Partner Article

Business support: the only certainty is uncertainty

Adian Beadnell is experienced in business advice and training. He reflects on his experiences in business support, and how the landscape is changing.

Anyone working in the business support profession will probably agree with me that the only certainty at the moment is uncertainty.

I remember well studying ‘the management of change’, whereby a situation requiring change was unfrozen, changed and then refrozen. Today many organisations, including those trying their best to provide support to pre, new and existing business customers, remain in a state of perpetual change.
Permanently unfrozen, thawed out by years political tinkering.

My initial venture into the provision of support for businesses was as a freelance advisor and trainer within the once dominant Business Enterprise Agencies operating throughout the North East. These organisations worked predominantly with new start enterprises. They were axed, along with me,
in 2006. I also facilitated and taught on the New Entrepreneur Scholarship programme at a local university. A superb, and often oversubscribed, national scheme aimed at supporting scholars from deprived areas into business. Again, we were both unfortunately axed in 2008 by the LSC.

Another important aspect of my business, Affirm Advice, Consultancy and Training, involved the assessment of fellow business advisors against SFEDI Business Support Standards. This regular re-appraisal provided advisors, their employers and, more importantly, their customers with a high standard of expected quality in service delivery. This work also came to an abrupt end in 2010 with announced demise of Business Link, my main customer.

You may now see a trend developing in my career, closely tracking that of the alleged third, and less fortunate, Dolly Parton triplet.

2011 was an awful year. Everything I’d worked for, and studied towards (i.e. DMS, PGCE, MBA and MSc in Small Business Development), had been systematically dismantled or devalued on a purely cost saving basis. What did appear to be on offer, via the then new Coalition Government, was the opportunity to join the other 39,999 ‘volunteer’ business mentors being proposed as the replacement for Business Link.

Linked to the above, I recently attended a ‘Get Mentoring’ session along with five other potential mentors. My lasting impression gained from this half-day training event was one of what not to do as a mentor, especially give business advice. I do have real concerns about the use of unpaid volunteers to deliver this service, how quality of service can be monitored and controlled and the real value of this initiative to new and existing targeted businesses, unless part of a comprehensive package of support.

Part of this wider package appears to involve the provision of the ‘StartUp Britain’ website. This product reminds me of the ill fated Morris Ital. Marketed by British Leyland as a ‘new’ car but really just an old Morris Marina with a different bonnet and boot. Subjected to a huge ‘launch’ last year it, in reality, only appears to be a revamp of what already existed but under a new name.

I’m now ‘in business’ as a freelance First Aid at Work Instructor, ironically doing something I did in a voluntary capacity for over 20 years. So I now volunteer for work I used to get paid for and get paid for work I used to do as a volunteer, which makes a nice change?

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .