Guest Blog by Nigel Fields, Director of International Credit at Twentieth Century Fox - 'Who the hell is Nigel Fields'

I thought, as this is my first ever Blog, that I should first start by letting you know; Who the hell is Nigel Fields?

 

OK, here I go, I think I am incredibly lucky!  In fact I feel life has been really kind to me, from being with my fantastic wife, Jackie since age of 13, (hey, I was not married then) rolling on to 32 years later with our two great kids Harry and Sally, who kindly make sure I never have any money to worry about and can continue to train and practice for myself the art of ‘Debt Management’.  I have met so many fantastic friends along the way.  And today I am working with, what I consider, to be one of the greatest businesses of all, ‘The MOVIE Business’ and in particular Twentieth Century Fox where I sit in Soho Square, London which is also probably the coolest, friendliest place in London.

 

I have been at Fox for 13 years now, and have established my role at Fox as Credit Director working with all countries outside of the USA and Canada.  Here’s a summary of what I get up to.

 

- Oversee Fox’s international risk management providing clarity of Fox’s objectives for risk and financial control to territories.

 

- Identify and monitor “at risk” customers within territories.

 

- Make recommendation for the mitigation of any risk gaps using best available and most cost effective solutions e.g. Credit Insurance, PUT options etc. and provide recommendations for doubtful debt provisions as required.

 

- Provide consolidated reporting of international Accounts Receivable.

 

- Assist Subsidiaries with debt recovery strategies.

 

- Best Practice reviews, improvements & enhancements.

 

- Provide the business with technical expertise in all areas of credit management and make best practice recommendations to territories for a structured credit management framework to improve cash flow where possible.

 

- Responsible for Credit vendor management.

 

 - Privileged to be a Member of the Institute of Credit Management and sit on the ICM Editorial Panel and Think Tank.

 

- Having to attend Premiere’s, meeting film stars and personalities, attending Awards e.g. Bafta’s, travelling the world and watching loads of films.  This makes it all so very hard.  It is a great business and I never ever get bored.

Weekly Blog by Philip King, CEO of the ICM - 'Seeing is believing'

After years of planning and anticipation, the finale of the Olympics Games is fast approaching. The predicted transport disasters have failed to materialise, the Team GB medal haul has been better than many expected, and generally people have little to say other than praise for an event that has done the UK proud and for plans brilliantly executed.

On a personal basis, I remain gutted that I was unable to obtain any tickets and attend an event in person, an emotion that has been heightened by the fact that I was in London for several days and sharing the tube with people who had been, or were going to, events. Nevertheless, there was a palpable feel-good factor in the capital and it was great to see people's joy and excitement. And the army of volunteers visible all over London seemed to me to be doing a fantastic job whenever I saw them interacting with visitors.

What is perhaps more interesting is the contrast between predictions and reality. There have been many stories in the press over the last day or two to highlight the point: hotels speak of block-bookings made for officials being released too late to allow for replacement guests to be found; the gridlock on the roads never really materialised; shops expecting a bonanza were disappointed as they found that Olympics visitors were doing no more than commuting from hotel to the Olympic Park and back. Other attractions found that the usual influx of visitors had stayed away so numbers were down, and huge numbers of staff worked from home so normal business was reduced.

So, why did people get caught out? Did LOCOG over-state the potential problems to ensure that the risk of them occurring was minimised, or did the media hype things so much that there was an over-reaction? Or, perhaps, the publicity had the desired effect and allowed the Games to be pulled off successfully and without the disasters that we'd all, if we're honest, probably expected to happen!

The lesson in this is that, although businesses need to listen to advice and take account of what they hear and are told, they also need to plan for themselves and apply basic rules of common sense in their planning. None of the situations outlined above can be that surprising when considered in the light of experience over the last few days. I know hindsight is wonderful but, if we always believe what we hear, we're likely to get caught out. By the same token, we should perhaps stop believing that there is no hope for an economic recovery and maybe, just maybe, we could turn the tide for our own organisations by applying our own positive spin to some of the things we hear.

Weekly Blog by Philip King, CEO of the ICM - 'Wake up and smell the coffee'

When I stay in London, I often use a hotel near Swiss Cottage. It's on the Finchley Road, located in a typical suburb of the capital, its street lined with shops. Over the last few years, I've noticed something that was brought home to me on Monday.

Within about half a mile, there are a number of fast food establishments, some long established cafes and restaurants and a couple of Costa Coffee shops. There are also a couple of independent coffee shops with the usual comforts. One of these closed down a few months ago and was emptied; it has now been replaced by another one that - if you hadn't seen the empty shop in the interim - you could mistake for what was there before.

Further down towards Swiss Cottage Station, it happened again - a new shop replacing one that has closed down. Then more recently, I noticed that that too has now closed down, having been open for no more than a handful of weeks.

Now I know nothing about these businesses or their owners but, from using them, I get the impression there is an individual who has fulfilled a dream by opening the premises and is clearly intent on giving customers a good experience. They work hard and want their enterprise to succeed. But, in all but one case so far, they've failed.

The obvious question that occurs to me is why - when a coffee shop has failed on a particular site - you would think it a good idea to open another? It's not just about location, but also about the clientele, the volume of turnover that can be generated, and the business model of competing operations. And this is obviously not a problem unique to Finchley Road; how often do we see businesses opening where the owners clearly haven't given enough thought to whether they've chosen the right place for them?

I said at an event hosted by Vince Cable, Mark Prisk, and Francis Maude over a year ago that one of the issues arising from the rationalisation of the Civil Service (and, indeed the private sector) would be people receiving a large redundancy payment and using it to fulfil their lifetime dream of starting a business, only to see that dream turn into a nightmare. This is one of the reasons why I believe we have still to see the peak of insolvencies and why business education is so vital. Scenarios like this can be heart-wrenchingly sad and avoiding them would be good for all of us and for the economy.

We are pleased, therefore, to be actively engaged in the BIS Finance Fitness Event and Campaign being launched in London today with the aim of making new businesses and existing ones better equipped and able to survive. We will be continuing to provide advice through our Credit Management Helpline and Managing Cashflow Guides (www.creditmanagement.org.uk) and we're also launching an SME Collections Toolkit as part of ICM Online Services that will provide very practical advice and tools with templates, video role-plays and more.

Those of us supplying and talking to small and start-up businesses could do worse than point people to advice like this; after all, if they get paid, we're more likely to get paid too!