Dynamic boards are now using expertise form generation y to inform their business development. In this TV show Peter Klauber discusses this change.

Modern thinking in dynamic boards

I think Y generation has a lot to answer for. I think it is fantastic. Ideas come from everywhere in an organisation not just the board. I think most switched on companies will enable everyone to add some opinion to the process of business development. We now have very dynamic boards with all ages, looking for expertise to help and there's no fear in using it.

If you want to hear more about dynamic boards, the role of directors and generation Y, keep browsing Inside Finance TV.

Business strategy models can be put in place to prevent employee absence, as Matthew Haswell discusses in this TV show.

Absence prevention business strategy models

Well the first side, the first thing to do is try and import procedures that are actually going to prevent absence in the first place. Now that doesn’t necessarily relate to immediately spending money, that can be a kind of training and an approach basis. A lot of sickness is recurring, getting to the background of why that sickness is occurring, getting managers to be able to talk to their staff about sickness and absence and looking at patterns, the way sickness is recorded can actually throw up into light certain patterns of illness, it may be from a certain department has reoccurring illnesses, it may even be within a department those under a particular manager have certain recurring absences. That’s something that isn’t exactly a huge cost but it is just a procedural change. And also the culture and value system of the employer has a relation between that and sickness absence. Inside Finance is very interested in innovative business strategy models and will continue to bring you expert discussion on the subject.

Digital generation, digital natives and generation Y are all references to the young people who have grown up with technology. They are now reaching the age where they are entering industry. Graeme Codrington discusses the significance of this.

The digital generation born at the same time as the internet

Technology is obviously a huge driver of change in our world. Recent advances in computing power have really brought computers up to a level where they can now deliver on what our imaginations have been promising for a few decades, and it really just is in the last literally 18 - 24 months that computing power speed size and price have all come together to mean we can really do what we want to do with computers and now we are set up for the next decade of change, but in addition to the raw computing power, it's also the people, we have got a group of people we like to call digital natives who are entering the world of work, these are the young people that were born in that remarkable year of change 1989, the year communism died and the Berlin wall came and Tiananmen Square happened. But also 1989 was the year the internet as we know it was started. Tim Berners-Lee invented HTML and web pages where born, and young people who were born in 1989 were born in the same year that the internet was born and started working for you last year, and they've brought their computers with them, and so it's this combination of computing power and a new generation of digital natives arriving in the workplace at precisely the same time, its going to cause huge disruptive change.

Inside Finance TV will continue to follow the impact of the digital generation entering the world of work.

High net worth families will have to make the decision of when is the best time to involve the younger generations and transfer wealth to them, as Charles Gowlland discusses in this TV show.

High net worth family responsibilities

I think our experience has shown us that there are no rights or wrongs, every family is different, clearly one can see the problems about handing over wealth too early, but equally there are problems about handing it over too late as well, and it is for a combination of the advisors and the family to decide what the best policy is and that policy will often differ within individuals members of the family as well. So the process needs to be relatively flexible. Our survey demonstrated this, if there was a consensus around the subject it was probably that the most important thing was for the younger generation to be involved fairly early, and I mean certainly much earlier than perhaps their parents in turn had started to be involved. So that might be inviting them to be part of the family meeting for example, not the whole thing probably, but from a relatively early stage, to let’s say a part of it, to give them an insight. And then over time building up that knowledge. Building up the knowledge within a family business or getting them some outside experience in the commercial world or within the same industry or getting a professional qualification like accountancy or law, all of those sorts of things were thought to be very useful. But as I say if there was a consensus it was probably that the thirties was the right age to hand it on. And in particular if children appeared, all of a sudden as any parent will know, the mind set changes and suddenly you begin to become more conscious of your own duties and responsibilities and so again the appearance of children was thought to be quite an important aspect.

If you enjoyed this video about high net worth families, then why not watch more TV shows on Inside Finance?

   

In this business growth show Colin Stevens explains how BetterBathrooms responded to customer needs in a way the industry had never done before.

Business growth show: Improving the industry standard

Predominantly the bathroom industry was Monday to Friday 9-5, you know, when everyone was at work, it seems madness looking back. So we included weekend opening hours, Saturday and Sunday, we did that from day one, seven days from when we opened the door. But what we did about three years ago, we changed the operating hours to ten o’clock at night in the week. So that’s sales, over the phone, showrooms, customer service, and again that has grown our sales quite tremendously. But were the first people to do that in the industry. Obviously the National Business Awards recognise that as being quite disruptive in the marketplace and that’s one of the other things. Another thing is transport system. We deliver nationwide so were are dealing with lots of logistics people all over the country, we found that we couldn’t keep full control of that so we’ve actually, in the north-west started our own transport network internally, so we’ve created a load more jobs, got a load of better bathrooms vans on the road. Service has increased dramatically because of it, for instance satisfaction rating went from, on our own transport vehicles, it went from 8.2 out of 1o to 9.9 out of 10 in the north-west. So its amazing when you listen to the customer and you think, actually this makes sense. It ramps your business. If you found this business growth TV show interesting why not watch more shows on Inside Finance?

Artificial intelligence in the future might replace professionals, as technology could automate the procedures which workers currently follow. Graeme Codrington gives his view in this TV show.

Artificial intelligence in the future - The GP

Take your local GP. You to to your GP you've got something that you feel is really wrong with you, pain down the side of your body. You go in to the GP and the GP follows a very strict diagnostic pattern. In fact you'd be upset if they didn't follow the medical practices as laid out by the Medical Council of your country. Once they've got a diagnosis based on that very strict process, they then probably turn to their computers and go on to netdoctor.com just to double check and make sure they've got the latest information because just like you, your doctor only had to get 50% to pass at university, and I don't know if you have ever thought about that, about which 50% you're happy your doctor doesn't know. So you are actually very comfortable that they go the internet to find that extra information. and then of course they send you off to a lab for tests, and at the lab is just a machine that takes your blood, everything is automated. So even one of the most intimate of professions, the doctor, is easily replaced. Just like the investment banker. this is happening and is going to continue to happen over the next decade. It's almost every profession from accountants and lawyers, who I think will be the first to go, all the way through to medical doctors and everything in between could easily be replaced by technology. ________________________________________________________________ Inside Finance TV will continue to discuss artificial intelligence and the future world of work. Look out for more from Graeme Codrington.

Digital innovation is what Robert Scoble spends his time studying. So much time that he has been called the Roger Federer of the Internet. He discusses his work in this Inside Finance TV show.

The digital innovation game

So if you want to understand what’s going to happen to your business you’d better understand the innovators who are changing your business. Rackspace pays me to go study the future so I visit lots of different companies, mostly start-ups because that’s mostly where the innovation is. For instance the reason I was wearing these ugly airwave goggles is inside here is a little wearable computer and it tells you when you’re skiing it tells you how fast you’re going, it shows you where your kids are on the mountain and where you are on the mountain and all sorts of fun stuff. So I’ve interviewed the start-up that makes the compute package in here, Recon Instruments, and I also interviewed Oakley about these and then I go over and talk to Google about Google Glass and talk to lots of start-ups that you’ve never heard of about what’s coming. That’s different, it’s no longer the kind of software Bill Gates wrote for Windows and this is a new era where we know who you’re with, where you are, what your intent is and what’s on your calendar and what have you bought? They have to be scared they’re going to be put out of business. Paranoid. Andy Grove at Intel said ‘only the paranoid survive’, you’d better be paranoid. ______________________________________________________________________________________ Digital innovation has huge implications for all businesses, keep watching Inside Finance to hear more.

Henry Shinners, Partner - Restructuring & Recovery Services, Smith & Williamson, on personal liabilities of company directors.

Many business people are unaware of the personal liabilities of company directors in the UK. Tough laws create the potential for personal liabilities of company directors where a company carries on trading when insolvent.

There is a risk for directors personally that they could be found liable personally for their company's liabilities.  Many directors aren’t aware of that.  If they carry on trading in business beyond the point that they know or ought to know that it's not going to avoid insolvency, then a subsequently appointed liquidator could apply to court to have them found personally liable.

That is a big risk for directors and one that not many are aware of.  Another thing for directors to watch out for when they have businesses that are in financial difficulty is the question of preferences.

So for example if they have given a personal guarantee to a bank, and they arrange, in the period leading up to the appointment of a liquidator or administrator for that loan to be repaid, so to take away their personal guarantee liability, then that's something that can be overturned by the liquidator of the company subsequently.

So they're not avoiding that liability.  That also applies to director's loans account, if they have taken loans from the company... sorry if they have given loans to the company and either arranged for those to be repaid just before the company goes into liquidation or administration, then that's a transaction that can be overturned by the liquidator or administrator.

So that also applies where directors have given loans to their companies and in the period leading up to the company going into some form of insolvency process, whether that's administration or liquidation, they arrange for those loans to be repaid by the company to themselves.  That's a transaction that a subsequently appointed liquidator would certainly seek to return and would be successful in doing so.

For more information on the personal liabilities of company directors as well as other types of risk, you can watch more videos from Henry Shinners here.

David Alexander: "If you’re involved in paying a bribe then that’s a criminal offence and you will be, you know, found guilty, you’ll be sentenced by the court.  As to what the sentence will be, you know, we wait to see.  But it wouldn’t surprise me if it was somewhere between two and up to ten years.  If you as a company Director are … it’s demonstrated that whilst you didn’t know about the fraud, that you failed to put controls in place and you, as I said, you effectively buried your head in the sand, then again, you could be sanctioned for that, as could the company as well.  It would be a criminal offence for the company.  But all this is going to be led by case law, and therefore that’s why a lot of people are just sort of sitting there now waiting for the first cases to be brought by the FSO to understand how the Bribery Act is going to be rolled out in practice."

Entrepreneurial spirit will be portrayed in various parts of a persons character. In this TV show Julie Meyer discusses persistence.

The intensity of an entrepreneurial spirit

I’m fairly good at picking up on how much steel somebody has in their spine.  So, you can tell and it’s not just the level of intensity or the stare that they give you,  it’s more you can kind of sense in how concerted an effort. People betray their level of persistence in many ways and I don’t know how, it’s almost like a neural network after you’ve done it for so long.  But you can kind of sense whether somebody’s going to pull through, for example, with Alastair Lukies of Monitise there’s just something that I felt about him that he was extraordinary and exceptional. And, you know, when he got his first client he secured the first client and he sent me a text message, it was like a Friday night in 2006.  And I remember getting a text message that said, you know, 106 meetings, 76 nights away from my wife, but we have a client today.  And, you know, that’s irrational, that’s obsessive behaviour.  Normal people do not do that, normal people don’t just keep on going. Now, he wasn’t just banging his head against the wall, what he was doing was constantly learning, constantly retargeting, adjusting.  And so the man is extremely smart, which is why Monitise is doing, you know, Monitise will be one of the most important companies ever to have been founded in the United Kingdom.  But it takes an irrational level of persistence.  And I think I’m pretty good at figuring out whether somebody is up for that.

There are many more great videos about entrepreneurial spirit and business success on Inside Finance. Look out for more briefings on the subject.

It is difficult to know the best time to start a business as Charlie Mullins discusses in this TV show.

Entrepreneurship Strategy

We have a situation at the moment where obviously tines are tough out there and money is tight. there is still a lot of youngsters that want to succeed in life, well you know, for me, you know they often ask when is the best time is when you are ready for it. Forget the economy, forget the climate at the moment. If you have a product and you are all ready to go with it, go with it. But it is not an easy ride and probably what I would say to people is I have never met a successful person in business who hasn't worked hard to achieve it. Another great tip is, quitters are not winners and winners are not quitters.

Frank Akers-Douglas: "The most important thing that we need to do or I need to do, when I first meet you is to gain your confidence and vice versa.  And if we can have a relationship of confidence then I’m much better able to give you advice in the structuring of your affairs and in the way in which you may want to pass it on to your family etc.  If we don’t have that confidence then it’s very difficult to get a relationship to really work.  Well I think it’s twofold, it’s personal chemistry.  If you don’t like me then I’m really never going to be able to give you the advice you want because you’re always going to be thinking I don’t like this chap and I don’t like the advice he’s giving on the one hand.  On the other hand it is a confidence that you will tell me what your ideas and plans are in sufficient time for me to be able to say, “Right, well this is what we need to do.”  If I feel you’re holding back on me or not telling me the whole picture again I find it difficult to give you solid advice."

Guy Rigby: "I think it’s a fantastic environment, and I think that, you know, we are now at this time coming out of a, you know, the worst period of trading that we’ve seen probably since the 1930s.  It’s been a disastrous time, very difficult, yet all the innovation that’s coming out around places like tech city, around new funding platforms, alternative funding, you know, the banks are not in an easy position.  So we need these other things to come out.  And there’s huge opportunity.  In addition people have virtual offices, they can set themselves up on computers or laptops for hundreds of pounds as opposed to tens of thousands, which it used to be 10 or 20 years ago.  So the opportunity for entrepreneurs has never been greater.  All you’ve got to do is have a great idea, a great vision as it were and then have the strategy and the business plan to deliver it."

Guy Rigby: "The National Business Awards are, I suppose, the pinnacle of success for a lot of entrepreneurial type businesses, because we are focusing on entrepreneurs and their ... or private clients and their business interests, which I look at as being the entrepreneurial types.  We’ve decided that we’re going to sponsor 'entrepreneur of the year'.  We did some judging last year, we weren’t the sponsors this year, we were actually the sponsors.  So it’s going to be quite exciting.  A big national programme, really good for Smith & Williamson, covering all our offices.  There’ll be different events going on.  It’s a nine month programme.  We had some real fun judging it last year, some great companies get involved."

Inez Anderson: "There’s a very wide range of share schemes and they can range from where you’re actually giving somebody a share or giving them an option over a share. And they’re both very different and are taxed in very different ways.  And some schemes are Revenue approved and some are unapproved schemes.  And the approved ones will have some really good tax breaks built into them.  The schemes can range from being ones which are really suitable for hundreds of thousands of employees down to a very bespoke scheme just even for one individual.  But if we start by just looking at maybe something that’s the most common scheme or the most popular and not every employer can put one in place.  And the employers who can’t, always want to have it, it’s called an EMI scheme - Enterprise Management Incentive scheme.  And it really is for smaller organisations, smaller companies because you can have no more than 250 employees.  And the company has got a cap on its gross assets of 30 million.  And some types of companies can’t be involved in the arrangements; it depends on the nature of their business.  But it’s got huge amounts of tax breaks and indeed there’s been even more just recently introduced, very much trying to encourage share ownership within smaller companies."

Inez Anderson: "I think there’s a need to speak to employees as part of the whole process.  If you’re doing anything with employees reward, you’ve got to talk to employees and get some input and not just, I think, impose it on them.  The second is that once that it has been done and the decisions have been made is making sure there’s still that communication process.  And I think employers can go to the...just asking for feedback or if it’s a large enough workforce is making availability sort of for online surveys every year, just asking people, “You know, we’ve done this, what do you think of it?  What more would you like?”  And that I can see is really quite important because if an employer has spent some time, effort, money in putting something in place I don’t think you can just stop it and say, “I’ve done it.”  You want to keep it fresh. You want to keep getting that input.  So communicating and asking for the feedback from employees is really important."

Business is no longer linear and you have to adapt your thinking to suit. Julie Meyer explains further in this TV show.

Business strategy models - Networks

If you are still, in any way shape or form thinking linear or hierarchical, you need to update your thinking to a network orientation. That's much more important than just the Facebook as a phenomena or LinkedIn as a phenomena. Everything has moved to a world of interdependency and multiple dependencies in that.

This business leadership video features Jo Malone, Founder of Jo Malone & JO LOVES.

Business leadership video for success

The formula for success is hardwork, courage and tenacity. She says entrepreneurs should create a team that feels like a family and would love to do business on a hand shake again. There is a value in building real relationships in business. If you found this business leadership video interesting why not watch more TV shows on Inside Finance?