A global focus that Wales can achieve
By Effective Communication
Fri 9 Jul 2010 By Alastair Milburn Exchange
Grounded: do we need to take a plane now that the internet is so powerful?
I’M TAKING part in a really interesting course at the moment.
I’m among the first cohort of the Professor Brian Morgan-inspired 20Twenty Leadership Programme – a 10-month course chiefly comprising two-day modules once a month.
The title has nothing to do with cricket. In fact, I believe it has two objectives – to provide leaders in Wales with 20/20 clarity of vision and focus to take their businesses and organisations forward.
It is also supposed to prepare and help the 30 or so people on the course to learn the skills and develop the high growth plans which will drive our businesses – and Wales – to success and glory by 2020.
But, of course, to achieve all that, you need to have some understanding of what the world will be looking like in 2020, in order to ensure your business is armed and prepared to exploit the new opportunities which will undoubtedly arise.
But 10 years is still a long, long time in business. Think back to 2000 – what didn’t we have? No BlackBerries, no iPhones, Twitter, social media, or online, streamed video – and I certainly didn’t know how to text. How did we ever cope?
So it was with some trepidation that during our most recent session of the course we were asked to predict the key market conditions and components which we believed would exist in 2020, and how Welsh businesses should exploit them for future success.
These were the key thoughts:
Globalisation – technology will completely break down all geographical barriers (we’re almost there now);
Dramatic expansion of broadband services and capabilities;
People will work longer, and live longer, creating a huge base of knowledge and experience;
The emerging BRIC economies (Brazil, Russia, India and China) will continue to thrive;
Our urban areas will continue to grow;
Energy efficiency will remain the global priority.
We then compared our thoughts with the findings of a couple of key futurologists. The results were identical. So what does this exercise tell us about Wales and the opportunities it faces over the next 10 years?
It does indeed suggest that Wales will be a skills and knowledge-based workforce with the ability to offer its services via modern communications channels to the world.
It’s simplicity is frightening. For those of us who really want to, technology will enable us to turn ourselves around to face the whole world, and sell our services to the whole world, not just Cardiff, Swansea, Wrexham, or Pontypandy.
And why not? My company’s PR and marketing services are totally transferable. If we’re good at what we do, why can’t we promote businesses and other institutions in their home countries – or, increasingly, over the web?
You don’t need to physically go to China to devise and implement an online media campaign for a manufacturer of widgets in Shanghai. You don’t need to visit Brazil to devise a campaign to attract foreign students to the University of Brasilia.
Those may provide extreme examples, but you get the point. Language may remain a barrier but that still leaves the vast, English (and Welsh) speaking world to do business with. And that is why I have been so encouraged by the contents of the Economic Renewal Programme announced by the Minister on Monday.
Here’s a reminder of the key elements:
Business support will now be focused on the six sectors of ICT, energy and the environment, advanced materials and manufacturing, creative industries, life sciences, financial and professional services;
The Welsh Assembly Government will ensure 100 megabits per second broadband is available to all businesses in urban areas, with 30 megabits for rural locations by 2016;
International Business Wales will be scrapped.
Does this have a familiar ring to it? It certainly will for anyone who has worked in a Welsh company for the past few years, because those key elements contain many of the things that business has asked for. I sense that, for the very first time, there is a collective thinking in Wales about what we can do to thrive going forward, and the key tools businesses such as mine require to do so.
I’ve been trying to do business with the rest of the world via third party organisations such as IBW since 2005, and it just hasn’t happened. Give Wales the tools (broadband and a highly skilled and highly knowledgeable workforce) and the world is there for the taking. Put simply, we don’t need the IBW.
For too long, we’ve wrapped ourselves in endless debates about finding the right structures, the right support, the effectiveness of IBW, who should be doing what, who should be given what. Now is the time to just get on with it.
Tags: 2020, Alastair Milburn, globalisation, technology
