Pembrokeshire Business Network

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Pembrokeshire Business Network

• Keeping in touch
• Home working making it a reality
• Climate change what can your business do?
• An economic outlook
• Ann Beynon, BT director Wales

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Out of the office, but not out of touch

• Nearly 40 of workers classified as mobile and
  spending more than 20 of their time out of the
  office
• Issues
• Staying in touch with customers and the office
• Dealing with e-mail
• Missing telephone calls
• Managing a diary

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SolutionsOffice Anywhere

• A Windows powered smart-phone
• Create, edit send documents on the go
• A Choice of inclusive data allowances
• 10mb/30mb/unlimited
• Choice of inclusive mobile call minutes
• Pay as use/250/700
• Free VoIP call to UK landlines

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Home working making it a reality

• 120,000 people in the UK are becoming home
  workers each year.
• Market drivers are
• Agile Nation
• Flexible working directive introduced 2003
• 65 of the UK workforce are aware of their right
  to request flexible working
• Employers accepted 81 of all requests
• Source Second flexible working employee survey
  2005

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Barriers Perception of home working

• It can be difficult to appear as a cohesive
  organisation
• Internal communications can be difficult
• Employees may lose a sense of belonging to the
  organisation
• Many of the technologies used to support
  home-working are complex and difficult to use
• Home-workers require a high degree of
  technical support

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What you need to think about

• Technology is the easy bit
• Health and safety
• Risk assessment
• Correct furniture
• Display screen legislation
• Physical and personal security
• Legislative environment

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Climate change what can your business do?

• Your customers expect it, the Government is
  regulating about it and you may want to do
  something too. But what? Going green - what are
  the practical steps businesses can take? And can
  taking them actually have business benefits?

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Climate change what can your business do?

• It makes business sense to start tackling
  climate change
• What solutions are available to help your
  business
• How you can measure your companys carbon
  footprint

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Simple things can a small business do

• Travel substitution flexible working helps
  businesses be more adaptable through the use of
  audio and web conferencing
• Document sharing and electronic file storage
• Remote diagnostics and technical help
• Better management of paper and materials
  electronic contracts, e-learning, brochure
  downloads etc

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Making the green statement

• Where are you on the supply chain?
• Corporate customers may want to know about your
  carbon footprint and CSR policy
• Private customers may want to know about your
  ethical policies

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Making the green change

• Recycle
• Every tonne of recycled paper saves 32,000 litres
  of water. If every SME in the UK switched to
  using recycled paper, small businesses would
  collectively save billions of litres of water
• Take up flexible working
• Avoid one average road commute per week for a
  year in an average petrol car would save around
  120kg of CO2
• If every SME in the UK supported the equivalent
  of one employee working from home for just one
  day a week for a year, businesses could
  collectively save 516 million kgs of CO2

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Making the green change

• Take up conferencing
• If every small business in the UK replaced 10
  meetings with audio conferences small businesses
  could collectively save more than 1.7m tonnes of
  CO2
• Turn off equipment at the end of the day
• Leaving a PC monitor on all night wastes enough
  energy to microwave six dinners

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Making the green statement

• Formula 1 has been
• carbon neutral
• since 1997
• Honda Racing is the first
• team to publicly commit
• to tackling climate change

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Carbon Calculator

• www.btplc.com/ClimateChange/CarbonCalculator/index
  .cfm

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• Welsh SMEs optimistic
• Apr 16 2008 by Aled Blake, Western Mail
• SMALL and medium-sized businesses in Wales say
  they are not feeling a slowdown in trade as a
  consequence of worsening economic conditions,
  according to a survey carried out by accountancy
  practice Mazuma.

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An economic outlook
Homebase to review pounds 27m account as slowdown
hits Brand Republic,  Feb 06
It's payback time for builders, says Dresdner
The Independent, 21 Feb 08 Business MARKET
REPORT The prevailing turmoil in the credit
markets, coupled with mounting fears of a
sustained economic slowdown (or, if you're
feeling particularly bearish today, coupled with
increasing signs of a recession) has cast a
dreary shadow over housebuilders.
HP shrugs off concerns over slowdown in tech
spending Financial Times,  Feb 20
Hewlett-Packard yesterday raised its sales and
profit forecasts in spite of concerns about a
potential economic slowdown
DOMINO'S SERVES UP TASTY 18.7M The Evening
Standard,  Feb 19 08Domino's today delivered a
surge in profits but warned that price rises and
falling confidence in the economy are slowing
down sales growth. The dial-a-pizza giant posted
a 33 rise in 2007 profits to Â18.7 million as
it opened 50 new outlets, taking its total to
501. But like-for-like sales growth of 14.7 last
year slowed to 11 in the first six weeks of
2008.

• Recession or slow down?

Marriott Cuts Growth Outlook for 2008 Chain
Cites Slowdown in Leisure Travel The Washington
Post, 15 Feb 08
INTERVIEW- McDonald's Europe chief sees no signs
of slowdown Reuters News,  Jan 28 2008
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Are we going into a recession?

• The consensus view is that the UK economy is
  heading for a slow down in 2008 - not a recession
• Only one forecaster - out of twenty five has
  predicted a UK recession in 2008
• Most industry analysts (Ovum, IDC) are not
  predicting a UK recession

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Views and attitudes to the economic outlook

• Impact on small business is a concern
• My main concern is for our business which is
  tourism orientated. There will be less spend
  available, particularly from the US who have
  previously been high spenders!
• Some believe a correction is inevitable
• The economic mismanagement of the last ten years
  is finally coming home to roost. The necessary
  corrections will be painful, but I have no
  confidence that the right lessons will be
  learned
• Others feel economy is more robust
• The UK economy is more robust than people
  imagine. Consumer spending will drop and people
  need to be encouraged to save. The correction in
  house prices is long overdue
• Many shared concerns as consumers and business
  owners
• Concerned as a consumer as prices seem to be
  rocketing from everything to dairy products to
  petrol etc. Concerned as a small business owner
  because there will be less money in peoples
  pockets deterring them from using their local
  convenience store which will obviously have a
  detrimental effect on my personal situation.

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Learning from previous downturn / recession

• Dont Panic
• A slowdown does not mean a collapse and there
  are still businesses out there needing suppliers.
  It simply means we need to raise our game and
  ensure we provide a service that people value
  rather than waste time worrying about macro
  economic factors over which we have no control.
• Drive down supplier costs for a leaner
  operation
• We have to operate as leanly as possible.
  Negotiate the best prices from our suppliers to
  enable us to be competitive with our competition
  
• Cut unnecessary costs expenditure
• I try to keep good people - that is a priority,
  and cut down on all unnecessary and marginal
  expenditure
• Market your business harder or diversify
• The IT industry is usually one of the first
  casualties in a downturn so you have to market
  your business during this period and be
  competitive when giving quotes and/or rates. I am
  also currently acquiring training on different
  aspects of IT allowing diversification

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Flexible business support

• New model, entitled flexible business support,
  will see the introduction of a single contact
  number for all businesses seeking Assembly
  support (0300 060 3000)
• A single investment fund with an initial value
  of 92m replacing a number of former capital
  grants such as regional selective assistance
• Support will be delivered through single point of
  contact Assembly customer relationship managers,
  which over time will rise from the 50 to around
  200

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• Thank you
• www.insight.bt.com