THAMES VALLEY 250
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annual staff survey. It was important that pay and benefits were seen to be fair – for existing and new staff, for performance and loyalty. Among its incentives Ridgeway now provides extra days of holiday and recognition dinners for long-service employees.
A good working environment also included the tools of the job. Ridgeway has invested £750,000 in upgrading IT equipment to reduce communication frustrations for the workforce.
be progressively busy and HSBC had enhanced its Thames Valley banking team to support that expected growth.
“We are certainly not seeing any absence of capital – whether vanilla bank finance, equity capital, or use of bond markets, etc – to support the expansion plans of corporates generally, and there is now healthy competition between funders.
“At this point of the recovery, we are feeling as positive about life as we were in 2007 (pre- recession). Overall it’s a good story, but I am sure there will be challenges and bumps in the road going forward.
“We should also recognise that we are all fortunate to live and work in this part of the country, relatively insulated from the worst bumps.”
Grant Thornton’s Wendy Hart echoed the good fortune of Thames Valley-based businesses. “We never had it as tough as in the north or the Midlands, and we’ve come out of the downturn quicker with much faster growth and demand.”
Clive Lucking highlighted the long-standing strengths of the region:
Peter Kavanagh
Good communication was the ‘magic dust’ of Ridgeway, he admitted. “As directors we used to know every member of staff, their partner, even their dog, but as you get bigger you just can’t maintain that. You have to recognise that there are other charismatic leaders in the organisation who can take on that role locally.”
Training was another essential building block. “We have massive budgets for training, and that’s essential in our industry to maintain not only our necessary competitive and regulatory standards, but also those of our brand-leading product partners, and of course our customer expectations.” The Ridgeway Academy, completed this spring, now delivers bespoke training to every member of staff, whether of a team programme or individual impact nature.
Improved HR information and data was also providing senior management with early warning of potential problems that might endanger staff retention.
Strengths: We’re so lucky to live and work here
David Murray had heard that the Thames Valley was 5-6% up on annual GDP performance, compared to the national figure of 3.2%, and he wondered if the Roundtable felt the region was now recovering rapidly.
Stradling said he had seen a steady uplift in business as confidence levels have grown in boardrooms. M&A activity was still relatively modest but “a lot more discussions are going on, and companies are putting firepower on their balance sheets, either to invest organically or to undertake transactions.” The future was likely to
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – NOVEMBER 2014
• Location near London. Good communication/ transportation links
• Industry and world-leading companies providing ample employment
• An experienced, skilled and expanding workforce. “I also sense we have more young people coming out of our local universities now seeking employment in the region rather than further afield.”
Barometers show a fair outlook and rising
As an office design specialist, Lucking highlighted a ‘business barometer’ within his sector: “Buildings that have sat around empty for years now have ‘Let’ signs on them rather than ‘To Let’ signs.
“We are seeing profit margins in our industry starting to rise, which hopefully means more profit to invest, more recruitment and the cycle of growth starting again, which is good news. For a lot of companies, the past five years has simply been about holding on to what they’ve got.”
Tinniswood proudly announced CH&Co’s highest annual turnover at £112 million. The past two years have seen an upturn in the company’s catering workbook across most sectors. “From 2009 onwards people began to pull their hospitality budgets as everyone gripped the recessionary table, but now hospitality is coming back to pre- 2007 levels.”
CH&Co now has a very healthy pipeline of new work, not least through corporate HR and facility management teams “putting staff feeding back on the agenda. Clients are increasingly thinking about their workforce, using good food provision to differentiate their company from others.”
Selling cars throughout the Thames Valley,
O’Hanlon has an obvious ‘barometer’ on local consumer trends. Times had been hard in 2008-09 he admitted, but largely because Thames Valley consumers, lacking confidence in the economy, withheld their spending. “That didn’t last for long, we felt the bounce back quickly and it’s not stopped since then. We’ve had double-digit growth year after year.”
Noticeably, people were favouring premium vehicles when they could afford them because, with low interest rates, attractive financial plans, and improved reliability and fuel efficiency, prestige cars were now viewed as very good value for money. “Our challenge in the downturn has actually been maximising every inquiry that is out there.”
“Premium is the new volume car,” said O’Hanlon, stating that shares of the car market of all the premium players had doubled (eg Audi 4% to 8%), while the traditional volume sellers (eg Ford, Vauxhall) had significantly fallen.
“We are still selling as many corporate cars as we have ever done. Our inquiry rates are up 27% this year, our footfall is up and our online enquiries are up three-fold.
“Looking at all our indicators, our business is not only strong but getting stronger. I’d love to say it is all down to the great work we are doing at Ridgeway but it is also the strong local economy and general confidence and the products from our manufacturers.”
Clive Lucking
Growth might mean new markets for some, he added, but: “We want to make sure that we are doing the best job in our existing markets, representing a great range of brands and products.”
Weaknesses: Battling against the squeeze . . .
Acknowledging O’Hanlon’s comments about consumer behaviour trends, Stradling highlighted a similar premium and value polarisation within the retail sector, with Tesco and Morrisons currently caught in the squeezed middle of a battle for consumers in the supermarket arena.
Continued overleaf ...
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