Steve Parks

Interesting.

As mentioned in the previous post I'm on the train home from london. The train staff found that one young lad didn't have a valid ticket, and didn't have any way of paying them 94 quid... so when we arrived at the next station the police were waiting and took him off the train.

So it seems that if a private business is having difficulty collecting payment from its customers, then the police are only too keen to help. Perhaps you'd like to give them a ring with your list of overdue invoices and see what response you get?!

Hopefully the guy who was sat behind me on the train (see previous post) will be able to draft them in to help him collect that 290k his company was owed by a major bank.

Or is it different when a small business isn't paid by a big business, to when a big business isn't paid by a poor black teenager?

I'm on the train back from London and as my laptop battery is flat (and the train's onboard sockets aren't working) I have a rare opportunity to sit back and just think.

As with many people at the moment my mind is turning to the economy and in my case what it means for entrepreneurs. (Yet again i'm overhearing business mobile conversations about late payments from clients etc - 'how much is outstanding?' the bloke behind me has just asked his colleague on the phone)

So, putting my neck on the block, here's my forecast for 2009:

(disclaimer: I don't know anything, I have no expertise, I'm just guessing and giving my gut feel, and none of this is revolutionary)

1. There will be no upturn in the UK in 2009, I believe that will start slowly in 2010 and take build very slowly and cautiously from there.

2. America may start some recovery next year because of the Obama effect - if his luck/judgment/steadiness holds.

3. I believe there will be an unprecedented number of business startups in the second half of 2009 and throughout 2010. It will be this activity that leads us out of recession. The entrepreneurs can save the day.

4. I think China will begin to subtly increase it's political and economic influence - it is the largest creditor to the USA, holding over 10% of the US government's debt. It has huge reserves of dollars. America needs to keep China very happy, but doesn't like being in that position and may react badly. This will lead to increasing tensions and possibly some trade standoffs that could affect us all, or prolong the US recession, which would also affect us all.

5. China will use the situation in the next couple of years to make some significant corporate acquisitions. This will accelerate the fact that this is going to be their century.

6. Saving money will be the number one hotbutton for customers. If your marketing isn't yet geared around that, think how you can move that way. It will become a strange kind of cool to be the smartest at cutting back and boast about bargains.

7. Lots of small businesses will fold, those that survive will be forced to cut jobs.

8. In the long run small businesess will benefit from the reduced competition as their competitors fold, and their growth will restart the job market.

(interlude...apparently the company the bloke behind me works for is owed 290k by a bank he named, but I won't. Ouch!)

9. UK interest rates will reach 1.5%, and the banks will still hog most of the reduction, slowing the recovery with their greed (but ironically they would actually do better by passing it on and benefiting from the recovery)

10. There will be an awful lot of redundancies in the first quarter of 2009. If I had to make a guess i'd say 400,000 in that quarter. A lot of them will come from retailers that had a bad christmas. Most will come from financial services - especially once Lloyds completes its takeover of HBOS.

Anyone fancy escaping to a remote island for the next 5 years?

That said, I've mainly been setting out the bad stuff here - there are actually lots of good opportunities that will emerge, and you can still build a good business in this climate, it might just have to be quite different from the way it is now. I'll be talking more about that in other blog posts.

I'm at the Intercontinental hotel on Park Lane in London for a dinner hosted by Allan Leighton, chairman of Royal Mail and Selfridges, and formerly chairman of Lastminute.com and CEO of ASDA.

Robert Peston of the BBC has spoken about the emerging economic crisis, and how he realised we were in trouble when he interviewed the head of a banking divison specialising in credit derivatives. €t became clear as Robert tried to get him to explain these products in language a granny could understand that he himself didn'lt really understand them - or their risk profile. It all went downhill from there.

Then Allan Leighton, Sir Stuart Rose (CEO M&S), and Val Gooding (former CEO of BUPA, now on the boards of the BBC, Sainsbury's, and Standard Chartered bank) took to the stage. The discussion was chaired by Jon Snow of Channel 4 News.

It was a very interesting discussion, including the plight of Woolworths and the wider economy - but what became clear was that the essence of good leadership is even more important in bad times.

As Stuart Rose said: "People are looking for leadership, someone to give them a direction, a purpose - and if you stand up and give them that they, on the whole, will loyally follow you anywhere."

Gordon Brown has taken to the stage now. He says now is the time we need entrepreneurs more than ever, as 'the only people who can create value in the current economy'.

He says...

The opportunities for enteprise are now endless because the market is now global. While this is a difficult time, we can work with the international community for common ends.....

This is the first financial crisis of the global age, and it's highlighted that we are a global economy now and need to collaborate with our international partners. But if we can solve them together we can build a better society and the opportunities for entrepreneurs will be greater than ever before....

"My father always said that everyone has a talent, and everyone should be challenged to use that talent."

He's also just told a story to try to engage the younger part of the audience. Apparantly he was sat next to Nelson Mandela at his birthday concert in London, and had to keep explaining who each of the acts were (who had explained it to him?). He says he had difficulty when it came to Amy Winehouse to explain all the elements of why she was famous - especially as Amy apparantly said backstage that her husband and Mandela had a lot in common. And during the rendition of 'free nelson mandela' she sang 'free blakey-my-husband'!

There's not a lot of substance in this speech - no policy - but it's interesting, and he has the attention of the audience. He's certainly become a much better speaker than he used to be. No script, just some scribbled notes. A few jokes, a few inspiring stories. He seemed relaxed, and the speech went down well.

UPDATE: Here's the YouTube video of his speech:

I've just facilitated a debate in this afternoon's event to launch Enterprise Week.

Following the opening speech from Business Minister Lord Mandelson, and the dcomment from Richard Lambert and Peter Jones, we then debated some of the ideas.

What came out is that entrepreneurship frees up people's creativity, gives teams of people purpose, brings value to local communities as well as the national economy - and that entrepreneurs now earn the respect of others.

In conclusion entrepreneurship is pretty much all that will change the world.

Next up on stage are 3 entrepreneurs:
Sophie - founder of Divine Chocolate.
Tim Smit - founder of Eden Project.
James Caan - from Dragon's Den.

They were talking about the value of social enterprise.

Peter Jones of Dragon's Den fame, and Richard Lambert of the CBI are now on stage at the launch event of Enterprise Week.

Peter is talking a little about his enterprise acadamies. Both are saying that the current economic situation is going to give a long difficult period for entrepreneurs, but that like every previous recession it will also present great opportunities for entrepreneurs if approached with the right attitude.

Peter says he believes the important things to do are to focus on cash, and on 'cash' sales - ie selling to individuals. In the last recession he said it was people who got into direct selling via phone or mail order that succeeded. This time he says the way to go is to use the power of the internet - keeping costs low, and getting direct to a global market.

Unfortunately I didn't get the opportunity to put it to Richard that it's the CBI members that are making the situation so bad.. Massive redundancies, extensions of already long payment terms to small suppliers, withdrawal of finance, bad corporate governance and so on.

I'm browsing the business book section in Borders - and look what I found!
That's one way of approaching the subject I suppose - but I guess it's best not to leave it lying around on your desk.

I have spent today as a guest of RBS Invoice Finance (thanks guys!) at the Palmer Sport corporate driving event at Bedford Autodrome.

There's been some networking - but most time has been spent on the track in one of 9 performance cars - including the Jaguar XKR pictured above, which I absolutely loved.

I'm not the most sporty or competitive person in the world, and I'm not a petrolhead - but I managed some very respectable lap times, and overtook quite a few of my fellow drivers much to the approval of my instructor.

In the Jaguar XKR my best lap time put me 13th out of 85 people there on the day.

The last few months have been extremely busy - so the blog has suffered.

We've just added a feature to this site that allows me to submit blog
posts from my PDA wherever I am, so I'll be blogging more regularly, and
also from wherever I am on the move rather than waiting 'til I get back
and finding the time!