Back at my favourite networking group this week www.3Cscommunity.com reminds me of a simple test one of the founders applies to business plans – see heading. When pulling a plan apart (which is what potential investors always do) assume sales are half what you think, assume costs are double then assume it all takes twice as long. If the idea still looks viable, then you may have a business.
Sadly, the latest Budget doesn’t stand up to much stress testing, as the figures are based on a growth rate that is nearly double what is likely to be achieved and markets are not impressed. A Budget is about as big as any business plan ever gets, and what is not said or touched says as much as what is mentioned. Public sector pensions are hardly touched although the latest cost is around £1.3 trillion (that word again). With an election only weeks away, and a real Budget before Christmas, the recent one might be as relevant as the menu on the Titanic the night before it hit an iceberg.
Interesting that there may be tax breaks for the computer games industry http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/budget/7514133/Budget-2010-Gamers-celebrate-tax-breaks-for-computer-game-industry.html but no stop to more and more regulation, especially for small businesses. Interesting to see how this emerges after the election and why this industry in particular?
One of the 3Cs presenters is from www.lemonstudioslondon.com in Clerkenwell. Having worked very well as a open plan business centre, they now want to expand to 6 more sites where landlords with empty buildings would be be ideal partners and they do not have to be prime sites either. In current times, many businesses do not want to sign up for a long lease and the set-up means that the return can be up to 50 per cent more than with a conventional commercial lease.
All the tenants are in digital media and often work together. When potential partners are on the other side of the room, this saves huge amounts of time. Average tenancy is around 18 months but a few only stay 3 months. Largest tenant which employed 100 people moved out recently but occupancy rates are very high and while redecoration costs are higher than average, the model is profitable. New tenants are listed on the intranet, so you know who that new geezer is on the next row and a small touch of genius that helps people get on with each other is the free beer on Friday afternoons. Not actually an original idea, as I know of one large City law firm that has a very popular drinks trolley Friday afternoons as well.
Next 3Cs meeting 18th May 2010.
A new enquiry about pensions shows that the proposed contribution is not likely to lead to much of a pension fund but escalating the contributions at 10 per cent over 30 years, gives more than double the fund compared to a level contribution and a likely pension income of just over half current earnings, in real terms. In other words, there is still time to catch up and fairly likely that in future will be working to age 70 rather than 65.
Have to confess that the Foreign Legion is still an occasional escape from finance and Padraig O’Keefe’s book Hidden Soldier http://www.obrien.ie/book712.cfm has some interesting stuff in it. Two tours of Yugoslavia for example, are quite different. First one organised by the UN seems to achieve little and there are some unkind words about about the Dutch peacekeeping soldiers who step aside allowing a massacre of 20,000 muslims by the Serbs. Second tour organised by NATO is much more effective but the disillusionment has set in. One little known tradition of the Foreign Legion was that they never sang La Marseillaise. While they are a French light infantry unit, Frenchmen are not officially allowed to join. But the French have a practical attitude to regulations when it suits and those that do, are typically registered as Swiss, Belgian or Canadian. Accounts suggest that they are not popular with other legionnaires though.
A recurring theme in all the books about the Foreign Legion is that they seem to be the poor relation to the regular French Army where budgets and equipment are concerned. Padraig’s book suggests that this is less the case than before, but the refusal of him and his comrades to sing La Marseillaise seriously upsets the officer in charge. With only 6 weeks to go from the end of his second 5 year stint, he deserts and like many ex-legionnaires ends up in the security industry. This leads to highly paid but very dangerous work in Iraq as a mercenary, something he seems sensitive about as he still calls himself a security guard. His account of coming under attack when guarding a supply convoy is vivid where he is the only survivor apart from two people right at the rear of the convoy who kept their heads very well down.
More fun to read but just as exciting is Susan Travers Tomorrow to be Brave http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tomorrow-Brave-Memoir-French-Foreign/dp/0743200012 the only woman to have served in La Legion. Much of her life was spent in France where her teenage years were spent on the French Riviera, which she admits was probably not the best place for a young girl to grow up. All people seemed to worry about those days she says, was money and sex! As the French say, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose and if you have a couple more minutes, enjoy http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1450081/Susan-Travers.html
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