The values of passion, integrity and honesty will remain vital even as the digital revolution increasingly disrupts work processes.
Luminaries from the world of business including Lord Sugar, Mary Portas, Brompton Bicycle boss Will Butler-Adams, and former Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson laid out what it takes to make a success of a business at the first QuickBooks Connect conference held in London.
Dickinson, a keen aviator who has relaunched Air Djibouti, argued that “everything else is nonsense” if business owners neglect “integrity, reputation and passion” in their working lives.
“You have to work incredibly hard, and try to always have a plan B and even a plan C,” advised Dickinson. “Make sure you have enough money to cover the certain catastrophes that will occur along the way, and above all make sure you are passionate about what you do, because if at the end of everything your business does fail, at least you can hold your head up and say I did it for the right reasons.”
Portas, who set up the eponymous creative agency, says that five years ago she was not happy in business and reinvented how her company works by introducing a set of ethical business practices.
She distanced herself from adopting a “masculine” way of working and the ‘lean in’ philosophy of Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, and stated she was moving towards “a more feminine way where empathy, collaboration and flexibility are the central behaviours”.
“Millennials are intent on achieving a work-life balance and we can create great value by working in a different way and more like a woman,” said Portas.
The impact that millennial-like attitudes are having on the world of business were echoed by Sasan Goodarzi, EVP and general manager of Intuit’s small business group, who believes there are four major trends that small businesses must adapt to.
He argues businesses will serve “radically different customers” in five years’ time, while facing a “new era of competition” as business become “much smarter” through the growth of Artificial Intelligence, and the final trend will involve accounting being “disrupted as we know it”.
To emphasise his point, he highlighted how QuickBooks technology that tracks users’ journeys and allows them to swipe left or right on their smartphone to tag a journey as either business or personal travel has allowed UK users to save between £4,000 and £5,000 on average.
Intuit Europe VP and managing director Dominic Allon said: “We’re living in the age of the technology revolution and we are probably in the most exciting and important time of human history and the trend towards digitisation is having an impact on all sorts of areas of our lives and accounting is no exception.”
Brompton Bikes boss, Will Butler-Adams explained that even though technological disruption can be daunting, embracing change is of the utmost importance for a business.
“If you are comfortable then your business is in trouble, you need to be perpetually anxious and you need to be wanting it to be better and not satisfied with what you’ve got,” said Butler-Adams.
He also highlighted how consumers are “bored of dishonesty” and he believes a focus on the product itself is of the utmost importance, and this approach has helped Brompton become the biggest manufacturer of bicycles in the UK.
He said: “We make a product that works, people talk about a brand and they get these agencies in and they fiddle around with logos – that isn’t the brand, that is naff, rubbish. The brand is the product and a good product adds value.”
Lord Sugar stressed the importance of focusing on costs and taking stock in difficult moments.
“Focus on your costs and how you are doing and have a wake up call every day if you can and certainly every month, and that philosophy has carried on right throughout my business career,” said Lord Sugar.
He revealed in the “very early days” of his career when he was a self-employed salesman there were times when he “got very down because things just were not going right”.
He advised that in those situations “you just have to stop and count to ten and go on and do it”.
Melissa Hemsley, who co-founded the Hemsley + Hemsley healthy eating business with her sister, warns of the self-doubt that can come from being an entrepreneur.
She concluded: “It is always scary and you do always feel a little bit tired and you do wonder if you are doing it the right way.
“One important thing we did is we got more savvy and realised maybe it is better to say no and maybe that was the right offer, but not at the right time, and we started listen to our gut instinct.”
QuickBooks Connect is a two-day conference, run by Intuit QuickBooks, for SMEs and accountants looking to network, collaborate and grow.
