original size.

In July, the Harborne showroom underwent a £250,000 transformation to create the bright, welcoming yet calm environment, which Rudells managing director Jon Weston says he is “ecstatic” about.

As he stands near the entrance and looks at the

results, Jon says: “We put 12 months into planning the new design, and it was always difficult to imagine exactly how it would look. But we’re really pleased with the result.

“The previous décor had been in for a little while and needed freshening up to make it the kind of boutique you’d see down in Mayfair, London, but still with our special, warm and personal service.

“We wanted to build on the strength of our own local brand, displaying our Rudell’s Fine Diamonds, and creating great positions for the brands we host.

“Most importantly, we wanted the ‘wow’ – for customers to walk in and say: ‘Wow!’ at the entrance.

And I’m hearing them say that tonight, and I know we’ve got it right.”

Perhaps the most important person to speak to is a longstanding customer, and so I ask Irene Bannister, of Harborne, what she thinks.

Irene – who’s just one of scores of loyal customers who’ve been invited tonight as VIP guests – has been buying jewellery from Rudells for more than 20 years. What does she think of the latest refurbishment?

“I think it’s fantastic,” she says, with any hesitation.

“They’re really showing everything off to good effect. It’s so light and friendly. I like the glasswork and how they’ve combined all the different departments.”

Then Irene pauses, leaning forward slightly as if she’s sharing a secret: “The staff here are just wonderful, you know. They’re always so happy to go that little bit beyond for the customer.

“And so it’s really nice for them to have a modern shop. I’d imagine it’s a super place to work in, and

you can see from the smiles on their faces that they’re all thrilled with it.”

Indeed I can. There are ten sales staff at Rudells in Harborne, along with two goldsmiths and a watchmaker, and at least that many appear to be present tonight. They’re gently talking to customers, helping them try on a ring here, a watch there. And all of them are smiling from ear to ear.

Perhaps the biggest smile of all belongs to Jason Spencer, who’s been Rudells store manager in Harborne for 10 years, and has 25 years in the jewellery trade. He’s too busy looking after customers to speak for long – and I see his eyes looking here and there all the time, making sure that everyone is looked after.

But in a brief aside, he says: “It’s great, a real boost for the staff, the customers and the high street here in Harborne. Everyone’s really looking forward to the future success of Rudells.”

89A High Street, Harborne, Birmingham, B17 9NR Tel: 0121 427 1904 97 Darlington Street, Wolverhampton, WV1 4HB Tel: 01902 423 308/427 199 W: www.rudells.com E: info@rudells.com

COMMERCIAL PROPERTY New site launched A £20m canalside development of warehouse units in Tyseley, Birmingham, has been unveiled to commercial property specialists. Wharfdale Park will include build-to-suit warehouse and manufacturing units ranging in size from 30,000 sq ft up to a maximum of 150,000 sq ft, available on a leasehold basis. The Canal & River Trust’s site is being redeveloped by specialist developer H2O Urban. Interest in has been high and agents are soon expected to announce the first pre-let occupier. Richard Thomas, of H2O Urban, said: “There’s a severe shortage of Grade A industrial accommodation in Birmingham and we are therefore confident that Wharfdale Park will prove to be an extremely attractive option.”

H2O is a national joint venture company owned 50% by the Trust and 50% by private developer bloc Ltd.

Strong performance Commercial property investment across the West Midlands jumped by 32% in the second quarter compared to last year, according to research by Lambert Smith Hampton (LSH). The consultancy’s latest UK Investment Transactions report found the region was the second strongest in the UK

behind the south east, with total transactions of £603m. The figures came against a national backdrop of £36bn invested in the first half of 2015 – the second highest figure on record.

Adam Ramshaw, leading LSH’s Birmingham office, said: “Investors are increasingly looking to the regions for opportunities and the Midlands still represents better value when compared to areas like the South East.”

“Investors are increasingly looking to the regions for opportunities and the Midlands still represents better value when compared to areas like the South East”

Richard Thomas, of H2O Urban, is joined

by James Lazarus and Cheryl BlountPowell, of the Canal & Rivers Trust, at the official launch of the Wharfdale Park warehouse and manufacturing unit

Centre fills Nearly 90% of shopping space has been taken at the £150m Resorts World Birmingham opening at the NEC later this year. The 51-unit shopping centre will include fashion stores for Next, Nike, Gap, Bench, Jeff Banks, Skopes, Phase Eight, The North Face, New Balance, Skechers and Vans.

Homeware and gifts outlets include Bedeck, IT Luggage, Antler, Hallmark, The Gift Co, ProCook and Yves Delorme all taking space at Resorts World Birmingham. Chocolate stores Lindt and Thorntons are also signed up, along with jewellers Clogau Gold and Ernest Jones.

Resorts World will offer a wide range of restaurants and bars, an eleven screen IMAX cinema, a casino, hotel and spa all under one roof.

Office renting costs Birmingham is the world’s 37th most expensive city in which to rent an office, according to CBRE’s latest global ‘Prime Office Occupancy Costs’ survey. According to the research, which ranks the 50 top priced prime office locations, the average cost – including rent, business rates and service charge – of occupying a Grade A office in Birmingham is now £46 per sq ft. The city has moved two places up the rankings, from 39th position at the end of 2014. The survey’s top spot continues to be claimed by London’s West End, where renting an office will set a business back almost £180 per sq ft. Manchester is the UK regions’ most expensive office market, at £48.50 per sq ft, and holds 34th place in the CBRE table. Edinburgh, at £47 per sq ft, is ranked 35th.

Aberdeen and Glasgow (joint 38th), Bristol (41st), Leeds (44th) and Jersey (50th) also make the top 50. Asian locations, including Hong Kong, Beijing and Tokyo, dominate the top ten.

COMMERCIAL PROPERTY bqlive.co.uk

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A labour of love Hortons’ Estate has completed the first £4.1m phase of restoration works at the old Grand hotel on Colmore Row, Birmingham. The ornate stone and marble façades of the historic building overlooking St Philip’s cathedral will soon be exposed for the first time since 2003.

The restoration has included stripping back thousands of stones by hand, and all 180 windows have been removed, repaired by skilled carpenters and re-installed.

Tony Green, chief executive of Hortons’ Estate, said: “It’s testament to the determination and skill of the craftsmen involved – in particular the stonemasons – that the facades have not only been saved but their appearance is as the building was when it was first erected in the late 1800s.” Further £6m phases of restoration at will include a new roof and refurbished shops and offices on Colmore Row, and will be complete by the end of the year.

Tony Green said: “We have invested more than £13m in the scheme to date. Our commitment to bringing the whole building back to life, rather than simply restoring its fabric, remains undiminished.”

However, Green added that he was not yet sure if the building could operate as a hotel again. He said: “We’re exploring solutions for the re-instatement of the hotel element of the scheme. However, the cost of creating an upmarket modern hotel within a Grade II* listed building is prohibitive compared to the value it creates. Our search for a financially viable solution continues.”

Skyscraper given go-ahead Profit taking sales Birmingham-based Real Estate Investors (REI) has sold three West Midlands properties for £9.525m – just ten days after a £24.5m shopping spree.

The sales include landmark Birmingham city centre address 85-89 Colmore Row, which the AIM-listed company has sold to Fidelity for £7.85m after originally acquiring it from administrators PWC for £4m in December 2012.

Tenants include Chubb Insurance, Malcolm Hollis LLP, FleetMilne (Birmingham) Ltd, Royal College of Surgeons and Reuben Colley Fine Art. REI has also sold 770-772 Bristol Road, Northfield, for £1.425m and 150 Birmingham Road, West Bromwich, for £250,000.

Chief executive Paul Bassi said: “We have completed our asset management on these properties and have made strategic sales at values significantly above our book value.”

Planning permission has been granted to build Birmingham’s tallest office block.

Rockspring Property Investment Managers and development partner Sterling Property Ventures will now demolish the 22-storey, 1970s-built NatWest Tower at 103 Colmore Row, unoccupied since 2003, and replace it with a £60m 26-storey landmark building. Planning committee members unanimously approved the scheme, describing it as “welcome”, “imaginative”, a “stunning addition” to the skyline and a “strong statement.” At 105.5m high and with the apex to stand 246m above sea level, the new tower will be the tallest office building under construction in the UK outside London, with 200,000 sq ft of Grade A office space over 19 floors. At street level, plans include a winter garden, a café facing Colmore Row and a retail unit fronting Newhall Street. At the top of the building there is provision for a 8,600 sq ft restaurant with a 3,250 sq ft ‘lantern’ space offering 360-degree views of the city. Eric Linden, European director at Rockspring, said: “We have been encouraged by the support for our plans for this landmark development, from the people of Birmingham and potential occupiers.

“We view this as a strengthening target for regional investment in the UK and where there is significant demand for quality, modern office space.”

New nests for legal eagles Two long-standing law firms in Coventry plan to modernise and create growth after moving into new city centre office premises.

Neighbouring law firms Richardson and Davies and Payne Skillington, which were both established in the 1930s, have relocated to the top floor of Park House in Station Square.

Commercial property agent Reeves & Partners arranged the lettings, as the law firms’ previous premises located in Park Road and Manor Road, which were adjoining, will be demolished as part of the Friargate development.

Richardson and Davies employ 10 members of staff and Payne Skillington nine members of staff and both plan to expand their teams over the next 12 months.

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Industrial sale Two industrial units, in Erdington, Birmingham have been sold for well in excess of £500,000.

Commercial property agents SP+M advised Wulstan Capital on the purchase of units 2 and 3 on the Holly Park Industrial Estate for £577,000.

A unit of 5,673 sq ft is let to CMA Coldform until November 2021, and a unit of 3,633 sq ft is let to Balfour Beatty Group until February 2017.

They produce a total rental income of £46,610 per annum and the net yield was 7.5%. David Allen said: “The industrial investment market in the West Midlands remains strong and this deal is a further example of that.”

Mike Vining, James Davies and James Brookes

Retailers move in A new business and trade park in Coventry has already attracted two major retailers, creating 40 jobs. Vantage Park, just off the A444 near the existing Gallagher Retail Park, is being developed by The Wigley Group and features four units from 4,000 to 12,000 sq ft.

F1Autocentres will occupy 5,000 sq ft premises at the site, creating 20 jobs, while another 20 will be working at Magnet, the kitchen retailer, which is taking 12,000 sq ft premises.

The two remaining 4,000 sq ft units are available through Coventry-based commercial property agent Bromwich Hardy and JLL.

Kitchen move One of London’s top kitchen shops has chosen Worcester as the location for its new distribution warehouse, bringing new jobs to the city. Divertimenti, which is part of the Leamington Spa-based Aga Rangemaster Group, has taken a new fiveyear lease on a 14,869 sq ft warehouse at Unit 4, Wainwright Road, Worcester, WR4 9FA at a rent of £52,500 per annum.

The deal was arranged by GJS Dillon, acting on behalf of landlord Underwood & Company Limited.

Midlands promise Hong Kong-based motion systems experts Johnson Electric has opened a new location in the West Midlands for its powertrain cooling division. The company, which serves the automotive, building automation and security, aerospace and industrial equipment industries, has moved into the University of Warwick

Science Park’s Blythe Valley Innovation Centre near Solihull.

Toby Spruce, director of Johnson Electric, said this was part of growth plans: “Johnson Electric’s powertrain cooling has aggressive growth plans to turnover US$1b by 2021, and establishing a presence in the Midlands is part of that strategy as many of our automotive clients are based in close proximity.”

Highlands Park starts A £6m speculative development has started on a new warehouse scheme in Solihull.

Specialist industrial and logistics firm Graftongate is developing the 12,917 sq ft site at Highlands Park, Cranmore Park Industrial Estate, and chartered surveyors Johnson Fellows will advise on its disposal. Mike Price, partner and head of industrial agency at Johnson Fellows, said the unit would be suitable for either industrial use or as a trade counter. He said: “The climate is now right for speculative build projects and we’re confident we’ll quickly find an occupier for this unit, which sits on a self-contained site that offers swift transport routes and a high quality local workforce.”

Aparthotel Adagio opened a 4-star, 108-apartment ‘aparthotel’ in Allison Street, Digbeth, Birmingham this August. Vangelis Porikis, Adagio’s European director, said: “The UK continues to be a key market for growth and we are delighted to open in the UK’s second city.”

Shopping centre disposal A neighbourhood shopping centre in Coventry has been sold for over £1.6m on behalf of commercial property developer Stoford.

Ernesford Grange, Quorn Way, Binley, has been bought by a client of Shortland, Penn and Moore after New Wood Securities – Stoford’s investment company – put the seven-unit retail centre on the market. Dominic Stokes, director of Stoford, said the company bought Ernesford Grange – a 14,612 sq ft centre – in 2004 and refurbished and re-let a number of vacant units. It now attracts a rental income of £130,000 per year from its tenants, which include Co-op, Tesco Express, Boots, Ladbrokes and Domino’s.

He said: “This shopping centre is located in a densely populated residential area and is well used by the community. We invested in a number of improvements and believe this is why it attracted a number of potential buyers who realised its potential net yield.”

KERR ON WINE bqlive.co.uk

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Here’s a rule of thumb Duncan Kerr, investment director at Midven Ltd is not convinced - even by wines costing more than he usually spends I was a little apprehensive about this tasting review, being a self-confessed wine plebeian.

I do, of course, enjoy more than a few glasses of red wine, however my willingness or capacity to spend large amounts on acquiring it is rather restrained. I typically budget around £6 and am an avid bargain hunter, keenly watching out for those 25% discounts on six bottles or more.

But the experts at Connolly’s were incredibly hospitable and knowledgeable, and had selected lighter wines on account of the hot July day of my visit. The red was Mr P Pinot Noir 2014 from Iona in the Cape, and the white a ChardonnayViognier from Domaine de Tholomies.

We started with the white. It had a flowery nose, but a sour acidy taste with no sweetness.

It tasted fruity – it always seems odd describing something made of fruit as fruity! – but try as I might I couldn’t detect the peaches my host did.

It had the usual disappointment of white wine

for me – smells like a nice, refreshing fruit juice and ends up sour and thin. The red showed more promise. I don’t find the nose of Pinot Noir attractive, smelling sulphurous to me.

My host was very polite, but I can imagine he was probably internally horrified by some of my comments.

There was no tannin or oak. It had a bit of the tang of red currant, and perhaps a hint of strawberry, but again the lingering sulphurous taste. The wine overall was more like a dark Rosé. Better than most Pinot Noir’s I’ve had, but I’m not converted. A tip from the host: an indicator but not a certainty that a wine is better is if it’s bottled at the estate it’s produced at. A tip I got from someone else: the further your thumb fits up the concavity in the base of the bottle, the better the wine because the bottle’s more expensive, and you wouldn’t put nasty wine in expensive bottles! n

Domaine de Tholomies Chardonnay/ Viognier 2013 £10 a bottle, £8.99 as part of a case. Iona Mr P Pinot Noir 2014 £12.95, £11.66 as part of case. Available from Connolly’s Wine Merchants Ltd, call 0121 236 3837 www.connollyswine.co.uk

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BUSINESS LUNCH bqlive.co.uk

New goal for Paul Why did former Aston Villa chief executive Paul Faulkner decide to become the new boss of Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce? Steve Dyson finds out over lunch “I don’t think I’ve ever been here,” says Paul Faulkner, looking around as we sit down in the Aria Bistro at the Hyatt Regency. “No, I have,” he corrects himself, pointing to a corner of the adjoining bar. “It was over there that Martin and I sat down with James Milner when we were signing him.”

For ‘Martin’, read Martin O’Neill, manager of Aston Villa from 2006 to 2010; and for the James Milner deal, read £12m, the fee Villa paid Newcastle for the England midfielder on 29 August 2008.

Those names and multi-million pound transfer fees typify the Premier League football world that Paul worked in from 2006 to 2014 at Aston

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Villa, the last four years as chief executive, a role he also held briefly at Championship club Nottingham Forest until earlier this year.

His memory leads naturally to my main question.

After nine years of managing professional football at such high levels, what attracted him to the arguably more mundane role of chief executive at Greater Birmingham Chamber of Commerce?

I mean, the Chamber’s a fine institution, and his appointment is a great, attention-grabbing catch. But isn’t it a bit, well, old-fashioned for a 37-year-old, when his youth and experience could have led to a future at a bigger club, or in the higher echelons of the FA or Premier League?

Paul is candid: “For me, the big priority for my next job was being in this region for family reasons. My older son, William, has cystic fibrosis, and is receiving great care at Birmingham Children’s Hospital, so it’s very important to me to be here.

“That helped narrow my choice of jobs. But it’s also personal reasons. I’ve done a lot of travelling in my life – I’ve had two stints working in the US, in London and in the North West.

And before that, my family was always travelling all over the country when I was a child [his dad, David, is a senior player in regional newspapers].

“I feel very anchored to the Midlands now.

I love it here. It’s a great balance of size and

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activity. London makes me feel claustrophobic.

Birmingham’s big enough to have an awful lot going on, but small enough to be at the centre of things. And it’s near space – the countryside – so you feel like you can live. A big city, but not choked up.”

These are fair points, especially the ongoing care for William, who’s nearly two. Paul adds that his wife, Jayne, is a doctor at Birmingham Women’s Hospital, and their second son, Thomas, was born three months ago, so his family roots are spreading at their Sutton Coldfield home.

But, I persist, these are all geographic not sector reasons, and there’s plenty of other top football clubs in and around the West Midlands. And given his senior status, surely he could have commuted to work elsewhere in some comfort?

It’s then that Paul hints at elements of football that he’s fallen out of love with: “For me, I was looking for a different opportunity. For example, the Forest role had its challenges… Don’t get me wrong, football was a wonderful, most interesting experience, but for me my next move wasn’t about staying in the game at all costs.”

I assume he’s referring to the well-known story

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that he left Forest after the club’s owners sacked team manager Stuart Pearce against his wishes.

But without going into specific details, he indicates this wasn’t the only reason, and that it was more about his overall discomfort at how things were being run.

He confides in me the names of other top clubs that approached him when he left Forest, but again infers that the way he’d started to feel about football as an industry meant he just didn’t fancy staying in the sector.

“I’d reached the stage where I had the flexibility to make a decision on the type of business I wanted to work for,” he says. “I want to be professional, and would not take a role for the wrong reason. It was also about working for good people. I just wasn’t desperate to stay in football at any costs.”

That’s as much as I can get Paul to talk about his departure from football, so what attracted him to the Chamber, which has around 80 staff and an annual turnover of about £6m?

He recalls: “They [the Chamber] approached me, and I thought: ‘That’s a bit different.’ It pricked my interest. It has a big membership

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“I want to be professional, and would not take a role for the wrong reason. It was also about working for good people. I just wasn’t desperate to stay in football at any costs”

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Aria Bistro, Hyatt Regency, Birmingham I love the Aria Bistro’s location: a few steps up from the Hyatt’s main entrance lobby, but still within the voluminous space of the ground floor atrium.

This creates the privacy of any huge building, which means private conversations cannot be heard by any other table. But it also allows for easy people-watching at one of Birmingham’s top venues. You can see who’s arriving and departing, who’s drinking coffee in the lounge, who’s drinking cocktails at the bar, and who’s walking up the sweeping staircases to meeting rooms above. There was a smallish choice from the set menu at lunch, but varied enough for most palates. Paul was happy with the freshness of his buffalo mozzarella, sat on a bed of assorted tomatoes and served with basil oil. Meanwhile, I enjoyed the juicy tuna in my Niçoise salad, nicely balanced with gamey quail egg, warm green beans and new potatoes, and the distinct taste of small black olives. For mains, Paul chose the chicken à la bonne femme – which means it’s in a creamy, mushroom and onion sauce – served with fennel salad. He said the meat was perfectly moist, and the portion filling but not too large for lunch. My bream fillet was served with roasted new potatoes, parsnips, peas and onion. The fish was pan-fried, creating a perfectly light crunch. The Aria’s two-course lunch is priced at £14.50 a head, which we thought was excellent value at such a nice venue, full-sized trees above our table adding to the airy atmosphere. We sipped French chardonnay (£7.50 a glass), which suited our chicken and fish well, and had nicely brewed coffees instead of desserts (three-course lunches are £19.50).

Aria Bistro, Hyatt Regency, 2 Bridge Street, Birmingham B1 2JZ. To book, call 0121 643 1234, email birmingham.regency@hyatt.com or visit birmingham.regency.hyatt.com

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component, not dissimilar to season ticket holders. And I’ve long been a passionate advocate for Birmingham and the West Midlands.

“At Villa, a member and patron on the Chamber, this was on the fringes. But here was a chance to really make things happen. Ideas start in your head. What we can and should do better. I decided to go for it, but to be quite bold about what I wanted to bring to the table.”

Paul makes a point of paying tribute to Jerry Blackett, the Chamber’s former chief executive who he succeeded: “He was the key person who sold the job to me. He’s someone I’ve respected for a number of years, and he continues to be a friend. I want to build on Jerry’s legacy.”

Tributes paid, he explains his mission: “I want to bring a different, fresher approach, and the board’s given me a mandate to do that. I’m looking to understand how we communicate – to members, the business community and the wider world. Our relevance.

“Most businesses are constantly evaluating costs, and so it’s crucial to make sure we’re in touch with the business community and representing them, understanding, listening and enticing people – we want people to come to us.”

Paul mentions my phrase “old-fashioned” and says he wants to “change that perception” by “refreshing our offering” to Chamber members. “It’s a great brand,” he says, “it’s 200 years old, everyone knows of it, even if they don’t know exactly what it does. And these are such exciting times in the region, which means there’s a really important space for the Chamber. We have to make sure our standards are super high so people say: ‘They’re really good at what they do.’”

I ask for more details about his “communications” plan, as the Chamber already has ex-Fleet Street journalist John Lamb leading its media team. John’s the director of press and PR, and is often the Chamber’s outof-hours front man for broadcast news, dealing

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BUSINESS LUNCH bqlive.co.uk

with daily press enquiries and editing the Chamber Link magazine.

Paul nods: “John does a great job and because of that we’ve got the links with traditional media. But we need to be revealing our digital offering – the web, social media – looking at how people are receiving and consuming content, and how we’re delivering it.”

Paul reveals the Chamber is about to appoint a director of marketing and communications, a new position alongside John’s to look at what he calls “softer communications”.

He says: “We need to modernise, making sure we really understand our membership base.

From sole traders to massive corporations, we

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“And these are such exciting times in the region, which means there’s a really important space for the Chamber. We have to make sure our standards are super high so people say: ‘They’re really good at what they do” need to look at every process, matching it up with what we can offer. The web has so many strands, and we have so many different brands.”

He’s right there. The Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce is the umbrella for a family of chambers: Birmingham, Solihull, Sutton, Chase, Lichfield and Tamworth, Burton, Future Faces, Asian Business, and the British-

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American Business Council.

“We’re trying to take stock of how we’re communicating all that and asking if it’s effective for us and our audience. It’s all part of a six month strategic review. What are we doing now? What are we not doing? What do we need to be doing? Then we’ll put a plan in place to maximise value for money, and to stabilise

18 October 2015

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BUSINESS LUNCH bqlive.co.uk

and extend membership.”

That membership figure currently stands at around 2,500 companies, which Paul says was pretty stable last year, with a “tiny” growth. But his goal is to be better at retention – reducing what’s currently far too high a churn – and therefore properly growing membership.

“We’ve come through the depths of the 2008 recession,” he says, “and the world is okay – there’s a good feeling around. And so there’s an opportunity to grow. There’s a lot of good work being done here. Thanks to Jerry, the Chamber’s really well connected, and its work with the chief executives of local authorities and the LEPs is really encouraging.

“The Chamber’s a natural facilitator, and we’ll continue to play that role. Things like HS2, the airport, HSBC’s relocation, the Kerslake report, international business – we’ve got to be a part of that, watching, listening and learning for our members. Making sure we’re helping the whole region seize the moment, delivering real change.” But on top of keeping all those plates spinning, Paul’s determined to improve the Chamber’s internal focus: “We need to improve those external perceptions, make more impact and grow our appeal to new members. That means being nimble, flexible, open, listening and connective. Being ‘mobile-optimised’, using the latest iPad and iPhone apps for effective messaging, keeping in tune with how businesses are communicating.

“Online, the Chamber needs to be up to speed – sharing with mobile and tablet users, with an outstanding desktop site. We’ve got to make sure that first perception is strong wherever people come across us – whether that’s Google+, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. “The experts say you’ve just seven seconds to grab someone’s attention online, for them to think: ‘This looks like an organisation I ought to be a part of.’ There’s good work going on behind the scenes at the Chamber, but those first impressions are crucial.”

Away from the Chamber, Paul’s committed to a number of other roles: he’s an associate non-executive director at Birmingham Children’s

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Hospital, and a trustee of Cure Leukaemia, Town Hall and Symphony Hall, and the Library of Birmingham Trust.

As for football, Paul grew up an ardent Norwich fan – after living near the club as a child when his dad worked at the Eastern Daily Press. He says this made life interesting when he had a number of run-ins with Norwich when leading Aston Villa.

“Your allegiences shift,” he reflects. “As a kid, you support your club and that’s it. So when we moved to Chester, I was a proud and committed Norwich fan. But you get immersed in work, and I’d now say I was a Villa fan. Villa v Norwich? I’d

be backing Villa, without a moment’s thought. I went to the FA Cup semi-final last season, and I have season tickets.

“I do miss some of the great people I worked with at Villa and Forest. I’m still in touch with people like Stuart Pearce, Paul Lambert and Gérard Houllier, various people at the FA, the Premier League, and some journalists.”

So would Paul go back to the game? “I’ve not thought about it. Not right now. I’m focused on the here and now. I’m relaxed about what the future will hold, but I’m genuinely excited about this role, getting stuck in and doing a real job for the Chamber.” n

18 October 2015

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EXECUTIVE TRAVEL bqlive.co.uk

From plush hotels with royal neighbours to perfectly-shaped budget rooms, BQ’s editor Steve Dyson reviews hotels in London and the North East

Dukes, Mayfair, London Imagine you’re standing in front of Buckingham Palace. Now, in your mind’s eye, turn right, cross the road and enter St James’s Park. Walk diagonally to the right edge and exit the park at the first footpath.

You’re now walking past St James’s Palace, which contains Clarence House and other royal apartments. Turn left, and you’re walking up St James’s Place, a small side road that ends with the splendid looking exterior of Dukes hotel.

And that’s where we stayed – five minutes brisk walk from the Queen’s gates and within shouting distance of Prince Charles, Princesses Anne and Alexandra. Royalists or not, it was thrilling to be at the centre of regal history.

We had pre-dinner cocktails at Dukes Bar, world famous for its martinis, and said to be the inspiration for James Bond author Ian Fleming’s classic line: “Shaken, not stirred.” It was a Tuesday, but the bar was full to brimming, as was my ‘Fleming 89’ cocktail – stiff with vodka, vermouth and rose liqueur.

We ate at Dukes’ Thirty-Six restaurant, where

chef Nigel Mendham serves British cuisine for £60 a head for three courses, including coffee.

My wife’s goats’ cheese flan with variations of beetroot and celery sorbet was “delicately refreshing”, while I enjoyed juicy white crab with avocado and pink grapefruit.

For mains, she sighed over a most tender rump of lamb with curried cauliflower, couscous, tomato, and portions of spiced lamb’s neck.

I sliced tasty portions of John Dory fish with clams, saffron, potato and sea herbs.

For dessert, Mrs D’s treat was rhubarb in vanilla mousse, honey and ginger, while I indulged in peanut crunch and parfait, with caramelised banana and sherbet.

We stayed in a junior suite where the bed quickly forms your body shape, meaning we slept soundly all night in the same position, and awoke perfectly rested.

DUKES is at 35 St. James’s Place, London SW1A 1NY, where rooms start from £295.

To book, call 0207 318 6576, email bookings@ dukeshotel.com or visit www.dukeshotel.com.

Hub by Premier Inn, Covent Garden, London Now I’m pretty tall and heavy, but I found this compact hotel an incredibly cosy stay. And for less than £80 in the heart of London, it’s great value. I’d always dreaded capsule-style hotels, but some clever designer at Premier Inn must have

EXECUTIVE TRAVEL bqlive.co.uk

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Hyatt Regency London – The Churchill After a busy day, the Hyatt’s staff suggested I should relax with a cocktail in The Churchill Bar and Terrace. The décor was designed with a young Winston and Clementine in mind: there are historic pictures, books and memorabilia on the shelves, and a life-size bronze of Churchill. This inspired my choice of the ‘Never Give In’ cocktail (£16), created with a ‘London at war’ theme in mind. The hotel’s own Sacred gin is mixed with Green Chartreuse liqueur (representing medicine for the warinjured) and absinthe (for courage), topped with smouldering rosemary (for purifying qualities). Stunning, and with a kick. The Montague restaurant, with two rosettes in the AA Guide, has an open kitchen so you can watch the head chef and assistants at work. I enjoyed Isle of Orkney scallops for starters, on black pudding with smoked pepper puree (£13). For mains, I had monkfish, a cod croquette, runner beans, mange-tout and leeks, covered in a herb sauce (£23). Deliciously good value. My suite’s balcony overlooked the picturesque locked gardens of Portman Square, which Hyatt guests can access for tennis or private jogs.

The suites are on the upper floors, where the Regency Club offers extra facilities including a boardroom, plus complimentary evening cocktails and canapés. The large business desk and high-speed Wi-Fi in my lounge was perfect for late night work.

Hyatt Regency London – The Churchill is at 30 Portman Square, London, W1H 7BH, where rooms start at £220. To book, call 020 7486 5800, email london.churchill@hyatt.com or visit www. london.churchill.hyatt.com

spent months making sure its Hub was just right for all shapes and sizes. There’s not nearly enough room to swing a cat. But the facilities are nifty. The entire bed base slides out for case, shoes and clothes; there’s a narrow but functional hanging space; a small but usable desk glides across the foot of the bed; and you never quite bang knees or head in the box-sized wet-room.

Not all rooms come with windows, although mine did. Nice for a view, but no way of opening it. It didn’t matter – the airconditioning was among the quietest and most effective I’ve had. I’m not sure the bed’s big enough for me to share, but I don’t plan to. Because that mattress and pillows – oh, that mattress and pillows! Magnificently soft, sumptuous – the type you want to snuggle up to all morning.

Hub by Premier Inn, Covent Garden, is at 110 St Martins Lane, London WC2N 4BA, where rooms start at £79 (‘saver rates’ only available online). To book, call 0333 321 3104 or visit www.premierinn.com

Seaham Hall, County Durham The taxi driver enjoyed telling his stories about Seaham Hall hotel: it was once a favourite party venue for local football stars and their Wags; there’s a nearby house that Paul ‘Gazza’ Gascoigne used to own; and that one, at the gates, is where Premier League referee Mark Clattenburg lives. Whatever the truth of his starstudded history, it leaves out the classier facts: Seaham Hall dates back to 1791, and was the former marital home of the poet Lord Byron.

The Georgian country house, in a striking clifftop location, is now an immaculately restored hotel and spa, with luxury and comfort wherever you look – the ‘Vortex’ water feature, the scenic gardens and stylish interiors. I had a business meeting over dinner in Byron’s Bar and Grill, where my guest and I enjoyed guinea fowl terrine and scallops, then braised rib tacos and sea bass with chorizo. This was served swiftly but with a personal touch, as was breakfast, cooked to individual tastes. The popular spa looked luxurious, and although I didn’t partake in the pool or pampering sessions, I saw numerous relaxed guests in bathrobes on the terrace.

Seaham Hall only has suites, and my ‘junior’ version was voluminous, easily containing its table and armchairs, large desk, roll-topped bath, huge bed and spacious bathroom. The mattress was soft and springy, the pillows a dream, and the air-conditioning was easily shut off.

Seaham Hall Hotel and Spa is on Lord Byron's Walk, County Durham, SR7 7AG, where suites start at £295. To book, call 0191 516 1400, email hotel@seaham-hall.com. www.seaham-hall.com

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FASHION bqlive.co.uk

Turning Japanese You can act your age with some timeless classics, explains Josh Sims In Japan, Nick Clements notes, they call it ‘dad’s style’. It has also been referred to as ‘revival’ style, or ‘heritage’ style. None of these terms sound especially complimentary, but they are apt summaries of what draws a man towards a particular clothing aesthetic - one, in fact, which has all the in-crowd knowingness of a sartorial sub-culture akin to that of Mod or Teddy Boy, albeit without the underpinning shared love of a certain type of music. Rather, what fans of heritage style are perhaps most drawn to is the authenticity that the many clothing brands and manufacturing companies which fall under this wide umbrella term are founded in, even if many of them have little authenticity in themselves, having been established over more recent years.

But what they all at least aspire - even those that lack much history - is a respect for the menswear of the past, by which most probably mean after

the early 1900s and before the 1960s.

This, after all, was the golden age of menswear, during which its canon was formed - all of those iconic garments that have come to form the basis of the entire men’s casual wardrobe, some of them originating in a single maker, all of them endlessly copied ever since. ‘Heritage’ says it all in its appreciation of both those brands and those styles of clothing that have a long past.

But ‘dad’s style’? Clements is the founder and editor of ‘Men’s File’, arguably the leading journal of heritage and revival style, as likely to be found in the right kind of menswear store as in a newsagent’s. A photographer by trade, he began shooting this burgeoning sub-culture before it really had a name. But, as a middle-aged man, he liked what he saw. “There’s a reason why revival clothing is so appealing: it works, it’s so comfortable, and it’s not childish. That’s why

the Japanese call it ‘dad’s style’. It’s not being a 50-year-old dressed as a 15-year-old. It’s claiming an area of style that, thankfully, has nothing to do with fashion trends.”

Indeed, heritage style looks to the past not only because, as its exponents will vouchsafe, the clothes are so timeless, operating at a level that is supra-fashion - some of the founding makers will be well-known to many, but many of the modern makers will be known to just the few - but because period designs tend to be highly functional, even excessively so given most 21st century men’s actual needs. “That’s a very male thing - we just love over-specced things that go on and on,” says Hitoshi Tsujimoto, the founder of Real McCoy’s, one of the most eminent of new heritage brands, specialising in both reproductions and gently improved versions of menswear classics. “We’re not really going to go

FASHION bqlive.co.uk

“There’s a reason why revival clothing is so appealing: it works, it’s so comfortable, and it’s not childish. That’s why the Japanese call it ‘dad’s style’”

down 300m under the water, even if our watches can. Professional cameras, four-wheel drive cars they’re all a bit of dreaming for men. Most of it is so tough, it will outlast us. Still, at least that way we’re making good presents for our sons one day. Well, it’s a good excuse anyway...”

Tell-tale characteristics of heritage pieces might include a high prevalence of reinforced seams and pockets, for example, of easy fits - it is rare to find a pair of trousers, for instance, that is tight or has a low rise - and of hard-wearing fabrics the likes of leather, duck, chambray, cotton drill and, above all, denim. These are not only fabrics that one can live in, actively, without fear that they cannot take the abuse, they are

fabrics that actually get better the older they get.

“The important thing is that this is not just a fashion to these people - often it’s a way of life,” notes Horst Friedrichs, a photographer who has won a reputation for his documentary approach to charting clothing culture, including denimheads. “You get a feeling for these cultures.

Talk to stylists - by which I mean people who really style themselves - and they’re recognising something shared with others. And when you’re dealing with a community brought together by the love of a particular fabric, then of course you meet some very geeky people. Certainly one might say it’s odd to be obsessed with one fabric - there’s no music to go with it, no cars. But these

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people absolutely love it, the colour, the craft...”

The workmanship certainly is there in heritage style - not least because the market has, until recently, been driven by makers in Japan, with its culturally-ingrained focus on detail and, yes, authenticity, and its perhaps surprising postWorld War Two enthusiasm for Americana. But also because - especially with younger heritage brands - one standard they typically all work to is to ensure that their products are as well made as the historic originals to which they are paying homage. Those on the outside might wonder why anyone might pay what can seem an exorbitant amount for, say, a simple grey marl sweatshirt when, superficially at least, the same garment can be had for a fraction of the price.

“Food is a good comparison here,” argues Roy Slaper, a leading figure among the breed of artisanal denim makers who have found their niche over the last decade. “To the person who survives on a diet of fast food, the discussion of organic or ethical food is abstract and suspect.

He points to the hamburger he likes costing $3 and says only a fool would pay more. But you could get a $15 hamburger on the same street.

And our jeans are the $15 hamburger. The machines I use are special. The methods I use are special. The materials I use are special.

These aren’t even perceivable to the fastclothing customer.”

That isn’t to say that, at the heart of heritage, there isn’t a love of dressing up. Quite the contrary. It is for this reason maybe that many of its fans truly are devoted, adhering to their style not only regardless of the changes of fashion, but also the changes of season. The heritage dresser who favours heavy denims, engineer’s boots, white cap-sleeved t-shirts and a biker jacket is likely to wear the same whatever the weather.

There are limits to this appreciation for the old time feeling, “It’s why an old Rolex can just feel better than a new one, but you don’t want a pocket watch, why an old Mercedes has a certain essence to it, but you don’t want a horse and cart,” says Tsujimoto. And there is the risk of one’s wardrobe looking more akin to costume than to everyday, tough menswear.

“You can overdo it. You become a pastiche of a pastiche of a pastiche,” as Clements warns.

“There are times when I’ve looked like a lost extra from a period movie, which for some people is perhaps a way of saying ‘leave me alone’, even while attracting attention to yourself.” n

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SUCCESS STORY bqlive.co.uk

Made in the Black Country

SUCCESS STORY bqlive.co.uk

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Business leader Stewart Towe says the Black Country is the powerhouse of manufacturing, and therefore a crucial partner in the emerging West Midlands Combined Authority. John Duckers reports

The essence of the Black Country is unchanged from hundreds of years ago when foundries and steelworks were pouring out fire and smoke: it remains wedded to manufacturing.

And Stewart Towe, chairman of the Black Country Local Enterprise Partnership and managing director of Hadley Group, one of Europe’s largest privately owned cold rolled steel producers, is Black Country through and through. Out comes a tale to illustrate the point: “The worst thing you can do when you have bought a new machine is to give a Black Country engineer the instructions book. Let him play with it for a few days and he will find things that machine can do which aren’t even in the instructions book.

“In Germany they wouldn’t even let you turn the machine on without reference to the instructions book. That is why there is so much innovation and technical expertise in the Black Country.

It demonstrates what the Black Country is all about.”

And it makes things the world wants: Hadley Group exports 30% of its production. As David Cameron once noted: “Made in the Black Country, sold around the world isn’t just a

slogan, it’s a reality.”

Of course Birmingham folk have for years enjoyed gently belittling Black Country ‘yam yams’. So has the jealousy dissipated or does Birmingham still look down its nose at the Black Country? Stewart likes to describe the relationship in hub and spoke terms – Birmingham is the hub while the Black Country and Coventry and Warwickshire are the spokes in the wheel. Both need each other.

Hadley Group’s Smethwick headquarters is a hundred yards from the Birmingham ‘border’ and Stewart claims he can be in the city centre within six minutes. But he acknowledges historical enmities: “The Black Country feared Birmingham domination.”

Only in the last five years have attitudes changed, but he believes Birmingham has got the message.

“The Black Country is still really a collection

“So has the jealousy dissipated or does Birmingham still look down its nose at the Black Country?”

of villages; Birmingham is an urban centre.

Conceptually they are completely different. But that need not stop the two working together in a genuinely equal partnership.”

After all, the Black Country LEP area has a 1.1 million population; just down on Estonia’s 1.3 million. Of course ‘partnership’ is currently the buzz word given the creation of the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA). I put it to him that the WMCA – he will be among a 10-strong board – is a mess.

Coventry and Solihull with no real enthusiasm are only getting involved because of Government blackmail – ‘work together or there’s no money’.

Birmingham, the second city, doesn’t even get a mention in the title of the new body. But there will be no big transfer of powers from Whitehall without an elected mayor, which is anathema to some, who fear Birmingham would then inevitably call the shots.

Stewart’s argument is that the system has to work on two levels – locally, so people understand and embrace what is happening on the ground, and on a wider overview, cooperating on cross-regional issues like economic development, transport and skills.

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SUCCESS STORY bqlive.co.uk

He says: “Yes, we are playing catch-up in terms of Greater Manchester, but we understand each other better and we are working more closely together. This is not about a further level of bureaucracy on top of what already exists.”

And the same applies in terms of relationships between the LEPs. Stewart rejects any need for a WMCA-style amalgamation of LEPS, saying economic development in Birmingham, the Black Country and Coventry is in many respects quite distinctive. There is still much to be done both for the West Midlands and the Black Country.

There is a £16bn output gap between the West Midlands and the national average. The corresponding figure for the Black Country is £8.1bn. And the Black Country lags the national average on skills, jobs, business creation, health and deprivation. But Stewart argues that the gap is closing with, for example, recent employment figures for the West Midlands in advance of the country as a whole. And there are some encouraging Black Country statistics: a marked reduction in the percentage of people with no qualifications over 10 years to 2014 (-11.9%);

“Yes, we are playing catch-up in terms of Greater Manchester, but we understand each other better and we are working more closely together” manufacturing jobs stand at 68,600 and are at a five-year high; and schools have a higher proportion of students who achieve A* and A grades in STEM subjects than both the national and regional average.

Stewart reels off a host of initiatives being put in place: He points to the availability of oven-ready sites and skills if companies are to be persuaded to set up new factories. But there is clearly a problem with the former. i54 only worked because regional development agency Advantage West Midlands had cleared all the contamination prior to its demise. But contamination still blights its other major enterprise zone, the James Bridge Copper Works in Darlaston. Three years on and not a company is operating there; it could be another two before they are. It’s an example of how an important regional development authority function has gone to waste, with no equivalent body picking it up adequately. n

Stewart Towe Stewart Towe was born and bred in Dudley but it was a stuttering start to business life.

A year at North Staffordshire Polytechnic convinced him he didn’t want to be a lawyer. He decided instead to get out there and earn money. So he signed articles with accountants Farmiloe & Co. At the same time he was working for Littlewoods pools: “I was a door-to-door salesman. It does not get any harder in the tough areas of Dudley.”

Hadley Group was a Farmiloe & Co audit client; he got the opportunity to join in 1976 on completion of his final exams and was appointed to the main board two years later. It had a turnover of £1m; now it is £2m a week. Founded in 1964, when the Beatles were in their heyday, Phil Hadley Senior started out in tiny back street premises. In 2005, Phil Hadley Junior decided to retire, went to live in Thailand, and no-one in the family wanted to take it on.

Stewart already owned 20%, and was able to buy the rest.

The 2008 recession was brutal: “We went down to a four-day week and at times a three-day week. The attitude was: ‘We are all in this together.’ We went from £95m turnover to £73m, but we still made a £3m profit. We cut costs. We made the business as lean and mean as possible.” In the financial year to April 30, 2015 turnover had risen to £104m – the first time through the £100m barrier – and profits were £6.5m. Employing 550 people Hadley Group also has premises in Dubai, Germany, Thailand and a small office in France. It won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise: Innovation in 2006 and again in 2014. Awarded a CBE in the 2008 Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to West Midlands industry, Stewart has an amazing accumulation of roles and posts. He is chair of governors at Bromsgrove School; Pro-Chancellor of Wolverhampton University, chair of governors at Sandwell Academy; a former High Sheriff of the West Midlands and a Deputy Lieutenant of the West Midlands. Yet he has time for hobbies. One is horse riding: his wife, Anne, developed an equestrian centre, Stourport Riding School, at the 85-acre family farm, which specialises in disabled groups and children. His daughter, Gemma, aged 30, now runs it. Rugby is another interest – he is an ex-player and youth team coach at Stourbridge RFC. His son, Ben, aged 35, is deputy managing director at Hadley Group. Aged 63, Stewart notes: “The intention is to stay a privately-run family firm. The plan is for my son to step up in the next two to three years and I will kick myself upstairs to chairman.

PROFILE WMG

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The emerging cyber threat and its impact on UK industry Barely a week goes by without a major breach of company data being reported in the press. The repercussions of such an attack are not restricted to the cost of investigation and reparation of systems, but companies can also be fined and, perhaps more significantly, customers can lose confidence. With an increasing amount of data stored electronically, a question arises whether we are properly protecting this data, or indeed equipped to do so.

The businesses under threat aren’t of a particular size or type – it is clear that almost all business data has value to some hacker wishing to gain access. The Government recognised the issue, and the need for protection, and developed a Cyber Security Strategy to address these issues. The vision for 2015 has four objectives: The UK to tackle cyber crime and be one of the most secure places in the world to do business in cyberspace; The UK to be more resilient to cyber attacks and better able to protect our interests in cyberspace; The UK to have helped shape an open, stable and vibrant cyberspace which the UK public can use safely and that supports open societies; The UK to have the cross-cutting knowledge, skills and capability it needs to underpin all our cyber security objectives. This final objective is a key component in ensuring the other three can be achieved.

The strategy has been significantly funded, though many would argue that it has not been enough, and there should be reflection on whether this vision has been achieved. Each and every business in the UK with a digital presence will be able to form an opinion on whether the first and final objectives have been successful.

Achieving the vision in such a short space of time is a significant challenge. One of the main reasons for this is that we have many operating systems, system configurations, devices and software that simply have not been designed with security in mind. Hence we are in a position where we not only have to ensure that any systems we develop are appropriately secured, but we also need to repair systems that were not built robustly enough in the first place, and any fallout from breaches on those systems. This requires a significant wealth of talent; and it is clear the world, never mind the UK, has a significant shortfall.

In a recent study, 56 per cent of those participating

Professor Carsten Maple, WMG, University of Warwick

felt their organisations had too few people with the necessary cyber skills to manage the current workload, and nearly half of the respondents admitted that this shortage is having an impact on their customers. We are making great strides now in addressing these issues, and hopefully, over time, we will have a larger talent pool from which to draw.

These strategies, however, are longer term and will not have an impact in addressing current need.

The most recent (ISC)2 Global Information Security Workforce Study, projects the workforce in Cyber Security to double within five years, with 11 percent year on year growth. Universities have a significant role to play in assisting delivering the necessary talent to industry and government. To do this, they must ensure that their curricula are not solely developed based upon existing skills or interests of academic staff, but recognise the needs of industry and an understanding of the emerging landscape.

Recent work led by the Council of Professors and Heads of Computing and (ISC)2 will see that Computer Science courses that are accredited by the professional bodies, must cover cyber security. There are over 100 MSc courses in cyber security related areas in the UK, and for businesses to understand

which are the best to put their staff onto, or to recruit students from, is not easy. GCHQ, the Government’s signals intelligence and information assurance agency, recently considered the relevance and quality of Masters degrees in Cyber Security, and they have certified 12 courses in the UK. These initiatives by Government, professional bodies, academia and industry are all steps in achieving the vision for a secure cyberspace.

However, much more needs to be done to halt the rising tide.

Universities that have certified courses include Oxford, Royal Holloway, Imperial College and Warwick. The University of Warwick has two courses that are provisionally certified by GCHQ.

If you are interested in collaborating with WMG contact our Business Development Team on (024) 765 75935 or email wmgbusiness@warwick.ac.uk.

Visit go.warwick.ac.uk/wmg

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ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

Based in and around the West Midlands’ most beautiful countryside, Dr Emma Philpott leads a collection of companies concentrating on digital security. Frank Holwell reports from ‘Cyber Valley’

Uniting against the threat

ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

For most people, mention the spa town of Malvern in Worcestershire and you evoke bucolic scenes of the rolling hills which flank it.

For others, the town is best-known for its most famous son, the composer Sir Edward Elgar.

Few will instantly think of Malvern as a hotbed of technical innovation. But this is where dozens of companies have formed a cyber security cluster, renowned both in the UK and beyond.

This unusual blend of scientific know-how ensconced in a rural idyll began in the Second World War, when Britain’s radar experts were moved – for safety and security reasons – from the south coast to the Worcestershire spa town.

This core of knowledge and intelligence has remained in Malvern ever since, in various guises.

Its most recent incarnation is the Malvern Cyber Security Cluster, a group of more than 50 cyber security SMEs based around Malvern, but with members in Herefordshire and Gloucestershire.

The group co-operates on a range of initiatives to grow their cyber security businesses.“For many years Malvern had the highest number of PhDs per square mile of anywhere in the country,” says Dr Emma Philpott, founder and manager of the Malvern Cyber Security Cluster, which was created in 2011.“With the area’s technological past, its current wealth of experts and the fact that GCHQ is down the road, it’s created a kind of historic perfect storm.” Cyber security is an increasingly important issue for businesses, big and small; in the 30 days up to 5 January 2015, there were more than 12 million reported cyber attacks around the world, according to the HackerWatch website run by McAfee Inc. What’s more, only 10% of attacks are actually reported, according to Encription Ltd, an information-technology security firm in nearby Kidderminster, and a member of the Malvern Cyber Security Cluster. A 2013 report, entitled the Competitive analysis of the UK cyber security sector, commissioned by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), estimated the UK cyber security sector to be worth almost £2.8bn, forecast to reach over £3.4bn by 2017.

That represents an annual growth rate of 5.7%, whereas the total IT market in the UK is set to grow by only 2.1% in the same period.

“The BIS report showed that 14% of the cyber security businesses in the UK are within a small geographic region referred to by Government as ‘Cyber Valley’, which runs from Malvern in the north down either side of the River Severn through Cheltenham, Gloucester and Bristol and

across to Newport and Cardiff.

A materials scientist by profession, Dr Emma Philpott and her husband Adrian moved to Malvern from Singapore four years ago.

“Everyone was working in cyber security and they didn’t know each other, so I just thought ‘let’s all meet up,’” she recalls.

“It was just an informal, free meeting – no tone of reference or minutes – and as soon as they met they were sparking off each other.

“It’s a strange environment, because they tend to work on secret projects so they’re not able to talk to lots of people, or others just won’t understand what they’re working on.“Most of them have too much work, so just finding partners can be difficult – that’s where the cluster helps; there haven’t been any competition issues, it’s more about ‘let’s work together’.

The success of the Malvern cluster sparked interest from both the UK government and other

“With the area’s technological past, its current wealth of experts and the fact that GCHQ is down the road, it’s created a kind of historic perfect storm” cyber companies around the country. There are now 16 cyber clusters around the UK, all run from Malvern by Dr Philpott and her team.

Dr Philpott also helped to establish an umbrella organisation, the UK Cyber Security Forum, with over 300 small companies in the network.

She is also CEO of cyber security company IASME Consortium Ltd, which offers an information assurance management standard for small companies. Certification to this standard shows that the business is implementing at least the basic requirements of cyber security.

The company is based at the National Cyber Skills Centre, which runs a range of Cyber Essentials courses, a government-backed, industry supported scheme to help organisations protect themselves against common cyber attacks.

Worcestershire County Council’s recognition of the region’s excellence in the field is highlighted in its Growing Cyber programme of tailored training and support for small and mediumsized Worcestershire-based businesses.“The clusters and forum give companies visibility,” says Dr Philpott. ”The biggest problem for small companies is getting security clearance,

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because you usually have to be a big company, so companies can’t even see the bid documents because they’re not cleared – it’s a major barrier.

“Last autumn I signed a memorandum of understanding with a big trade association called ADS and they now sponsor security clearance for any company in the UK Cyber Security Forum, which is brilliant.” As well as the growing risk of companies’ accounts being hacked, the government’s Cyber Essentials certification will soon be mandatory if companies wish to apply for government contracts.

“Cyber security is one of the few areas that has had an increase in budget throughout the recession,” says Dr Philpott. “It’s classified as a ‘Tier 1’ security threat – the same level as terrorism. “It’s a bit like selling insurance because you say ‘you might get hacked’; soon there will be EU legislation about mandatory reporting, so if you have a breach you will have to report it. At the moment you would not believe the amount of data and money going out that companies stay quiet about.”

“If you’re a small company and you want advice on cyber security you don’t go to a big multinational, you go to the small company that is just as knowledgeable but they’re down the road and probably not as expensive.” Dr Philpott says she is increasingly seeing a wider range of companies interested in cyber security that are keen on speaking to members of the cluster.

“The sector’s booming and the companies here are some of the most exciting. At the moment the only reason they’re not conquering the world is because of all the barriers – the way government and companies procure things does tend to favour big companies. If someone wants a solution to cyber security, either you have to contact a big company or try and find lots of small companies and patch it together yourself.

“We’re looking at a way of small companies working together. n

Useful links Malvern Cyber Security Cluster: www.malvern-cybersecurity.com Worcestershire County Council’s Growing Cyber programme: www.business-central.co.uk/growingcyber Cyber Essentials: www.cyberskillscentre.com/essentials/

BIT OF A CHAT

Bill Borde’s examining the news behind the headlines Boing, boing…

A father and daughter team has opened the West Midlands’ first trampoline park, complete with the UK’s first 12D cinema.

Businessman Ian Clarke and his daughter Kerry have invested about £200,000 in their new venture called Boing Zone, at Unit E3, The Stourbridge Estate, Mill Race Lane, Stourbridge.

The venue, which has 5,000 sq ft of connected trampolines, a Dodgeball trampoline court, tumble track, training area, foam pit, and a viewing and café area, will employ 10 full-time and 20 part-time staff.

Ian said: “It’s a new concept for the UK, providing a very safe, fully supervised and stimulating environment enabling users to have fun and keep physically fit.”

7th girlie heaven A recent recruitment drive at Birmingham’s Hotel LaTour has resulted in all seven members of the management team being female. General manager Jane Riley said: “It wasn’t our intention to create an all-girl team, but the ladies stood out and were the natural choice, with the right experience, skillsets and attitudes.”

Hotel LaTour, which has 174 bedrooms near Millennium Point, recently won ‘excellent’ ratings from Trip Advisor, Booking.com, Trivago and Hotels.com.

Ainsley eats Sabai I hear that Sabai Sabai, Birmingham’s popular Thai restaurant that regularly hosts BQ’s Business Lunch interviews, is set to star on BBC One’s new Len and Ainsley Eat Britain show.

Celebrity chef Ainsley Harriot and Strictly Come Dancing judge Len Goodman visited Sabai Sabai’s Harborne venue in July as part of their series touring UK restaurants lauded for international cuisine.

I understand the show, which sees Sabai Sabai owners Juree and Torquil Chidwick serve Ainsley and Len to their tasty garlic and pepper sea bass dish, will air in February 2016.

You’re in the Army now Birmingham firm Glide Utilities sent all 59 of its workers camping with the Army to help develop teamwork and leadership skills. The two-day course with the 11 Signals Brigade in Shropshire saw staff camping in military shelters with rations, and dealing with challenges like emergency battlefield casualties, weapons handling and minefield crossing. James Villarreal, co-founder at Glide Utilities, said: “Army training is challenging, exhausting, but also exciting.

People in the army are some of the best leaders in the world, so this will help progress us all individually and grow the company.” Glide’s offering an additional ten days paid holiday to any staff signing up to the Reserves.

Rethinking nightclubs Changes in licensing laws, cheap supermarket alcohol, social media and security have created a perfect storm that’s killing off traditional night clubs. That’s the view of Neil Morten, managing director of Staffordshire-based GMP Design, which specialises in the pub, club and leisure sector. Morten said the industry needed to completely re-think the nightclub concept and come up with venues which could attract people throughout the week, and not just late on Saturday nights.

He said: “The traditional nightclub concept has had its day. We need sophisticated venues which can be high-end cocktail bars and good restaurants by day and early evening, with small, exclusive and intimate night club areas for late night clubbers.”

MADE

The Entrepreneur Festival: Sheffield

Sheffield City Hall madefestival.com 22 October 2015 9.00am – 6.00pm

Standard entry: £50

Annabel Karmel MBE Entrepreneurship is not a part-time job.

It’s not even a full-time job. It’s a lifestyle.

BOOK YOUR PLACE NOW 0191 389 8502 Event Sponsors: Audio & Visual Partner:

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Delivered by:

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EVENTS BQ’s business diary helps you forward plan

SEPTEMBER

30 The GAP Arts Project, The Great Brum Grub Crawl, 5.30-9pm, Venues tbc, Birmingham. £15. Book at

10 GBCC Business Breakfast with Mark Rogers, chief executive,

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/

Birmingham City Council, 7.30-10am, City Centre Venue,

Birmingham, TBC. £15 members, £22.50 non-members.

OCTOBER

0121 607 1772, events@birmingham-chamber.com

11 Solihull Chamber, Enterprising Women, 12-2.30pm,

Ardencote Manor Hotel, Lye Green Road, Claverdon,

Warwick, CV35 8LT. £20 members, £33.33 non-members.

0121 678 7488, solevents@solihull-chamber.com

15 Solihull Chamber, Need 2 Know - About Project

Management, 9.30am-12pm, Solihull College, Blossomfield

Road, Solihull, B91 1SB. £12.50 members, £20 non-

members. 0121 678 7488, solevents@solihullchamber.com

16 The GAP Arts Project, The Great Brum Grub Crawl, 5.30-

9pm, Venues tbc, Birmingham. £15. Book at

www.eventbrite.co.uk/

18 GBCC Lichfield Business Connect Breakfast, 7-9.30am,

Lichfield Rugby Club, Cooke Fields, Tamworth Road,

Lichfield, Staffordshire, WS14 9JE. £8.33. 08450 710 191,

c.plant@chase-chamber.com

23 GBCC British American Business Council: Meet the Experts,

9am-2pm, BABC, Chamber of Commerce, 75 Harborne

Road, Birmingham, B15 3DH. Free. 0121 607 1938,

h.grice@birmingham-chamber.com

28 Solihull Chamber, Central Fusion Business Networking

Event, 6-8pm, National Motorcycle Museum, Coventry

Road, Bickenhill, B92 0EJ. Free members. 0121 678 7488,

solevents@solihull-chamber.com

28 IoD West Midlands: Step to the Top Workshop, 8-11am,

Birmingham Science Park, Faraday Wharf, Birmingham, B7

4BB. £50 members, £100 non-members. 0121 643 1868,

sue.hurrell@iod.com

05 IoD West Midlands: Big Data - What this Means for

Everyday Business, 8-11am, KPMG Birmingham, One

Snowhill Queensway, Birmingham, B4 6GH. 0121

643 1868, sue.hurrell@iod.com

06 UBBC Breakfast Briefing: International Business

Challenges, 7.30-9am, Birmingham Research Park,

Vincent Drive, Birmingham, B15 2SQ.

businessteam@bham.ac.uk

07 GBCC Access to Finance, 9-11am, Birmingham

Chamber of Commerce, 75 Harborne Road,

Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 3DH. Free members,

£10 non-members. 0121 607 1772,

events@birmingham-chamber.com

08 IoD West Midlands: Future Energy - Keeping the

Lights On, 7.30-9am, The Technocentre, Coventry

University, Puma Way, Coventry, CV1 2TT. £10

members, £15 non-members. 0121 643 1868,

sue.hurrell@iod.com

09 GBCC Professional Networking Lunch, 12.15

2pm, Drayton Manor Hotel, Tamworth, B78 3TW.

£18 members, £25 non-members. 08450 710 191,

c.plant@chase-chamber.com

14 Young Entrepreneurs Conference, 2-6pm, MAC

Birmingham, Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham,

B12 9QH. Email contact@biscapp.com or visit

www.biscapp.com

22 MADE: The entrepreneur Festival 2015, Sheffield

City Hall, 9am-6pm, www.madefestival.com

BQ’s business events diary gives you lots of time to forward plan. To add your event, email details to steve.dysonmedia@gmail.com, with ‘BQ events page’ as the email subject heading.

Please check with contacts beforehand that arrangements have not changed. Events organisers are also asked to notify us at the above email address of any changes or cancellations as soon as they are known.

KEY: BBBC, Birmingham Business Breakfast Club. GBCC, Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce. IoD, Institute of Directors. UBBC, University of Birmingham Business Club.

The diary is updated daily online at bqlive.co.uk

THE UK’S INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LEAGUE

IP 10 0

THE IP100 - RECOGNISING THE VALUE OF IP IN YOUR BUSINESS BQ Magazine is delighted to announce the launch of the Intellectual Property (“IP”) League Table and the IP100, compiled in association with Metis Partners, an award-winning IP solutions firm The IP League Table will profile and rank innovative companies within the UK’s private sector, highlighting those businesses which have significantly invested in their IP in the form of IP creation, IP management policies, R&D activities and IP commercialisation. The top-scoring companies will be published in the IP100, an annual ranking of companies that are considered to be the most effective at commercialising their IP assets. The ranking process involves an assessment of IP-specific data linked to the following IP asset classes: brands, software, patents, trade secrets and critical databases. A proprietary scorecard will be applied to calculate an IP score, and the IP100 team will rank companies based on the results.

The IP League Table will give companies the platform to get recognition for the value of their IP, whether using IP to: • Boost the exit valuation of a business • Improve access to new markets • Protect existing market share • Create new barriers to entry IP also has the ability to play an important role in transforming funding options available to businesses. The IP League Table will enable companies to showcase their investment in intellectual property and potentially leverage the associated value to raise finance and restructure debt.The IP League Table is open to all UK companies and is FREE TO ENTER.

ENTER THE IP100 NOW The IP100 is open to all UK companies to enter and details about the process as well as the information

Enter now at www.bqlive.co.uk/IP100

required can be found at www.bqlive.co.uk/IP100