Backing Business, Right Now

Howard Bentham - 0:02 Hello there and welcome to OxTalks. This is the fifth episode in a brand new podcast series powered by OxLEP, the Local Enterprise Partnership for Oxfordshire. As well as discussing some key issues in the business place right now, these podcasts are designed to highlight the great work that OxLEP does and how OxLEP could potentially help your business in the future. I'm Howard Bentham and throughout this OxTalks series, I'm in conversation with some genuinely inspirational and influential leaders in the county who are shaping and driving business locally. They are also all really keen to stress the critical support that's available from OxLEP and how it could be crucial in helping your company or organisation prosper. Although naturally we are concentrating on Oxfordshire's businesses and issues in this series, you may well be listening to us in neighbouring counties or further afield in the UK. Many of the difficulties we experience here will be very similar to the ones you are facing where you are, I'm sure. So please do share your thoughts, stories and observations with us. Plus, crucially, the solutions to the problems that you've found. Head to our social media, where we can pick up on your comments and questions in forthcoming podcasts. It'll be good to hear from you. We are @OxfordshireLEP on Twitter and Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership on LinkedIn. 1:21 In this edition, our focus is on the small and medium-sized enterprises. The SMEs that are the engine room of the British economy, as we discuss backing business right now. SMEs account for around 99% of the business population in the UK, with a similar percentage here in Oxfordshire as a whole. Interestingly, that drops to just under 90% in Oxford itself, attributed by the City Council to the lack of workspace available for startups, a subject we discussed in the very first edition of OxTalks with Andy Edwards of MakeSpace Oxford. SMEs nationally employed nearly 16 and a half million people and in 2022 had a turnover of 2.1 trillion pounds which is just over half of the UK's total according to government figures. In this podcast we will concentrate on the importance of providing support for small businesses in the current market, the role of environmental, social and Governance, ESG, in business growth as well as creating a legacy. With us is a senior legal partner from KPMG Law who has 20+ years experience in the industry, a person who has run her own business and is a hit with the legal press where she was previously named as a Hot 100 Lawyer. I'm delighted to welcome to OxTalks, Emma Gibson. Emma welcome. I must just start with that hot 100 lawyer accolade. Wow! What is it? And who knew that the legal profession is so rock and roll? Emma Gibson - 2:56 Yeah, so hot! Well, thank you very much. It was a few years ago, but it's an award delivered by a magazine called The Lawyer and it's a huge national award and they do it every year and that year I was a hot 100. Howard Bentham - 3:10 There you go. Yeah, you've either got it or you're not. Emma Gibson - 3:12 Well, exactly. Howard Bentham - 3:13 Yeah. What is it about law that inspired you to follow a career in this sphere because I think your original degree was in biological sciences, wasn't it? Emma Gibson - 3:21 Yes, it was and that was when I was heading into a teaching career, which it wasn't for me, a fantastic profession, but not for me and therefore I wasn't sure what to do. But in between teaching and a law degree and a career in law, I ran my own business and the sort of the two questions, those two points are connected in that I advise businesses. In my legal career, I've always advised businesses I couldn't do any other type of law. I like working with entrepreneurs, with businesses, with people who are really running their own show, so to speak and that really stems from the fact that I run my own business and that taught me a lot about life. Howard Bentham - 4:02 Okay, let's explore this business then. What was it? Where was it? Emma Gibson - 4:06 It started off in Southampton, so I set up a sort of performing arts venue with the support of a brewery, bringing in theatre and cabaret and music and all of the performing arts into a small, well smallish pub in Southampton, expanded to a second pub and then out from there again in a slightly, you look back and you wonder how you had the nerve to do it, but you know, I think like all people you do at a point in life and you suddenly make that leap and you think actually I want to work for myself, I want to set something up for myself, so I reached out to all of the breweries that were in and around. I said, "Have you got any pubs? I need two bars. I'd quite like a rehearsal space upstairs. This is what I want to do with it. How could I achieve that?" and Eldridge Pope, who were a brewery at the time, came back and said, "Yeah, we've got this pub in Southampton. It's boarded up. Don't know what to do with it." So I went and had a look today. It was perfect, perfect location. I went to the bank and got my £15,000 overdraft. I got a year’s rent-free from the brewery and then put everything on the line to start it up. And it went really well. Touch wood. Howard Bentham - 5:13 Well, I mean, first off, well done for that. Because all sorts of things happen in breweries. But getting the money, that was, I mean, that must have been an incredible thing. I mean, it was a tough, tough time 20-odd years ago you were doing this. Emma Gibson - 5:26 Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's the late 90s, early 2000s. So yes, and a time of another recession, so a recession similar to when we are probably now a consumer recession. So yeah, crazy you might say. But anyway, I went to Lloyd's, a supporter if you like, put up some guarantee and I got my £15,000 and that was it and thankfully, I mean the brewery were really good. They supported with the venue to start off with and a bit of work to transform it from the pub it was to the pub it became, which was very different, and you know, yeah, it was, it was great times. Actually. I always say that I've never worked as hard as I did when I was running my own business. And I think that's true of all of all people who run their own business and I think that's why I like work with them even now. Howard Bentham - 6:10 So how did those experiences 20 plus years ago running your venue and your pub and everything shape who you are today? Emma Gibson - 6:19 Oh, when I talked to, I teaches you about resilience, doesn't it? I mean, absolutely how to be resilient in hard times. I mean, you know, there were times when I needed a good Friday night because otherwise I couldn't pay any of the staff and, you know, and I ended up, you know, having to do my own cleaning. I did my own beer management, all of those things because you were working on a shoestring because it was more important just to be doing it. So it teaches you and it teaches you about what it's like when the buck stops with you, you know, and when you're running your own business, I think that's the hardest thing about running your own business is that the buck stops with you. You haven't got anybody else to ask or to really share that pain. You are the one responsible for people's wages and all those sorts of things, which is hard work and it also takes you through the need for commercial advice, commercial support, and also the benefit of a network, I think. Howard Bentham - 7:15 You've got a strong background and focus on advising family-owned businesses, whether on succession or change in governance issues. Tell us about your interest in that area. It sounds like it has been very much shaped by the background you've got and perhaps some examples that you could share with us. Emma Gibson - 7:31 Yeah, I mean, family businesses are fascinating and the stats will tell you that family businesses don't often go through very many generations. But I'm working with a business at the moment, I think it's on its sixth or seventh generation, which is unusual but fantastically going on years and years and years. the conversation is about who's the next generation and for various things, for example like ESG or just the changes of buyers or whatever in that sector. They're probably going to skip a generation. It may well go to the sort of grand generation as opposed to the next generation because that's where the drive and energy is and it takes a lot for a family business to accept that it's not always a linear process and that some members of the family aren't participative but do participate in other ways and some people get to run it. There's a whole conversation about family businesses that could be had about how they pass things on, how they run a family, how they deal with Christmas dinner when things aren't going quite right and you've got intergenerational conflict. It's an interesting area of my world. Howard Bentham - 8:41 Yeah. You've got to build some pretty strong relationships to manage this as well as obviously the knowledge and the experience of what you're trying to help them with legally. Emma Gibson - 8:49 Yeah, absolutely. Well, it's all about relationships, but it's about being able to relate to them as business owners, I think, which is really important. I think my background helps me do that. But also it's about giving people some sort of sensible, pragmatic support. You have a badge that says, "Oh, I'm a lawyer," or, "I'm a corporate lawyer," or whatever. But sometimes you have to go beyond that badge and just become a business person supporting another business person and just chat through some of those challenges. Howard Bentham - 9:23 Not many lawyers will know how to organise their own beer supply. Let's look at the here and now and the key challenges ahead for SMEs. Off the top of your head, labour issues, inflation, cost of doing business, they must be the top three at the moment. Emma Gibson - 9:36 Yeah, well, businesses and especially SMEs have come back off a really torrid time, haven't we? We've had obviously COVID, which came off at the back of Brexit. We've gone into supply issues with Ukraine and sort of now, just to top it off, sort of economic turbulence and huge inflation issues. So, yeah, I think businesses, all businesses, but SMEs, I think, which is my sort of area of interest, are really finding that difficult and I think what we're also finding is there's been a real development of the way government supporters flowed as well as you go through. So it was very clear in COVID, businesses were supported by the furlough scheme, the job retention scheme, the various funding loans that were offered without very much due diligence being done on the businesses at sort of SME level. All of those things were put in place, reduction in business rates, et cetera. That’s all tailed off, but you're still in this huge economic situation which are causing businesses to struggle and I think certainly from conversations I'm having, businesses are really finding that some of that support, they feel less supported now than maybe they did in the COVID days. Howard Bentham - 10:50 What more then could the government, and I'm talking both central and local government, do then to recognize the importance of SMEs and offer that? Emma Gibson - 10:59 It's really tricky. SMEs are just the lifeblood of UK business. There are millions of them and they put trillions into the exchequer, employ millions of people, an incredibly important part of that sort of ecosystem and the government support, I'm not in the government, I can't really comment on the specific schemes, but businesses need support, not just financially, businesses need support. in all areas, you know, and that's about how they can change and develop in order to attract the right talent, how they can deal with their own inflation, how they can get monetary support, how they approach banks in order to get that support, what banks are sort of looking for. But it's all about risk, you know, and if you support businesses, it's not an infinite pot. It's not my pot to spend or choose what to spend it on, thank goodness but we all have to work with what we're given. Howard Bentham - 12:02 Just on that cost of doing business, does an SME have any advantages over big business, if you like, when managing costs with potentially expensive wage demands that might come along? Emma Gibson - 12:13 SMEs have an advantage of being agile. Yeah. SMEs, because they tend to be smaller, they tend to be the really great connection between the owners and the founders of that business and the people on the ground doing the business and I think that gives them closeness to the market. They understand the market that they're in. I think on that basis, they are able to change as they need to and develop. Obviously the disadvantages, they may not have the war chests that a big business may have, and it might not have the ability to access new markets. But again, that's a positive and a negative because it means I think there's a world of opportunity for SMEs at the moment and if we want to concentrate on the positive, you know, times like we're in at the moment, we'll see the rise of those resilient, creative, agile businesses and I think as we go forward, you know, their ability to stay connected and in touch with their markets will stand them in good stead. Howard Bentham - 13:13 Maybe that sort of leads on to what you might say to this question, because I mean, obviously do that, people are the crucial component. Is staff retention harder for an SME? Can they effectively compete for the best people in a difficult market? Emma Gibson - 13:27 Well I think they're going to have to look at competing on slightly different terms and I think competing on salary might be harder for an SME compared to a business with a bigger war chest. But what SMEs can bring to the game, if you like, is that personal connectivity. I think people these days are looking for more and more connectivity with their employer and also, again, back to that flexibility point, I think employees are looking for a slightly different offering from their employer, which is just different from the mainstream and I think SMEs have the opportunity to grab that. I've hit a certain point in my life, you know, I've hit that big 5-0 and passed it a little bit. But there's a huge workforce out there that are deemed to be too old, surplus to requirements and I would, if I was running an SME now, it doesn't matter whether it's a tech startup or whatever There are people with some great business skills out there, that are lovely, fantastic together, you know a flexible job. So there's markets, people need to look differently at the markets. Howard Bentham - 14:31 That's really interesting. I mean, what about the thoughts of growing your own talent through? Apprenticeships and training and whether that's the younger end of the market or the older end of the market as we're talking about. So is there enough help and support there for SMEs to do that? Emma Gibson - 14:47 I think my short answer to that would be no because I don't think there is, but that's probably my personal view in that I do think training talent and developing talent is where SMEs have the absolute edge on bigger business and I was talking to one just yesterday who was absolutely glowingly saying that their workforce retention is greater than anybody else they know and is also… and they put that down to the number of apprentices that they've taken on the homegrown talent and this is a genuine SME you could call it a family business its second generation. But the effort they're putting into those trainees I think is… they're seeing payoff and that has paid off with staff retention and the other things he was saying was well yes, I'm actually but because it's my business, if somebody's a bit short I can lend them some cash and it's you know, it's fine I can give them a day off because, you know they've got an appointment they need to get to because to do with the family. There's just that personal connection and if SMEs make a connection with their workforce I think that's where they can win. Howard Bentham - 15:52 Yeah I just trying to think whether that's actually intuitive that I might be a young person coming through on my apprenticeship and I want to go and work in big business, I want to go and change the world I'm not gonna do it in a family-run business because I know it's gonna be passed down to the next generation. Is that a difficulty perhaps? Emma Gibson - 16:10 Well, I think it's two different points, isn't it? Because one is whether you're working for a company SME whether you think you have you can benefit from the incentives of… an exit on a sale or that next generation point, or whether you want to be working for an incredibly creative company at the cutting edge of technology or the cutting edge of business and actually want to be in what I might describe as that sort of sexy end of life and being able to say, "Actually, I don't work for Giant Corp. I work for this business, and actually we're going to develop a new vaccine and we're going to do something which is really creative", or in less sort of exciting or in other terms, just work for business that understands you, that knows you've got to leave at three o'clock to pick the kids up and actually it's not a problem and it's not an issue. Howard Bentham - 17:00 I was just going to come on to that about the well-being aspect. SMEs, you would again just from the outside looking in, would think are better placed to keep an eye on people's mental health, physical health and whatever else. Emma Gibson - 17:14 Yeah, I think, well it depends doesn't it, on the people, where those people are genuinely connected to their workforce. I think, yes, they can. What they might argue is that they haven't got the infrastructure to then support and to deal with those or to deal with people being absent, because certainly when I was running my business, if one of my bar staff didn't turn up, then I was- Howard Bentham - 17:33 Rolling your sleeves up. Emma Gibson - 17:34 Yes, exactly. Howard Bentham - 17:35 Rolling my sleeves up. Where's my pinny? Emma Gibson - 17:41 Yeah. Many a time, I ended up doing the cleaning at midnight or whatever, because you are so reliant and you haven't got the financial resources. But again, working with people like OxLEP and other organisations, there is support out there and these days, employee packages, I think people could be a lot more creative when we're looking at support for... I mean, I work with an SME not too far from here, who's part of what they do is to help support a nursery, which is on the business park. They didn't support it in full, but all of the businesses have clubbed together to provide support for a nursery so that the workers in those businesses can participate of easy access, support for childcare. Howard Bentham - 18:26 So a collaboration, if you like, on a business path that changes the dynamic. Emma Gibson - 18:32 Why would you leave that? Why would you not want to work for that business? Howard Bentham - 18:36 Really interesting. You touched on financial resources. Does size matter when it comes to securing investment? obviously got your winning way. You talked over the bank manager and got your 15 grand. The banks seemingly are less likely to accommodate risk and maybe fund some of these great startups certainly that we have in Oxfordshire. Emma Gibson - 18:57 I think the banks are in a really challenging position but I think everybody's in a really challenging position at the minute and risk is where it all comes down to isn't it? Who's responsibility is it to take the risk? But I also think that actually what we're missing generally is a really good start-up funding option and I mean at that sort of early stage point. So nationally, I would like to see a more directed business support for early, early-stage companies. Howard Bentham - 19:28 That sounds a great idea. How would that work in practice, do you think? Emma Gibson - 19:32 Well, somebody will have to accept that they might lose a lot of money, but they might win a lot of money and somebody out, you know, who that somebody would be. You know, we get earlier stage sort of third parties, so you've got your private equity or your venture capital. But in this area, in this area in particular, it's that funding at that sort of sub-million and then that million to three million type funding level. I think that's where there continues to be a funding gap and every opportunity I get to push that point, I try and push with whoever I'm speaking to. that's the risky end of the business and these days, most of those businesses get started via, you know, when Oxford has its university spinoffs, that's a completely different point. But if you're like me thinking you want to start a business, you know, where do you go to? The banks would say that's not their responsibility to provide that 15 grand, you know, overdraft or whatever it was anymore because, you know, they've got their own issues and challenges. So whose is it? So you borrow the money, you get it off family and friends. That's why we see businesses, growing businesses with, you know, 50 shareholders because everybody's got a share and everybody put their £50 in or whatever it's going to be to get those businesses going till they can get to a certain size. But, you know, how we support businesses to get to the next level, I think is the challenge. Howard Bentham - 20:58 And what about finding the right workspace? As I said in the introduction, it's an issue, particularly in the city of Oxford. But it's something that a lot of businesses struggle with to find the right place to work at the right price. Emma Gibson - 21:09 Yes and I think that continues to be a problem. It's going to be really interesting to see how things change with maybe the more of that working from home and maybe more office space being there and available and open. It's not an area where I'm an expert in. So you talk to the experts on property, but finding a location, I mean, I put that challenge back, you know, to the SME population out there, what sort of business space do you really want and how much do you want it for? And everybody can't have a business space if it's limited on a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. So you know, are we looking at our weeks? Are we again thinking creatively outside of the box to work out where we can be cited and how we can make the best use of the property available? But property shortages in a place like Oxford, where you've got such challenges or good challenges one might argue, of wealth of the university, of all the other things that hit the centre of Oxford, I should imagine is really tricky for businesses. Howard Bentham - 22:07 Good time to bring in OxLEP's Communications Manager, Rob Panting into the conversation, Rob, good to see you. What kind of support has OxLEP been offering Oxfordshire's SMEs and how will that evolve in the future? Rob Panting - 22:19 Thanks, Howard. Yeah, picking up on a lot of Emma's points, really. From our perspective, it's really about listening to our business community moving forward. All businesses face very different challenges. I think for small businesses in particular, what we found is, depending on which sector you're in, your challenge might be very, very different. So we spoke about access to finance for startups. There is a challenge there. There's a lot of financial support given to businesses, particularly during the COVID pandemic, and not just from organisations like ours, but from central government, other similar business support organisations. There was a recognition that businesses needed to be helped and backed at a very critical time. That's obviously going to change quite dramatically moving forward, touching on a lot of Emma's points around everyone stretched at the moment, and that includes access to finance for businesses. So for us moving forward, it's really about trying to support businesses with the softer skills and the advice and support to help them achieve what they want to achieve. So access to really good business advisors who have experience in working with small businesses, providing people with support in terms of managing finance, marketing their business, communicating what they do. That's really important for us moving forward. I think probably for organizations like OxLEP, similar, I guess, slightly smaller business support organisations, that's the type of support that they can offer and I think for us, it's very much continuing to listen to our business community and find know what support they need. We can create business support, but it might not be what our key businesses need. So very much having that open dialogue with Oxfordshire businesses. Howard Bentham - 24:03 Share a success story or two then from the business support that OxLEPs offered locally. Rob Panting - 24:08 I think probably collectively it's worth pointing out what we've achieved as an organisation. So off the back of COVID between March 21 and April 22, we provided around about 6,000 of business support across all range of businesses, really detailed, getting to know businesses, understanding what their challenges are and offering that first-hand support. That support is of value as well. We calculated that it's worth around about £3.5 million, quite significant support offered, support that you would be paying that amount, as the figure suggests, working with, I guess, private business support companies. So we're very proud of that and also in addition to that, we've safeguarded jobs through our support. We think it's around about 400 jobs that we've either safeguarded or created in fact, during that sort of 12 to 15-month period that we've recently analysed. So I think collectively we've made a big impact in Oxfordshire. Obviously, there's other grant schemes that we've coordinated to, things like the Business Investment Fund that we ran off the back of COVID, more recently the Visitor Economy Grant Scheme which I think that's somewhere in the region of £650,000 worth of support to tourism-based businesses. So we feel as though we've made an impact. We're not the only organisation that's made an impact. KPMG would have made a huge impact as will have other organisations. I think, I guess to round off on that point, there's a great deal of collaboration going on. Emma touched on the collaboration in terms of small businesses working more closely with the nursery example. I think from our perspective there's a greater understanding that where an organisation perhaps can't offer the support that people are very happy to refer to other organisations, particularly in our world where there's probably not so much of a commercial reliance, I suppose. We're very, very happy to signpost people to the right support and ultimately it's a benefit to Oxfordshire businesses. Howard Bentham - 26:09 Emma, you've got local enterprise partnership experience in Berkshire. Do Rob's words resonate with what you've come across elsewhere? Emma Gibson - 26:17 Yeah, absolutely. I think that's, you know, arguably the purpose of the LEPs is to support those businesses and those smaller businesses in their patch. I think we have to always avoid being sidetracked by the big and, you know, big, big monsters that are out there, but actually, yeah, direction of focus very much on supporting smaller businesses, you know, and the economy, our local economy, that's the purpose of LEPs. I'm fully supportive of all the work that the LEPs are doing. Howard Bentham - 26:42 Emma and Rob, thank you both for the moment. We'll chat again shortly. Good to have you along for OxTalks, the brand-new podcast series powered by the Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership. If you want to get in touch with the team at OxLEP to comment on what you've been hearing, find us on social media. We are on Twitter @OxfordshireLEP or via LinkedIn, search for Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership. Perhaps you run a company or organisation that is looking for some specific help or simply need a steer to the most appropriate business advice available. Why not try the OxLEP Business Support Tool? OxLEP Business Support Tool - 27:19 OxLEP's Business Support Tool is here to help your company. Whether you're just starting out, growing or ready to take on a new business challenge, if you're looking for the latest advice and support, complete our Business Support Tool today and get set to receive a bespoke action plan for your organisation. Head to OxfordshireLEP.com to find out more. Howard Bentham - 27:43 Let's chat more to Emma Gibson. Let's focus on three words that are very important to you and have become very important in business more widely, environmental, social and governance. Why have these become a top priority for businesses generally, but SMEs specifically? Emma Gibson - 27:59 Well, I think it's one of those things that's been rising and on the horizon for a while now, but absolutely it's taken centre stage and I think its push has come from a number of avenues. There's a top-down push, so we've got legislation and regulation being applied to those really, really large businesses, which are quite often investors or suppliers of or customers of our small businesses, and therefore they are pushing down some of the obligations that they're under to deliver on evidence that the small businesses are compliant or at least heading in that direction and then, of course, we talked about it, but funding and the funders and there are definite schemes now where you can get better preferential rates if your ESG strategy is sort of clear and evident or if you can show a bank that you are green or your credentials in that space are looking good and then if you want to spin it when you come to an exit or a business is thinking about what's my next level, do I need some investment or do I want to exit altogether? We are anecdotally and I think we're trying to pull together the stats on it, but we are beginning to see slightly higher multiples for businesses. We're seeing more interest, for example, in private equity where they could also tell a good news story. 29:16 So that piles the pressure on SMEs to look at ESG as part of their strategy and of course the refrain I hear from SMEs is, "We're an SME. There's very few people in the management team. We're a small business. How on earth and what am I expected to do and how do I develop it?" and I think the thing that we need to do therefore is to wind it all back and take it back to the business and say, "Actually, you're probably doing a lot of this already. If you ignore the E bit for the minute, but if you take the S and the G, you probably already contribute to local charities. You probably already do things as part of your work community. So you're already doing the S. The G, well, there's a level of governance, but you probably don't need to worry about that too much. But you'll be running yourself as a professional business. You're finding your filings on time. You're thinking about you and how you professionalise your business and therefore it brings you down to the E and then what I've been finding when I've been talking to businesses, actually they can do those businesses that have premises, they can do things like change to the LED light bulbs. They can do small things and some people forget that you can do small things to create a strategy. 30:30 It doesn't have to be this huge, all singing, all dancing, 400-page website and a complete package. Actually, all you need to be doing is just showing and evidencing what it is you're doing on a day-to-day basis. Then, of course, you've got businesses that do fulfill that space, you know, businesses that by their very nature, what it is they are doing will in some way lead to an energy reduction or a waste reduction or some other part and they are by nature ESG businesses and those businesses need to be really playing their credentials and not hiding that and really putting that as centre stage. Sometimes those are business that might not sound green when you look at it just on the surface level, but when you dive into it, you find actually, "Well, if you did that, then isn't the implication this and isn't the benefit why?" Then you pull that together and think, "Actually, that's exactly what ESG is doing." I think it's a really exciting space for small businesses and I think the next generation or I lose track, I'm so old now, but wherever we are on what employees want. But we're certainly finding that people are asking us now. If I do an interview, people want to know what we are doing, how we are managing our waste, how are we talking about energy reduction. They want the answers to those questions and I think small businesses need an answer to those but actually can lead the march on some of that. Howard Bentham - 32:00 Perhaps without stereotyping here, people that run SMEs, maybe who are of that older generation might look at this as another layer of admin that I really don't need. It's nowhere near our core business. I'm here to try and keep people in employment and make whatever we're making. Is that how some leaders view this that it's another layer of admin? Emma Gibson - 32:22 It can certainly be perceived as another layer of admin because it is another layer of admin, but it depends. I mean, we've seen small businesses create an ESG employee forum, and then we've seen real animation amongst employees, which has taken the employer, so to speak, a bit by surprise because people are really interested in it and actually they do do food banks and they do do all of those things, small things maybe. But actually, if you look at it like that, that's not administration, that's about empowering a workforce and driving connectivity and driving employee retention. It could be about driving sales or it could be actually getting to a point where it doesn't catch you out and this is a conversation I have, which is you don't want to get caught out. If your business and you're growing and it's really driving somewhere, it's looking like it's going to be really successful and you want to sell into X, but X are going to demand that you have A, B, and C, then don't get caught out. Just start working just quietly in the background on A, B, and C. Just don't overgear it. Just take it for what it needs to be and the level it needs to be in and you'll find a meeting. I think I'm trying to prevent problems in the future or challenges to those small businesses and also look at it as an opportunity. If you can shout about your ESG credentials, it's not going to do you any harm when it comes to potential investors, when it comes to potential funding, or potential employees. Howard Bentham - 33:52 Yeah, that's really interesting around the funding side of it. Legacy I know is another really important element of any ESG strategy and it's something that you're really passionate about as well. They think about the footprint that they're creating and I guess the footprint they're leaving behind. Summarise what leaving a legacy means and what businesses should consider in terms of the legacy that they leave. Emma Gibson - 34:15 Yeah, it's one of those interesting sort of if you like, abstract sort of areas and I've been there, you know, when you're running a business and the only thing you need to make sure is you've got enough money in your bank to be able to pay the salaries, that you've won the next contract, that you've got it signed, that you can deliver, it becomes a real point. So I think it is probably at a certain point in time that you get to that time we have space to think about your legacy and for me, I think it's about being conscious, You know, be conscious when you're… every interaction, be conscious of what you're doing, how you're saying it, what impact you will have and what impact you leave. Because it's really important, I think, that people are aware of themselves and what it is they leave behind. So if you're an SME in Oxford and you're driving a fantastic business, well, the legacy you're going to leave behind is that you've employed people. They have families, they have children, their children know that dad or mom is employed by ABC Limited, you know, and it does good things or it does whatever and that's part of your legacy. It's not like a plaque on a wall. It's about how you have impacted the world and the people around you. Howard Bentham - 35:30 Fascinating. What's your advice for businesses then when setting goals and how should they be measured? Emma Gibson - 35:36 Setting goals. Not plaques on walls. Not plaques on walls. I'm not really a big fan of plaques on walls. I think when you're setting goals and when businesses are thinking about their business plans, and I think businesses need to go back to their business plans time and time again, it's not the thing that sits on the shelf. You need to come back to it for an analysis to whether you've deviated from or whether you're heading towards or whether you need to do any of the change in order to get to that sort of success point and therefore I think goals should be stretching but realistic. I think you should have a range. I think you should always have your dream because I wouldn't want an SME to lose sight of their dream. You know, why are they doing it in the first place? Because running a business is hard work and it's really lonely and therefore, you know, when it becomes absolute drudgery and you can see no light at the end of the tunnel, then you think you've got to look after yourself and go back to your dream and work out whether your dream is still your dream and whether it's achievable. But behind that and all the boring stuff that we have to do, then yes, you know, it's about setting achievable metrics around what really counts, which is, have you got your income stream? Have you got your customers? Have you got your suppliers, have you got your employees, you know, it's sort of bread and butter. Howard Bentham - 36:54 And I guess SMEs have got the opportunity to, I mean, if you're talking about a handful of employees and a lot of SMEs, you can involve them in setting those goals and I'd imagine that's a really key part of it to get people on side. Emma Gibson - 37:07 Yeah, exactly and I think it's that employee inclusion, which is the point we touched on previously. It's about how engaged the connection is between the SME owner, founder, and the people that they're working with and that's why you get such tight groups, isn't it? I mean, I work with SMEs that have moved past that in the back of a garage and two or three people and then it becomes three or four and then it becomes ten and then it becomes twenty and you get through but those core people I think are fundamentally important and it's about those relationships, they're absolutely key. Howard Bentham - 37:42 Rob Panting from OxLEP is here with a couple of questions from our social channels. Rob what are people saying? Rob Panting - 37:47 Thanks Howard, yeah we've had quite a few questions sent through, a lot focused on the access to finance which I think we've probably covered off in great detail during this recording. So there's a couple of questions around, I guess, the operational side of businesses. So one in particular around, have you seen businesses diversify their operations following the pandemic? I think, you know, it's fair to say that businesses always look for new opportunities when they can. But given that businesses were perhaps forced to look at different ways of doing things, I guess, a reflection on that really in terms of the businesses that you speak with. Emma Gibson - 38:23 Yeah, I think it's the advantage of an SME and also, I suppose, in many ways, the disadvantage. But the advantage of an SME is that it has the ability to be agile and you're absolutely right. They were challenged and some of them were forced to change what they do or how they did it actually during the pandemic and I think we're continuing to see that because businesses are continually being forced to change and what they do and how they do it with the current cost of energy, office locations, not locations working from home, all of those sorts of things. So, yeah, we're definitely seeing businesses that have changed maybe their route to market, who've looked to go more online, less online, or various ways that the businesses have really had to diversify and again, it's about taking their employees on that journey and not losing sight of what it is they were trying to do because ultimately they're still the same business trying to do the same thing. It's just how they choose to go about doing it. Rob Panting - 39:24 Another question we've had talks about the digital side of businesses, although picking up some of the points that you made earlier around business can be quite a lonely place. The question was around how important is it for SMEs to have an effective digital presence, but is it also equally important that people remain very mobile in terms of collaboration, networking? Is it really just a combination of all of the above? Emma Gibson - 39:51 Well, I think, yeah, the combination of all the above is probably where I'd head to on that one. I think you're right. I think no business these days, no matter what type of business you are, can do without a digital channel or digital outlet. Whether that be because they want customers to find them, or potential customers to find them, or they want to market their wares, or they just want to interact on that sort of sales external side and of course, interaction with their employees because with lockdown and everybody having to work from home, that led to a transition and therefore they needed to be digitally up-scaled and I think that has really happened. happened in lots of firms, including KPMG, where all of a sudden nobody could get into an office and how do you cut the upskill and change the dynamics with people who weren't used to working in that way. So I think that's true with digital. 40:45 But I think on that network point, it's really important, I think, that SMEs realise and appreciate the value that they could all bring to each other and the networks that they have and also exploit, if that's the right word, those businesses around them that are able to offer advice, whether that be accountants, whether that be lawyers, whether that be, you know, OxLEP, for example, those people who are running seminars, who are running workshops on how to upskill your employees, how to obtain finance, all of those things are going. People should be attending those if they can, because you don't want to get too narrow and just rely on Mr Google, because Mr Google doesn't give you real-life experiences and also, I really like the idea that SMEs talking to each other, because they're all going through shared experiences. They might have completely different businesses, but they're all trying to hire, trying to sell, trying to contract, trying to get to the next level, trying to get some funding and there are parallels across all of that and being able to find somebody you can moan to or to cry on their shoulder or to have a laugh with or a pint or whatever is a great thing. Rob Panting - 41:56 I think, just very briefly before I go back to Howard, that's one of the successes we've had over the past two or three years. We coordinate a number of peer network groups, so bringing together business leaders from a variety of different sectors, and actually that is what they get out of those peer networking groups. Not necessarily develop a new strategy for how they want to run their business, I'm sure that's what some people have achieved off the peer network program. But actually, it is that forum to discuss problems, challenges, opportunities, and whether that's delivered in person or digitally. So we've done a combination of the two actually, a lot of people have spoken about the value that that's brought to them. So I would certainly concur with that. Emma Gibson - 42:34 I've run workshops before where you suddenly find that business A is talking to business B and actually they're thinking, actually I could invest in this business and this one can invest in this, you find a lot of cross fertilisation amongst them and sharing of talent. Howard Bentham - 42:50 Oxfordshire is a small place. Emma Gibson - 42:52 Yes. Howard Bentham - 42:53 Rob, great stuff, thank you. Some final thoughts from you, Emma, if we may. What more should be done then to back business given the current economic climate? Emma Gibson - 43:02 Well, I think it doesn't always come down to money, although money is always useful and we need to make sure as a business community ourselves that we are ensuring that those businesses are accessing the finances available in every way possible and I think we need to just really ensure that businesses don't leave anything on the table and also, I think from our point of view, from OxLEP's point of view, from businesses like KPMG that are in and working this area, we need to be really extending and working out what we can do practically to support these businesses and also provide a safe haven for businesses to come and talk and to share ideas and not feel they're always being sold to, or it's always, you know, we get it at KPMG, well you're too big, you're not interested in us because we're just an SME. Well, you know, I've been an SME, I only work with SMEs, and actually we've got some great programs that we run to support those businesses, which don't cost anything, they're just about how we support our community, and I think we just need to ensure that everybody involved works to the same aim, which is to really ensure that we drive business, energy and growth in our patch. Howard Bentham - 44:17 And finally, a couple of top tips then for Oxfordshire businesses wanting to grow in 2023. Emma Gibson - 44:22 Be flexible, be agile, look to your workforce and really find different ways of accessing talents. Obtain all the cash that they can from governments, from local governments, from all avenues to really find themselves supported and to really build on their network to ensure that they have the support both personally and as well as professionally as they grow their business. Howard Bentham - 44:46 Emma, it's been a joy to talk to you. Thank you. Emma Gibson - 44:48 Thank you. Howard Bentham - 44:49 Huge thanks to Emma Gibson, senior partner at KPMG Law. A big thank you also to Rob Panting from OxLEP and thank you for listening to OxTalks. This is the penultimate podcast in the series and we hope you'll tune into more. Find us where you normally get your podcasts. Please tell your friends or colleagues and if you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. Feel free to share your thoughts and suggestions on our social channels. It'll be good to hear from you. Remember, business support in Oxfordshire is just an email or a phone call away. The OxLEP Business Support Tool can signpost you to expert help in a matter of minutes. It's definitely worth taking a look. Find it on our website, OxfordshireLEP.com. Do tune in again to the series when we'll be exploring more current issues affecting businesses in Oxfordshire and if you didn't catch the earlier editions of OxTalks, hear from the CEO of Blenheim Palace, Dominic Hare on the importance of the visitor economy, and Tim Bestwick from the UK Atomic Energy Authority discussing Oxfordshire's place on the global technology stage. All are definitely well worth a listen. But for now, from the OxLEP team and from me, Howard Bentham, it's goodbye.