PROFESSOR DYLAN JONES-EVANS

Since the UK’s first Indian-origin Prime Minister was asked to form a government by King Charles III two weeks ago, many are still trying to work out how Rishi Sunak will work with his colleagues to close the massive hole in public finances and reduce the impact of increased energy prices. The forthcoming Autumn Statement has not been made any easier by the Bank of England’s decision to raise interest rates to 3% last Thursday. The rationale for this increase, as has always been the plan from Threadneedle Street, is to bring inflation under control when there are fears, if the issue of rising prices is not addressed, that it may become embedded into the economy with catastrophic results.  However, this decision will not help those many households and businesses that, in the short term, will face a rise in borrowing costs at a time when other financial pressures such as wage costs and energy bills are also increasing. The Government will rightly argue that it is the job of an indepe...

The most competitive economies in the World are those which invest in research and development (R&D) and focus on driving innovation. Unfortunately, as several research studies have shown, Wales does not perform well in terms of generating or developing innovation and this, in turn, impacts on the nation’s economic performance.   For example, a recent report from NESTA pointed out that Wales is one of three UK economic areas with low R&D intensity in key sectors. Official government statistics also reveal that over the last fifteen years, Welsh businesses have been responsible for only 2% of business expenditure on R&D in the UK.   The UK Innovation Survey showed that only 34% of Welsh firms were classed as innovation active in 2016-18 as compared to 38% for the UK. Businesses in Wales also  have lower levels of internal R&D than businesses in any other nation or region apart from Scotland.  This shouldn’t be too much of a surprise as Wales ...

This year, the Wales Fast Growth 50 publishes the twenty fourth listing of the fastest growing Welsh firms at a time when the UK economy faces some difficult headwinds due to a combination of higher energy prices, increasing inflation and a subdued business environment. That is why this year’s awards are more important than ever. With every business reconsidering their strategies for the future when uncertainties remain as to the future growth of the economy, the fifty firms featured in this magazine continue to be role models for others to follow in their footsteps. As with every firm that has featured on the Fast Growth 50, they make an incredible contribution to prosperity, employment, and innovation across the Welsh economy.  And they now become part of group of 701 entrepreneurial firms that, since we started charting their development in 1999, are estimated to have created 55,000 jobs and generated an estimated £30 billion of additional turnover, much of which is spent in the...

How entrepreneurial is Wales? That is the question that the latest Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) attempts to answer in its latest report which investigates those involved in early-stage entrepreneurship i.e. starting and managing a new business.  This year’s results show that the rate of total early-stage entrepreneurship (TEA) in Wales in 2021 was 10.3% as compared to 11.5% for the UK. This is significantly higher than the previous year (6.5%) and means that around 192,000 adults aged between 18 and 64 are involved in entrepreneurial activity in Wales.  Nearly three quarters are in the very early stages of starting a business and the rest involved in managing a new business aged between 4 and 42 months old.  This is an important finding as not only is the overall rate of entrepreneurial activity in Wales increasing but this is largely accounted for by those starting a business. In this respect, it is critical that the right support mechanisms are in place to ensu...

It would be an understatement to say that the last three years have been challenging for businesses in the UK. Brexit, the Covid pandemic and the war in the Ukraine are just three occurrences which have had, and will continue to have, significant long-term implications for those running companies across the country.  These ‘one-off’ events are compounded by other longer-term trends which Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) must build into their company strategies going forward, including climate change, the continuous search for talent and the impact of new technology on the way they do business. Understanding how business leaders are reacting to the changing global economic situation is the focus of the latest 2022 CEO Outlook from global accountants KPMG which examines the perspectives of 1,325 global CEOs to provide a detailed insight into how they view the business and economic landscape changing over the next three years. In terms of the economy, the survey suggests that 85% of gl...

Earlier this week, I attended the fifth annual conference of the UK Incubator and Accelerator Network in Birmingham.  Established by the influential Centre for Entrepreneurs thinktank, this collective connects and represents those ventures that offer physical space to new firms (incubators), organisations that deliver start-up support programmes (accelerators) and co-working spaces that provide flexible, shared offices. Whilst it was a real honour to be able to contribute to a panel discussing the future of the sector, one of the highlights of the conference was the presentation of the latest study examining the state of the sector and, more importantly, their role in stimulating entrepreneurship across the UK. This research showed that the sector is thriving with round 750 incubators, accelerators and support programmes now active in the UK, a doubling of the provision since the last examination of this phenomenon back in 2017.  Whilst London has the largest numbers of incuba...

Whilst we normally think of innovative new businesses being supported to grow through investments by business angels or venture capital firms, it is easy to forget the role that public sector funding can play in boosting the development of entrepreneurial businesses that are bringing new products or services to the market. Back in 1988, I embarked on my Ph.D at Aston University to study technical entrepreneurship in the UK by examining 60 winners of SMART (Small firms Merit Award for Research and Technology) awards across the UK.   It was the first study of its type in the UK at a time when entrepreneurs were still considered as peripheral not only in terms of their contribution to the economy but also in respect of their role in developing innovation and disruptive technologies. Certainly, the only place you would find the term unicorns back then was in children’s books or toy shops. Fast forward thirty four years and the funding landscape has changed considerably as has the ...

During the recent Covid pandemic, various sectors were forced to change their business model dramatically due to the lockdown imposed on customers and other stakeholders which meant they were unable to trade normally. One of those hit hardest was the higher education sector with universities having to close campuses and move quickly to online learning in order to continue to ensure students were able to complete their courses.  Some have argued that online learning should have been implemented earlier with some predicting the decline of the current model of university learning as new providers could develop more flexible programmes at a lower cost to students.  To date, that hasn’t happened although the introduction of online learning may now have opened a Pandora’s Box which may prove impossible to close. From my own recent experiences, the pandemic suggests that universities have been largely ineffective at coping with the pace of digital change. Often, senior staff lack any...

When we think of the most important businesses in the UK economy, how many of us consider the shops on the high street or the stores on out of town developments?  When we wheel our trolleys around the supermarket during our weekly shop or browse within our local independent shops, do we consider the impact that the retailing sector has on the UK economy? Yet, retail is critical in both generating wealth and creating employment and despite the impact that the Covid-19 pandemic had on the sector, it continues to employ more than three million people across the UK and contributes nearly £100 billion to GVA annually. As we all know, Covid had a major effect on the sector as politicians restricted access to stores and, in the case of independent shops, shut them completely. Not surprisingly, this led to a surge in online shopping and predictions that this would signal the end of the traditional retail sector. Yet, the latest data has shown that nearly three quarters of shopping is offli...

A constant theme of this column of the last few months has focused on skills and people and I make no apology for that given it is probably the most important issue facing our economy. Unfortunately, it is still not being taken seriously enough by politicians and policymakers within the UK Government or the devolved administrations with significant knock-on effects for the economy and the labour market. We know that vacancy rates remain high across the UK with more than 40% of employers finding it difficult to fill jobs. Yet, at the same time, 35% of workers feel they do not have the skills necessary to undertake their current role, never mind the jobs of the future.  Given this, it is no surprise that productivity rates remain shockingly low within the UK and that the economy is stagnating rather than growing. More importantly, with studies showing that as many as one out of every two jobs will need new skills due to digitalisation and automation, those economies that embrace chan...

In his sublime 1997 book on the fate of the fishing boat Andrea Gale, the author Sebastian Junger defined a “perfect storm” as a rare combination of events or circumstances that results in an unusually bad situation.  This term would not be out of place in describing what is currently happening to the UK economy which is being battered on so many fronts with little respite in sight. For example, the war in Ukraine has had an unexpected impact on energy bills in Europe due to the curtailing of exports from Russia which, last year, was responsible for supplying 40% of all natural gas to the European Union. Whilst the UK is not dependent on Russia for its energy needs, the scramble by other countries to find alternative sources has resulted in higher prices globally which has impacted on the fuel imported by the UK with normal suppliers struggling to meet demand. There have also been considerable supply constraints globally which have been driven by manufacturers struggling to get the...

  So what are the skills that employers need in the next decade? That was the question posed by the UK Government’s Department for Education and the Skills and Productivity Board to Warwick University’s Institute for Employment Research and the think-tank RAND Europe. Their recent research report is an important read not only for businesses in the UK that are facing a talent shortage but also for those policymakers who seem unable or unwilling to consider new ways of delivering the digital skills that are needed across all industries in order for them to remain competitive. As with other studies examining the future needs of the labour force, the vital importance of digital skills is again highlighted as being key to the competitive advantage of organisations in a range of sectors. These skills include knowledge of artificial Intelligence, automation of processes, 3D printing, cloud-based computing,  information technology and communications systems, and the Internet of Thing...

Next week, we close the search for the fastest growing firms in Wales which will culminate in a glittering awards ceremony in Cardiff later this year where the achievements of some of the most entrepreneurial Welsh firms will be celebrated. The Wales Fast Growth 50 recognises those group of high growth businesses that make a disproportionate contribution to jobs and wealth creation in the Welsh economy.  Since the project was established in 1999, the 674 entrepreneurial firms that have appeared on the lists published in the Western Mail are estimated to have created 48,000 jobs and generated an estimated £27 billion of additional turnover, much of which is spent in their local area.  One of the myths about entrepreneurship that the success of any high growth company is down to one individual, namely the founder. In fact, the myth of the entrepreneurial hero still holds sway in our imaginations and popular culture with individuals such as Richard Branson, Elon Musk, Mark Zucker...

So what is the economic impact of universities?  That was the question posed by London School of Economics policy fellow Anna Valero and her colleague John van Reenen of MIT in a recent academic paper. In reviewing previous evidence, Dr Valero suggest that there are various ways in through which universities can affect economic growth. The most obvious is that higher education produces the skilled workers required by businesses and that this can have a boost to local economies given that students who graduate are more likely to seek work in the area where the university is located. Another important role is that of developing and diffusing innovation with universities being crucibles for research and development (R&D) and there is increasing evidence of this being commercialised either through links with local firms or via academics spinning out to create their own businesses.  This role is particularly important in Wales where universities are responsible for 40% of the t...

  As we all know, wellbeing is becoming more important in the workplace in all types of organisations.  This increased prominence is down to a range of factors, not least the changes that have occurred because of the recent Covid-19 pandemic which has increased demands from employees from more support from their employers.  In addition, the increase in hybrid working has meant that the previous boundaries between what happens in the home and the office have become increasingly blurred.  And with workers beginning to consider whether to leave or stay with their employers with many resigning because they have simply had enough, health and wellbeing is now becoming a major factor not only in recruiting talent but also in retaining your best members of staff. For example, a study of 500 human resource decision-makers in the UK by Towergate Health found that 42% believed that support for the health and wellbeing of staff was a key reason people stay with their company, wi...