IT IS excellent news that the Kauffman Foundation has chosen Liverpool as the venue for next year’s Global Entrepreneurship Congress.
This recently established event in the annual international business calendar will do an excellent job at bringing approximately 500 business and economic development professionals to the city from around the world. It’s the sort of publicity and promotion that our local inward investment and economic development agencies dream about.
Still, I can’t help worrying that a little bit of hype and fudging of the facts may have been deployed when pitching for the event.
Take this, for example, from the official announcement yesterday morning: “The power of the message put forward by Liverpool Vision about Liverpool’s interest – and the many expansions of entrepreneurship that were pointed out in the application that characterised modern Liverpool as a city truly committed to entrepreneurship – were very decisive.”
Without doubt, economic development quangos in Liverpool are deeply committed to increasing the number of people starting their own business and the whole idea of enterprise. Indeed, such a strategy is essential to the city’s future prosperity. But I hope nobody was suggesting that this has actually happened yet, because Liverpool’s business formation and density rates are still very weak compared to the UK average.
I would hazard a guess that this sort of hype has little to do with Kauffman’s decision to come to Liverpool and that the £280,000 subsidy that Liverpool Vision is paying towards the event had more of an influence.
Not that that’s a problem. There’s nothing to be ashamed of in judiciously using our budgets to attract such an event to the city. In fact, it’s probably quite a smart move.
We’ve yet to see the full list of delegate names and speakers, but there has to be a high chance that on this occasion it will be fresh faces with some fresh ideas.
ON THE subject of refreshing things, it was interesting to read former Professional Liverpool chief executive Mark Chadwick’s dressing down aimed at the organisation’s current board.
Mr Chadwick said: “A part time, pro-bono gentlemen’s luncheon club run as a hobby is unlikely to find space in the market; it’s been a wasted year.”
Harsh, but probably fair. I can’t tell you exactly how many lunches they’ve had, but I imagine it’s a good many.
However, I was never overwhelmed by the previous management’s strategies and achievements either, though it must be one of the hardest jobs on earth to promote Liverpool as a centre for professional services.
While there are a small number of law firms in the city and the major international accountancy practices all have a foot on the ground in Liverpool, the fact is nearby Manchester dominates the marketplace for professional services in the North West.
The crucial question is how best Professional Liverpool can grow the marketplace in this city. Mr Chadwick is obviously very pessimistic on this point.
Describing their recently published strategy document, he said: “It’s not a really a strategy, it’s more a statement of very limited intent.”
The strategy has been published online for all to read, but my impression is that it lacks the necessary forward-looking perspective. But, there again, perhaps its authors are just being realistic.
