Strategy development for investment was what Envestors was created to teach. Founding Director Oliver Woolley discusses the importance of preparing for investment in this TV show.

Investment strategy development

One of the reasons we set up Envestors is that we thought there was a bit of education needed on both the investor and entrepreneur side. So we provide training for investors. We produce a guide to how to invest as a business angel and we do a seminars for investors. So our idea is to educate both the investor and the entrepreneur and try and get them close enough so that we can get good deals done. So we find that a lot of companies aren't particularly well prepared so we run an investment readiness briefing on a Tuesday morning every two weeks, which is free. It is essentially a two hour seminar about the practicalities and realities and the obligations of raising external equity finance. We find that at the end of that, that the company has though a lot about their business plan but they haven't though enough about it from an investment perspective. So we will then work with a company to make sure that there is a full and detailed investment proposal.

If you are interested in strategy development for investment then take a look at the full briefing Cashed Up - How to attract business funding.

Artificial intelligence and cognitive computing is the latest in a series of technological developments that have affected the value of human ability. Graeme Codrington discusses the development in this video.

Computers have the advantage

About 100 years ago if you wanted to be quite successful in the world it would have been very clever for you to be quite physically fit. Because in the industrial age, as before that in the agrarian age, in the age of farming the people who either owned the land or owned the factories or worked on the land or worked in the factories, they were the people who were in charge. Those were your assets, physical ability. What we’ve done over the last 100 years is replaced peoples’ physical, the physical needs in terms of what we need from them physically with machines, you know, the combined harvester and the container and the robots in factories. And then for the last 50 years we have ploughed our resources, as human beings we’ve become clever by being clever. We have moved into the information age where your mental ability is what sets you apart from other people. Now, somebody who was gifted at birth, not by my choice, but was gifted with a reasonable intelligence and a nice IQ and a middle class family that could get me through university, that’s been brilliant. Because I’ve been able to use my brain to make money, but unfortunately right now computers are about to do to me what robots and machines did to my farm working, factory working uncles and grandparents. They’re about to make me redundant because they can think faster than I can. They can think more than I can. They don’t need to take a break to eat or sleep or all the other things I like to do. Inside Finance TV has more fantastic video by Graeme Codrington and other experts on the future of business.

Business strategy models have to adaptable to future disruptions and developments. In this TV show Keith Coats of TomorrowToday discusses strategic thinking for leaders.

Business strategy models in an unpredictable world

Leaders have to be future-focused. Levi right now have a great slogan, which says ‘the future has left, so go forth’. Jim Data is a retired futurist and he articulated that past thinking amongst futurists was something like this … I might have some of the percentages slightly wrong but the rough ratios is 80% of our tomorrows would be built on what futurists call continuations, so if you want to understand tomorrow, look at the DNA of today, 80%. 15% would be cycles – economic, political social cycles – and 5% would be novelties. Now, in the futurist language a novelty is the curve ball, the unexpected, the 9/11, the thing that very few people could foresee. I’ll preface that with past thinking. Current thinking amongst futurists has inverted that table, turned it on its head. They are telling us that up to 80% of our tomorrow is what they call novelty, we simply do not know. Now, even if they’re half correct I wouldn’t go to war over those percentages, it’s the trend here we’re looking at, that the bulk of our tomorrows is going to be a surprise, going to be the unexpected, the unpredictable. The question then becomes how do you build continuity in that? What does the organisation that learns how to build planes in the air, as it were, look like in that context? For one thing it renders redundant strategic planning, you cannot plan your way into that kind of uncertainty. We need companies today who understand the emphasis needs to be on strategic thinking and at all levels of the organisation, this is a leadership agenda.

Inside Finance is very interested in business strategy models and the future business world. Browse our video player for related content.

In this business growth show Alistair Brew discusses the financial industry supporting entrepreneurial businesses.

Business growth show - Finance support for entrepreneurs

There’s absolutely no shortage of entrepreneurial talent in the UK, lots of fantastic ideas, I think it’s been about those, those ideas, those businesses now being picked up by the financial community and supported on the journey through its the different levels of expansion.  It’s taking, I think it’s getting better and people are more joined-up and hopefully we can support some businesses from the very early stage right through to the giants.  The Americans have traditionally done this very well, we want to be able to do that in the UK as well now.

If you found this business growth show interesting , why not follow Inside Finance on Twitter @InsideFinanceTV and let us know what you think.

 

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 risk can come from many unknown variables. When working with an investment manager people should be clear about how much risk they are prepared to take, as Michael Pagliari explains in this TV show.

Investment & business risk

I think that you know individuals sometimes tend to give misleading answers when asked about the amount of risk that they want to take. So for example a typical response that you get from an entrepreneur is ‘oh, I don’t really want too much risk but you know I’d like to make 10% returns’. Now in the current sort of environment that we exist, where interest rates are at zero, 10% is a very ambitious rate of return, so the statement is actually pretty incoherent. So at that point I think you need to dig deeper and find out exactly what the client needs as a minimum requirement and make sure that it is coherent with his underlying thought process. They understand risk very well in their own business, in the context of managing financial assets my experience has been that that knowledge is of the same type of thought process does not necessarily transfer itself well to their financial assets. And that can mean, that can mean that either they take on too much risk in their financial assets or they take on too little. Ideally, I actually think that it takes about a couple of years until you really understand a client’s risk profile and as you get to know him you make some adjustments. So my personal suggestion or my personal methodology is to start with a relatively conservative risk profile until I feel that I really understand and know the client better. Investment does involve risk. The value of investments can go down as well as up. This video contains information believed to be reliable but no guarantee is given. See Video for full disclaimer.

Interested in informed financial planning? Why not explore more TV shows on Inside Finance?

   

Financial objectives need to be met for success as an entrepreneur. Those with a good idea will still need to prove it works in order to secure further funding, as David Spencer-Percival explains in this video.

Financial Objectives: Funding

You need to have a track record of what you have been doing, I think to get investment. I think it is awfully hard to get investment for something that is a completely new idea. The thing about investment is getting the money is only half the trick. The other bit is actually using that money to create value. So I think you can go and get investment for something, but you have to deliver on it. It's two halves to one piece, so there's no magic trick, but if you are good at something I am sure you can convince somebody to give you money to do it again. It's just what you do with that money.

Continue browsing Inside Finance to find out more about how businesses are achieving their financial objectives.

Having the right business assets can make you a lot of money if an interested acquirer gets in touch. In this TV show BeatThatQuote.com’s John Paleomylites discusses selling to Google.

The right business assets

There wasn't anything specifically that we did with a view to selling it to Google. Google approached us. I the year to Jan '11 revenues of the company were around 14m, with a reasonable profit. Subsequently as the company would have grown probably in the subsequent year probably around 20m. So there was still a fair amount of growth in the business. I think there was probably a few reasons why it was BeatThatQuote.com. In e of them would be down to the technology choices that we made, I think it would be accurate to say that BeatThatQoute of all of the UK comparison sites was the only one that used open source technologies to deliver it's service. I think one of the other reasons is that BeatThatQoute never really developed a brand. Our route to market was through direct marketing and through white label, which is essentially putting our content into other people's brands. Whereas pretty much all of the other aggregators were branded, and given that Google really has the best brand in the industry there was no need for them to pay over the odds to acquire a branded comparison site. the most important lesson I think that any entrepreneur really needs to learn and to understand is to negotiate the best deal that they can possibly get. Keep exploring Inside Finance for more TV shows about business assets and similar subjects.

Pimlico Plumbers has grown dramatically since 1979. In this business growth show Charlie Mullins discusses his business's growth.

Entrepreneurial business growth show

We're London's largest independent plumbing company, we employ 200 people, have 150 vehicles on the road and we 24/7 deal with 80,000 jobs per year. I started business in 1979, I was an apprentice plumber then became self employed. then started Pimlico Plumbers. we grew gradually for about 10 years and in the last 20 years things have expanded even more and even more so in the last five years, we have really sort of come to the front of the industry.

If you enjoyed this business growth show then keep browsing Inside Finance for more business success stories.

Attitude to risk may depend on the age of the client or the business. Younger people lean more towards risk, as Michael Pagliari explains in this TV show.

The young person's attitude to risk

I think that goes back to sort of life cycle questions.  As clients are younger and are looking to build assets they may well have a higher disposition towards risk and that might lead them towards more growth-type portfolios.  As clients advance through that life cycle and perhaps sell a business or begin to retire then it’s really a question about draw-downs and inheritance tax planning and so on, and portfolios tend to de-risk to some extent.  So as you grow through that life cycle portfolios do tend to sort of de-risk over time.

Inside Finance will continue to follow discussion on attitudes to risk and we have plenty more videos featuring experts from our channel partner Smith & Williamson.