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 One of these closed down a few months ago and was emptied; it has now been replaced by another one that - if you hadn't seen the empty shop in the interim - you could mistake for what was there before.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.
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!
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