PROFESSOR DYLAN JONES-EVANS

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...

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...

If you don’t have a teenage son or daughter, you may not ever have heard of the video game Grand Theft Auto (GTA). In fact, few would realise that the five versions of GTA have, since the first game was launched in 1997, sold over 355 million units worldwide. In fact, the fifth version has generated over $6 billion in sales, higher than top grossing films such as Avatar, Avengers, Titanic or Star Wars, making it the most successful product ever to be developed in the creative industries sector. Despite this, the games industry remains one which has been largely unappreciated here in the UK even though it contributes £2.9 billion to the economy, supports nearly 50,000 jobs and has 75% of its revenue from international sales. But what about the video games industry in Wales and given the global potential of the sector, is there scope to make it a significant contributor to the knowledge-based economy? Two of my colleagues at the University of South Wales have recently mapped the developm...

This week, the long overdue Levelling Up White Paper was published by the UK Government. Weighing in at 332 pages, it is a substantial piece of work that puts forward the case for addressing the economic inequalities across the UK.  Naturally, some critics have already suggested that it long on ambition and short on the funding needed to achieve that ambition. Nevertheless, it must be applauded for at least getting this important issue front and centre when it comes to government policy and also on identifying a number of broad objectives to ensure a more equal distribution of economic prosperity in every part of the United Kingdom.  These include boosting productivity, pay, jobs and living standards by growing the private sector (especially in those places where they are lagging) as well as spreading opportunities and improve public services in the weakest regions. By adopting a bottom-up rather than the usual top-down approach, it also intends to restore a sense of community...

As we emerge out of the pandemic, it is clear that the use of digital has become even more important in the home and the workplace.  During the last eighteen months and as the country went into lockdown time and time again, the use of digital tools became critical in being able to work away from the office, to maintain relationship with friends and family and in containing and managing the pandemic itself through track and trace. Yet despite this, not everyone has the digital skills to operate in this environment. As the latest Essential Digital Skills report from Lloyds Bank shows, whilst 42 million adults are able to communicate, transact, problem solve, stay safe online and handle information, 21% of the UK population (roughly 11 million people) lack the essential digital skills for everyday life.  In other words, 10 million people are not able to access the Internet themselves and lack the most basic digital tasks, 6.5 million cannot connect to Wi-Fi by themselves and 4.9 ...

Earlier this week, the campaigning think-tank Onward published a report which examined how supporting a renaissance in manufacturing could level up the UK economy.  It builds on some of the themes that have been reflected in this column over the last eighteen years namely that manufacturing - especially here in Wales - has been sorely neglected by politicians and policymakers despite the evidence that it is now an industry utilising highly skilled workers to generate high quality products that are sold internationally. Yet as the report shows, if the UK is to close the productivity gap with its main competitors, then there needs to be a greater focus on supporting the manufacturing industry. This is because productivity growth in manufacturing has been higher than the rest of the economy with output per job in manufacturing growing by 0.64% in manufacturing between 1979 and 2019 as compared to an average of 0.36% across the economy as a whole.  Given this - and the fact that W...

During the last week, the judging process for the 2021 Wales Startup Awards conducted 118 interviews with arguably some of the best new Welsh businesses.  Over six days, the forty one judges experienced the depth and breadth of the startup scene in Wales and heard some amazing stories of resilience, creativity and sheer hard work. As someone who has been involved in supporting businesses in Wales for a quarter of a century, the process opened a window on the state of entrepreneurship across the country and, more importantly, enabled me to understand some of the key issues facing startups as we emerge into a new economic reality.  So what did I learn from these amazing individuals and their firms? First of all, entrepreneurial spirit and drive is alive and well in Wales. We have interviewed some amazing companies from every sector and every part of the nation and it is incredible to see the enthusiasm these new businesses have for their products or services.  More importan...

  Twenty-five years ago, I accepted the position of professor of entrepreneurship and small business management at the University of Glamorgan.  It was the first academic role of its type in Wales, and it was a proud moment in my life to be able to come home from University College Dublin in Ireland to begin a new journey promoting and developing the whole area of entrepreneurship both inside and outside the university. Of course, back then entrepreneurs were not valued within the economy and society not only in Wales but more widely across the World.  There was little appreciation of the impact of individuals such as Steve Jobs, there was no programmes such as Dragon’s Den on the TV and the thought of young people being encouraged to start up their own business rather than go into a safe job working for an established employer was seen as irresponsible at best. Instead, the strategy of economic development bodies was very focused much on spending tens of millions of poun...

Over the next few weeks as we approach the Senedd elections in May, many organisations will be putting forward ideas on how the next Welsh Government can make a difference to the nation. Given the importance of new and smaller businesses to the Welsh economy as we emerge out of the pandemic, our next group of politicians should read the recent proposals from Purple Shoots, a not-for-profit micro finance organisation that provides small business loans at fair rates. With an impressive track record over the last seven years, they have helped to fill a real gap in access to finance to the newest and smallest firms and, in doing so, have made a real difference to the ambitions of those from the poorest communities who want to start their own businesses. One of their suggestions is to divert one per cent of the £270m recently given to the Development Bank of Wales by the Welsh Government towards funding new microbusinesses employing less than ten people. Using their own success as an exampl...

Innovation is one of the key drivers behind the most competitive economies in the World.  Yet as various studies have shown over the last decade, Wales is one of the least intensive nations or regions of the UK in terms of research and development (R&D). This is not only in regard to the considerably lower levels of research funding attracted by the university sector over the last two decades but also in terms of the lower levels of expenditure by Welsh firms on R&D which means that only a third are active in terms of innovation across the economy.  This is despite hundreds of millions of pounds of European funding being focused to boost innovation since devolution which, unfortunately, has largely failed to increase the performance of either higher education or the private sector relative to the rest of the UK. So what can be done to improve this? That is the subject of a recent paper by two of our leading thinkers on innovation namely Professors Rick Delbridge and Ke...

Earlier this week, in association with Wales Week London , we launched the sixth Wales Start-Up Awards which celebrates the success of the best new Welsh businesses every year. It was a pleasure to interview a number of the award winners that are making a real stamp on their industries and markets.  These included Project Blu , overall winner in 2020 which has signed a major multi-million pound deal to sell their environmentally friendly dog products in the USA; Yoello , the Cardiff-based payments specialist which had to pivot during the pandemic but has completed a major funding round to expand their operations substantially; t he Goodwash Company , whose innovative approach to their business is putting them on the path to becoming a major UK brand in the next couple of years; and the Enbarr Foundation which is rewriting the textbook on community entrepreneurship through its efforts in Deeside. Despite all the challenges of the last 12 months, these amazing founders had not only s...

Earlier this week, the Welsh Government published its Economic Resilience and Reconstruction Mission which sets out how it will work to rebuild Wales’ post COVID-19 economy. Like every economic strategy document, there are elements of good and bad policymaking within the document. For example, some of the actions on developing a greener economy, supporting innovation, improving digital skills, better public procurement and moves to support our high streets are to be welcomed.  But there are also considerable omissions on key issues which are critical to development of any economy, never mind that of Wales which is the poorest in the UK. For example, there is a total lack of focus on supporting entrepreneurship and new businesses. This is despite overwhelming evidence that new firms not only create the majority of new jobs in any economy but especially during a recession where large firms continue to shed hundreds of thousands of jobs.  And it’s not as if the Welsh Government h...

Last week, a fascinating economic outlook report was published by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) that focused not only on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic but also Brexit. In doing so, it delivered a sobering assessment of the future of the UK economy as well as the differing fortunes of the regional and devolved economies of the nation. As with many other forecasters, the increase in Covid-19 infections during the last few months has resulted in the NIESR revising its economic growth forecasts for this year, especially with the lockdown of the last couple of months having a bigger negative impact on the UK as compared to last November. As a result, the NIESR suggests that the UK economy will only grow by 3.4% in 2021 although a more rapid rollout of the vaccination programme, along with the lifting of lockdown measurers, could change this.  In addition, the sluggish response of the rest of the World in vaccinating their populations could result ...

With the majority of us still working from home during a dark and cold January, it may difficult to envisage that in less than one hundred days and barring any postponement from Cardiff Bay, we will be voting in the elections for the Welsh Senedd. As the political parties start to formulate their manifestos, various organisations, pressure groups and other bodies are putting together a list of their priorities that the next Welsh Government will hopefully enact as part of their programme. One of the most important of these submissions has come from the Welsh university sector that, during the last five years, has been responsible for developing world class research and innovation, delivered skills to people of all ages and backgrounds, and made a significant contribution to the economic and societal wellbeing of Wales. As the nation looks to recover from the challenges that we have all faced as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, higher education institutions are aiming to continue thi...

When I launched the 2020 Wales Start-up Awards earlier this year, some wondered whether this was the right thing to do given that the economy had gone into full lockdown at the end of March.  I mean, how many new businesses would be set up business during a pandemic and, indeed, wouldn’t people avoid any type of entrepreneurial activity under such circumstances. According to the Centre for Entrepreneurs' annual analysis of Companies House data, a record 772,002 new businesses were established in the UK in 2020 representing a totally unexpected increase of 13.3% on the previous year although there was not and even pattern of new business formation from March to December. For example, the index (which is produced using the Companies House register of live UK limited companies) showed that in April 2020 when the whole of the UK was under the strictest lockdown measures, the number of new businesses in the UK fell by 29% as compared to 2019, with Scotland and Northern Ireland experienc...

Earlier this week, there was yet another political row between Cardiff Bay and Westminster over additional funding that had supposedly been released to the devolved administrations as a result of new support for businesses in England.  Welsh ministers said that this was not new money at all whereas their equivalents at a UK level said that it formed part of funding that had been ‘advanced’ to the Welsh Government last year to enable them to provide support to businesses. Whatever the truth of the matter, it was disappointing to see the focus on all too prevalent ‘he said, she said’ that has come to dominate any discourse on who has done what to support businesses here in Wales. At a time when the vast majority of Welsh firms will be struggling as a result of the current lockdown, political point scoring should come a distant second to actually providing the support they need to survive until the vaccination process is completed in the next few months and the economy opens up again....

Back in late January, I was having a cup of tea with one of Wales’ leading businesspeople who had been keeping an eye on the emergence of a new flu-like virus that was spreading like wildfire through the Chinese city of Wuhan.  He showed me a video of people shouting from their locked apartment blocks in the middle of the night and suggested that this could be a serious situation that could get out of control quickly, advising me to buy some high-quality personal protection masks as soon as possible.  Of course, when I did and told friends and family, this naturally resulted in a lot of leg pulling at my over-reaction to something happening thousands of miles away that would never affect Wales.  Fast forward six weeks later and everyone was trying to get hold of facemasks as the whole of the world went into lockdown and nations faced the first serious global pandemic since the Spanish Flu outbreak in 1918. Since then, we have seen the country shut down, re-opened and now ...