Brexit #londonisopen

From: CEO
Sent: 24 June 2016 11:57
To:
Subject: London is Open

  

I understand that you may be considering how this decision could impact your business and, as the Chief Executive of the Capital’s promotional and economic development company, I wanted to reach out to you and to remind you that my team is here to support you.

 

The first thing to say is that this vote does not change London's fundamental position as the world’s pre-eminent business city and as one of the most desirable cities in the world in which to live, work and build a global business.

 

London is the leading centre in Europe for technology and life sciences. We have more universities ranked in the world's top 100 than any other city and attract thousands of international students from all over the world. London is a world-class centre of creativity and innovation and a cultural powerhouse, with 215 museums, 857 art galleries and 245 live music venues.

In short, this vote does not alter London's position as one of the world’s truly global cities, a city which is open, welcoming and cosmopolitan.  

So what happens next?

The process and timeline for leaving the European Union, and the terms on which this will be achieved, will now be negotiated. This is a matter for UK Government and Parliament and it will take a number of years. 

It is in the interests of the EU member states and institutions for the exit process to be smooth and equitable, and there is no evidence to suggest that this will not be the case. 

It is also worth reminding ourselves that the vote was driven by UK citizens’ desire to leave a political union. All of the main UK parties are in favour of a deep, trading relationship with the EU as indeed the Mayor makes clear in his statement.

So, for now and until the facts are clearer, I would counsel against acting in haste and, instead, keep a watching brief on developments. There will be ample time to develop and effect business plans based on proper analysis of the facts as they become clear.

At London & Partners we put our clients first and we pride ourselves on helping you to make better informed decisions more quickly by providing confidential, expert advice based around your best interests. I would, therefore, encourage you to stay in contact with my team as you consider the implications of this decision. As always, we are keen to hear from you and understand your perspective. Next week I will send to you a short survey and would appreciate any feedback that you are able to offer.

I am confident that London will remain a world class centre for international business during, and after, the UK’s exit from the EU. I am also committed to continuing to support your growth in our great city.

  

Yours sincerely,

Gordon Innes

Gordon Innes
Chief Executive

London & Partners is the official promotional agency for London attracting and delivering value to businesses, students and visitors. London & Partners is a not-for-profit public private partnership, funded by the Mayor of London and our network of commercial partners.

London & Partners Limited is registered in England and Wales under No: 7493460.  Registered office 6^th Floor, 2 More London Riverside, London SE1 2RR

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What the War on Terror Has Taught Me | Edwina Thompson | TEDxClapham

Jobs For UK 18 - 24 year olds, please forward on to the young:

Paid placement with management fast-track opportunity

Champions SE exists to provide young people with real work experience whilst fundraising for our partner charities. Since appearing on Dragon’s Den in 2007, we have trained over 750 young people and raised over £10m for charity. Due to demand, we are now opening this opportunity to applicants without a degree for the very first time. This is a unique opportunity to gain qualifications whilst earning a salary. Anyone interested in moving into a fast-paced social enterprise that helps raise money for some great causes should apply.

What we offer:
• Enrollment on Institute of Leadership & Management Qualifications
• Sales training
• Charity training
• Basic salary & bonus
• Zone 1 to 3 travel card

What we require in return:
• Desire to learn
• Basic can do attitude
• Ambition
• Drive

How to apply:

All those wishing to apply MUST attend one of our information meetings in central London. Spaces are are very limited, so please email your CV to managementfasttrack@championslifeacademy.com to guarantee yourself a place.

YOUR DIGITAL JOURNEY: CROSS-FUNCTIONAL COLLABORATION

Whether the digital revolution makes or breaks your business will likely depend on the underpinning ‘digital integration’ necessary to optimise the customer experience. Because this requires an unprecedented level of cross-functional collaboration, Pomegranate, a pioneering digital user experience agency, has incorporated into our offering TEAMWIN, the innovative collaborative capability developed and used around the world by strategy consultancy Beechwood International. 

This unique combination allows organisations to explore ways to improve the digital customer journey and address the required internal changes in tandem. 

To celebrate this initiative, we have designed a highly interactive, productive and enjoyable 1-day workshop, for carefully selected cross-functional groups across the organisation to look back to review their ‘digital journey’, and look forward to refocus and re-energise. Participants will leave with fresh insights and a shared understanding of the vision, priorities and next actions. 

We will tailor the workshop planning, facilitation and reporting to your particular needs, and agree an outcomes-based fee. We hope that this might then form the basis of a replicable process to kick off and monitor progress of your digital projects as they arise. And by repeating this experience across the organisation, cross-functional collaboration will progressively become embedded in the way your people navigate the digital journey, and other aspects of the business, together. 

If you think that now is the right time to affirm the work you are doing, or you want to increase the success of a next phase of development, this pit-stop will help your team to frame and resolve the challenges that jeopardise the value of your digital customer experience. 

www.beechwood.net

http://www.pomegranate.co.uk/

Local Authorities - UK

The situation Local Authorities find themselves in is a predicament with dire consequences and borders on unfix-able.  Faced with the known challenges of year on year budget cuts, greater pressure and demand from the public, managing risk and conflicting priorities, and the influence and political nuances of the Members and their Parties we could almost feel sorry for those running Local Authorities.

Much is being done across the country by our Local Authorities to act more commercially.  Ideas ranging from sales of consumer oriented goods, recycling schemes, leveraging IT&T infrastructure, consolidation of property and more, but one cannot throw a blanket across the nation and say 'be commercial' as there are far too many local and parochial variables to contend with.

Take a helicopter ride over a business, any business, what becomes clear is there are two main types of activity taking place.  If we were to put these activities into buckets we would have; bucket 1 - 'business as usual (BAU)' and bucket 2 - 'projects'.

Bucket 1 - 'BAU' - in the context of local authorities is filled with the daily tasks that need to be completed to serve the community and run the business.  From emptying bins to collecting rates, these activities must not stop and must meet demand.

Bucket 2 – ‘Projects’ - contains everything that starts as an idea or an imperative with a budget and a date to complete.  Some projects start and don't finish, some start and run for ever, some start and finish way over budget and some never get off the ground but the issue is every one of these projects will either negatively or positively affect bucket 1, business as usual.

In my recent conversations with local authorities what does loom large as a common denominator in those authorities who are searching for and delivering a more commercial approach is that this cannot impede on 'business as usual'.   This could be done though better project management, better understanding of financial information and better decision making processes but it appears the problem in being really commercial is more to do with 'mindset' throughout the authority coupled with a focus on the customer.

Without Local Authorities being able to clearly articulate internally why the business needs to be commercial, and therefore to build a plan with clear descriptions of the benefits and outcomes for the business, its customers and its employees this mindset will never shift.  

Scott Thompson
Director
Beechwood International

How Revenue Performance Management (RPM) helps clients grow revenue

More and more companies are becoming troubled by their inability to drive consistent, predictable and sustainable revenue.  Up until the 2008 CEO’s wanted double-digit revenue growth.  During the financial crisis most were happy if they were able to simply hold the line, or at least not go backwards to quickly.  Now the quest is on again for that sustainable top line growth which has eluded so many for so long.  Regardless of whether their stance is offensive or defensive, the underlying challenges for CEO’s remain consistency, predictability and sustainability.

The first step is to understand the reasons why an organization’s revenue performance is no longer what it was, or what they would like or expect it to be.  Producing revenue isn’t a simple thing to do – not sustainably.  In the Business-To-Business (“B2B”) space, sales generally mark the end of a lengthy, complicated and highly interdependent chain of events which started with a strategic decision to focus on a particular market segment and culminated many months or even years later with a customer paying money in return for a product or service.  All the things that have to happen in between the beginning and the end or that process constitute one of the most important, and yet least understood and poorly managed business processes in companies today.

 Because that end-to-end process is so poorly understood, even by those managers directly responsible for it, when it stops working and sales slow very few people actually know why.  Some companies perform manifestly better than others – even through financial crises.  Even now, some are doing well in industries where their competitors are struggling or even going backwards.  So there’s clearly more to it than just the state of the economy or industry conditions.

Not knowing why something has stopped working as it should makes the CEO’s task of applying the right “fix” pretty difficult.  When many CEO’s and their Sales Directors find their revenues slowing or stopping, they don’t know why and they therefore don’t know what they should do to remedy the situation.  The old “tricks” that used to work when times were good – like buying another company, investing in a new CRM system, training or replacing the sales force, hiring a new Director of Sales or re-branding the company – don’t seem to work anymore.  To fix what’s broken now they have to stop guessing what might be wrong and understand which pieces of the process are broken and fix them.

And that’s what RPM does.  Analyse and fix broken revenue processes.

Baker Tilly UK has recently launched the Revenue Performance Management group (RPM).  Formed to help organisations manage their revenue (sales) risks and grow their top lines consistently and profitably.

In the seven years since it was launched in Australia, the Revenue Performance Management (“RPM”) Group has helped more than 70 organisations across a diverse range of industries including manufacturing, telecommunications, information technology, professional services, health care, media and entertainment improve their top line performance by an average of 23%.  .

The philosophy behind our RPM model is that successful and sustainable revenue generation needs to be a function of rigorous, consistent, repeatable and measureable business processes; business processes which are synchronised with the buying journey of the customer.

Our RPM team provides a range of diagnostic, planning and execution tools and services to help organisations understand why they aren't selling as much as they would like to, address immediate problems in their revenue creation processes, and transform those processes into sustainable, high-performance revenue-generating engines.

Sales And Marketing Alignment Absent At Most B2B Firms, Survey Finds

Sales And Marketing Alignment Absent At Most B2B Firms, Survey Finds