38 roundtable continued from previous page... Preston: “Yes, lack of confidence . . . and the media!”


Virdee: “I agree, every time you pick up a paper it is scare-time with rates about to shoot up and so on.” Skills shortage? It’s a matter of attitude...


Caddle: “Lack of skills is an acute problem in the more traditional business sectors. Manufacturing has suffered from a reducing skillbase for the last 30 years and I am pleased to see the government putting more emphasis on vocational training.


“Actually, manufacturing today is a sexy sector. It’s not about the old image of sweatshops any more. It is a modern and exciting value-chain and well rewarded in the right areas.”


Coiley highlighted challenges in the control systems industry, a relatively modern sector. “It has become increasingly difficult to find the excellent engineers that we insist on recruiting. This is because many people who used to enter apprenticeships have instead been encouraged to take degree courses that are of no practical use to them or anyone else.


Murray: “We gathered that from our recent Solent area roundtable. What people are learning at universities is not what businesses want.”


Terry Goodsell


gained, but now you need the business before you recruit.”


Burgeoning recruitment pages were a good barometer of current trends, he added.


Latham: “The key today is getting the right people. We have seen businesses reduce their headcount, but they’ve kept the right people, and they will now tailor their growth to suit their future business model.”


Caddle agreed that manufacturing processes were automated where possible, but gaining temporary labour for SMEs, with the right skills, was still a major challenge.


Preston noted that businesses were offering far more temporary contracts “to allow them market flexibility, but it’s also a symptom of uncertainty”.


Caddle said businesses were still reluctant to take on full-time employees because of the potential cost implications of redundancies if market conditions changed.


Are global factors impacting businesses? Sally Preston


Robinson: “It’s a problem that’s going to take a number of years to resolve. It’s also about changing perception at schools where apprenticeships are seen as for the less able and only the cleverest students go to university.”


Sattar: “We have decided to employ people who have the right attitude rather than the best qualifications. Some highly qualified staff can think they are above the rest yet are unable to produce the right outcomes for our service users. We now look at a candidate’s presentation, attitude and common sense. You can teach people the job if they have the right qualities.”


Is recruitment set to boom?


Murray said that year-on-year analysis of Thames Valley 250 companies showed that many had reduced their headcount but have produced increased turnover. He queried if companies would have to start employing more people to sustain their growth?


Loftus: “Technology has clearly helped – machines don’t go sick or take holidays – but recruitment mentality has changed as well. People used to recruit before the sales were


www.businessmag.co.uk


Rising raw materials costs was the main concern (“our pineapples from China have gone up by 74% recently”) and the difficulty in ascertaining the reasons for the increases.


Loftus: “We ignore what’s happening in China at our peril. It will impact on us for the rest of our lives.”


Reeves: “We are all impacted on a macro-level by global markets. Every time we fill up our cars for example.”


Caddle: The rise in oil prices is at least forcing greater interest in new greener energy technologies. We can’t keep avoiding the inevitable and sooner or later we’ll all have to embrace new ways of going about our personal and business lives”


Andrew Latham


Have we one big message for government?


Sattar: “Health & Safety should be there to protect us, not to restrain us.”


Goodsell: “Stop EC laws stifling business.”


Caddle: “Create a more attractive UK environment for inward investment through appropriate taxation, legislation and provision of appropriate skill levels.”


Reeves: “Boost Thames Valley inward investment with a direct rail-link to Heathrow.”


Preston, Loftus and Reeves also urged that Crossrail be extended to Reading.


Elliott: “Maintain support for innovative, high-growth businesses, particularly in the south east where such businesses are predominantly located.”


Coiley agreed: “The national deficit will ultimately be paid by those businesses who create economic wealth – don’t disincentivise them or stifle their growth!”


Abdul Sattar


“Remember, the Thames Valley is a massively important economy to the UK,” added Loftus.


THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – JUNE 2011


Preston said communication technology was leading businesses into global markets. “Business is no longer geography specific. It’s service and information driven. Customers can be anywhere and don’t mind where the product or service is coming from.”


Sattar: “The world is definitely getting more competitive. And if businesses don’t provide quality and value for money, customers can easily go elsewhere.”


Goodsell: “Globally, certain areas may be depressed but others are not, and with our current weak pound, it’s a great time to be exporting.”


Elliott said SMEs now have a much wider perspective of their potential global markets. Improved global communication links and sector collaboration were also helping SMEs to adopt a much more sophisticated business approach.


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