This Election Matters

I was lucky enough to attend a live debate held by Radio5Live locally as part of their election coverage. Hosted by Victoria Derbyshire, it covered the issue of trust; can we trust politicians? I thought the issue got sidelined into the fairly narrow, if emotive and understandable, concern with expenses. Personally, if a cabinet minister needs to know her husband's needs are catered for to do her job better, or a member of the loyal opposition can keep the government under scrutiny better if he's happy his ducks are kept warm at night, that's fine. I'm more worried by the tendency of ministers to fawn over wealth, celebrity and fame, and the suspicion that this may influence policy. Witness the advertising fudge in favour of Bernie Ecclestone, the hobnobbing of both Osborne and Mandelson with Russian oligarchs, and the accepting of holiday accommodation from famous friends by Tony Blair, while Prime Minister. I want policies to be decided on the basis of the needs of the country, not conversations had on yachts off Caribbean islands. Admittedly, not yet up to Italian standards of dubious probity, but enough of a concern to me, and in my view a direct descent from the issues with the Major government we were assured had been fixed, and a spur for the hunt by soon-to-be-former MPs for jobs lobbying for special interests.

It's clear from the passions that were generated that those attending the event are clearly engaged with, and interested in, the political debate.

However, outside this event, where people interested had self selected themselves to attend, a more worrying trend has emerged. A continuation of something that has been growing for several years. A view that it doesn't really matter. They're all the same.

Regardless of political hue, this time I must disagree. For the first time in many, many years, this election matters. For businesses, for individuals, for the future - there are some choices to be made.

In my own work my major concern is to do with babies. Specifically, those sat in bathwater that I can imagine any incoming government - whether new to the job, or presenting itself as reinvigorated - will want to throw out. As a speaker at a recent CBI lunch said "Once a quango starts doing what it was originally established to do, it's usually a sign that it's going to be scrapped." There are issues with the support structures and funding routes available for high growth businesses in the West Midlands, and elsewhere in the UK. There are too many bodies, with overlapping briefs, and different agendas, and the lines between private and public initiatives are sometimes too blurred. However, some of them do some startlingly good work in certain areas. I have a suspicion that the rush will be to scrap the lot, leaving the area with nothing, until some new framework is pieced together and given time to find its feet. Or not.

My wish is for an incoming administration to check what is working, because some of it is, and use that as a model to replace what is not, before rushing to begin again.

To me this is more important than narrow concerns about NI, or even taxes and public spending in a broader sense. The nurturing and growth of the next generation of successful British businesses, based on innovation and imagination, is what has the potential to fix both the public finances and, perhaps more importantly, our recent national slump into poor self esteem.

In any event, this election matters. For the future, vote!

(And no, I haven't decided yet - but I will.)

Something that fits in...

Interestingly Kieran O'Brien at Denovo has been thinking along similar lines to my last post. He's put the data from some of the work he's done in looking at innovation in SMEs, and how to reach them as a consultant here: http://lnkd.in/xe-SST.

Worth looking through for his article. He goes further and examines the point of using a consultant at all for SMEs here, linking this to aiding a manufacturing recovery.

The Lone Consultant and Other Myths

So now the election date is official, even if the announcement caught no-one by surprise.

Anyone with an interest in the UK as a centre for innovative engineering, whatever their political inclination, should be participating in this election; questioning candidates, giving their views to canvassers, and basically being a right royal pain in the backside to anyone and everyone who is part of, or hopes to be part of, Britain's political establishment.

I've been fortunate enough over the past few weeks to have had an opportunity to meet a local MP who chairs one of the many committees where the work of governing the country really gets done. I have to say that even for a cynic like me it was actually a relatively heartening experience. It's clear that whatever the vituperative language coming from the party leaders, at the grass roots, getting things done, level there is considerable consensus, or at least accommodation. However, as the election itself finally emerges from the "phoney war", it is likely that there will be a need for the parties to put more "clear blue water" between each other, and the atmosphere, at least to start with, in the new parliament will be clearly different, as will many of the faces. What will this mean for industry, and specifically "advanced" or "innovative" companies who are finding their feet?

I had a chance to put one side of the argument when I met the Tory PPCs (Prospective Parliamentary Candidates) for Worcestershire at a recent event organised by the Federation of Small Businesses. I have to admit that I got the feeling that this is not something that local candidates give much thought to, although one, closer to manufacturing than the others, came fully prepared with a copy of "Ingenious Britain" - Sir James Dyson's excellent document. He couldn't, of course, say how much of it would be adopted should the Conservatives win. Understandably local candidates have to be concerned with winning round local people - and most local people, also understandably, can't spare time for the broader view.

Outside of politics, Fintelis attended an excellent event arranged by CESTAM, the Centre of Excellence for Sales in Technology and Advanced Manufacturing. Organised into "tables" the attendees addressed the problems of selling advanced manufacturing capability in the current market and, you'll be glad to know, solved the current crisis in the West Midlands regional manufacturing industry. Following on from this I also went to an Innovista presentation on working on technology with India and China. Some excellent ideas, and useful contacts, since followed up.

Which leads on to the title of this post. One colleague I spoke to mentioned a contract, put out by a government body which he bid for, eventually won by a large "blue chip" management consultancy. It will now cost three times or more what he put forward, under the assumption that the large consultancy has the best expertise, compared to a "lone consultant." In fact, anyone in the field knows there is no such thing. Each of us has a network, and a jealously guarded collection of cards of experts in related fields. Any good consultant will call on trusted colleagues to handle parts of contracts outside his expertise (with the client's knowledge and approval, of course), whether through an associateship arrangement, or as part of a "virtual company" arrangement (such as "The Team That Can" or "Synogis".) In either case, the expert brought in will have wide experience in the field, gained at senior level in industry. In contrast, large consulting firms tend to rely upon a pool of recent graduates, sticking closely to the approved training materials, where each assignment is rammed into one of a limited number of corporate methodologies, regardless of its own individual attributes. Think this is over doing the criticism? Not according to friends who have worked in (and one or two who are still working in) such companies. Believe me, I've seen large corporations brought to their knees as the high level consultant the company thought it was hiring fades into the background, and a fresh faced graduate is brought in to implement the standard recommendations that would have been put forward whatever the analysis really suggested. "Concentrate on your best 20% of customers" ring any bells?

In other words, going for a "lone consultant" can get you a wider pool of expertise, and a broader cross section of views, for a far, far better price, than engaging with one of the large corporate firms, where the only real skills will have been engaged in drawing up the company group think manual to be followed by the people fresh out of university who will really be working on your assignment.