APPG for Entrepreneurship Digest: April 2024

Most entrepreneurs intuitively appreciate the importance of branding. Being able to establish a strong sense of what their business or product ‘means’ can be crucial for standing out from the competition, and enabling them to attract and retain customers. By investing in an identity, what businesses are effectively doing is creating mental shortcuts for people to take so they feel more confident to part with their money – there’s a reason why financial institutions typically opt for sober fonts and colours, while fast food chains tend to go for an altogether more fun approach. 

If we accept that branding matters for businesses, should we then also necessarily accept that the same applies for entire countries? The fact that over recent years numerous different nations have undertaken campaigns to promote themselves as good locations in which to do business is perhaps one piece of evidence that we should. Anyone who’s ever landed at a British airport will surely have seen posters for the GREAT Britain and Northern Ireland campaign adorning the corridors, and similar strategies can be seen elsewhere too. If such initiatives didn’t do much good, it stands to reason that they’d have fallen out of favour by now. 

On the other hand, a more sceptical reader might note that even ineffectual policies can stick around long past their sell by date. Without the brutal but powerful evaluating mechanism that is profit and loss, it can be much harder to quantify the precise usefulness of government schemes. Indeed, Simon Anholt, a former advertising executive and the man credited with creating the very concept of ‘nation branding’, is less than persuaded about the efficacy of attempts to retail whole economies. In an interview with the BBC, he pulled no punches: “I have been looking for 20 years for a single properly documented case study of one single country, city or region that has demonstrably moved the needle, even by the most microscopic degree, on its global image as a result of marketing, messaging or communications. And I’m still looking.” 

Personally speaking, I broadly share Anholt’s hesitancy. Or, at least, I imagine that there are bigger forces at play. Call me dubious, but I’m not sure an ad campaign, however well crafted, is going to regularly and reliably swing decisions to strike multi-million pound deals one way or the other, or determine where a founder starts their business. 

That being said,  I don’t think this makes the idea that a nation’s ‘brand’ is totally irrelevant. Whether we like it or not, countries do have reputations, identities, vibes – whatever you want to call it. Estonia is known for its world-leading approach to digital government; Singapore for its light touch regulatory environment; the US as a place to hoover up VC cash; the UAE for its low taxes. Even if a country isn’t regarded as having an especially thriving economy, it might be known for enjoying a high quality of life, and somewhere appealing for entrepreneurs to live. (Of course, brands can also be negative – perhaps onerous compliance processes, a weak skills base, or poor infrastructure – but for the sake of politeness, I’ll not name any specific names here). 

What’s important to note though, is that those commonly held perceptions of countries are generally well-founded, and the result of deliberate policy choices. It’s then off the back of those policies, I’d wager, that you can build a genuinely effective marketing strategy, or, perhaps more powerfully, rely on word of mouth of the entrepreneur community. Give them something to talk about and the likelihood is that they will.

Markets aren’t dumb, and at the level of a national economy you can’t just hope to fake it ‘til you make it. If a country wishes to be known as a great place to start and grow a business, it helps if it’s a great place to start and grow a business. For that to be true, judicious policy making across a range of areas is prerequisite – and to that end, we’ll continue to do what we can to ensure that those policies are at the forefront of legislators’ minds. 

On 30 April, The Entrepreneurs Network, Secretariat of the APPG for Entrepreneurship, is holding a focused roundtable on how the government can do a better job of branding the UK as the best place in the world to scale a business. If you’ve got expertise to share, get in touch by clicking here.

Adviser Update

The Entrepreneurs Network and Enterprise Nation are holding a joint dinner in Parliament with the Minister for Exports Lord Offord on how to help SMEs sell abroad. Learn more by clicking here.

On 15-16 April, Innovate Finance hold their Global Summit at the Guildhall in the City of London. Learn more by clicking here. 

Between 23-25 April, it’s UK Tech Week – a new initiative that aims to showcase the tech innovation, expertise, and talent that exists across the nation and to champion the vibrant technological ecosystem that spans the UK. Learn more by clicking here.

On 20 May, the Enterprise Research Centre is holding a free event at the Shard in partnership with Propel Hub on the theme of workplace mental health, wellbeing and productivity. It will bring together researchers, people managers and business, policy and healthcare stakeholders to share cutting-edge evidence on. Learn more by clicking here.

The EISA Awards – which celebrate the outstanding achievements of participants in the EIS and SEIS ecosystem – are open for nominations for 2024. Learn more by clicking here. 

Applications also opened for UKBAA, Type One Ventures and the UK Space Agency’s Venture into Space programme – that seeks to identify businesses developing revolutionary technologies, guiding them through carefully curated activity, providing them with industry expertise, mentorship and connections in order to strengthen their propositions and ultimately enabling them to raise capital. Learn more by clicking here.

In Parliament

Business Minister Kevin Hollinrake MP gave a Written Statement on Simpler Corporate Reporting. In it, he notes that legislation will be laid: “to lift the monetary thresholds that determine company size by 50%, in order to take account of inflation and to reduce burdens on smaller businesses,” and that “the effect of these changes is that 5,000 large companies would be reclassified as medium-sized and access more proportionate reporting; 13,000 medium-sized companies would be reclassified as small companies, enabling them to benefit from exemptions to statutory audit requirements as well as the ability to file simpler accounts; and 113,000 small companies would be reclassified as micro-sized companies, which will allow them to file simpler accounts—a benefit for more than one in every four businesses that are currently classified as small.”

While discussing the topic of business investment, Andrew Gwynne MP declared: “the actual record of this Government over the past 14 years is abysmal. It is a fact that business investment has been consistently among the lowest in both the OECD and the G7,” before asking why “the Office for Budget Responsibility is forecasting a further 5% fall this year.” In response, the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, Gareth Davies MP said: “Announcements in each of our last three fiscal events have enhanced our business investment environment for international investors: we have the second highest foreign direct investment stock in the world; we have some of the best universities in the world, which are attracting businesses; we have announced full expensing, which is a £10 billion-a-year tax cut; we have the lowest corporation tax in the G7; and we are reforming our energy grid, bringing investment into our net zero ambitions. We are reforming our systems, reducing our taxes, and encouraging investment.”

In a debate on the Artificial Intelligence (Regulation) Bill in the House of Lords, Baroness Stowell said: “On its own, a concentration on [AI] safety will not deliver the broader capabilities and commercial heft that the UK needs to shape international norms. However, we cannot keep up with international competitors without more focus on supporting commercial opportunities and academic excellence. A rebalance in government strategy and a more positive vision is therefore needed. The Government should improve access to computing power, increase support for digital, and do more to help start-ups grow out of university research.”

A Lords debate on last month’s Spring Budget saw Baroness Bowles make the case for improving procurement processes: “It is far easier for a department to procure a large consultant than it is to procure a young technology business. Barriers include fear or lack of willingness to trial a new technology, concern about becoming stuck with the new technology provider, and fear that the technology not working will be seen as a failure. The fact that departments already end up stuck with the usual suspects, plus failures, via the usual consultants, seems not to feature.