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We’ve all seen the headlines. In the current economy, many businesses have tried unsuccessfully to raise finance. Their experiences have varied with lots of “flat no”, some “protracted maybe” and very few “definite yes” responses from lenders. The financing prospect for many businesses looks very bleak:
- Banks continue to strengthen their balance sheets. Lending is available, but is much tougher to achieve with higher rates, more security needed and more ‘setup’ or ‘consultancy’ fees than ever before.
- Government l
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Prospering in the New Business Landscape. At Vistage, our role is to make our members better leaders. Below you will find a white paper that we’ve produced that suggest what business leaders should be focused on to succeed in The New Economy. I hope that you will find it valuable in planning the future for your business. I welcome your thoughts, comments and suggestions.
Recent good news on Jobs is welcome, but more pain to come?
sgilroy, Jan 11, 2010
Economy, UncategorizedYou may have seen the revelation earlier this week by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation and KPMG, in their latest Report on Jobs, that the rise in permanent placements in the UK during December was the highest for nearly two-and-a-half years. The report also said that December was the fifth successive month in which hiring of permanent employees grew and that temporary staff placements also rose during the period, to a 30-month high. So have we really turned the corner, and is UK PLC now into hiring mode again? I don’t think so. I’m as happy as anyone at the good news, but I think it’s impo
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The political events of this week – widely interpreted by experts as the unofficial start of the General Election campaign – have got me thinking about the whole subject of leadership. This is because great generals, whether in business or politics, undoubtedly possess many of the same qualities. I guess that politicians have the added challenge of playing out their roles fully exposed to public view, which let’s be honest, must be a significant challenge in itself. And as the election campaign seems to have started really early, then we’ll all have ample opportunity to review the performance of our prospective new political leaders. As part of what we at Vistage call the New Economy, we’ve already identified a series of characteristics that brilliant business leaders of the future will have to e
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We are all too familiar with the steep rise in unemployment over the last 18 months and, without doubt, many of our members have had to shed some staff to survive. However, it does beg the question of how SMEs are going to respond as recovery slowly ensues – when staff are at lower levels, the slightest of green shoots may be enough to strain the capacity of some businesses. Those who did make deep cuts in their workforce early in the recession may now need to re-staff, but with the peaks and troughs of the W-shaped recovery Vistage UK’s top speaker and leading economist Roger Martin-Fagg predicted, it seems many may do so carefully – perhaps usin
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I read with interest reports this week that Adam Posen, the newest recruit to the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, believes that the financial system is not yet equipped to support a sustainable private-sector led recovery and this could trigger a double-dip recession.
Mr Posen’s main area for concern is the possibility of the Government reducing significantly its current level of support for economic activity before the financial system is fixed. He believes the result would be a shortage of credit for small and medium-sized non-financial enterprises – the types of business which benefit most from
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Remember that old joke about laying all the economists in the world end-to-end and them still not reaching a conclusion? Very unfair, of course. The fact that we, at Vistage UK, believe in economic forecasting is easy to see – just look at the regular predictions we issue, prepared by Roger Martin-Fagg, one of the best practitioners around. I was reminded of that old insult, however, when I read reports this week that the Ernst & Young Item Club believes the UK economy is already out of
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Read my article in Further Education Today to question whether the education sector has adapted to the changing needs of employers and potential students and if our education system is fit for purpose in the New Economy.
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[caption id="attachment_230" align="alignleft" width="195" caption="Economic Update"]
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Vistage UK speaker Roger Martin-Fagg has released his October 2009 economic update for the UK, available to Vistage UK members
In the report Martin-Fagg says there's no quick, or even slow-paced recovery on the horizon. He projects a "W-shaped" recovery. In this scenario the UK will have a second leg of decline, not quite as severe as the first leg. That second leg will come as the government money t
