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I (Mary) have just returned from attending the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) National Conference in London where keynote speakers included Tony Blair, William Hague and Charles Kennedy. The conference was exciting and informative and those that attended went away inspired, knowledgeable and certainly ahead of the game. The British Chambers of Commerce is one of the three top business organisations in Britain along with the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and the Institute of Directors (IoD). Indeed, the Director Generals of these three top organisations provided one of the most interesting and stimulating sessions of the conference. Sessions included Supporting Enterprise, Work/Life Balance, Economy, Transport and Europe and announcements about PPG13, the Hindhead Toll Free Tunnel and the South Hampshire Rapid Transport took place at this conference. Tony Blair said that "the Learning and Skills Council should be employer led as much as possible". He also spoke about foot and mouth and the "vast movement prior to the disease being discovered" which seems to be one of the reasons for this devasting outbreak. With respect to tourism, he also urged that "local authorities take a common sense view to opening up the countryside". There was some criticism from the party leaders and others on the platform about the interference from civil servants and local government into business. Indeed, Charles Kennedy said that most politicians and civil servants have never run businesses while William Hague spoke about the planning system being a recurring problem. Discussions took place about improving the management skills of government officials, low productivity in local and central government and changes in attitudes in local government. One of the most important messages that came across from the meeting was that "Business generates all wealth. Business and business alone makes it." The importance of the Internet was emphasised by Dick Gillespie, Vice President for UK and Ireland of Cisco Systems, the conference sponsor. His definition of an Internet Business is "The application of Internet technologies to improve all of the business processes and activities, not just selling or buying over the internet". As I was accompanied to the conference by my son Graham, who indeed runs exactly the kind of internet business (The Page Designer) that provides these technologies and whose company designed this website which, due to the clever technology running it I look after totally myself, to hear this was an added bonus. A study carried out by Gartner on behalf of Cisco Systems identified that 85% of the 700 top European (including Great Britain) companies interviewed agreed that "E-commerce is a fundamental, irreversible change in the way everyone does business". That's enough for now but if anyone wants to find out more about the British Chambers of Commerce and what it can do for your business, then please visit the link on my 'links' page (see site contents). |
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