Thursday, October 29, 2015

Heading south

In the last two blogs we travelled north - this time we head south.What began as a test of, could we run a marketing business away from base, turned into a marketing appraisal of opportunities offered by the location.

So from northern Britain we headed to one of the most southerly parts of Spain, an island location nearer to Africa than mainland Europe. A recent poll discovered that a big majority of British people do not consider themselves European at all. Continental Europe is also mainly the European Union which looms large in the current political agenda.  The EU is not yet a state although its seems its aspirations are to become one. It has a flag, national anthem, parliament, currency, but critically no common language. Well yes it does, in practice - English. And the English are probably the least enthusiastic about membership of the EU. In fact a referendum - a very European concept in itself - is promised next year.

Consider the results of the last two major elections in Britain.  The elections to the European Parliament in 2014 were won by UKIP -  a party with a key aim of leaving the EU - UKIP won 4.36 million votes and 24 MEPs; second were Labour with 4.02 million votes and 20 MEPs and third Conservatives with 3.79 million seats and 19 MEPs.  Interestingly the Scottish Nationalists had 389 thousand votes and 2 MEPs. Contrast this with the 2015 UK general election where UKIP polled 3.88 million votes and got one MP, the Scottish Nationalists with 1.45 million votes got 56 MPs!  A strange efect of the two different voting systems used.

The Spanish economy is the fourth largest in the Eurozone and was severely impacted by the recession of 2007-8 with a quarter of the work force unemployed, but this year has been recovering faster than other EU countries. There are large English communities in the south many of whom have set up small businesses. Applying the 'crane count' appraisal as a guide to economic activity, despite groups of unfinished buildings standing like concrete skeletons, the cranes are back and construction is picking up. Interestingly working in Spain is not much different to working in England, but in the sunshine. For me the Internet is the enabling technology essential to running our business.

So what did we learn from the 'taking the business on tour'. Simply put, with planning, an iBook, iPhone and Internet it all worked very well.


Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Looking for the northern power house

We take a look at the territory.

When we previously referred to the 'Northern Power House' as being a 'vision', it prompted the thought that a visit might be useful to have a look at things on the ground and seek the green shoots of growth of this new era of northern power.

Historically the region played a major part in England's Industrial Revolution -1760 to 1840. The damper climate of Lancashire worked best for cotton mills, while Yorkshire mills produced wool. Huddersfield located midway between Leeds and Manchester is actually only 190 miles north of London and Huddersfield was where we located. The mills that generated the wealth were not without problems, with early labour troubles instigated by the Luddites who smashed mill equipment and where at least one mill owner was shot dead. But that was over 2oo years ago. The town today is much like many other English towns with its national chain stores brands, supermarkets, pound shops, charity shops and vacant shops. The area also has a number of museum celebrating the past industrial successes and many fine buildings remain as a legacy of past wealth, not least the much admired railway station facade.

Presumably in the Industrial Revolution, first the canals and then the railways were built to ship out the mill goods to markets further afield. The HS2 railway however seems to be presented as the driver for the Northern Power House vision and not its servant. Down south there are plenty of protest posters in leafy Buckinghamshire against HS2 which will  run through this pleasant area, but here's a thing. HS2 doesn't actually go to the north at all. It kind of bypasses Birmingham and runs out of steam somewhere north of Tamworth. It is described as a London to West Midlands railway. Phase 2 is still vague with spurs to Manchester and Leeds suggested. HS3 is even more of an illusion dreamed up to to improve east west links, but a map suggests a series of spurs linking various northern towns and hopefully built by 2033! And it all seems to hinge on Chinese investment.

So is there any evidence of a Northern Power House in meaningful terms yet? Or is it a political thing to create an autonomous region and prevent demands for independence, not by Scotland, but for England? From a marketing point of view there seems to be no unique proposition from a group of northern cities and towns being bundled together as an English sub brand. The geography  doesn't help and fast trains a couple of decades away might instead offer a faster exit from the area.

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Taking the business on the road

For companies like ours that do not have a bricks and mortar existence, we decided to test how practical running the business on the road actually can be.

We operated from two different locations - one in the North of England, the other in Spain. The work tasks envisaged included day-to-day client contact, content development and all the necessary back office stuff like bank accounts, VAT, invoicing and general management. This called for a fair amount of planning as we were aiming to run everything from iPhones and iBooks which meant leaving PCs, NAS and paper based systems behind.

The first foray was for a short visit to an area which the government is referring to as "The Northern Power House." It is not anything to do with electrical goods or generation, or even a domestic appliance warehouse, but a vision to improve connectivity between England's northern cities by improved transport links somehow generating super economic power. There's big investment planned particularly in rail links - HS2 north-south and HS3 east-west, plus 40 major road schemes. Certainly the M1 had a huge amount of roadworks in progress apparently transforming this previously boring ribbon of concrete into an 'intelligent motorway." The region includes Manchester, Leeds, Hull, Sheffield and Liverpool and accounts for 16.7% of the UK population but has performed below the UK  average for years. A lot is actually about Manchester, but we headed to Leeds and Huddersfield, basing ourselves in Brighouse.

As a measure of economic activity I  find a quick count of how many cranes are dotted around the skyline is an interesting indicator - plus a chat with a taxi driver or barber. When I  was in Leeds a couple of years ago, the taxi driver was very downbeat and gave the impression that there was little money being brought home by most people except by benefit cheats who seemed to provide much of his trade. Even then the centre of Leeds seemed busy with popular post code areas like LS 5 providing attractive residential options in the suburbs.

We headed to Huddersfield to meet in the Harold Wilson Building at the University. Despite having been Prime Minister and local MP,  none of the undergraduates we asked for directions appeared to be aware of his identity or where the building that bore his name was located. The building itself was considerably understated compared to the expectation - not even a picture of Harold in his trademark raincoat enjoying a pipe of tobacco. Not much to see of the Northern Power House so far ....