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Reasons for Not Doing Micro-Enterprise Support

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So just why is it so rare to see decent business support provision developed specifically with the micro-enterprise in mind?  Well I suspect because there is a perception amongst the powers that be that it is hard, expensive and wasteful.

  • There are just too many micro-enterprises to offer more than a generic website.
  • Micro-enterprises are just too heterogeneous – they all have different wants and needs.  There is no one size fits all solution for them.
  • They just don’t have the capacity to absorb and act upon the services and guidance we offer.  There is no HR team to work with our skills offering, no marketeers to get involved with our business development work.
  • Micro-enterprises just aren’t able to engage strategically with support.  Everyone in the micro-enterprise is too busy doing their day job to invest in their development. They have no discretionary time to invest.
  • There is little return on public investment in micro-enterprise. They start small stay small and die small.  They are just lifestyle businesses that have little potential for job creation.
  • We don’t really understand them.  Our boards and committees are overloaded with people from big business.
  • To make a significant economic impact it is much easier to work with the big employers.  One big employer could trigger thousands of apprenticeships across the UK.  We might need to work with 10 000 micro-enterprises to find just 100.
  • Big businesses understand how the game is played.  They come to breakfast meetings, read policy papers and generally know how to work with the system.  Micro-enterprises tend to be much more opinionated, impatient and generally difficult.
Personally I think that each of these are actually reasons why enterprise support should be emphasised.  It is a massive market, driven, focussed and unlikely to indulge in pointless grandstanding and meetings.  The diversity of the sector means that is faces every problem and opportunity imaginable but also that the sector has all of the experience and skills within it that it requires.  The challenge is to get the know-how flowing. HINT when dealing with a large market this is not done by fielding a few experts.  If we can influence just a small part of the micro-enterprise market then we can make a massive difference.
Perhaps it is time we changed the rules of engagement to recognise how micro-enterprises work.  Drop the committees, agendas and the policy reviews and start committing to action and learning instead.

The Alternative LEP and Micro-enterprise

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Our alternative LEP will have a board stuffed full of owner managers of micro enterprises.

Don’t get me wrong we will have ‘token’ small and medium sized board members too – but will draw the line at Big Business. They have enough lobbying clout and influence to fight their own battles.

So what type of policies would our board look at developing?

  1. Programmes to promote local supply chains and sourcing from micro-enteprise wherever practical
  2. Conduct a major overhaul of commissioning and procurement processes in the public sector (local authorities and NHS as primary targets) and where possible big businesses to ensure that they are as micro-enterprise friendsly as possible
  3. Divert training and learning budgets away from FE colleges and pay owner managers to take on apprenctices and teach them current, commercial practices.  Move the locus for learning from the class room into the workplace.
  4. Develop ways to enable micro-enterprises to co-operate and collaborate so they they can punch above their weight. Promote collaborative consumption and production.
  5. Promote local economy arguments and the importance of keeping cash in local peoples hands rather than handing it over to multi-nationals

What other policy areas would an alt-LEP that understood micro enterprise seek to develop?

Access to Coaching – An Alternative LEP Idea

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First of all we should reject the temptation to be entirely strategic.

Don’t try to analyse the economy like it is a game of monopoly where you can understand the roll of the dice, seeing and preparing for an uncertain future.  Don’t pretend that people and their aspirations count for nothing as you ponder the balance between investing in ports, ring-roads, runways or fibre.

Instead learn to compliment strategic development with a responsive approach.  One that engages residents in their hopes and aspirations for a better life and gives them the power and the responsibility to pursue them.  Put your faith and confidence in people.  Provide them with hope, leadership and support.

Dare to be relevant to people and not just ‘the business community’.

A city region of around 3m people like Leeds would require a network of around 75 coaches to provide access to person centred coaching support for everyone that really wanted it.

  • It would engage about 45 000 people in the process of providing direct hands on assistance to their peers.
  • It would provide direct assistance to about 16500 beneficiaries a year, the vast majority of whom would make significant progress in their personal journeys as a result of benefiting from a coaching rather than a coercive approach.
  • I would anticipate at least 750 sustainable business starts from this cohort every year.  I would envisage business survival rates around the 90% rate after 3 years.
  • It would make a very real difference to the perceptions of some 20 000 people a year about the extent to which they feel that they ‘belong to’ and ‘feel supported’ in their community.
  • In addition to traditional ‘enterprise’ outputs I would expect substantial impacts on health and well-being as well as increases in volunteering, cultural productivity, mental health, fitness and so forth.
  • It would help to integrate the dual priorities of economy and community rather than treating them as separate and often incompatible determinants.
  • Within 3-7 years I would expect it to have made a sustained and measurable difference to the enterprise culture in the city region.

And it would cost about £3.75 million a year.

The price of a very rich wo/man’s house.

NB this piece was prompted by reading ‘The Economic Opportunities and Challenges for the emerging Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) in Yorkshire and Humber – Briefing Paper‘.

As far as it goes this is an ok piece of work. Unremittingly strategic, focussing on communications, infrastructure development and targeting support at key industries – all tried, tested and, at best, partially successful ideas for economic development.  One of the challenges it identified is to develop sufficient ‘low skill jobs’ for our low skill economies.   It talks about the structures required to ensure integration of LEP structures across the region.  One can almost hear the creaking of bureaucracy…