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The Scottish Finance Secretary John Swinney (pictured) unveiled the government’s spending plans for the next three years yesterday. The headline grabbing measure is a ‘preventative’ tax on large retailers selling alcohol and tobacco; a move which critics have dubbed the Son of Tesco Tax after last year’s failed initiative to tax the supermarkets. A number of Swinney’s plans will potentially have an impact on other Scottish businesses. Capital spending on a number of key infrastructure projects has been confirmed. This means that the government intends to upgrade the A82 at Crianlarich and Pulpit Rock, to implement the core phase of the Glasgow Fastlink Proposal, to construct HMP Grampian and to support the development of the V&A at Dundee. This will be partially funded by switching a little o
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HSBC Commercial Banking has just released an interesting survey which suggests that Glasgow, along with Bristol, is poised to join the ranks of what it calls ‘super cities’. The Future of Business 2011 report defines these as cities or regions which have become vital hubs for new growth industries. According to the report’s 2009 predecessor, the existing super cities are Newcastle, Leeds, Liverpool, Brighton and, of course, London. Glasgow is set to join them over the course of the next decade as it becomes a leading international force in the renewable energy sector. The potential growth is partly the result of a wider revival of high tech British manufacturing. The report suggests that Glasgow in particular will benefit from a happy combination of three factors: the world class research being carri
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Vistage Scotland continues its excellent run of Member Guest Days with a visit from best-selling author and leadership development expert Susan Scott. Taking place at the Apex Hotel, Waterloo Place, Edinburgh on the morning of Friday 20 May, the event will illuminate Susan’s theory on Fierce Conversations. One of the central tenets of Susan’s concept is that ‘what gets talked about in an organisation and how it gets talked about will determine what happens or doesn’t’. In the workshop, delegates will address the seven principles of Fierce Conversations and how they can transform their careers and organisations: - Master the courage to interrogate realit
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Chair Paul Pinson will host the launch meeting of Vistage Scotland’s third Chief Executive Group in Edinburgh on Thursday 9 December. Comprising seven new members, the V66 Group is the second Chief Executive group to be formed in the capital.
The new group launch is a welcome development which comes at an exciting time for Vistage Scotland. Over the last few months, the three Vistage Scotland chairs, Alastair Muir, Paul Pinson and Gary Weston, have led a joint program of Vistage member guest days and breakfast seminars wh
These are interesting but potentially puzzling times for business leaders who want to know which direction the economy is heading in. The Scottish newspapers don’t seem to be able to get a clear reading on the situation. Writing in The Herald, Jeremy Peat, the director of the David Hume Institute, has doubts over the 0.8% growth in GDP which has been estimated for the third quarter of this year. Based on these figures, he surmises that the economy should be booming but wonders where exactly all this activity is taking place. In yesterday’s Scotland On Sunday, B
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Vistage member Michael Laing owner of Laing the Jeweller is also Chairman of the Incorporation of Goldsmiths and through them developed the Silver of the Stars project. Michael has this to say about the project
"Although our goal is to promote design and craft skills of our artist-silversmiths, I realised we could attract much wider audience through association with c
The Edinburgh International Festival will come to an end this Sunday and, as always, the grand finale will be the spectacular fireworks display over the Castle.
For the last sixteen years, the Bank of Scotland has sponsored the event but, in July, they indicated that this was the last year that they would do so. Now part of the Lloyds Group, which has shed some 15,000 jobs si
Scottish Chair Paul Pinson will be co-presenting two private breakfast seminars with Charles Llewellyn on 22 September and 12 October at The George Hotel on George Street in Edinburgh. Limited to fourteen people, these events are designed to be a short and insightful introduction to Vistage and the benefits which membership can bring to any business. Currently a Director with the Zenith Bank, Charles Llewellyn has decades of business experience at board level and has been a Vistage Chair in London since 1996. He will give a talk on The Seven Deadly Sins of a CEO. Scottish Chair Paul Pinson will then lead the group through an issue processing session to demonstrate to prospective members one of the core ways that Vistage can improve their business. Running fro
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Did anyone watch the last episode of Dragon’s Den? Ralf Klinnert, a Livingston-based entrepreneur, walked away with £120,000 funding for his Funky Moves interactive fitness centre. You can watch a clip of it on the BBC website.
Despite Duncan Bannatyne commenting that ‘only an idiot would invest in this’, Theo Paphitis and Peter Jones put up the cash in return for a 50% stake in Klinnert’s busine
The Herald and Scotsman Publications newspapers have both been looking to the future and questioning Scotland’s business leaders about their thoughts on the dreaded double dip recession. Scotland On Sunday quizzed some nineteen business people ranging from David Nish, the Chief Executive at Standard Life, to Leigh Wilson, the Chief Executive at JetLogic private aviation firm. As you might expect, when you ask nineteen people the same questions then you don’t get nineteen identical answers. However, while the interviewees’ views on the likelihood of a double dip ranged from ‘probably not’ to â€
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