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Finding bad news on the economy front is not a difficult task at the moment. The latest figures from the Office for Economic Co-operation and Development seemed to show that the UK has the slowest growth of almost all the G7 nations. The exception is Japan which suffered a tsunami and an earthquake in March. According to the OECD figures, Britain’s economy expanded by 0.7% last year compared to the 2.7% which Germany achieved. The OECD survey looked at 34 countries and found that across them all, growth in the last quarter had slowed to 0.2% compared to 0.3% the previous quarter. The figures don’t take into account the BRIC countries which would show rather more encouraging stats. Are Scotland’s entrepr
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The University of Strathclyde’s latest piece of research should make for sober reading among Scotland’s entrepreneurs. According to the latest annual Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), the country’s early stage entrepreneurial activity lags behind that of the UK as a whole. The key stat is that over the last twelve months, Scotland’s Total Early-Stage Entrepreneurial Activity rate was unchanged at 3.7%; significantly lower than the UK rate of 5.6%. The report also highlights a ‘lost generation’ of entrepreneurs with a gap in total early-stage entrepreneurial activity for people in their thirties – in stark contrast to the trend for the rest of the UK. The report's author, Dr Jonathan Levie of the University's Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship, commented: ‘We cannot recover this l
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Operating in the heart of Scotland’s business community, Vistage Scotland members are always setting the news agenda. The third issue of Business Quarter magazine is out now and it contains an in-depth interview (Pge 40) with Richard Jeffrey, member of V66 and Chief Executive of Tie Ltd, the project management company for Edinburgh trams. The project is both challenging and very high profile. In the article, Richard talks about how his experiences have prepared him for his current role and how he intends to move the project forward. Launched last year, Business Quarter is a glossy which covers all area
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What to make of BrewDog’s latest wheeze: asking their shareholders to promote the Fraserburgh-based craft brewers by dropping off marketing packs in their local bars.
Until recently, BrewDog have supplied the off licence trade and sold mainly to supermarkets and drink shops. They are beginning to expand into the on trade and have mobilis
In the latest edition of Scotland’s CA Magazine, Gareth Magee, a partner at the Scott-Moncrieff firm of chartered accountants, recalls his experiences on a recent business trip to America.
While acknowledging that businesses on that side of the Atlantic are certainly not wearing rose-tinted specs when it comes to the economic landscape, Mr Magee is full of admiration for the Americans’ get up and go, their can do attitude and their productivity. He wonders what Scotland might learn from such dynamic optimism.
Naturally, a positive attitude will only go so far. If your business model is bust, your staff are leaving and the bank is calling in its loans then a cheery smile won’t be a great deal of help. Moreover, the ‘Have a nice day’ culture can grate a little in Scotland, a co
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The blog was cheered by a brief item in The Scotsman in which the Royal Bank of Scotland announced that Scotland had a higher growth rate of start-ups than the rest of the country. Usually, Scotland is portrayed as lagging behind when it comes to entrepreneurial spirit; so it was heartening to read that the bank had supported some 11,000 new businesses over the last twelve months. Those 11,000 new businesses represent an 18% increase on the previous year. According to the report, start-up growth was up by a smaller 11% across the rest of the UK. Any warm feeling of optimism was quickly frozen by a single line in the readers’ comments column with one wag noting that eleven thousand is ‘an awful lot of
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Welsh chef Gary Lewis is not afraid of a challenge. He runs two catering operations on the West Coast. In Renfrew, his Gel Cuisine Restaurant specialises in Cajun food, a cuisine he knows well after spending four years working in New Orleans. In Paisley, his Station Lounge restaurant bar has more of a globe-trotting menu. Both operations serve Welsh haggis pakora. Perhaps slightly cheekily for a Welshman working in Scotland, the entries for the Welsh haggis pakora on Gary’s menus advise customers that they should be careful not to confuse the dish with ‘its foreign counterpart’. Selling haggis to Scottish customers, even Welsh haggis pakoras, may not be up there with selling coals to Newcastle but Gary’s chutzpah is still considerable.
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A new survey released today by the Institute of Directors (IoD) indicates that businesses are still having difficulty accessing finance from their banks despite a fall in decline rates. According to the survey:
- 1 in 3 firms that applied for finance in the time period 1 January 2010 – June 2010 were declined by their bank.
- There is evidence that lending criteria have become more restrictive with regard to the amount of security requested by banks.
You have to admire the chutzpah of Andy Inglis, an East Lothian-based entrepreneur, who has hit upon the idea of bottling Hebridean seawater and selling it to chefs at £4.95 for three litres.
Branded as Acquamara, the water comes from around the island of Berneray. Inglis purifies it and bottles it before selling it on.
It is supposed to enhance the flavour of seafood cooked using it and Inglis has even managed to put a health conscious spin on the stuff.
Top chefs such as Roy Brett of Edinburgh
The Sunday Herald had a thought-provoking article yesterday that asked what effect the outcome of the election might have on Scottish business. Scottish business and the Labour government have benefited from good relationships over the last few years; not least because Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling are both based in Scottish constituencies. Although the Conservative Party won the largest amount of seats throughout the UK on Thursday, only one Conservative MP, David Mundell, was elected in Scotland. There are fears among some in the Scottish business community that this will mean that their interests are unlikely to be heard in any potential Conservat
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