Training issues

Four years ago, Lord Leitch was tasked with assessing the nation’s skills to see how well placed we were to compete in the global economy. His findings made for grim reading.

After the gold rush

Ambition abounds in this year’s Power Top 50 (page 28), our round up of the most influential entrepreneurs and investors in the growth company space during a testing 2009.

Fostering enterprise

The myth of the entrepreneur is of a maverick. A rule breaker who probably left school early, couldn’t stand being told what to do, but felt a burning passion inside to prove themselves to the world.

Economic reality

Entrepreneurs are natural optimists. They have to be, as it is common knowledge that nearly half of all businesses fail within the first three years. So it comes as no surprise to see surveys reporting that business owners are confident about 2010. One recent poll of 7,000 small businesses found that 75 per cent expect an upturn next year.

Keeping up morale

Is attitude more important than ability? While the answer is definitely ‘no’ for a surgeon or auditor, it’s certainly applicable in other professions

Creative destruction

‘Every act of creation is an act of destruction,’ mused Pablo Picasso. Another way of putting of it would be: ‘You can’t make an omelette without cracking a few eggs.’

Decisions in Whitehall

The media hysteria over “swine flu” – what happened to bird flu and the millennium bug? – provides a distraction from a nasty first quarter for businesses. It ended with a 56 per cent rise in company insolvencies, and the demand for UK manufactured goods falling to a 30-year low

Growing the green economy

Beating your head against a brick wall hurts. If you don’t believe me, ask the entrepreneurs operating in the cleantech and renewable sectors

Cash on the table

You can tell times are hard when City financiers are going to pawnbrokers to put their Ferraris and Picasso sketches in hock

Fat cats and failures

Say what you will about a global economic meltdown, at least losing money and the fear of failure make people more likely to face up to the facts

Winners and losers

Football fans are a naturally optimistic bunch. A club may sink down the table and lose week after week, but there is always the hope of turning it around in “the next game”. That’s why football, for the vast majority of fans, isn’t really about winning. It’s about disappointment and broken dreams (particularly true if you support Spurs)

A new world order

Given the collapse of the banking system, hysteria in the public markets and unemployment reaching record levels, our yearly Rising Stars article, where we identify the top 50 fastest-growing UK companies, may seem like the equivalent of turning up to a funeral in a gold lamé suit.

Rethink required on EIS and VCTs

Mention the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) to an entrepreneur and they are likely to walk in the opposite direction. The scheme does, however, have merits. It was set up by the government to encourage high-net worth individuals to put money into fast-growth businesses by offering tax breaks.

Get in shape for the slowdown

I’m not anti-fat people. Let’s get that clear from the off. However, when I listen to
large folk talking about ‘new diets’, ‘going to the gym’ and ‘personal trainers’, that starts to get under my skin. If you don’t like being overweight, eat healthily and do some exercise. It’s not difficult.

Where liars and fantasists rule

The first lie you’re told as a child is that honesty is the best policy. If you really want to get ahead in this world, you need to be skilled at knowing when to say somebody is right when you think the exact opposite, or to say, ‘We’re reviewing our budget’ rather than give an outright ‘no’ to a company pitching for business.

What makes a great business?

A common theme linking successful companies is often the simplicity and directness of the business proposition. Indeed, the world of business is probably the harshest environment for punishing those who become too clever for their own good.

Angels must raise their game

There’s a scene in the Martin Scorsese movie Goodfellas where Tommy (played by Joe Pesci) thinks he’s going to be “made” and become a fully fledged member of the mafia. Instead, he’s ushered into an empty room and unceremoniously “whacked”

The onward march of innovation

Nokia used to make rubber boots. Admittedly, that was a century ago and, back then, a rubber works in Finland was probably as cutting edge as anything used to produce the latest phone.

Why acquisitions fail

‘Nobody knows anything,’ said William Goldman, the screenwriter behind classic movies such as All the President’s Men and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

The price of success - and failure

The fat cat debate never fails to raise eyebrows. For the past decade at least, you could guarantee an annual eruption of shock as the bonuses of investment bankers in the City hit the headlines.

Dealing with delinquency

Offices are breeding grounds of malcontent. No matter how inventively you encourage employees, send them on training courses, nurture their self belief, or ply them with bribes – a trip to the races, a bowling alley, karaoke – there’ll always be a tiny, po-faced coterie, happy to criticise the company.

Companies to watch

This year’s 50 Rising Stars have combined sales of just over £645 million and profits of nearly £100 million. It’s a broad selection too, in which companies making a packet from the booming care sector are shoulder to shoulder with retailers, publishers and debt specialists.

The lure of foreign shores

Expanding overseas sounds exciting but it’s scarily easy to burn money on a venture that seemed like a no-brainer in the boardroom, where exuberance can get the better of reason. There should be tombstones commemorating the fallen UK businesses that litter the entrepreneurial battlefields in the US and, more recently, China.

Beating the Blockbuster effect

Dying businesses are interesting to watch. Remember the video chain, Blockbuster? Those punchy ads on TV where a singer would cry, “Oh what a difference, Blockbuster video.”

Shades of green

Green business is a fad. Take the weighty corporate social responsibility reports produced by corporations; more often than not they amount to nothing more than PR puff.

Failure is always a danger

I’m in a good mood this festive season, which is why I’d like to remind you that the odds of your business sinking or running aground are scarily high...

What's luck got to do with it?

I’m a back-to-front magazine reader. Which means that I hugely enjoy our column on the last page, ‘What I wish I’d known when I started’. The essence of the column is entrepreneurs confessing to their mistakes and offering insights into what they have learned as a result. Brilliant stuff, issue after issue...

Stages of growth

Building a business is a unique journey because the operation you run evolves through so many different stages – until you stand back from the cash flows, contracts, and strategies, you often can’t recognise at what stage your venture is...

Overcoming fear of change

One man’s exciting challenge can be another’s nightmare. All too often that’s exactly how change is viewed by an organisation...

Learn from the best

One of our goals at Business XL is to give you, the entrepreneur, exposure to the thoughts and strategies of some of the most successful business people in Britain. In this month’s issue, four of the UK’s leading practitioners of growth offer up thought-provoking ways in which business progression and expansion – both internal and external – are best served...

Time to practise what we preach

In the next few months we’re going to find out whether two publishing companies, each of which spends a lot of time writing about how to make successful acquisitions, can actually put their theoretical knowledge into practice and make their own acquisition a success...