A few weeks ago, in the light of an Insolvency Service consultation, I started making noises through my blog, the pages of Credit Management magazine and the ICM Briefing to gauge the depth of our Members' feelings. I also started a discussion on the ICM Credit Community LinkedIn group http://linkd.in/iF2Q0b asking a simple question: Do you engage in insolvencies after you suffer a bad debt?
The fundamental issue for me then and now is how we get credit professionals to engage more actively in insolvency procedures to ensure they get the best outcome, and so that they are better able to monitor the activity and efforts of the IP. I sought to find out what might encourage our Members to engage more, or whether they simply saw it as a complete waste of time and effort. The responses have been most interesting, with some clear themes emerging.
One of the themes is that credit professionals who understand insolvency procedures understand that engagement delivers tangible benefits. They are better able to ensure the best outcome for their business (even though that outcome is rarely, if ever, likely to be particularly good and merely the best of a bad job!): sometimes, knowledge and engagement can identify options that might not otherwise have been considered.
A further theme is that credit professionals who do not understand insolvency currently will very much need to in the future. I'm glad to say these are still very much part of the ICM qualification pathway; they are included in our short-course menu, and are often the subject of debate and discussion at our regional and branch events.
The one question that wasn't really answered was what would encourage those credit professionals who consider involvement a waste of time and effort to do so. We might not have all the answers just yet, but the ICM has started to work more closely with organisations like R3 and the IPA and is increasing awareness of the key issues with a regular column in the magazine. It is a start, but there is much more to be done if we're going to convince the unconverted!
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