CHAMBER PROFILE LASTWORD
Chamber Marketing Executive CLAIRE MILLAR interviews Chamber Chair, RICHARD STEVENS
You sit on, or are involved with, a lot of boards which must keep you very busy on top of your day job. Why do you do it and what does it do for our members? I don’t do it because of ego, I do it driven by my desire to see Plymouth succeed. The way the different organisations fit together is all about the business community and about the journey for young people into business or into life. There is a business leadership
void in the city despite there being a lot of people out there doing really good work in a voluntary capacity in all sorts of areas. However, within the dynamic of the city there are not a lot of larger companies where people can take the time to take on leadership roles. That’s one of the reasons that I do so many and I would encourage people if they’ve got time to get involved.
What are the major strategic issues that are common across all the organisations with which you work? The stand out issue across all the organisations is skills and the availability of appropriately skilled people to join the workforce. It’s a hugely competitive market and all the organisations, whether they be private, public or third sector have got similar challenges - they feel compelled to pay more money to attract high calibre people and that is challenging because competitive salaries do not always work and squeezes margins even further. Even if you can afford the additional cost, the market for suitably skilled people is highly competitive, we need to showcase that Plymouth is a place where you come for career building, not career ending. This is one thing that transcends all of them. The other one would be connectivity, both digital and physical assets. These run parallel in the feedback that I receive, and I see across all the organisations. People want better rail, bus and car connections. Time is precious and it all costs.
54 Chamber Profile Autumn 2019
We’ve done a good job of a digital roll out in Plymouth, but although the pipeline is there not many businesses have connected and the question is how we encourage people to join the network. We continuously campaign for improved rail and roads through the Peninsular Rail Task Force and the Peninsular Sub Regional Transport Board.
‘The Chamber is to be there
as a support for the business community’
How do you see the Chamber tackling these issues and how does its role with BCCSW help? In the first instance, a role of the Chamber is to be there as a support for the business community, to support business members in their actual operation with advice or access to information as a facilitator. The flip of this is that Chambers are there to make sure that the voices of members and business communities are heard by those that have the opportunity to make a difference, whether it be politicians, officers in the council, inward investors – people who are instrumental in bringing investment into our community. If you then look at BCCSW, the brilliant part of that is we then get to amplify the voices of Chamber members across the entire region and to be able to say to Westminster with a united business
representation
voice ‘this is what we need to be able to
produce more output for UK PLC and these are the
investments that you, the Government, should make in our region so that we cannot just survive but thrive and more to the point, add increased value to the UK’s economy’.
What keeps you awake at night? Brexit obviously... But in the main not being able to help people. Not having an answer to a problem is what keeps me awake. My Achilles Heel is I want everybody to be happy. Other things that keep me awake are just trying to chew over some of the problems that are facing organisations or individuals that I know, but in my experience
it’s never a big ticket win; I very rarely have a silver bullet, it’s lots of little things that make a difference and so I just try to do lots of little things.
There have been a lot of changes at the Chamber in the last year. Where do you see the Chamber in one and three years? I think that Chambers across the country, including ours, have had to adapt to be able to survive and it’s also true to say that Chambers tend to see the biggest growth in membership when the economy is being put under pressure. When the going is good, and
you’ve got more customers or orders than you can fill then the Chamber’s not called upon as much as it is when times are hard, when people’s bottom lines are under pressure. I believe whatever Brexit we get, our Devon & Plymouth Chamber is in a really good place to be able to support both our members and also public, private and third sector organisations. I think that we are ahead of the curve, we’ve made the changes probably in advance of some other Chambers that haven’t been as agile as us. Our region is lucky, the foresight
of the business leadership through the accredited chambers to form BCCSW will stand us in really good stead. In five years, I would say that we’ll look back and think thank goodness we made the changes.
How does the volunteer board of the Chamber support you, the executive and the members? I’m really glad that you highlighted that all of the Directors are
volunteers, it’s a demanding role. Most people who join the board, including me, are surprised at the level of commitment and involvement that a Chamber Board Director has to have. I’m honoured to be the Chair of the Chamber, but you couldn’t do it without the Board. I’ve been really lucky, having been blessed with really good Board members all the way through my tenure and I’ve always felt supported – everybody brings something.
If you had one ask for the county, what would it be? For everyone to work together. It’s not that we can’t work together but the geographical situation of Devon means that a lot of our communities are quite isolated and as such they must have a survivalist mentality. You must work in your area to make sure that you achieve the best local results. There are times however when
you have to come together and align around common challenges; this is something we are not very good at. You can communicate all you like but if people aren’t tuned in to receive then all the messaging in the world isn’t going to land. I think we have to ask people to engage more, not just in their area but as a whole. When the call comes to unite, we’re a bit slow to mobilise.
If you had one ask of the members, what would it be? Introducing new members to the Chamber. The more people and businesses we are able to bring together, the healthier it is for everyone.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56
