E-Magazine
Editorial
Simon Denny
“We will make it easier for people to set up new enterprises by cutting the time it takes to start a new business”
“We will consider the implementation of the Dyson Review to make the UK the leading hi-tech exporter in Europe, and refocus the research and development tax credit on hi-tech companies, small firms and start-ups”
“We will support the creation and expansion of mutuals, co-operatives, charities and social enterprises, and enable these groups to have much greater involvement in the running of public services”
“We will give public sector workers a new right to form employee-owned co-operatives and bid to take over the services they deliver”
Extracts from The Coalition: our programme for government, Cabinet Office, May 2010 (Crown copyright 2010)
This edition of Enterprising Matters has the theme of Internationalisation. However, while sitting in my German chair, using my US-company branded, Chinese-made keyboard, staring at my Japanese-company branded, Chinese-made computer screen, it seemed appropriate to comment on the new Coalition Government’s programme, released on 20th May 2010.
It was to be expected that the new government would want to make it as easy as possible to start a new business. It was obvious that some money would be ‘refocused’ at hi-tech companies. What I find exciting in the government’s programme is the emphasis on social enterprise, not only in the two extracts cited above, but in the many other opportunities for the third sector suggested by the document. I hope all of us in ISBE will be able to respond positively to the challenge of helping new, and existing, third sector organisations operate in an entrepreneurial and professional manner.
Internationalisation is a particularly apt theme for this edition of Enterprising Matters. Whereas in 1963 de Gaulle could comment that Britain was different from mainland Europe because she was, “linked by her exchanges, her markets and her supply routes to the most diverse and often the farthest-flung nations”, today nearly all countries are linked by exchanges, markets and supply routes. We are certainly linked by what one commentator has called ‘the inter-connectedness of debt’!
Academics and practitioners studying the internationalisation of enterprise, and preparing themselves and others to join the global fray, have some interesting and relevant stories to tell. There is something different about international enterprise and to succeed in foreign markets requires very different competencies than those needed to do well at home. Twenty years ago I worked for Tesco. I remember listening to a main board director explaining why Tesco would only expand abroad in English speaking countries. Today Tesco operates in at least 15 countries, only two of which have English as their official language. That main board director is no longer with the company, and I think he would have been the first to admit that he did not have the competencies to operate successfully abroad. The current board clearly does have the ‘something different’ including, I suggest, sensitivity to the different cultures in which Tesco operates.
This edition gives ISBE members the opportunity of sharing their knowledge and ideas on international enterprise. I think it is a timely and useful contribution to the debate.
Finally, I am sure we all welcome Nigel Lockett as President of ISBE. The aims he sets out in his article certainly have my support, and I hope they will have yours as well.
Simon Denny
Simon Denny is Professor of Entrepreneurship at The University of Northampton. In April 2010 he received The Queen’s Award for Enterprise Promotion.
