The Path to Product Excellence: Avoiding Common Pitfalls and Enhancing Commun...
Peec2011
1. Implementation issues
Dr James A MacAskill
Dean
St James’s Business School
British Institute of Technology and E-Commerce
2. A perspective
• Moving to a post hydrocarbon knowledge
economy
• $211 billion invested in renewables but issues
– Food security
– Inconsistent tax benefits and regulations
– Expensive per energy unit produced
– Downstream toxicities
• Urbanisation issues
– Plenty of green options based in rural economies
– Skills depleted regional economies
• Nuclear option
3. Bridging the route to market
Concept of Creative destruction Joseph Schumpeter 1942
•From partnership to profit
•Policy into reality
Entrepreneurial outcomes
E.F. Schumacher “Small is beautiful” 1973,
concepts of appropriate technologies & sustainable development
4. Country Rural population
UK 23%
Romania 48%
Japan 23%
Germany 13%
China 56%
5. Greening business = innovation
• Alternative uses for existing assets
• Waste minimisation
• Turning waste into usable products
• Closed cycle systems
• Small scale rather than large scale reducing
environmental impact
• Large investments long product returns
6. Being pragmatic
• Tangible drivers for change
– Fractured markets
• Reality of policy
– Support often poor and insufficient
• Providing jobs
– Higher value
– Societal benefits
• Models within Regional economies
– Rural economic impact
• Farming sector
7. Project (10 funding) Location Partners Activity
Omapood UK, Baltic states 10 Commercial Retail cooperative
2 Regional Gov
(UK-KHF+) 1 State Gov
2 HE & FE
UK, The Netherlands Baltic states 3 HE, 20 commercial Food quality mark and
QUEST (PHARE) 4 regional gov regional brand
UK HE Business advisory signposting
Waymark (ESF+RDA+) Local authority, service
enterprise agency,
Hungary Sister Waymark network Business advisory signposting
HTVK (EU + RDA+) in Hungary service
UK 6 FE, 6 regional gov, 2 Rural business recovery,
ADER (ESF+RDA+) regional & enterprise advisory and training service
development agencies
4,000 rural businesses
Romania 125 commercial Marketing and diversification
CDR (World Bank +) 4 HE, 25,000 Ha consortium
Praxis (Interreg IIIc+) UK, Spain, Belgium, France, Poland, 2HE Counter rural unemployment
Romania, Greece, Italy, The 8 Regional gov through rural enterprise
Netherlands 4 enterprise agencies Toolkit for SME support
Rural Innova (Interreg France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, 7 regional gov Good practice exchange
Belgium, Hungary, Lithuania 2 HE, 5 enterprise and network for rural employment
IIIc+) development agencies
8. Rural Economy in East of England
• Many role for farming
– Food and drinks industry
– 15-25% of GDP
• Fractured market
• Ageing profile with average farmer age in UK
59 years
• 60% face of bankruptcy in 2000
• CAP reforms and accession pathways
• Accession state pressures
9. Moving away from convention
• Conventional approach
– Subventions
– Interventions
– Production subsidies
• Farm businesses operating as quasi state
owned businesses to entrepreneurial and
open market focused SME’s
10. Supporting
• Maintaining a vibrant vital and viable
countryside
– Help restructure the market
– Help to re-skill and gain employability skills
– Help develop and diversify income streams
– Help with environmental protection
– Help with alternative building approaches
• Introducing renewables and environmental
considerations
12. Strategy integration
• University network i10
– All regional university sector organisations
including Cambridge
• Regional Development Agency
• DERFA
• All regional agricultural colleges
• National business support services
• Land owners association
• Agricultural training Board
13. Strategy drivers
“……encouraging and supporting enterprise and innovation in rural business,
and encouraging people of all ages to participate in quality learning opportunities.”.
Go East
• Support for stabilising businesses
• Support diversification
• Support development
• Creating virtual and physical hubs for business
support and skills development
• Support in environmental pollution control
and prevention
14. Achievements
• Created a comparative regional competitive
environment
• Provided stability to allow transformation to occur
• Contributed to rise in world competitive index and
UK competitive index (8 and 6 places)
• 40% of business reported turnover increases
• Estimated 294 FT and 546 PT jobs created
• Income from diversification rose from £10,900 to
£18,400
• Income for tourism rose from £244 to £5,900 per
farm
15. What about renewables
• Set out to create awareness of alternatives
– Universities have some of the leading climate
change experts and alternative energy
• Set out to create practical CAP reforms and NZ
legislation awareness
• Set out to advise on redundant buildings and
sustainable building practices
• Set out environmental village plans as a
demonstration site
16.
17.
18. Putting to practice
• Materials • Design principles
– Joinery – Solar gain
– Cladding – High thermal mass
– Insulation – Super insulation
– Concrete – Passive ventilation
– Photovoltaics – Reduce trades
– Recycle materials and
building products
19.
20. Dealing with sustainable buildings
• Show it can look good
• People can work in them
• Re-learning how a building operates
• Re-learning how building absorb and release
heat
• Helping new users get the bets out of
sustainable buidings
• Using surplus energy
21. Lessons Learnt
• Meaningful business support moving beyond simple
intervention
• farmers re-employed in other sectors
• integrated approach to rural business support adopted by
current mainstream providers
• improved offer from regional agricultural colleges, reflecting
improved knowledge of farm diversification needs and the
experience of running joint-programmes
• best practice of regional and national significance in engaging
with farmers, including ‘hard-to-reach’ groups and women.
• Increased societal benefits
22. Thank you
Dr Jamie MacAskill
www.bite.ac.uk/sbs
Tel: +44 (0) 2079 308 886
email: jmacaskill@bite.ac.uk
“Some people
see things as
they are and
say why. I
dream things
that never
were and say
why not?”
George
Bernard Shaw
www.academy-zone.com
23. Academic
Curriculum Development Market orientation
Improve business process
Seminars & Partner visits Business Outcomes
Partners
master classes Benchmark financing
Business plan financing
Workforce Development Value added
Commercial
Copyright Jamie MacAskill 2003 - 2011
24. •Framing the issues
•Delivery team
Partners
•Screening
•Trust
•Reliable local
manager
•It takes time
Copyright Jamie MacAskill 2003 - 2011
27. •Preferred access to partners accessing programme
•Linking regional support more closely
•Integrated approach to programme planning
•Combining resources strengthens business plan
•Sharing risks
Seminars & Partner visits Business
Partners
master classes Benchmark financing
Value added
Commercial
Copyright Jamie MacAskill 2003 - 2011
28. Academic
Curriculum Development Market orientation
Improve business process
Seminars & Partner visits Business Outcomes
Partners
master classes Benchmark financing
Business plan financing
Workforce Development Value added
Commercial
Copyright Jamie MacAskill 2003 - 2011
30. Academic
Curriculum Development Market orientation
Improve business process
Seminars & Partner visits Business Outcomes
Partners
master classes Benchmark financing
Business plan financing
Workforce Development Value added
Commercial
Copyright Jamie MacAskill 2003 - 2011
Editor's Notes
Schumpeter : Theory of economic innovation and progressConcept of Creative destructionJoseph Schumpeter, particularly in his book Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, first published in 1942. Applying similar approaches to rural economies on the basis that they represent fractured markets where agriculture or rural economies are failing where entrepreneurs enter the rural economy to replace or develop agriculture this will form a force for log term economic renewal that can develop:Vital, Vibrant, Viable rural economies and societies
So lets bring greening business into Urbanisation agendas and internal demand driving productivity and consumption
Tangible: fractured markets where a gap exists in skills tackling new opportunitiesProviding jobs: getting people into employment reduces tax burden and helps retain family units, and community infrastructure
What gives me the right to comment on this in a practical senseUnderpinning by ICT and access to market information via ICT to improve
Over capitalisedLoss making core businessMaintained through subsidiesViable only through rising land valuesIt became clear that there were more fundamental issues in the market and that it was possible to consider it as a fractured market. That is to say a market with significant dislocations requires access to the skills, knowledge and finance to make the market efficient and profitable. This was given added incentive within the planning cycle of the project of the impact of the new entrants expected to be admitted to the EU in 2005 and 2006 that still had significant contributions to GDP made through rural and agricultural based activities.
Outlook was positive give
We were able to integrate several critical policy initiativesVarious policy strategies emerged over this period to ensure that the East of England retained its competitiveness within the UK and that its sub-regions were equally competitive. Therefore, it was possible to align a number of these strategies together to form an inter-linked approach to resolving the identified fractured rural economy. For the context of this paper two major alignments were possible. A network of university sector organisations was created called i10. This group brought together all the business development and innovation units from each university into on hub to bridge a more effective route to the market. A second initiative was the bringing together of the skills and development organisations within the region into a rural support network. In its first cycle of funding this was the Agricultural Diversification in the Eastern Region and in its second cycle Agricultural Development in the Easter n Region (ADER). This grouping brought the small business advisory service together with the six sub-regional agricultural colleges, the government department responsible for farming and rural businesses (MAFF then DEFRA), CLA (County and Landowners association) and the private training providers agricultural training board (ATB).Access to information of the correct form and at the correct time to make efficient decisions that permitted access to support funds to develop and diversify their business. This allowed small businesses to access research and development support through the university networks and the skills development agencies more directly. It also allowed access to funding streams not normally accessible such as university innovation funds and community development funds.
