Innovacion

Innovacion advise on potential Crossrail regeneration benefits

Adding 40% to London’s rail transport capacity and opening in 2017, the £16 billion Crossrail scheme will be the largest transport project in the Greater South East for 50 years. With Regeneris and Cyril Sweett, Innovacion have been commissioned to help the LDA to identify and secure the wider regeneration benefits that Crossrail could provide around the location of the 29 London stations and their hinterlands and to identify where there are market failures that could benefit from public sector investment. The end product will be an investment plan outlining key milestones and timescales for specific interventions by the LDA.

Croydon and Gatwick: Competitive Opportunities and Risk

For Croydon Council Innovacion is considering the strategic options and issues in developing the functional relationship between Croydon and Gatwick including its economic hinterland. Risks to Croydon’s attraction and retention of firms were considered along with its sectoral strengths and the required supporting infrastructure.

Innovacion investigate business impacts of congestion at Blackwall Tunnel

Innovacion is helping to assess and review the business impacts of traffic congestion at the Blackwall Tunnel as part of Transport for London’s short listing appraisal of proposed river crossings in east London. Evidence was brought together from a range of literature and secondary sources as well as through a roadside survey and selected business case studies.

People or Proximity: Where does growth come from in outer London?

As a successful retail centre in a great location on the Thames, Kingston is the desirable home for highly skilled workers. Access to high quality environments (parks, river) and the transport network (Heathrow, Gatwick, roads) also add to the attractive locational mix. And Kingston has the high house prices and waiting lists for good state and private schools to prove it.  

Retail aside Kingston’s relative specialisation in business services aligns with a key international strength of London. Parts of this specialisation will be in providing local business services. In Kingston, the usual range of local accountants and solicitors will service the needs of the local business community and a burgeoning army of freelancers, many home based, as well as benefitting from a high level of passing trade. Other parts will be linked to London’s globally competitive strength in business and professional services. These are built on an extensive and deep labour market across the 21 million residents in the Greater South East.

Two thirds (64%) of the residential workforce in Kingston are managers and professionals compared to just 42% in Croydon. This is a non-trivial difference. Being able to source highly skilled local labour is a key comparative advantage for the firms in Kingston. And goes some way to explain the relatively low level of out commuting for such a residential part of outer London. The make-up of a local area’s population including its occupational profile has a big impact on long term economic development.

Over the other side of outer London different drivers are at work. Despite its relatively poor river crossing options, north Bexley has developed as a relatively (in a London context) cost effective location for a range of near market functions. As time really is money Michael Porter and others identified this proximity advantage many years ago. These locations offer potential as the profitable base for time sensitive activities. So in Belvedere we have a concentration of food logistics operations such as ASDA, Londis and Lidl, office support services such as Viking Direct, Iron Mountain and Office Depot plus construction and printing. Here the most important competitive advantage is proximity to a very large consumer market plus the central London concentration of office functions. Without this near market logic other economic activities which are exposed to international cost pressures such as the manufacture of cables are very much history.

Understanding the underlying drivers explains how a local economy got to where it is today. But it also sets parameters on where it can go tomorrow.

Innovacion to advise London Development Agency on the Integration of Train to Gain and Business Support services

Innovacion were appointed to advise the London Development Agency on the development and selection of a preferred model for an integrated brokerage system for business and skills that will be operational from April 2009.  The study involved market analysis, performance review, consultation with the Business Support Simplification Programme team (BSSP) at BERR/DIUS, options analysis and detailed analysis of preferred option.

Innovacion review progress of Local Enterprise Growth Initiative

Innovacion are to provide a top-level and independent review of the outputs and impacts of the entire Local Enterprise Growth Initiative (LEGI) programme to date for Ministerial Review.  All Round One LEGIs were assessed through an examination of their and Government Office and Local Aarea Agreement (LAA) monitoring reports and by completion of a scorecard after detailed discussions with LEGI project managers.  Report was published by CLG in November 2008.

Download CLG Review of LEGI Nov 2008

You Are An Entrepreneur

1. You are creative. You see opportunities. You are able to assess them quickly. You are happy to spend time exploring opportunities. You can think your way out of tight corner. You can communicate these opportunities without Powerpoint. You have wanted to do this all your life.  You think big.

2. You are a doer. You make things happen quickly. You are organised. You start and finish tasks. You will roll your sleeves up and will tackle anything. You chant Churchill’s mantra of “action this day” to yourself.  You know selling is more important than strategy.

3. You are motivated. You do things because they are there to be done. You enjoy a challenge. You know that 16 hours a day in a job you love is less tiring than 8 hours in one you hate. You know the value of your self-confidence. You are starting your business for more than just money. You know all mission statements are pointless.

4. You are persistent. You are energetic and enthusiastic. You have stamina to maintain your efforts. You are able to make progress each and every day. You set yourself milestones and goals. You keep going. You know that winning races is often about who slows down least rather than who runs fastest.

5. You learn from failure. You bounce back. You are made from brass so you will put yourself in a situation where you can fail.  You are made from Teflon so failure doesn’t stick. You see criticism as learning. You are able to experiment and learn quickly.

6. You have a hunger for knowledge. You value practical knowledge above theoretical knowledge. You learn by doing. You are happy to explore left field ideas. You actively share knowledge and test ideas. You copy and adapt all the time.

7. You are networked. You know who you know is more important than what you know. You invest in networking. You know that networking is a learnt skill. You can describe your business in one sentence. You are not afraid to ask for help. You have business soulmates.

8. You have a passion for improvement. You want to improve yourself. You want to improve your organisation. You want new ideas from your staff. You know that learning is the job. You spend resources developing your staff. You want the right people on the bus.

9. You are able to cope with uncertainty. You make sense out of chaos. You give direction. You can develop and articulate a vision. You are agile and flexible.

Run Your Company Like Churchill

The process of globalisation and increasing levels of competition mean that leading and managing a business is becoming more challenging than ever.  Directors and managers now have to make critical choices that will determine their ultimate success and survival.  With these challenges, there are lessons to be learnt from great war leaders who have had to make similar strategic choices under intense pressure and with enormous consequences.  While Winston Churchill’s grand strategy of the Second World War has attracted enormous academic and political attention there are many lessons for the management and leadership of all firms.

1. Courageous and heroic.  Churchill’s leadership style was courageous and heroic.  He is acknowledged as a truly awe-inspiring character.  Churchill demonstrated this by being highly visible, memorable and wanting to be at the centre of action.  For example, he had to be prevented from taking part in the D-Day landings.  This is MBWA – management by walking about.  This courageous and visible leadership style builds loyalty far beyond what is rational and is the necessary approach in certain situations rather than a consensual, managerial approach.  So in certain circumstances strong visionary leadership should be accommodated and encouraged despite the often high risks involved.  Risk taking can produce success if a leader is strongly supported by a highly competent team who are equally dedicated to the same goals.

2. Knowledgeable with good communication skills.  Churchill had both verbal dexterity and a good strategic grasp based on a deep knowledge of political history and war.  Almost uniquely for a politician Churchill was deeply interested in and understood military matters after over 30 years of experience prior to the Second World War.  This started at the end of 19th century when he was as a journalist reporting on the Boer Wars in South Africa and was followed by time in the Admiralty.  As a result “the sweeping character of Churchill’s personal authority was almost unprecedented in modern democracy”.  Being a skilled communicator is a necessary skill for all leaders but not enough on its own.  However, when allied with good strategic judgement based on experience it is a powerful combination. 

3. Overcome early barriers.  While Churchill enjoyed social privilege he had an emotionally deprived childhood and poor school achievements to overcome.  Successful leaders are often very driven and ambitious people.  Much of the motivation for this is linked to early disappointments in their lives or wanting to prove themselves in a way others don’t.  So leadership traits can be strengthened by relative early failure and delayed intellectual growth.  Early struggle is often a prime motivator of an entrepreneur. 

4. Dominant character.  Churchill quickly matured and developed into a dominant character – both charming and rude  as circumstances dictated.  However, his powerful personality often became a draw back.  There were time consuming wrangles over grand strategy in which Churchill appeared to have overruled the right of the military in a bid to impose a new initiative or scheme without the necessary preparation or proper consultation.  Therefore gifted leaders have to be skilfully managed by an effective peer-group which can be a formidable undertaking.  Re-structuring of the top management teams and decision making processes can go someway to deal with this.  However, dominant leaders can be difficult to work with.

5. Action orientated.  High achievers tend to be action orientated - one of Churchill’s motto’s was “action this day” – and are hugely beneficial to firms.  The ability to deal with urgent and important tasks and leave less important issues is a key skill in time management. 

6. Strategic sense.  There is much debate about Churchill’s strategic decisions.  He managed to get more things right (e.g. the spectre of iron curtain falling across Europe) than wrong (e.g. Gallipoli and the Dardanelles campaign).  His strategic shortcomings undoubtedly diminished his influence at critical times when his influence should have mattered more.  For example his influence waned in the face of slow American decision-making and Stalin’s strident agenda.  No leader is able to get every decision right but the trick is to get the majority right and learn from the ones you get wrong.

7. Creative Tensions.  By becoming an expert in a tightly centralised hierarchy that he had devised, Churchill was able to be hugely effective.  As well as being Prime Minister, Churchill made himself Minister of Defence and the one civilian member of the four-man chiefs of staff committee.  Churchill therefore produced a creative tension of both a positive and negative kind which is necessary for to consistently good leadership.  Strong leadership will create both positive and negative tensions at all levels in an organisation.  As in the case of Churchill, for an organisation to be successful the positive must outweigh the negative.

How to engage with small businesses

What is the issue?
Small firms form a key constituency of many local economies.  At a national level, the 1.1 million small firms (with less than 250 employees) and 2.9 million freelancers and sole proprietors provide over 13 million jobs.  So any major redevelopment or regeneration project should involve the many small businesses which together act as a significant economic driver.

Small businesses are generally misunderstood.  Like people they are a pretty heterogeneous group.  While there are common business approaches and attitudes there is also a wide variety of motivations for being in business.  In London over a third are family owned and run businesses.  Rather than purely pursuing profit at all costs, people starting businesses are often looking for autonomy, a way into employment when others routes are closed or for a personal challenge.

Engaging with small businesses is becoming more important.  The increased requirements for consultation under the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 mean that understanding how to consult with small businesses is rising up the agenda.  Statements of Community Involvement will need to explain how communities and stakeholders will be engaged in the preparation and revision of local development documents and consideration of planning applications. Involvement should aim to be “active, meaningful and continued throughout both processes” and should include local firms or their representatives.  Furthermore, the start of the Local Authority Business Growth Incentive Scheme in April 2005 will give Local Councils the potential to secure direct financial incentives from promoting local economic growth.

Why engage with small businesses?
Small businesses are interested in their local area.  As they operate locally they have a distinct interest in the local environment and often a good local knowledge that can help professional planners, architects and regeneration professionals in their work.  All will be interacting with the local council, have a high concentration of local employees (who all have votes) and often live nearby with children at local schools.  They invest in the local area, especially if they are freeholders, and their support can be vital for physical and transport developments.  The growing number of Business Improvements Districts (BIDs) have firms paying for and taking control of increased local service provision.

Engagement should also be seen as an insurance policy to prevent poor relations with local businesses.  Freeholding small businesses can landlock a major development.  They can be vocal in the local press.  They can move to other areas taking valuable local jobs and supplier contracts.  They can disengage from regeneration activities (e.g. training and mentoring opportunities).

How to engage with a small business?
You have to start thinking like a small business to appreciate what will concern them.  Firstly, they value clear information to help the sort of decision making they do all day long.  Many of their concerns are due to a lack of information and most are persuadable by reason.  They want to know the timescales of activities to assess how it will affect their business.  Secondly, and this may seem obvious, at the very least between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday to Friday they will be working.  If you want to talk to them or get them to meet don’t take away a great chunk of their working day.  Thirdly, they like action.  They will not understand why something takes weeks to happen let alone months or years.  They have to respond to customers and suppliers rapidly.  That will be their culture.  They won’t sit in meetings that are going nowhere.  Fourthly, they operate on trust and value consistency.  If they say they will do it they mean it.  So non-action from a public organisation suggests the sort of unreliability that makes a small firm nervous.  Lastly, to run a successful small business you will have to be resourceful, tenacious and adaptable.  Respect small businesses for this and avoid being the professional who is lecturing them.

Turn the tables, use their 4 Ps
One of the oldest concepts in marketing is the Four Ps.  Use this approach to engage small firms as “customers”:

Product: What are you offering small firms and what do you want in return?  Do you know enough about your local business base to do this?  Information should be business focussed and clear.  Additional benefits (e.g. the opportunity to network with other local firms) will increase the attraction.

Place: Where and when are you going to do this?  Think in terms of business hours and informal locations that you would like to go at the end of the day (i.e. not a rush-hour crawl across town to a Civic Centre).

Promotion:  How are you going to communicate with your local business base?  Try to understand their preferred and valued communication channels and use them.  This may mean hanging round a café on an industrial estate or using an intermediary organisation.

Price:  Do you understand the financial costs and benefits of a development or a regeneration project for the local businesses?  Small firms’ fear of CPO may come from a lack of knowledge.  Once this is overcome they tend to be happy to negotiate as they do that all the time.

Case Study: Tottenham Hale
North London Chamber of Commerce on behalf of the London Borough of Haringey have been engaging small businesses to ensure they are involved in a proposed 138 ha development around Tottenham Hale in North London.  To do this North London Chamber of Commerce has acted as a neutral but informed business intermediary between businesses and the public sector.  There are significant advantages in both directions.  The local businesses have been helped by having a co-ordinating organisation to listen to their concerns, run a series of business friendly events and provide clear information.  The local authority and their professional advisers have the advantage of being able to engage with an existing business group, gain an understanding of the local business base and to develop productive working relationships.