Charlie
Laidlaw is a partner in Scottish PR agency Laidlaw
Westmacott and a director of David
Gray PR.
As the date for Scotland’s independence
referendum edges closer, the decibel level from conflicting voices continues to
rise.
What’s not in doubt is that the
political, cultural and commercial landscape in the UK has changed in recent
years, fuelled both by globalisation and the bewildering pace of technological
development.
Commercially, we now live in an
interdependent world where the concept of the nation state is itself being
reinvented.
In a 24/7 connected world, the internet
has largely made national borders irrelevant, empowering companies to sell
internationally and consumers to buy internationally.
We may still be proudly British or
Scottish, or a mixture of both, but we also like Google, Amazon and all the
mobile gadgets that make them work.
Hardly surprising then that the United
Nations Conference on Trade and Development and the WTO estimate that world
trade in global service exports grew in 2013 by 5% to $4.7 trillion – largely
driven by computer and information services.
But it’s easy to focus too much on the
big picture because the great majority of companies in the UK are
micro-businesses – and if this sector isn’t working, then the economy is in
real trouble.
To put that into perspective, over
30,000 Scottish businesses registered with Companies House in 2013. In 2012, it was 25,500; in 2011, 24,000; in
2010, 20,700.
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB)
quotes Scottish government statistics to show that small and medium-sized
enterprises now account for well over 90% of all Scottish businesses and for
over half of all private sector employment.
If Scotland is to seriously consider
voting Yes, then we must also be convinced that independence is a national and
global opportunity for small companies to grow, and for entrepreneurs to create
new ones.
In total last year, some 526,000 UK
businesses were registered with Companies House – nearly 100,000 more than in
2011.
Of those, over 136,000 start-ups were in
Greater London, more than one in five of new companies, despite having one in
eight of the UK’s population. In second
place came Birmingham with 16,281.
A report from the Centre for Cities says
that London is creating ten times more private sector jobs than Edinburgh (with
just over 7,000 start-ups). Glasgow saw
more than 8,000 new registrations.
But London’s dominance in the
entrepreneurial stakes carries dangers.
It’s a worry for London’s creaking infrastructure and inadequate housing
market, but a nagging trend that should worry Scotland, and other parts of the
UK.
Simply, we need entrepreneurial spirit to
be shared across the UK, because regional economic growth and prosperity
generates greater local demand for goods and services.
In other words, regional growth provides
local opportunities for new entrepreneurs – the very people we need to succeed
for the economic prosperity of all the nations and regions of the UK.
It’s why interventions by the likes of Sir
Tom Hunter are so important because his mission is to see Scotland embrace
entrepreneurialism with greater enthusiasm – whether Scotland votes Yes or No,
and Sir Tom hasn’t yet made up his mind either way.
He points out that Scotland, on a Global
Entrepreneurship Monitor compiled by Strathclyde University’s Hunter Centre for
Entrepreneurship, lags behind the UK as a whole, but that the number of
high-aspiration entrepreneurs has doubled between 2008 and 2013.
While entrepreneurial activity is at an
all-time high, we have some way to go to match the level of start-ups in, for
example, the USA and Canada. Part of the
problem seems to be Scotland’s historical reliance on old industry, primarily
shipbuilding, coal and steel.
The new Scotland has had to adapt to the
demise of those few giant employers, but their cultural and social echoes still
live on. Compared with the rest of the
UK, we want to leave education and get a job – creating our own company remains
a second best for many.
But things are changing. The Curriculum for Excellence is building the
world of work into the curriculum, and colleges of further and higher education
are focusing more on enterprise as an engine of growth, and a key driver of
innovation, particularly technological development.
On that level it’s about the concept of
creative destruction popularised by the Austro-American economist Joseph
Schumpeter which is the “process
of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure
from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new
one."
Put
simply, the new world economies are being driven by ever-changing technologies. Adapt, innovate or die has never been so
apposite.
Yes
or No, Scotland the Brand is attracting worldwide coverage, and from salmon to
whisky, golf to haggis, our reputation for product quality is internationally
recognised. It’s something that we have
to capitalise on.
The
future increasingly lies with entrepreneurs who can shape the new economic
landscape, building new companies than can become big companies, and embed a
growing spirit of entrepreneurship in Scotland.
That will also take more joined up thinking from politicians, think
tanks, educationalists and business leaders.
While
the big numbers of future economic growth will be global, the reality is that
every new company starts out small, and we should celebrate small as well as
big.
Whatever
the referendum outcome, Scotland needs entrepreneurs like never before.
We
are specialists in national and international PR strategy and delivery. You can contact us at +44 (0) 1620 844024 or michael@laidlawwestmacott.com
