These excerpts are taken from December 2008 : Director Magazine
http://www.director.co.uk/MAGAZINE/2008/12%20December/round_table_62_5.html
Roundtable Entrepreneurs are well known for their positive outlook, but how
have recent economic events affected them? At the second meeting of its
Entrepreneurs' Confidence Panel, Director found out THE PANEL Keith Arundale, independent VC
consultant
Simon
Biltcliffe, managing director, Webmart
Dean Brown, director, StatPro
Kat Callo, director and
strategy consultant, Rosetta Consulting
Natalie Campbell, entrepreneur
Richard Cree, editor, Director
Steve Everhard,
associate director, Grant Thornton
Rebecca Harding, founder, Delta Economics
Ross Marshall, director, Palatinate Group
Bill Morrow, founder,
Angels Den
Keith Pollard, managing director, Intuition
Trish
Traynor-Watson, managing director, LiquidSpace
Erika Watson, founding
executive director, Prowess Richard Cree Since we last
met the economy seems to have turned on its head. Is it possible to still be positive?
Steve Everhard
[Recent research showed] While no one was blinded to the challenges, there was
a strong feeling that there are opportunities. If your plan was to exit your
business over the next year or two, then you probably don't have that option if
you want to realise full value. So pragmatism comes into play. Now is the time
to consolidate and look for alternative growth options rather than an exit.
Dean Brown
I agree that we are still on a downward trajectory, but things are cyclical.
There will be light at the end of the tunnel. Short-termism keeps
entrepreneurial drive alive. Rebecca Harding Is finance
harder to find now?
Steve
Everhard Companies that aren't close to their banks are finding that
facilities are being withdrawn. We recommend dialogue between businesses and
their bankers at this point.
Keith Arundale While
there is money available for the start-up side of things, once you get beyond
start-up it is difficult to raise finance.
Ross Marshall Everyone is looking for a good
deal, from consumers to investment houses. If they give you money, they want a
deal. On the banking side, the relationship matters. If you have been a good
client and you've shown you can control your business and you've been open, the
banks are more likely to support you.
Steve Everhard That goes for both sides. Banks are guilty of
moving around business relationship managers too much.
Rebecca Harding There is a view
that the recession is something happening in the male-dominated City
environment. How will it affect female entrepreneurs?
Bill Morrow Women take fewer risks. Because they are less
leveraged, they are going to see out the recession better than the blokes, with
their testosterone-fuelled economy. Women are less comfortable putting the
house on the line. Erika Watson At times of recession, more
women go into business, because they do whatever they must to get bread on the
table, whereas men who are not already entrepreneurs lag a bit. Steve Everhard I don't
see any discernible difference in behaviour between men and women. There are as
many successful, hard-nosed and powerful women as men. The access to liquidity
and the attitude of banks to women as recipients of loans has always been more
challenging, which is why some of these special funds started. Rebecca Harding Is it still
possible to grow your business in the current climate?
Simon Biltcliffe …I want
to buy people. I can get people now that I couldn't have previously afforded. Richard Cree But are businesses going to invest in people?
Keith Pollard
Don't entrepreneurs always invest more in their people? I invest in people
better than most corporates, because people really make a difference. Bill Morrow The question
really is whether this recession is going to be a V-shape or a U-shape, where
we all trawl along the bottom and then come back up. Interest rates are going
to head down, inflation is going down, and it's looking kind of good. If there
is this bounce back up and greed comes back, I can see this being quite short.
Ross Marshall
Society is different now. No one I speak to wants to stop having a good time.
Simon Biltcliffe
But your friends haven't been through a recession. You don't know what it's
like.
Ross Marshall
We haven't been through one, but the point is that young people don't want a
recession.
Richard
Cree Is this recession
different?
Erika Watson
Yes, it's much faster.
Simon Biltcliffe
Hopefully we'll come out of it quicker as well. Steve
Everhard The outcome of this is going to be a sense of the value of cash
over credit. This means that those that have been here before and act early
will be in a better situation because they will have restructured their debt
while they could. Richard Cree Who feels
optimistic about the future?
Dean Brown Optimism is one of the key traits of being an
entrepreneur. If we weren't optimistic, we wouldn't be here.
Kat Callo It's like
asking a runner if he or she will win the race. We wouldn't run if we didn't.
Bill Morrow A recession
is not necessarily a bad thing. Great things happen in hard times. That's why I
am so optimistic.
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