Weekly blog by Philip King, CEO of the ICM - A Real Credit Community

It's fair to say that this week has been one of highs and lows.

On Wednesday I attended a funeral following the untimely death of the husband of one of our Advisory Council members. Since the sad news was shared I've been overwhelmed by the messages of support demonstrating how caring and compassionate this credit community is. Sometimes, indeed, it takes a tragedy to make us realise just how fortunate we are, and it makes me proud to be leading an organisation that is so much more than 'just' a professional body.

Talking of the credit community I attended the inaugural conference of ICTF (Association of International Credit & Trade Finance Professionals) in Brussels. The conference very definitely seemed to deliver on its promise and it was good to meet with my colleagues on the international stage and be introduced to a number of people for the first time. The ICTF has got off to a most promising start and I look forward to working closely with them as they continue to evolve.

Continuing with the 'highs', there was considerable excitement with the 0.8% rise in GDP, a quarterly jump that was twice as fast as forecasters as predicted. I consider myself a realist so don't want to dampen the enthusiasm but perhaps this rise is telling us something? Perhaps it is saying we should take heart, and be encouraged by such positive news. But it might also be saying not to get too excited, since the cuts imposed by the spending review have yet to be felt.

In the circumstances, it's almost impossible to forecast with any degree of accuracy (the only consistency in forecasts is that they're generally proved to be wide of the mark!), so we are in uncharted waters. As such, we should continue applying all the principles we know are right to manage cashflow effectively and sustain our businesses. http://www.icm.org.uk/

Weekly Blog by Philip King, CEO of the ICM - Spot the stars

It has been a busy week that started with the inaugural meeting of the Small Business Economic Forum formed by the new Small Business Minister Mark Prisk. The forum brought together banks and business representatives, among them the Institute of Credit Management, with a remit to 'share their views with Ministers on enterprise issues, in particular economic issues facing small firms'.

What we learned from the first forum is that there is a continuing divide between banks' and business organisations' perceptions as regards to what extent the banks are lending. That, in itself, was not a surprise, but perhaps more of a surprise was the lack of any sign of a solution. In short, it is an issue that is unlikely to go away.

Whether the forum will be successful or not, I do not know. We can only do our best to ensure that it is. Certainly Mr Prisk is of the view that the forum should produce actions, not just words, and that is encouraging. It was good to be invited and welcomed by the new Coalition, and a good opportunity to share views across a wide spectrum of organisations. It was encouraging too to see the engagement of the Business Secretary Vince Cable who joined the meeting in the latter stages to lend his support. http://bit.ly/c3umbH

As I write, I have just finished listening to the statement by George Osborne regarding the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR). It was a good, if rare, opportunity to listen to a whole speech. It went on for more than an hour and it was hard to get too much detail and that is a pity, for it is in the detail that the devil will be.

Little he said was totally unexpected: 490,000 predicted public sector job losses were in line with predictions, and the impact of people losing jobs, or jobs left vacant, and people entering the market as self-employed will be huge. My worry - and one that I expressed at the Equifax/RBS Exchange Day in London, is that too many start-ups fail to get the basics right. Too many of them are trying to sell the wrong product, or are in the wrong place, or both, and the cuts will produce a large number of people who think they can use their redundancy cheque as a means to fulfill a long-held dream. Sadly, for many, the dream will turn into a nightmare and credit professionals are going to have the challenge of spotting the stars and avoiding the dangers.

For more information about the Institute of Credit Management visit http://www.icm.org.uk/ or follow ICM on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/icmorg.

Weekly Blog by Philip King, CEO of the ICM - Plan for survival and late payment

The Sunday Times recently carried a number of articles that caught my eye. First among them was a piece by the Economics Editor David Smith, a name familiar to many of us in the world of credit management. In his economic outlook column, David quoted the former economic adviser at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) who had apparently said: "most firms are in denial about the impact the [public sector] cuts will have on their business".

At the time of writing, the spending review is imminent, but if the forecast cut in gross capital spending by government from £69bn last year to £43bn in 2013-14 is accurate, the impact will be significant. And the impact will not simply be on the public sector and public sector jobs. The private sector is going to feel pain from the cuts just as badly, and we must all, therefore, be planning to sustain our businesses through the undoubtedly difficult times ahead.

The second piece that caught my attention - partly because I was expecting it - was an article by the Small Business Editor Rachel Bridge. The angle was one of late payment, and specifically how larger customers are withholding payment to small suppliers.

The piece used as a case study National Property Solutions in Wakefield, a business owned and managed by ICM Fellow Rob McTiffin. Rob told of how too much of his time was spent trying to get his clients to pay sooner, rather than driving his business forward. It is a familiar story. The Institute itself was well represented in the piece, highlighting in particular our involvement with BIS's Prompt Payment Code http://www.promptpaymentcode.org.uk/ and outlining some of the work we have been doing to help small businesses improve their cashflow.

One feels there will be many more such articles in the months ahead as the full impact of the government's spending review becomes apparent.

Weekly Blog by Philip King, CEO of the ICM - The power of belonging

At the start of the week I hosted and chaired the latest ICM Think Tank. It was our most well attended to date, with some 25 senior representatives from all parts of the credit industry coming together to share their thoughts and views and join in a lively debate around the key issues of the day.

Among the delegates was Mike Chambers, Managing Director of Bacs, and it was most interesting to hear his views around the proposed withdrawal of cheques by 2018. The next two years, it would seem, will tell us a great deal about the preparedness of the banks, businesses and the consumer in migrating to alternative payment methods.

The issue of late payment was also discussed, particularly in light of new EU legislation that I commented on in an earlier blog, but perhaps the main topic of discussion was around the provision of data, and specifically the provision of debtors' payment data as a prerequisite for future adequate and meaningful risk assessment. It is inherent within our business culture, it would appear, to jealously guard what financial data we possess, even if in sharing that data we might all ultimately benefit.

The Think Tank also provided the forum for discussing the preliminary findings of our new Credit Managers' Index (CMI). Although it is still very early days, there are some interesting trends emerging, and work is now underway in preparing for the next survey in December to enable the first comparisions - and therefore the first 'index' - to be drawn.

In what has been a busy week, I was delighted to have been actively engaged in CCR-i which seemed to be the most successful yet. Our commitment as the ICM is to further build CCR-i to become the foremost national event for the credit industry, and it was most encouraging to see so many credit professionals - and ICM Members in particular - taking time out of their busy schedules to attend.

On the day, I chaired the Commercial Credit Strategy stream with various presentations from credit professionals sharing their own 'front-line' experience as opposed to theory. It gave delegates much food for thought in terms of reinforcing their own current practices and/or learning of new techniques to deploy.

Sharing with credit professionals from across the industry, and a range of sectors, with different perspectives gave those present a real sense of the power of belonging to - and engaging with - the wider community through organisations like the ICM http://www.icm.org.uk.