Mr Browne's boys made us look like a bit of a joke!

The per-referendum headlines last week were all centred around “The People’s Debate” with Vincent Browne, which was aired on Wednesday 20^th May.

I attended the live recording on Monday 18^th May having been asked to do so by the show’s producers. I was not sure what to expect but I was pretty sure, as with all these types of pre-recorded and edited shows, that what would go out on the evening of Wednesday 20^th May could either be great for Waterford’s stock or detrimental to Waterford’s stock.

Unfortunately, we got the later.

To set the scene. On the evening of the recording Vincent set the tone with the audience well in advance of any actual recording and he skilfully asked the audience what they wanted to discuss and debate. He steered us though all the hot and spicy topics for the debate and then brought in the three victims (TD’s), like gladiators entering the Coliseum. Only our Gladiators were armed with pen and paper and there was not a gladius or trident to be seen. Minister Paudie Coffey, John Halligan and Ciara Conway all entered the arena together, to a mixture of one or two muted cheers, lots of boos and much heckling from an audience clearly baying for blood.

The shows concept has now moved on from a debate to a shouting and venting match with the each weekly audience getting progressively more vocal and I feel that every week the new audience is trying to outdo the previous week’s show. There are approximately 24 more shows to be recorded and aired and I would hate to think what the audience’s mood or fervour will be as the show nears the end of its run. Clearly, the whole concept of debate has been lost and there are many angry voters wishing to vent and express their displeasure at their local TD’s and this platform is an ideal opportunity to do just that.

Regrettably, what we then get is a show that like so many others is edited to either be positive or negative about the City or Town where the recording took place. We must bear in mind that Waterford has to be even more positive than our competing Cities and Towns if we are to fast track our economic recovery, and the negativity that came from this recording will do Waterford’s stock absolutely no favours at all. And we have all seen the reality TV shows where clever editing has made contestants look like angels or devils, and when said contestant is evicted or voted out they are surprised that they have been portrayed in such a bad light. This unfortunately is the result of editing and often many of the good positive parts of such programmes are literally felt on the cutting room floor.

On the evening of the recording I know that there were a number of international business people, visiting Waterford, not too far from the programme venue and had they happened to wander into the debate I would hate to think what impression of Waterford they would have taken back to the States or Europe.

We have to be very, very careful of the PR we are producing for the City and County if we are in fact serious about bringing the City forward, seeking investment and ultimately reducing our unemployment rate. Shouting and berating politicians on national primetime television is not the way to go. Whether or not they deserve such vilification the circa 90 minutes of negative TV coverage is the last thing Waterford needs at the moment and we as citizens should be aware of that.

And just to emphasise my point of how positive PR makes us feel better and makes the Country look better we only have to assess at the impact the referendum vote on Friday 22^nd May will have on Ireland Inc. There can be no doubt that this voting issue received worldwide attention and will well and truly put Ireland on a very positive footing as the only country in the world to pass such constitutional change.

And what this says about this for every green county goes way beyond the actual vote and this change will, in time, make Ireland a much better place for investment and I am absolutely sure that the issue of equality will be one of the investment criteria that many a multi-national will now look at when seeking investment in Europe. As real equality says an awful lot about a country and its people and this will NOT go unnoticed.

Back to the debate. I received a phone call on the morning of Wednesday 20^th May asking me what I thought of the Monday night recording. I stated the obvious and said that I felt there was a lot of negativity in the room and depending on how the programme would be edited it could show Waterford in a good or bad light. I also commented on the performance of our TD’s and on the strength of this I was asked to appear on the live post-show analysis programme. I duly travelled up to Dublin to, in my mind, set the record straight about all the positive stories around Waterford at the moment. Alas, there was simply insufficient time to get all my points across and in the very short time I was given to speak I tried to get in as much positivity about the City and County as possible.

The lessons to be learned are very clear. If we are to put Waterford on a national television platform those participating must be mindful of the audience that will be watching the final edited programme. As I have said on many occasions we are ALL responsible for job creation, positive reinforcement and talking positively about this great City and County. We ALL have negativity in our lives but when the opportunity arises we must switch on our positive gene for the betterment of everyone and sadly for “The People’s Debate” we missed that opportunity.

 

Finally, I could not sign off without once again saying a gargantuan “Well done Ireland” in the referendum vote on 22^nd May. Whilst, I could not vote myself the overwhelming YES vote was a huge endorsement by the people of Ireland and to see so many people engaged in the debate was extremely positive, upbeat and heart-warming. 

I wonder if there will be as much enthusiasm for the next General Election!

Negative Ninnies & Numpties not wanted here!

A fine Scottish word not used enough.

The first ever AGM of the Waterford Business Group (WBG) takes place in The Granville Hotel on Tuesday 26^th May 2015. This will in many ways be a historic moment for the Committee and the Members of this organisation.

As one of the founding members the WBG I can proudly say that the work ethic of the Group is second to none and the subsequent results achieved, by this entirely voluntary body, have over the last twelve months been nothing short of remarkable.

I sometimes have to pinch myself and quite literally say “Did we really achieve and influence so much in only two years since the Group’s foundation!”

The answer is of course a big fat YES! Driven people can achieve so much by working together.

Organisations set their foundations for success by the very people that drive said organisation and when you are specifically dealing with voluntary committees then the dynamic formed from within that committee will lead either to short-term failure or long-term achievement.

 

So, how do you ensure that your Committee is dynamic, positive, enthusiastic, committed and driven to achieve continually changing goals? And let face it most Committees are, to put it quite bluntly, lazy, weak, devoid of creative ideas and in reality are “closed for business!”

There are a number of critical guidelines you should consider when at the formation stage of any group or organisation to ensure your committee is fit for purpose. And here are few of my tips for building such a strong Committee:

·       You must ALL bring a “Can do attitude” to the group – negative ninnies and numpties are not wanted here!

·       An infectious enthusiasm is a prerequisite – let us start working together and achieving real results.

·       Leave your prejudices outside the Committee – first impression are not always right or correct.

·       Agree the Committee and Organisation’s goals – clearly defined goals will keep focus and set a course for achieving real results.

·       Members MUST have a mutual interest in overcoming obstacles – if you simply give up at the first NO, then the Committee will fail to tackle the challenges that lie ahead.

·       Learn to develop the Committee and Organisation – be prepared to adapt and change.

·       Set up a good communication structure - POOR communication within the Committee is one of the biggest problems within a group.

·       Set your ground rules early – members need to know what is and what is not acceptable.

·       What happens in the Committee stays in the Committee – confidentiality is essential and vital if there is to be trust from within the group.

·       Participants must be present to have their say – you cannot be an absent Committee Member and expect to contribute to the groups goals. If you are not there you have no say and you might even introduce a miss three meetings and you are OUT policy!

·       Disagreement is part of the process – this is also necessary to move the group on and must be directed at the task in hand and never at an individual from within the Committee.

·       At ALL times respect must be shown to fellow members – listen to fellow members, each member has the right to say “No”, each member has the right to disagree and each member has the right to express their own opinion.

Once you set out the above ground rules and guidelines then a Committee can get on with the process of delivering the Organisation’s goals. But before you progress you may wish to make sure that the makeup of the Committee is fit for purpose by ensuring you have the following personalities within the Committee:

·       The Plant – creative, imaginative, solves difficult problems

·       The Resource Investigator – enthusiastic extrovert, communicative, develops contacts

The Specialist!

·       The Coordinator – mature, confident, would make a good Chairperson

·       The Shaper – challenging, dynamic, thrives on pressure

·       The Evaluator – strategic, discerning, judges accurately

·       The Team Worker – cooperative, perceptive, diplomatic

·       The Implementer – disciplined, reliable, efficient

·       The Finisher - painstaking, conscientious, anxious

·       The Specialist - single-minded, self-starting, dedicated

Your Committee can of course be made up of a combination of the above and a number of other talents but these are the very basic requirements, in my experience, that are needed to ensure a Committee will achieve the goals that the Group or Organisation set themselves.

The Finisher - boy do I need one of these!

Luckily, the Waterford Business Group have the above skill set and much, much more from the Committee members, and this is why at next week’s historic first AGM the Group will review it’s many, many achievements since the formation in 2013 and set out its goals for the coming twelve months ahead.

Whilst many readers may not be aware of the work covered by the Waterford Business Group I can assure you that they will be working very, very hard over the next twelve months to regain the City’s status as the fourth City of Ireland.

But this cannot be done by individuals alone. So we must ALL support the great work ethic of the many excellent voluntary organisations working on behalf of the people of Waterford.

To this extent I applaud every one of these voluntary organisations that are making a REAL difference to ALL of our lives.

No pressure, no diamonds!

As our children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews prepare to sit Junior and Leaving Certificate exams we can all, I am sure, remember just how we felt as the exams deadline approached. We can all remember fretting and worrying about whether or not all of the information we had stored and crammed into every corner of our brain could be regurgitated in the right order for the specific questions we were answering.

I know that some thirty odd years ago I was studying hard in my bedroom room in Pitlessie Village, just a few miles from my secondary school, Bell Baxter High School, in Cupar, in a county called Fife. I very quickly realised that I was not the brightest match in the box and that if I was to succeed in a future life I would have to work very, very hard and more importantly I would have to find a study system that worked for me and the limitations I had personally identified in the various subjects I was studying.

Strangely enough, the subject that I found the hardest was English and those closest to me will know that in my whole life I have probably read, cover to cover, just a handful of books. Such was my inability to like this most necessary of subjects that my parents invested in tutoring for me and by some minor miracle, and divine intervention,  I managed to pass, with a sufficient Higher Grade, that I was able to go further on to third level education.

Little did I know that in my future career and life I would need English probably more than any other subject I studied?

Despite having an almost complete hatred of the whole subject of English I now find myself writing more and more in my everyday life and I owe a very big thank you to both my parents for persevering and investing their time and energy in me, to ensure I passed my English exams.

As those nearest to us prepare to go through the very same exam pressures I know that we as parents must give the necessary support, encouragement and guidance to allow our children to perform to the very best of their abilities. We must become coaches and perhaps more importantly mentors to them so that they know they are not alone in the difficult journey they are about to embark on. As exam mentors we need to be cognisant of the fact that we all learn and study in different ways and our individual children will differ in the way they study, the way they retain information and the way they set down that information on an exam paper.

Luckily, today’s children are assessed throughout the school year and your performance is not all based around just one examination. We all know that a one-off examination will suit some children but it will not necessarily suit other children. The fact the children are now continually assessed will bode well for future careers in the workplace where we are continually assessed and benchmarked. The ability to continually perform and improve is a hard lesson to learn but a necessary lesson our children must learn if they are to continually improve.

In a commercial environment we must continually seek to improve our performance and we must repeatedly seek to be ahead of our competition in terms of sales, marketing and the communication of those messages. Failure to strive for betterment will undoubtedly lead to the failure of a company or a brand. The pressures we put ourselves under will either make or break us in business, and how we individually cope and manage with those pressures does I believe go all the way back to our teenage school days and how we learned to cope with the pressures of examinations.

I know myself that I had to put a very precise structure in place in order for me to study efficiently, and this worked for me and has now given me the discipline to work on numerous projects and programmes all at once. This early study structure has also given me the ability to jump from one task to another at the flick of a switch. I believe we now call this multitasking and despite what some of the fairer sex may say, men are equally good at multitasking we just need to put a structure to the tasks at hand.

In fact, my own study plans varied wildly from those of my sister who seemed to get by in all of her exams by reading and studying the weekly “Jackie” comic, published by D C Thomson of Dundee. I did pick up the odd copy to check what study tips were contained therein. But there were none and I could never understand how Linzi passed her exams on the back of studying just the “Jackie” magazine! Perhaps someday she will tell me?

The pain and concern all our children are going through this exam time will stand them in good stead for third level education and their future careers. The more, as parents, we can relate to the fact that we too suffered, panicked and bombed some of our exams will help them through this tough period of their lives. We must find a way of relating our own experiences back to them at the right time and in the right place.

As we progress through life and if we are lucky enough to want to become senior managers, team managers, supervisors, CEO’s or influencers then we need to remember back to our days of study when we looked to our parents for encouragement and guidance. Those, like me, lucky enough to have parents who were enthusiastically involved in our future career outlook should remember just how we felt when we were encouraged, mentored and praised for the work and effort we had put into our study.

In business we all must remember that the right encouragement, at the right time, gets a much better positive reaction than simply shouting and swearing at your workforce and employees. Good “bosses” know when to say thank you, know when to put their arm around you, know when to give the hairdryer treatment and they instinctively know when to push or hold back as they have experienced it all themselves.

I would wage a bet that the best bosses are in general those who are less gifted, those who found exams very hard and are those who had to find a structured study plan. After all pressure is really only for turbos and tyres!

And finally always remember, “No pressure, no diamonds!”

Rise and Rise again, Until the Lambs have become Lions.

“Rise and Rise again,

Like the Phoenix from the ashes,

Until the Lambs have become Lions,

And the Rule of Darkness is no more.”

This seems to be a very apt poem for Waterford at the moment. We have been for far too long “down and out” and yet can we now see the real signs of positivity beginning to return to this wonderful City and County.

I have over the last number of weeks touched upon and written about the many, many positive business stories that have come our way and this week is no different.

We now have confirmation that Bausch and Lomb are to invest significantly in Waterford City and expand the plant that manufactures products for a truly worldwide market. I am sure that we can all remember the not too distant announcement from the new owners of Bausch and Lomb, Valeant Pharmaceuticals, that they were either to cut pay and resize the workforce or close the plant. This in hindsight, though a very tough decision to take for the workforce, has in the end been played out positively for all concerned.

Valeant have been true to their word that short term pain would lead to long term gain and we can see the fruits of this promise with a multi-million Euro investment in Waterford City and the South East region. There can be absolutely no doubt that the very tough business decisions made and taken not even 12 months ago will see long term benefit for Waterford City and the employees of B & L.

This news, in addition to the announcement of the Portlaw development by Agora Incorporated, will, I am sure, deliver much needed additional jobs across the region and more importantly help to reduce our unemployment rate back towards the national average target.

I also believe that there will be further positive job announcements in the near future and this to must be welcomed by ALL and celebrated. As collectively we are beginning to put Waterford back on the jobs market and that can only be viewed as encouraging news.

Whilst the jobs news is great the sporting success of the Senior Hurling Team must also be applauded and will in time help to create a more positive attitude from the people of Waterford.

I have asked the question many times over as to why our nearest neighbours are more positive about business and business opportunities. And I do believe that due to the county’s phenomenal hurling successes the business community and the people of Kilkenny are just not quite so shy when it comes to “beating their own drums!”

But perhaps now Waterford is on a sporting success journey that will allow the people of Waterford to once again believe that they have something to shout positively about in terms of GAA Hurling.

Thanks to Noel Browne for the picture.

I must confess that having come from Scotland to Waterford City, some fifteen years ago, I am not familiar with Hurling and all the finer points of the game. The Garland household was brought up on rugby and my Father was so respected in the game that his ashes are actually sprinkled on the pitch at Murrayfield, on the try line, under the goalposts, at what used to be the old clock terracing end of the stadium. We sprinkled my Father’s ashes in 1999 and Scotland did in fact win the last Five Nations that year, but since then our Nations rugby prowess has diminished and we seem to now be collecting more wooden spoons than championships. I suppose I must take heart from the fact that we are reigning Five Nations Champions and yet I attended the WLR FM Big Rugby Breakfast last week and Ronan O’Gara did suggest that I start supporting another sport – I wonder why? 

I have watched Waterford play hurling on many occasions and whilst I still do not fully understand the sophistication of the game it did seem to me that the team did not fully believe in their own ability to win. They seemed to play the first half extremely well and fade or falter in the second half. But the team of young guns that I now see on the field of play seem to have absolutely no fear of their opposition and they simply go out believing that they are better than the foe they will face on the pitch on any given Sunday. The players chase and chase again and never seem to give up. They are simply prepared to leave it all on the pitch and I am sure that after the game last Sunday there were many, many aching joints and sore muscles.

The self belief we have will determine how our business functions and operates and this in turn will determine just how successful we are in business. Self belief is something we ALL have to learn and accommodate in our everyday lives and the more we believe in our own abilities the better we will ultimately perform. We must also expel the self-doubt that lingers in us all if we are to face adversity in the face and travel the hardest road to our destination. As without testing oneself in our everyday and business lives we are clearly not trying hard enough.

The joy of our Waterford Hurlers will lift the City and the County and quite rightly create expectation for the coming Championship games. We must all harness the drive, determination and positivity of the team, the squad and the backroom staff and shout, without shame, about the wonderful Waterford City and County we all live, work and play in.

It is time for ALL our Lambs to become Lions once more and as the City and County rises from the ashes we must embrace the recent multi-million Euro investment success and we must celebrate our sporting success.

 “Impossible is a word only to be found in the dictionary of fools,” Napoleon Bonaparte.  

Time to paint the City Purple!

This weekend will be the official launch of the Purple Flag accreditation for Waterford City. But before I go on to write about the importance of this promotional project I must comment on the return of flights from Waterford City to, in particular, London Luton.

As you read this article we will have already seen dozens of flights take off and land between Waterford City and London Luton. It is great news to see VLM commit to the reinstatement of flights between Waterford City and London Luton. Luton is around 30 minutes from London St.Pancras International (which incidentally was the station used for the Harry Potter films) and it is then just a short tube ride from the very heart of London City. The timetable is now even more user friendly as you can depart Waterford City at 07:30 and return on the evening flight from Luton at 18:40. This of course does mean that you can pop over to London for a quick business meeting and be home at a reasonable time that evening. In addition we must also take into account that the airport is literally on our doorstep and the travel time back home from the airport is inevitably under 1 hour and that sort of convenience is worth its weight in gold after a long day.

We must also remember that it was only last December, at the final City Council meeting of 2014, that it was announced that the flights operated by BMI would cease in 2015 and for the staff of the airport to turn this negative around to this week’s huge positive news takes an awful lot of time, work and effort. So we must show our support for Waterford Airport and book our flights whenever possible out from Waterford Airport.

Is it the right time to paint the City Purple! Well the answer is of course a big fat YES.

As a Purple Flag designated City we can open a world of possibilities to create a City that will be appealing to new customers base and a whole new audience. Like the Blue Flag Beach accreditation the Purple Flag award for Cities and Towns will deliver certain standards for cleanliness, street lighting, safety, communication, nightlife, and so on. This a truly a collaborative effort that has been coordinated through the City Centre Management Group (CCMG) and supported by the Council, Waterford Business Group, the Garda, City Businesses and a wide range of stakeholders. It is a real chance to once and for all make the City Centre a vibrant destination once again.

And yes there are still issues around the retail mix, concerns around safety, the uniformity of late night opening hours, the cost of car parking...but this Purple Flag is a starting point from where we can ALL drive the City forward with a positive message. We need to talk up the City’s offering in order to attract new retailers, attract a greater variety of late night offerings, encourage a late night cafe culture (as we see across the whole of Europe) and above all we need to get our citizens back into the City Centre to start loving our City once again.

The brand that is Waterford City needs to regenerate itself and everyone must become that Brand Ambassador the City so badly needs. We all have our part to play and we all need to accentuate the positives rather than the negatives. And if you feel that there are issues, come up with a solution and do not just come forward with a complaint that can be posted anonymously across the ever widening range of social media channels. If you can contribute in a positive way then do just that.

The importance of the Purple Flag launch cannot be over emphasised and every business within the Purple Flag designated zone must do their bit to get the message out to their customers and the citizen of Waterford.

Yet getting this message out seems to have had varying degrees of success. I know that the Waterford Business Group have held an information evening and the Council did likewise yet the level of awareness is much less than it should be from a business point of view. How can you expect members of the public to be aware of the messaging if the businesses delivering that message are not clear themselves?

Clarity of communication messaging is something many business and organisation overlook or simply get wrong time and time again. When dealing with a stakeholder group the clarity of messaging becomes even more important and just because the people involved in a project are clear of the messaging it does not follow that everyone else “gets the messaging!”

I was very conscious at the start of this week that many of the businesses in the very heart of the Purple Flag area were not aware of the launch, were not aware of the messaging, were not aware of how they were to promote the launch weekend etc etc. It was clear that Purple Flag businesses have been visited but to what extent was there a conversation taking place with the business to enthuse them to get involved. I am yet to be convinced that enough time was spent delivering this messaging!

To remedy the lack of engagement the Waterford Business Group have taken it upon themselves to get out and “pound the street of the City Centre” and deliver some very striking purple belly posters to all the City Centre businesses asking them to give a Purple Flag offering for the launch weekend. You should be able to see A3 purple posters displayed in many shop windows this weekend promoting a Purple Flag offer or just recognising that the Purple Flag launch is taking place.

The communicating of messaging by getting bodies on the ground is without doubt the most effective way and is often the only way of delivering clarity of messaging. To see the human face of a promotion will undoubtedly get more buy-in and will also make the launch of the Purple Flag more personal.

 

So well done to Fly VLM and the Waterford Business Group for delivering more good news for the City, the County and the wider South East region.

Now we just need YOU, the people of Waterford, to support the launch, so make a deliberate effort to come into the City Centre this weekend and seek out the Purple Flag offerings. 

The wearing of Purple is of course optional.

Just what is networking?

Ring any bells?

"Just what is networking?"

This is a question I am often asked as a business person and also as someone who is involved with numerous committees and organisations. There is of course no one answer fits all to this questions and you must find what appropriate forms of networking are suitable for your business, your voluntary committees, your social scene etc.

But if you are in business it is something that you need to build as part of your own personal make-up and as part of your business structure. Failure for any business to network is a failure to cement the very foundations around what your business stands for. Networking is a statement of branding and as such it is the real face of any business and the visible tangible part of a business’s profile.

Therefore it is essential to understand just what all this networking entails.

Some people might advocate that “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, but the trouble is I do not know which half!” And with this in mind we know that the marketing landscape has changed inextricable in the last number of years.

Gone are the days when we could literally just stand and shout “Come and buy my products and services!” This type of sales and marketing has once and for all been destroyed as the ever fading Celtic Tiger ran off to find a new home.

A singular emphasis on advertising as part of your marketing mix will lead to ever increasing diminishing returns. We are bombarded with advertisements literally every second and minute of our day. And with our addiction to smart phones and social media we could see between 1,000 and 3,000 adverts a day! With so much information to absorb is it really any wonder that a business needs to find new ways to connect with customers and clients.

TRUST drives our business environment and here are some interesting statistics:

·       66% of the economy influenced by personal recommendations

·       88% of people will buy from companies they TRUST

·       85% of people will not buy from companies they DISTRUST

It is therefore essential for businesses to build TRUST with their customers and clients by being visible and tangible. And the most effective way to do that is by networking with customers and clients.

Cool business card.

So having established that networking is about building TRUST with existing and potential customers and clients we need to set out a few ground rules.

1.     Networking is NEVER about simply collecting business cards

2.     Networking is NEVER about just handing out dozens of business cards

3.     Networking is about converting contacts into word of mouth referrals

In addition to the above we need to be very clear that at any networking opportunity it is never about YOU it is ALWAYS about the other person. You must take steps to communicate effectively with the person you are speaking to and that involves listening, understand and not simply hearing what they are saying to you. Communication is always a two-way street and the very best networkers understand that they have to be an active listener.

At any networking event it is essential that you constantly ask yourself “What is YOUR brand?” Because to be in business today our most important job is to be head marketer for a brand that is called YOU! We need to understand that brand ME communicates our personal story, demonstrates what attributes that sets ME apart, states how YOU want to be positioned in the market place, defines your company/business and clearly distinguishes YOU from other competitors. Brand ME is not about bragging it is about defining YOU as a person other people can TRUST and as a person that people would want to do business with.

An early establishment of goals for any networking event is fundamental. Who are you trying to meet – customers, strategic partners or referral sources? I am here to generate new business over what timeframe? How much time will I allocate to networking? Where can I get the best value for my time?

We have all experienced this!

Once you have established the goals we need to network effectively and to do this we must remember that we are NOT selling the event. We need to start a conversation and therefore you need to be able to introduce yourself. We need to get to know the person, ask open ended questions and we must build trust. One of the most important aspects that people often miss is that you need to have a firm, strong and dry handshake and also carry good quality business cards and not the ones often advertised on TV, that feel like they are made of recycled cardboard. After shaking hands you more often than not give a person a business card and these two actions alone could define whether or not you have found a new customer.

Asking the right questions is also essential as it;

·       Separates the professionals from the amateurs.

·       Shows that you are concerned with helping them achieve success

·       Gets them to tell you how to sell to them

Follow up is essential.

Finally, one of the most important parts of networking that is often forgotten is the post event evaluation and follow up. You must be able to assess the success of an event, should you go back to a similar type of event, prioritise who to contact, decide who to contact within 24-48 hours, who to contact within one week and who never to contact.

Enjoy your networking ad we are all social animals and in general we are hardwired to interact and meet people. There are of course a few exceptions and these people need to be avoided at all costs.

“A brand is no longer what we tell the customer it is – it is what customers tell each other it is.” – Scott Cook.

Keep the cash here & just watch us grow!

Just who has their finger on the pulse?

This week IBEC predicated extremely strong economy growth for Ireland Inc over the course of 2015 and figures that are well ahead of Government and EU estimates. In fact IBEC are predicting a growth in the Irish economy of 5.4% and they are also indicating that by the end of 2015 unemployment will be fall below 9%.

These are really some very strong headline figures, if they are in fact to be delivered, and if IBEC are able to predict with such accuracy we have to ask why then that ISME’s are less confident about an Ireland Inc recovery.

A recent survey by ISME’s to its own membership resulted in a press statement that business confidence is actually waning and that SME’s are increasingly pessimistic about the economy. The ISME survey polled some circa 930 businesses and stated that there was “a reduction in 11 of the 12 indicators used to gauge confidence among small and medium-sized enterprises” (source Irish Times.com 10^th April 2015). According to the study, business confidence fell by 50 per cent to 39 per cent in the quarter under review while expectations were down 65 per cent to 57 per cent. The declines come after steady increases over the past 12 months.

In addition to the above business bodies both stating their case we also have Government stating that recovery is also well on the way and that they are also targeting reductions in unemployment and strong growth in the domestic economy.

With everyone saying one thing and another just who are we to believe and just how do these predictions and forecasts actually affect Waterford and the South East region?

Ireland Inc is currently witnessing a three tier recovery with Dublin way out in front and heading the Championship Table, followed in close second by the south west/Cork/Limerick/Galway, and propping up the table we find the North West region and the South East region. There have been various Action Plans for Jobs and various recovery plans tabled and printed over the last three to four years but to date we are still to see and witness accelerated growth in the very regions that need most of the help on offer.

Unfortunately, we will continue to see an unbalanced approach to any recovery because you need to have real heavyweight political clout in order to fight the investment case for both FDI and domestic growth. To complicate matters Government and the political system are now on election footing and gearing up for a general election this time next year. You only have to look across the Irish Sea to see the political manoeuvrings currently going with manifestos promising this and manifestos promising that. All would seem rosy when elections are just around the corner but reality bites when we look at just how much ground the South East has to make up.

There is no doubt that there is some business confidence across the South East and yet we know that many businesses are having to find and secure business outside the South East region as the rate of economic growth here is slower than the rest of the country.

That in itself is not a bad thing and encouraging businesses to chase and secure contracts in non-traditional geographical areas is in general good for a business as they are spreading their risk. However, we do need to see stimulus packages in place to make doing business closer to home the real game breaker for everyone. This will help keep the cost of being in business low and will help to keep local incomes be spent locally and keep local commercial business rates and taxes coming in to the purses of local councils, to be once again spent locally. We do need to create a culture of generating money locally to be spent locally.

So which business organisations are we to believe when it comes to predicting the strength and recovery across Ireland Inc and in particular the South East?

We have to judge our own local economy’s recovery on a few key facts that our unemployment rate is still circa 3 to 4 percent above the national average (which of course is unacceptable no matter what spin is put on this figure), our youth unemployment is also considerably higher than the national average, third level educational attainment is lower than the national average and our disposable income per household is much lower than the national average! These few stark statements show that we need South East solutions to a South East regional problem of a much weaker recovery than the rest of Ireland Inc.

But what can be done?

The simplest and easiest way to start any local recovery is a commitment to shop local and on the ground the Waterford Business Group have always championed this approach and this commitment. We can see from the recent public relations that this Group have even engaged with Waterford ex-pats to push the “keep it local message”.

In fact the group have gone much further than that in recent weeks and months. The Waterford Business Group have been instrumental in the award of the Purple Flag accreditation, are an integral part of the City Centre Management Group, have recently provided free customer care courses to some 60 plus staff of Waterford Businesses, are about to pilot a scheme with Waterford Library Services and are doing so much more than they will ever be credited for. Yet because this highly organised and driven Group are not seen as a “pillar organisation” like IBEC, ISME, Chambers etc they perhaps will never get the credit for the volume of voluntary work they do on behalf of Waterford’s many businesses and the people of Waterford.

To sum up there is an organisation with its finger on the pulse in terms of where Waterford and the South East are in terms of an economic recovery, they work with the vast majority of businesses across the City and they making a significant difference to the City, County and region.

So the next time you want a commentary on just where our recovery is across the South East is just ask the right people, in the right organisation, that are doing far more for the jersey than can ever be put into print.

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” George Bernard Shaw.