Liz McAreavey

Maybe it’s an age thing but the current pace of change and disruption is both startling and exciting. The US seems to issue an Executive Order one day, that its judiciary overturns the next. Protests seem to be an everyday occurrence, Article 50 is finally about to be triggered, or is it? And even in football, 4th division teams get to the 4th round of the FA Cup. So rapid is the change, its reassuring to hold onto some of the more stable and long-term strategies that will see us through the next few years.

Scottish Government’s economic strategy is founded on the vision for a prosperous, fair and well-connected Scotland. We need a clear Industrial Strategy that supports this in the long term – sustainable economic growth that ensures increased competitiveness and tackles inequality, managing the transition to a lower carbon economy, delivering enhanced public services and supporting employment and opportunity across Scotland.

The Industrial Strategy for the UK focusses on three high level missions – excellence, productivity and competitiveness, with a strong emphasis on place. This is a positive move that means we can harness the uniqueness and strengths of our cities and regions, creating a holistic and compelling framework that makes us a connected nation. We need these strategies to produce long term focus and stability that cuts through all the noise and rhetoric and allows businesses to focus on growth and efficiency.

We need to encourage our entrepreneurial community – the new wealth creators and job creators, in the new emerging sectors of Big Data, Tech, Fintech and Digital. We need to support not only the birth rate of these high-growth start-ups, but also their sustainability. How do we re-cycle the experience and knowledge of successful businesses back into the up and coming progenies? Often we have great ideas and enthusiastic founders that struggle to survive beyond the early years. Investors want strong management skills, robust processes, clear strategies and plans and business models that are well structure, ethical and efficiently run. This approach to growing a business attracts investment. The main challenge faced by businesses at the moment is access to funding, but in fairness, are we supporting our start ups to get the house-keeping right, so they can present well-shaped businesses rather than well-shaped ideas. This is how we grow our economy and produce world-class businesses.

Good old fashioned responsible governance, strong financial management, operational efficiency, people management processes and risk management is what drives business growth. We need an industrial strategy that provides talent and labour, business support and experience, access to training and efficient knowledge-based systems and a physical and digital infrastructure that makes us globally competitive. This is critical to us rebuilding business confidence and navigating the uncertainty of the next few years.

Scotland provides a high quality of life, a strong education system, good connectivity and an entrepreneurial eco-system that with some smart investment can produce the best businesses in the world. This investment needs to be well placed, investing in success that will produce value for all.

Liz McAreavey is chief executive of Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce