PROFESSOR DYLAN JONES-EVANS

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been using my annual leave to catch up with some long overdue reading.  One of the books that I revisited was the autobiography of Jack Welch, the former CEO of global conglomerate General Electric and someone who is widely acknowledged to be one of the most astute and successful businessmen of the last 100 years. Obviously, there are many quotable sayings from the great man but one that I think that is pertinent to the challenges facing today’s economy is one he made at a symposium in Boston back in 2006 where he said that although people often think innovation is limited to practical scientific advances, it’s about much more than that. In fact, Welch always believed that to innovate something is as important as inventing it. In fact, a study from Jack Welch’s old employer GE showed that innovation is a key tool in developing a competitive advantage in a global economy but that businesses do not do that on their own. In fact, increasing collab...

As we all know, developing better skills amongst the workforce is critical to ensuring a more competitive economy. This is especially the case amongst those small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) that are responsible for the majority of employment in the UK.  Whilst research from the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) show that nine out of ten SMEs recognise this issue and the value of staff training, less than half are actually putting their hands in their pockets to invest in learning and development.   Why is the case?  Various studies have suggested that much of the training on offer does not consider the requirements of those entrepreneurs running SMEs especially as, unlike large firms where there are various layers of management cushioning chief executives from what is happening on the ground, entrepreneurs play a far more pivotal role in the day-to-day running of small businesses.  As a result, the founders of small businesses tend to be directly invo...