This shouldn’t be a controversial opinion, but in some quarters it is: we as a society should back businesses, no matter their size.
The vast majority of businesses are delivering the goods and services that make us healthier, wealthier and happier, even if there will be a few headline-grabbing bad apples from time to time. Good businesses are good businesses, whether they’re a sole trader or a multinational conglomerate.
Perhaps most controversially, we should defend large businesses because their economies of scale mean they deliver at low cost, ensuring that the poorest in society can afford things that were unimaginable luxuries for previous generations. We should back medium-sized businesses that are often the drivers of the most radical innovations, as they scale to become large businesses. And we should support small businesses that provide a level of service and human connectedness that can only be delivered at a local level. We think all these businesses can be entrepreneurial.
Tomorrow I’ll be celebrating the smallest, as it's Small Business Saturday. It was founded by American Express in the US back in 2010, with Small Business Britain launching it with them in the UK a little later. The campaign shines a huge spotlight on the UK’s small business community, generating mass media coverage and gaining high-level support from across the political spectrum. Many small businesses take part in the day by hosting events or promotions, and joining in with the conversation online using #SmallBizSatUK hashtag.
Find out more about Small Business Saturday here, and find out if their tour across the UK will be visiting your town or city here.
Value Creation
I’m delighted to announce that Steve Rigby has joined us as a Patron. As I wrote earlier today for Forbes, “over the last ten years he has helped create over £500 million of value for his family business Rigby Group – one of the UK’s top ten wholly-owned private companies.” Now, he wants to lend a hand to help the rest of the UK build and grow.
He is already doing a fair amount. Among other things, he is on the Board of Family Business UK, a national judge this year for EY Entrepreneur of the Year, chair of the Rigby Foundation, and a long-term supporter of Place2Be, most recently as Chair of the charity’s development board.
He recently wrote for The Times on what the UK needs to do to support family businesses, but his interests are even broader. He wants to answer questions like: How do we encourage entrepreneurialism? What is the role of venture capital? Where are our universities and IP? Do we as a country embrace capitalism?
Patrons are vital for supporting key policy areas. The great thing is seeing how our shared vision translates into change. Whether that’s Emma Jones CBE partnering with us on our Small Business Forum and the multitude of Access All Areas reports we produced together; Chris Hulatt, co-founder of Octopus Group, our first sponsor with whom we’ve worked with on multiple reports over the years, including Future Founders; Sam Smith who built finnCap and backed our ongoing efforts to imbed enterprise education in the curriculum; or Sukpal Singh Ahluwalia, who arrived in the UK in 1972 as a refugee, and went on to build and sell a company for £280m before sponsoring our influential Job Creators report.
Smarter Regulation
The Department for Business and Trade has been in touch for us to share a couple of upcoming roundtables and call for evidence on smarter regulation. If you’re in or near Salford on 11 December 2023, or Cardiff on 12 December 2023, then register here. The call for evidence can be accessed here, and you can get in touch with any questions here.
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