Dr David Bozward

Category: Blog

  • The power of story time

    I came across  Sarah Kay who is a Poetess and Storyteller and it reminded me of the power of story telling. The human brain has been programmed for millions of years by listening and remember stories. We all love to sit and listen with great interest at stories and I would like to thank her for reminding me of it.

  • Good governance is good entrepreneurship

    Over the last five years we have learnt how entrepreneurship can lead us down the wrong road. Having entrepreneurial bankers risking our saving is not a good place to be. I also watched Manchester United lose at home in the champions league and it was expected given the events of the last five years. Football lacks good governance, everyone knows this from the top (who enjoy great wealth from the game) to the bottom whereby fans get to see there teams spend every more money in creating spectacular entertainment. The same is in in many religions.

    As an entrepreneur, having to report to a group of people who may or may not agree with you is a major issue which you will try to tactically eliminate. However it is important to hear the truth, however hard from those who you trust and not from the fans, shareholders and voters. These three groups will never ever be pleased and therefore if you are pleasing them now, you are in about to fall. The independence  of others ensures your success, this is why mentors are so worth their weight in gold.

    This is one of the reasons I agree with more woman on the boards of companies, also diverse educational mixes. It reduces the group think and ensures a healthy debate occurs on all subjects before moving to a consensus. This is one of the major parts of good goverance, a diverse range of views who provide guidence, knowledge and thought behind every decision you make.

    The banks have failed to engage diverse educational background into there management stuctures which led to no one pointing out the obvious. i.e. Should we be investing in this at this time?

    The NHS have failed in Staffordshire becuse of the same reason. Everyone was happy to get their wage and not question, why are these people dying and how can be make this better?

    The same happens in government, small businesses and multi-national businesses. Its common as people like people who like them. We don’t like people to question us, we like people from our tribe (university, ethic group, gender or golf club), if we and everyone else is happy why should we ask for change?

    The fact is we all have to be entrepreneurs, and this is what entrepreneurs do, look at the system and say, I’ m going to make this better. It may be painful, risky and I am not going to be liked for saying this, but the world is going to be a better place after i have done this.

    And once I have done this, I willl ensure others have the opportunity to question me and make me continue on this path, never ever giving up because I have won this one battle. Afterall being an entreprenur is a war against complacency.

  • A few ways to look at phone hacking

    If you know anything about me, its I  just love mobile phones, your don’t spend three years of your life doing a PhD in the subject without a little bit of passion. So when I read about the Phone Hacking, three questions come to mind when I think about this subject. So as an engineer, geek and entrepreneur.

    1. Why did the technology fail?
    2. Was it designed this way for a reason?
    3. How do I make money from this?

    Voice mail is a very profitable part of the mobile operators portfolio the best being SMS. So stopping customer, in fact anyone accessing it is never going to be an option. One of the core problems with profitable businesses is that they tend not to innovate around these big revenue areas. You see this in many tech businesses especially in the mobile industry, look at Motorola in 1G, Nokia in 2G and someone with drop the ball in 3G. Its the old frog in the boiling pan story.

    Voice mail has been the same for fifteen years with little innovation or business model development across the entire global industry. I am sure the technology has changed but not the service or the business model. Its just waiting to happen with billions of users across the globe this is a truly unified service, its voice mail.

    Even after the event we the consumers are not told how to protect and keep this private. Why hasn’t there been adverts on TV telling us, the public how to stop anyone hacking into our voice mail and putting every message in the open press.

    Is it because no one wants to know who leaves a message on my voice mail system or is it designed this way?

    Even since Turin proved knowing what people are keeping in their message box, helps you win wars. There is no government on the planet who would want a secure voice mail system.  It just wouldn’t make not sense to make it secure. Just think of how you could use voice mail message to set off all sorts of nasty stuff, only unlocked and decode by single voice recognition activation at a time and place set by the sender. 007 would be busy for months.

    However, there is always a profit to be made from every situation. So what is it?

    – Security audits for famous people. £10,000 and we will check all you voice mail systems on weekly basis against your phone records to ensure date and time of login matched your phone records.

    – A secure ISO 27001 rated voice mail system which is accessed via a secure app on the phone. Voice mail is send and received via secure encrypted channel. All messages are activated by finger print and voice recognition and co-geolocated by the phone.

    – An apps which logs into voice mail when messaged and downloads to a phone within five minutes. Therefore no messages are stored for more than five minutes.

    The possibilities are endless and with a billion customers, so are the profits…

     

  • Its great to be nice – A rant!

    We don’t get a lot of stories where the nice guy gets the girl, the car and all the money. If he’s nice to start with then he has to get mad first, which defeats the object. Even Peter Parker has a dark side. Bruce Wayne, well enough said.

    OK, There is one thing I DON”T like and that bullies! It’s a red rag to a bull. So Game On!!!

    So over the last few months I have noticed people in business who should know better treating young people (who are trying to enter the work place through work placements, graduate schemes for the first time) in a way that someone who has been in industry for some years would have sat them down and provided them with a few treats of colour and wisdom.

    Many FE colleges require their student learners to gain experience and these students try calling, writing and emailing local businesses to gain this experience. The response they get is just shocking.

    So we all have to start somewhere and in those first steps into employment we will (hopefully) make a few mistakes and learn to be better people. Young people need the support to grow, its obvious, but our small businesses need to engage to make this happen. Small businesses are afraid of young people, they are not sure of their skills, ability, work ethic or how they will fit in with existing staff. So there are major risks in employing young people. Thus, apprentices. They see them are needing lots of support (and a minority do) which will drain their business

    UK SMEs employed 14.1 million people and had a combined turnover of £1,500 billion. Youth employment would not wiped out if the 4.6 million SME businesses employed just one more person each.

    We should have a national “Take on a Work Experience Day” whereby small companies with less than 10 people (which is 95% of all businesses) should take just one person on for two months.

    After all there are just three ways to deal with bullies, (1)get everyone in the room and get them to find common ground, (2)take the bully over the playing field with all your mates, their friends and some tools and sort it out once and for all, or (3)ban the bullies. So lets try the first option!!!

     

  • Winter Wonder Land

    Not everyone likes business, not everyone wants to pay taxes and working long hours is just the pits.

    So in Britain a little snow means you don’t need to go to school. This educates everyone to understand that they don’t need to go to work when it snows. The entire country closes down because we have been educated to stay at home. Education is a powerful tool for social engineering.

    Its also very hard as a parent to go to work when you have to look after children at home.

    After all, it just takes one day off (e.g. A royal Wedding) and we are all in recession!

    So if we wanted to end this recession we would understand that work helps increase the economy. The work ethic of the German’s ensures their success. Everyone has to play their part. Every little helps!  So why do we let notification of recession or even a little cold weather let us fail.

     

    Every entrepreneurs needs an stable environment which enables business.

    We can see new freedoms in some countries has meant economic failure as the system is broken down and people can not rely on others. We take so much for granted, yet in many countries they can even rely on others to provide the products or services which keep them in business. We have such a stable system which allows us to succeed.

    If the UK was open for business every day of the year, we would not be in recession.

     

    Business needs a positive press

    If the media is telling you that Africa, Middle East, South America…etc is so bad. Our business people will not go there and do business. The majority of companies in this country are small, we don’t have large sales and market research departments. We look for opportunities based on the limited amount of knowledge and time we have available. So if the all TV stations are telling us these countries are bad, our economy is going to stay out of them.

    If our SME’s increased their sales by 10% to international customers, we would not be in recession.

     

    Every Business needs a global financial system

    Even the smallest business can sell to the global market. Put up a web site and just wait for the global orders to come in. However, once those orders come in, there is just one thing we need, that’s the money in our bank account. Without a global financial system, which ensure we can move and receive money, our opportunities are very limited.

    If London was the banking capital of the world, we would not be in recession.

  • Virtual Enterprise saves Christmas

    Virtual Enterprise saves Christmas

    When I read the news that online retail is the winner for Christmas 2012

    “According to research from e-commerce software company ChannelAdvisor, eBay sales were up 36.6 per cent year-on-year on Christmas Day 2012, while Amazon UK sales increased by 27.7 per cent.

    On Boxing Day, eBay saw sales rise by 49.3 per cent year-on-year and Amazon recorded an increase of 44.7 per cent.”

    I come to the following conclusions,

    The small retailer won in 2012 with the small virtual companies in the UK wining over the larger stores. So Tesco increased by 18% and ebay sales by 36.6%.

    “Tesco : Online sales increased 18 per cent driven by multichannel initiatives such as click and collect and grocery ‘drive thru’ that lets customers order online and pick up shopping from the local store at a chosen time.“

    The high street has become an leisure experience centre, where buying is just one small aspect, an not the most important one. The first reason to go into the high street during Christmas was to see the lights, have some mulled wine with friends and family.

    The small virtual businesses in the UK is more efficient than any physical shop.

    • They don’t have fixed overheads, which those cementing their business on the high street do. The high street provide little or no flexibility for a business.  Those providing leases (pension funds and equity) want too much and base their revenue on increased property value.
    • They don’t pay massive business rates which are just another tax on property and makes the high street a none starter for the majority of business.
    • They don’t have to pay business electricity, gas and high insurance for a high street property.
    • They don’t’ worry about security or riots which occurred in the UK a few years ago. Ebay and Amazon look after all the security.
    • They have a worldwide market, which ensures you have a global reach and not just your local town.

    They are on trend and therefore it’s a good time to start a business selling your products and services in 2013.  Take a look at http://virtualent.co.uk/ which is a conference for those considering or have started a virtual business.

  • Why are Mexicans richer than British Entrepreneurs?

    I was looking through the Forbe’s rich list (http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/) and noticed a few trends.

    The first is that the majority of richest people in the world are self made entrepreneurs.

    1. Carlos Slim Helu
    2. Bill Gates
    3. Warren Buffet

    In fact the list is split into new world and old world wealth, the majority of the successful self made entrepreneurs are based in the new world. This is because the majority of the growth in the world, the majority of the worlds population is in the developing world. Its also easy to start a business, no tax, red tape or health and safety to learn, manage and report on a monthly basis.

    However, its doesn’t stop you starting a business in the UK which sells into these markets.

    The second point is that Carlos Slim Helu, a mexican can become richer than any British person. The richest British person is at number 78 which is Gerald Cavendish with $11b. Forbe’s write about him “The sixth Duke of Westminster, Gerald Grosvenor, remains the U.K.’s wealthiest landowner, with his fortune increasing this year along with the property market in London.”

    So the richest person in the UK is not a self made entrepreneur, its old money which is inherited, in fact old world wealth based on the value of land and property in London.

    So during 2013, I am going to find out…

    So why don’t we have more entrepreneurs?

    Have we lost our entrepreneurial spirit?

    Have we become happy to earn the minimum wage?

    Have we all been educated past starting our own business?

    Have we made it too difficult to do?

    Do we know how to run a service business

  • Little is more in Enterprise Support

    When you are starting a business the more help and support you get the better, you would expect so.

    However, after some years of helping and supporting startups, I am starting to see this is not always the case.

    I guess its the difference between support and Intervention. To support someone, especially with mentoring and signposting which allows the person to find their way (with a little more direction) and   learn the skills and network required to manage their business is the right thing to do.

    Its when the support becomes intervention that when the entrepreneur stops being the person in control and the support organisation does. This is when you have to do 50 hours doing this, sign all these forms and the process you will follow to make your business  is this.

    This is wrong!

    Everyone learns to be a entrepreneur differently, because they HAVE to be learn to be an entrepreneur, to solve problems, to look at the world in a new light of opportunities.

    The problem these organisations have is that governments like a controlled process. They provide contracts to build bridges, its take some many weeks and will cost some much money. However, stating we can make some many businesses in so many weeks is not such a quantifiable statement. The process of starting a business normally starts many years before the person makes this statement. It may start with Dragon’s Den or The Apprentice in 10 grade. So the only thing you are really doing is counting those who have already spent many years deliberating this step.

    The best entrepreneur support organisations do only ONE thing, they create an amazing network of people who all benefit from being part of it. This is because:

    1. Co-founders can be found in your network
    2. Mentoring can be found in your network
    3. Resources can be found in your network
    4. Funding can be found in your network

    So before you start out in 2013, ensure you have the support network around you.

  • Why you shouldn’t start a business

    I often talk to people about why they should start a business, normally convincing the majority of the audience to do so. So what if I was being paid to talk people out of starting a business. I know we already have the BBC and popular press who have taken this mantel on, but thought I would give them a helping hand this month.

    The clear fact of it is you are not an entrepreneur.

    Location Location Location

    If you were truly an entrepreneur then you would chose to start your business in one of the top 10 growth economies in the world, so China, Brazil, India and Russia would be on the top of this list (From your IP address I can see you are not from these). These economies have amazing growth, cheap labour, low taxes and little bureaucrats when compared to us in Europe. If not there you would place it in a high growth high population density city such as Mexico City, Singapore or Hong Kong. You could quickly prototype your idea to millions of newly rich and enjoy the inherit growth in the economy.

    If not there then create a start-up near your customers or more importunely, your highest paying /grossing markets (A simple measure of GDP multiplied by population). Therefore you would be in the USA, Japan or Germany.  These are great markets to achieve scale and profit margins putting you in a great place for world domination. Think of the major brands, Coke, McDonalds, Starbucks, they all start in the USA due to its scale and spring board effects.

    Finance
    The vast majority of businesses will need some form of finance at some point. Given the banks are global, they will favour you if you have taken the location advice. The availability of financing from very small amounts, cash flow support, major loans, venture funding, and developing companies for IPO is an important structure for all entrepreneurs to live in. Every economy needs entrepreneurs to growth their start-ups and sell them on, getting ready to start new ones. This creates wealth for the nation through taxes, jobs and exports.

    Motive
    If you want to be truly rich then take a look at the Forbes rich list and see which countries the self made billionaire are from. We don’t want you to succeed in this country and if you do, we will force you to live in another part of the world for tax reasons. Most of our successful entrepreneurs stay out of the media attention for the very reason of not wanting the media to attack them for providing jobs and taxes to help pay for those that do/do not need it.

    Popular support
    The general public don’t want you to start a business. They want you to work in a newly build factory paying your taxes, pension and union contributions for the next 45 years. This ensures you fit into our 1950s model of our UK society which proves job satisfaction and security for life. Your only chance in life is therefore to work for a gov’ner who thinks little of the time and effort you put into the role. You should be happy to have a job, any job and accept your lot in life.

    From these four points, its clear you are not, nor will ever be an entrepreneur, so just give up reading about it now and get yourself a nice safe job at the local supermarket!

  • Being Excellent – A hard mantra to live up to

    Before we had The Matrix we had Ted. Not that TED but this Ted.

    Ted was striving to be excellent and this is the greatest mantra for anyone to have. Excellence comes in all flavours and allows for all opportunities. So ever since 1989 its been one of mine.

    Yet the vast majority of people don’t recognize excellence, want it or even accept it could be part of their daily lives.

    The problem with this mantra is that its constantly changing. What was excellent when Ted started out in 1989 is not now in 2012. The ‘special effects’ look less special and more amateur. I’m sure we could debate the acting skills or their lack of as well.

    So excellence is about the time we live in. About our current ability and the ability to move the bar, one further notch up. Knowing we are doing our best and getting the best.

    The major reason this is important for entrepreneurs is that we have to create opportunities, those are only valid at one point in time, the idea, execution and delivery of the business idea must all be created in a way which our stakeholders desire.

    And of course they all require us to be excellent.

    We should all have a commitment to be excellent to others in our society (que guitar riff), not just to expect it, but also to provide it.

    Have an excellent weekend!