Partner Article

PM visits Intuit UK for small business QandA

Global leader in small business accounting software, Intuit, has hosted a Q&A for SMEs with the Prime Minister, David Cameron. The event, which took place at Inuit’s office in Maidenhead provided an exclusive opportunity for local business owners, entrepreneurs and accountants to quiz the Prime Minister on entrepreneurship.

Cameron was visiting as part of the PM Direct outreach programme which Intuit is a founding sponsor of, organised in associated with StartUp Britain. The campaign is designed as an attempt to accelerate small business enterprise in the UK, inspiring budding entrepreneurs along the way.

The Prime Minister was greeted on arrival by Bernie McKay, chief public policy officer and vice president global corporate affairs at Intuit and Ami Verma, Intuit’s head of UK customer care and sales.

“Intuit was honored to be chosen to host the Prime Minister for his PM Direct roundtable with local small businesses on the issues they face and his thoughts and plans to address them,” said McKay. “In my conversation with the Prime Minister we discussed our mutual commitment to UK small businesses, his personal commitment to make Britain the best place to start a business, and our complementary commitment to support small businesses as they start, grow, and thrive.”

Oli Barret, co-founder of Startup Britain introduced the session and acknowledged hosts Intuit. “If you don’t know them (Intuit) already, go and have a look,” he said. “They look after 4.5 million businesses around the world with their accounting software particularly for small businesses, so we are in the right place – really exciting.”

Cameron spent an hour answering questions ranging from the importance of small business within the wider economy, the EU, fashion and the importance of finance in education for young people.

Over 150 small business owners and entrepreneurs, including Intuit QuickBooks and QuickBooks online customers and QuickBooks ProAdvisor accountants, attended the event along with Intuit employees and a contingency of journalists.

Sarah Gibson, marketing manager at Intuit felt that the event offered a fantastic opportunity for small businesses to hear from the Prime Minister, “I think we all left the event feeling inspired and energised. It was also a brilliant experience having the opportunity to speak with the Prime Minister face-to-face about the work that we do here to support small and start-up businesses.”

Intuit’s QuickBooks customers and QuickBooks ProAdvisor accountants enjoyed the session including Will Boswell, creative director at Taylor Boswell, a QuickBooks customer. “As a product designer, I was particularly inspired by his plans to provide more incentives for companies to design and manufacture in the UK. For a long time I have been saddened to see British manufacturing companies closing their doors, unable to compete with the emerging markets in the East. I felt reassured that with the Government’s support, we will start to see more of the products we design, made in the UK once more.”

“I found the day both interesting and informative,” said Paul Hodgson from BCAMS Ltd, a QuickBooks ProAdvisor. “It was great to see that Intuit was influential in attracting so many business leaders from the region. The feedback I received afterwards was that as attendees, we were all in agreement that the Prime Minister did a masterful job, in helping us feel assured that although times are tough, he understands the needs of Business Leaders in the SME space, and the Government is attempting to help.”

Cameron also used the event to announce new measures for tackling the compensation culture and trivial claims which will free SMEs from the stranglehold of health and safety red tape.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Jonny Marshall .