I attended a very different kind of event on Friday night in the South-East Economic Forum run by Hart Brown and SEEDA (South East Economic Development Agency). The main topic was prospering in the current climate and provided some insights into just that but not perhaps as much as I had hoped.
Three main speakers - HSBC's Chief UK Economist, Vice Chair of SEEDA and Communications Director of Philips.
Prospects for the UK economy - mixed some showers here, sunny spells there but on a sectoral rather than regional basis
Prospects for the South East - good-ish - need to improve basic and technician level education, more open to global environment than othe UK regions because of large service (read financial) sector.
Philips - nearly died in late 80's but pulled it around becuase someone actually went back to basics and applied marketing 101 - ask what your customers want, focus on your core competence, don't do things that lose you money, have a coherent brand.
I didn't pull as much information as I could have done becuase it was all very formal, all very serious and wearing a suit (yes, you read that correctly) in a lecture hall with no air conditioning, I am surprised I didn't pass out. Enough of the criticism though.
The three speakers were very engaging speakers in different ways and offered very different views on potentially the same topic. What it failed on though was actually being a forum. It ended up being a discussion from the great and good with little questioning.
A number of people there seemed to want a little more on how things are going to pan out in the next couple of years for small and medium sized businesses (myself included) but whilst getting interesting insight on the UK economy (or maybe it was crystal gazing by a fortune teller - with no offence intended to economists) and into how the south east does have poorly developed areas (there along the coast - Berkshire, Surrey and NE Hampshire need not apply) and lastly how Philips receovered from not being focused on the market (not sure how it appplies to the specifics of the current market other than you need to focus on your market). I came away feeling a little short changed - which is a shame because I thought it had a lot of potential.
I did manage to do some market research of my own with a few people before and after the speakers, but not enough. More work to do to convince organisers to change style and shift expectations.
Posted by Paul Goodison at July 6, 2005 10:04 AM | TrackBack