The Informed Executive
Good ideas do not always work
You probably have not heard of John Henry Knight. Born in The theme running through this edition is the effect of
1847 at Farnham in Surrey, he was a keen inventor and forward thinking - or the lack of it in some instances. Our
an engineer in the great Victorian tradition. Almost a cen- opening analysis examines the way in which an established
tury after Knight’s death in 1917, his name appears in the insurer identified changes on the horizon of its marketplace
record books as the designer and constructor of Britain’s and changed the structure of its business accordingly.
first petrol-powered motor vehicle, a three-wheeler with a The company has implemented comparatively simple
top speed of 12 mph. IT strategies to help streamline its business processes
That was in 1895, the same year that he became the and ensure that the brand will survive far into the future.
first person in the UK to be charged with a traffic offence
- ‘using a locomotive without a licence’ - having been The remaining features in the first half of the edition ex-
caught speeding in Farnham. amine the government’s Carbon Reduction Commitment.
Car designers have come and gone over the past hun- We look at the implications for the scheme’s participants.
dred years: only a handful have been immortalised as While they might number only 5,000 under the present
marques which survive. John Knight seems only to have criteria for inclusion, these are the largest organisations
been remembered in motoring circles for the 2s 6d fine which have not been included in any other carbon reduc-
handed down by the local magistrates. tion programme.
But bureaucracy did not dampen Knight’s enthusiasm, The scheme fails to recognise that the executives in
however. One of his other inventions could have changed charge of those 5,000 entities are responsible managers
the whole of the building construction industry forever. keen to see their organisations become more profitable
Knight was conscious that building walls was a highly and successful in these very difficult times. Showing them
labour-intensive activity: he was forward-looking enough how to reduce energy costs substantially is what it takes
to realise that the rising cost of labour could make build- to reduce their carbon emissions, rather than a scheme
ing houses and factories much more expensive and hence beset with uncertainties and penalties. What started out
less affordable. as a good idea will probably not succeed because the
So he invented a machine for building walls; regular, implications have not been thought out far enough.
neat walls that would do credit to any early 20th century
building project. Given Knight’s track record in pioneering If there were ever a topic on which forward thinking were
development, the machine worked perfectly. At least. it needed, it would be pensions planning. The Pensions Min-
did until it reached the end of a wall and could not turn the ister Angela Eagle MP advises readers to invest wisely for
corner to start again. The machine was not heard of again. the future. We took up her advice and enquire whether
What had seemed like an outstanding piece of technol- the property marketplace can now deliver the kind of re-
ogy failed because its inventor had not thought through turns that would clearly be needed for executives to build
the idea to its logical conclusion or identified a weakness a pensions pot, before turning our attention to one of the
that would cause its demise. property funds launched recently.
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