It was an interesting meeting with Vince Cable the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and also the MP of Twickenham in his home county.
As the CEO of Entrevo, we specialize in training entrepreneurs and leaders in five key areas to stand out and get more recognized as a “Key Person of Influence”. In the last year alone we have had more than 3,000 people attend our events in London and more than 10,000 globally. Most businesses we work with are small businesses and they typically employ fewer than 10 staff and turn over between £70k – £2m. About 10% of the businesses we work with turn over between £2m – £20million.
Our training programme is currently in London but we’ve had businesses join us from Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Ghana, Netherlands, France, Spain and many more.
In Britain, we have 4.8 million businesses and close to 96% of these are small businesses. Since the recession in 2008, UK banks have stopped lending money. This has affected many businesses in how they operate and the level of risks they can take to grow.
So when I met up with Vince who is the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and a key decision maker in UK’s business policies in an intimate set up of about 30 business leaders, I had a few questions for him.
Vince mentioned that in his time when he worked with the company Shell, their strategy and planning would extend not for the immediate or the next 5 years but for the next 20 years.
There is an importance in planning and so I wondered, can small businesses really plan that long term? The market is so dynamic. Banks have been shying away from lending in this country since 2008. There are government schemes that have been introduced to help small businesses, but will these continue tomorrow?
My question was:
“Will government schemes like EIS, SEIS and the Growth Accelerator continue over the next 5 years?”
To this, Vince mentioned that the mentoring support the Growth Accelerator’s have provided has been useful and commendable however it is for a limited time only. The mentoring – support from growth accelerator, for companies past the start up stage, want to make a jump from 10 employees to double and is available till March 2015.
Darshana Ubl
CEO | Entrevo UK
www.darshanaubl.com
About Entrevo..
Entrevo Ltd is a training and development company, which has its operations in UK, USA, Singapore and Australia. Its core product is the Key Person of Influence Programme and the Entrepreneur Brand Accelerator events focusing on owner led businesses. Find out more on: www.keypersonofinfluence.com/uk