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Rt. Hon. Peter Mandelson - Former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Jul 1998 - Dec 1998)The Business Link Annual Conference |
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Thank you very much for your kind words of introduction and warm welcome. This is only my fourth major speech as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry - yes, I am still counting. In Britain?s battle for competitiveness, I am very conscious that Business Links are on the front-line and I?m therefore very pleased to have such an early opportunity to talk to you in person. I have been as impressed as Barbara Roche at the high levels of performance that many - if not yet all - of you are achieving. In less than eighteen months, we have seen a transformation of business support services in this country for which you are very much to be congratulated. But much more needs to be done. Current difficulties You will certainly be tested in the coming year. Many of your clients are feeling the effects of the level of the pound and the global economic downturn. I share their concerns, as I am sure do you. More than ever, small business will look to you, and draw on your skills and assistance and you will need to be at your most enterprising and resourceful. Business will also look to central Government for a lead and I recognise that there is no more important a time for us to redouble our efforts on their behalf. And we will. In the face of uncertainty in world markets, we must be more not less global in our outlook. We must point our business outward to exploit to the full every opportunity to trade with the rest of the world. I am therefore pleased to announce that my Department next year will support a record-breaking programme of 327 outward trade missions and 467 groups of UK companies to exhibit at the world?s major international trade fairs. The world economy may be turbulent, but this is no time to become isolationist. We have to work harder to maintain our share of these world markets. What?s more, in dealing with our present difficulties, it is vital that we look ahead as well as outwards. We must never lose sight of where Britain?s industrial future lies. The knowledge driven economy The key to our future competitive success lies more and more in the exploitation of knowledge for commercially profitable ends. Creativity, innovation, the ability to bring forward new products and processes, the know-how to put new ideas into practice, the marketing that builds new brands. All will play a greater role than ever in the global knowledge-driven economy. And we must take action now. The knowledge economy is not some far distant dream. It is not the preserve of IT specialists. It is already here and it is relevant to all businesses. It is giving consumers more power, more choice. It is reaching into every shop floor and office, transforming old jobs as much as creating new, with implications for manufacturing and service industries alike. Two thirds of the value of a modern car is now to be found in the knowledge that went into designing, engineering and building it. Only one third can be attributed to the raw materials. A team of a few people in another part of the world can now successfully compete with large household names in Britain - and vice versa. This knowledge revolution - which is already being seen, rightly, as the next Industrial Revolution - is gathering pace. We can see it in the growth of electronic commerce and in the development of new and exciting digital technologies. We can use this revolution to leapfrog ahead of our competitors, to put behind us decades of industrial decline and to achieve a step change in our competitiveness and our economic prospects. That is why I am determined to use all the tools and knowledge at my disposal at the DTI and across Government to strengthen industry, enhance business performance and create an environment in which enterprise can flourish: to ensure that Britain carries knowledge and inventiveness through into what we produce and sell. The Competitiveness White Paper Rising to this challenge will be at the heart of the White Paper on Competitiveness which I will be publishing next month. Don?t worry, the White Paper will not be a great tome of analysis and instruction landing on your desks with a dispiriting thud. It will set out the key challenges that Government and business must address together to achieve competitiveness in the knowledge economy of the future. How we promote enterprise in this new world, among young and old alike. How we support and make best use of business networks. How we establish regulatory structures that promote success. And how we achieve more entrepreneurial spin offs from our world class science base. The role of enterprise and small business These are the sorts of issue that my White Paper will address, but let me be brutally honest. Government is there to help but it cannot deliver success in this new world. Only companies can do that for themselves. In the future, all companies will have to innovate faster than ever before to compete, seeking new ways to maximise the use of knowledge to improve their performance and profitability. It is no coincidence that our world beating companies, large and small, already do this. But we must ensure everyone does and in particular we must work hard to ensure that many more of our vital small and medium sized businesses get this message and act on it. The role of Business Links And that is why we place so much importance on a network of high quality Business Links, with your central role in the delivery of support to the SME community. They, not government, are your customers. While many entrepreneurs possess key skills, few possess all the necessary skills and knowledge and contacts to run and grow a business successfully. And even for the most accomplished, time will always be a scarce resource. Business Links offer business people practical solutions to real problems which need an answer today not tomorrow, and then establish long term relationships, which encourage a culture of continuous improvement and sustained growth. To me, that is your mission statement. Being business led, you provide businesses with the opportunity to solve problems because you understand how business works. Being locally-based, you deliver services that are of real relevance to the businesses in your areas. You are our local point of contact with the SME community, and as such we will continue to rely on your credibility with your clients, to deliver advice to them on new issues of national importance. I know Barbara mentioned these yesterday, but I make no apology for repeating them again because they are so important. - the Euro will affect all British business but still too few are aware of its implications and the need to prepare; - similarly, the Millennium Bug because it too will strike all companies, regardless of size, that do not take the necessary action. - and the New Deal for the Unemployed which is a great opportunity to provide businesses with cost effective recruitment and initial staff training. You can also help businesses understand the changing climate in which they are operating and the challenges and opportunities of modern technology. You can hammer home to the business community the importance of continuous improvement and innovation and the need to work faster and smarter than the competition. And you can help business help themselves by giving them access to networks which enable businesses to share information, exchange good practice and whenever possible develop new business opportunities. But we must not confuse your SME customers or indeed distract you with too many programmes, too many initiatives. I want to leave you as much freedom as possible to do what you do best: to help business turn entrepreneurial ideas into successful businesses. Improving Business Link performance I am serious when I say I want to promote success and to encourage enterprise. This Government recognises that Britain?s future prosperity and growth depends critically on the success of British businesses. Business Links must contribute to the ability of British business to succeed or they have no role at all. To succeed and to deliver, all Business Links themselves must be increasingly enterprising, fast, flexible and understand the implications for business of fast changing technology and the growing importance of knowledge. Barbara Roche?s vision statement last October urged Business Links to bring the rest up to the level of the best. To monitor and benchmark your performance. To identify and assist underperforming Business Links. To ensure the spread of best practice throughout the network. These are not just important, they are essential if Business Links are to have a role in the new economy. Developing and exploiting the Business Link brand will also be crucial to your future success. As an ex so-called "spin doctor" - and I emphasise the ex as I have hung up my stethoscope for good - I know a little bit about brand management and the importance of good presentation. But presentation can never be enough in itself. It must be backed up by a product of high quality, one which delights its customers and exceeds their expectations. That?s why Barbara also challenged you to renew your commitment to continuous improvement, to develop advanced services to meet increased expectations and to forge new relationships. We would be failing the nation if we demanded less. Regional Development Agencies While on the subject of relationships, I am hosting a dinner for the Regional Development Agency chairmen this evening at which I will be discussing with them what they can do to promote economic development and enterprise at the regional level. I will emphasise the importance I attach to their developing strong relationships with Business Links. Like you, RDAs will be business led. Like you, they must also be business like. And like you, they will play an important part in creating a more competitive Britain. RDAs will identify strategic regional needs and priorities. But they must do this in consultation with you because you work with and understand local business. By working in partnership with RDAs, and by addressing the regional needs which RDAs identify, you can be part of a better co-ordinated, much more effective network of business support across your regions, ensuring that all the local partners pull in the same direction to modernise the economies of the English regions. The challenge for the future And just in case that isn?t enough to be getting on with, I want to lay down one more challenge for you all. I want Business Links to work with me to ensure that all SMEs seize the opportunity of the knowledge driven economy. You must open your clients? eyes to the potential this offers. They must understand the importance of harnessing, developing and sharing knowledge if they are to succeed in a global economy in which technology develops ever more quickly and in which an increasing amount of trade will take place electronically. This is a big task. It is about more than preparing for the electronic age, although this is a major part. And as I said before, it affects us all. Knowledge will become increasingly important for all business, manufacturing just as much as services. Business must take the lead, if we are to achieve this step-change in competitiveness. But practising what we preach, I have asked my Department to review all its policies to ensure that we are doing everything possible to support the knowledge-driven economy. I want you to ask yourselves the same question. What can be done to smarten the production of existing business? What can be done to turn more good ideas into new business? I know that Business Link partnerships are already helping SMEs who have had the ideas and the determination to set up their own businesses. But are you doing enough to meet your client?s particular needs? In the knowledge driven economy, the business life cycle will shorten. Businesses will have less time to mature, less scope to recover from mistakes. These new realities demand a new focus from us. In the fast moving world we are entering, helping established firms is like entering the battle half way through. From now on, we must also ensure that even brand new businesses - those with growth potential - can receive the specialist assistance that the Business Link network has to offer. And I?m not just talking about half an hour with an adviser. I believe that many start-ups will benefit from sustained advice over those first critical months. Of course, you must continue the valuable work you are doing with established business. But within the next three years, I want to see high quality tailored advice also being made available to at least 10,000 innovative small business start-ups annually; those with real growth potential. Some of these businesses will come to you, but part of my challenge for you will be to identify the rest. You will need to have your ear to the ground, to exploit the knowledge you have of your local area, to seek out and help new businesses that could with your help be the success stories of the future. This is an important additional challenge for some in the Business Link network, but one that I am sure you understand fully and will respond to. We are currently failing to offer sufficient and consistent help across the country to a vital part of the business community and the time has come to put it right. Concluding remarks We share a common goal to create a business environment of opportunity, enterprise and success. Together, and as a nation, we must seize fully the opportunities of the knowledge revolution, creating jobs and prosperity for all of our people. These are challenging times. But if we remain focused on the task in hand, if Business Links concentrate on delivering ever better, ever more relevant services to your clients you will have played your part in seeing us through the difficult months ahead and in laying the foundations for future success. I can promise you my full support for the work that you do and for the improvements that you yourselves are making to the Business Link network. But in return, I want your support for our efforts to create a new culture of enterprise across the UK. We must be demanding of each other if we are to play our part in securing a prosperous future for our country. |
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Other speeches by Rt. Hon. Peter Mandelson - Former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Jul 1998 - Dec 1998)
(the following are available from the archive) |
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