Business Month March 2015

Hugh Cormicanof Cirdan Imagingon how the geeksbecame the jobcreators

3 November 2014 BUSINESS MONTH

March 2015 • ISSUE 52PRICE £2.50 (Where sold)

• FROM OFF-SHORE TO NEAR-SHORE • FOCUS ON MOTORINGAND OFFICE FURNITURE • PHILIP RAINEY FROM RUGBY TORENEWABLES • THE CHAIRMAN ENJOYS BLACK-TIE SEASON

The entrepreneur with

X-RAY VISION

March 2015 • ISSUE 52

Business Month 124-144 Royal Avenue,Belfast, BT1 1EBEditor - Margaret Canning

Sales manager - Jackie ReidContact: +44 2890 264070 or email:[email protected]

Design and production: RE&DBusiness Month is an imprint ofIndependent News and Media (NI)

Editor’s noteMargaret [email protected]

CONTENTS

32 March 2015 BUSINESS MONTH

WELCOME tothe Marchissue of Busi-ness Month,in which

we profile one of our mosthigh-achieving but often-over-looked entrepreneurs, HughCormican.

The Newry man is thehead of Cirdan Imaging anda co-founder of Andor. Hereveals why he believes thegeeks have taken over anddetails his plans for CirdanImaging in the future.

As inflation reaches anall-time low, Economy Watchmuses on the economic impactof supermarket price wars andcurrency wars respectively.

And Paul Gosling pondersthe recent trend of on-shoring,as companies discover that thegrass is not necessarily green-er on the other side and shiftback offices and manufactur-ing operations closer to home.

We also take in-depth looksat motor sales and office furni-ture — and as the Six Nationsheads towards an excitingclimax, one former Ireland in-ternational shares his lessonsfrom pitch to boardroom.

The Chairman is up to hisusual tricks, enjoying a widerange of events from thefirst black-tie bunfight of theseason to a breakfast to launchBalmoral Show and the launchof a new beer.

Oh, and the Chairman turnsfifty shades of pink when hehears about one particularevening out...

Enjoy.

FEATURES

COVER STORY

48

12 Analysis: What can businessesdo now to help balance the booksof Northern Ireland plc?14 Analysis: David Prosser on howeven Germany’s medium-sizedbusinesses could learn from UK22 Analysis: Alan Watts explorescrowdfunding as a way ofinvesting money24 Breaking the mould:With Kirsty McManus from theUniversity of Ulster28 SME Watch: Amanda Fergusontalks to William Bullock of Grace’sIrish Biscuits about how his short-bread will take over the world

FOCUS32 Jobs: For decades companieshave been ‘off-shoring’ jobs todeveloping nations in a bid todrive down costs, but is thistrend being reversed?38 Motor industry: NorthernIreland’s forecourts expectattractive finance deals, fallingfuel costs and an enthusiasm forhybrid models will continue toboost their trade

OFFLINE46 Out to Lunch: Joris Minne goesout to lunch with Noel Brady, oneof the top business advisors andfixers in Northern Ireland, andhears his views on the latest bid torebalance our economy58 The Chairman: Our man abouttown gives us the inside track onbusiness62 The Last Word: Are employersgetting value for money in what’sfast becoming a ‘perks arms race’? 58

26

12

REVENGE OF THE NERDSHugh Cormican of Cirdan Imaging tells Audrey Watsonhow creative intellects are the new wealth creators

NEWS BITES

4 BUSINESS MONTH 2 March 2015

Netwatch surveillancefirm sets up in Newry

A REMOTE surveillance compa-ny which protects internationalbusinesses against terror attacksis to set up shop in Co Down.

Netwatch Ireland is opening aremote monitoring and disasterrecovery hub in Newry, shieldinghigh-worth individuals in Africaand the motor dealer industry inthe US from criminal damage.

The operation will create 15jobs and its head said it aimed togrow aggressively over the nextnumber of years.

Chief operations officer WendyHamilton said: “Netwatch is pro-viding mission critical servicesto companies around the globe.

“They depend on Netwatch toensure they are protected againstmajor incidents, such as a terrorattack, and more importantlythat they can continue to operatetheir businesses in the event of amajor incident.

“Establishing a second oper-ations hub means that we cansupport an expanding client baseand that we can ensure continu-ous monitoring of their property.”

Historic Kelly’s Cellarsmay lose listed statusONE of the oldest pubs in Belfastcould be about to lose its listedstatus — leaving it vulnerable todevelopment or demolition.

Kelly’s Cellars in Bank Square— where the United Irishmen metto plot their 1798 uprising — is ona list of 17 Belfast buildings whichthe Department of the Environ-ment has proposed delisting.

The list also includes 4-8 and10 Church Lane (a series of tra-ditional shop fronts includingtobacconist Miss Moran) andnumbers 276-294 Tennent Street,known as Edenderry Gardens.

The Ulster Architectural Herit-age Society said that despite theirpresent condition, all buildingscurrently proposed for delistingcontribute to the value of Belfast’sfragile built heritage.

Kelly’s Cellars, at Bank Street,was built in 1720 by merchantHugh Kelly who kept it as a

bonded warehouse selling rum,gin and whiskey. It is renownedas a meeting place for Henry JoyMcCracken and the United Irish-men when they were planningthe 1798 Rising.

Titanic quarter chiefslet go by new ownersTITANIC Quarter chief executiveDavid Gavaghan is to be let goalong with two senior colleaguesas the company undertakes dras-tic cost-cutting.

The sudden move by TitanicQuarter Ltd comes after loansrelating to the company weresold by Ulster Bank.

They are now owned by David-son Kempner, a US vulture fundwith a reputation for cost-cutting.

One person familiar with thesituation said: “These guys arepretty ruthless and this is a greatexample of an asset owner saying,“Why are we spending all thismoney on these people”?”

Mr Gavaghan, a former head

of the Strategic Investment Boardcredited with “energising” theTitanic Quarter development,has been in the post for two years.

The identity of the other twosenior executives has not beenrevealed.

A spokesman for Titanic Quar-ter Ltd said it was “restructuring”its operations after an internalreview of costs.

Chairman Pat Doherty said:“Following a benchmarking pro-cess against other large interna-tional projects, it became clearthat the cost base at Titanic Quar-ter Ltd was not proportionate tothe business. As a consequencewe have restructured TQL’s teamand reduced headcount by remov-ing three senior positions.”

January’s shoppingfigures show declineSHOPPER numbers fell 2.4%in January as sales like BlackFriday transform our spendingtraditions.

While footfall figures weredown 2.4% across all shoppingareas in the province comparedto January 2014, high streets suf-fered the steeper decline of 3.4%,according to Springboard and theBritish Retail Consortium.

In contrast, December had wit-nessed a rise of 1.2% in shopperson the same month in 2013.

Northern Ireland’s decline inJanuary was double that of theUK average of a 1.2% fall.

Karise Hutchinson, head ofbusiness and enterprise at the Ul-ster University Business School,said the growth of flash salespromotions, such as Black Friday,has had “a knock-on effect andan impact on the January sales”.

Criona Collins, director ofretail at commercial property spe-cialists Lambert Smith Hampton,said: “The sentiment in the retailindustry is optimistic but thereality is that the situation is stillin the early stages of recovery. Itis likely that the recovery will beslow, but slow and steady is betterthan boom and bust.”

ON THE BALL: The CBI in Northern Ireland visited the Kingspan Stadium in Belfast to hold a discussion ongrowing through acquisitions. CBI chairman Colin Walsh (second right) was joined by (l-r) Adrian McCutcheonof Telestack, Ian Sheppard of Bank of Ireland and Michael Howard. Mr Howard, formerly chief excecutive ofSHS Group, shared his experience of acquiring firms such as Bottlegreen and British Pepper and Spice. Mr Mc-Cutcheon described his experience of being acquired after his company was bought by US firm Astec last year

131Belgium

125Ireland

148Netherlands

109Spain

100UK

International Comparisons of Productivity, Final Estimates 2013: current GDP per hour worked

NEWS BITES


Laws regarding zero hours contracts may be about to change

FIRMS may be banned fromimposing exclusivity clauses onstaff on zero hours contractsunder new plans by the Em-ployment Minister.

Around 28,000 peopleacross Northern Ireland areestimated to be on zero hourscontracts.

But Employment Minis-ter Stephen Farry said he isstopping short of banning zerohours contracts, under whichstaff have no guaranteed hoursbut are expected to be availa-ble for work.

Unions have criticised thecontracts while businesseshave said they provide theflexibility to respond to peaksand troughs of business.

Legislation on the subject isto be tabled by June.

Proposals from the Depart-ment for Employment andLearning include banningexclusivity clauses, used insome cases by firms to preventa zero-hours hire from workingelsewhere.

Employers would also berequired to review a fixed pat-tern of work over six monthswith a view to converting it toa fixed hours arrangement —though business group the CBIsaid such a measure would be“unworkable and counterpro-ductive.”

The minister said it waspeople in low-paid work whosuffer most on zero hourscontracts.

“It is vital that governmentintervenes in this instance to

ensure that the rights of thesevulnerable employees are pro-tected in what is a fast movinglabour market,” he said, addingthat his proposals would givemore protection to workers’rights than those in the rest ofthe UK.

Jimmy Kelly from tradeunion Unite said the decisionnot to ban the contracts had“failed” workers dependent onthat form of work, who were“mostly young and female”.“Workers can be left facing nohours some weeks, but can’tclaim benefits due to their em-ployment status. This is not thefuture of work we want to see.”

Rachel Penny, employmentlaw partner at law firm Carson

McDowell, said it was goodnews that there was to be noban on zero hour contracts,but added: “Some employerswho use exclusivity clauses forreasons of confidentiality mayhave to rethink their arrange-ments, but for the most part,there is no reason someoneworking in a hospitality orretail job should not be allowedto work for another similarcompany.”

But asking employers tomove employees onto perma-nent work could be “more prob-lematic” and risk zero hourscontracts being terminatedbefore the six-month point.

Similar proposals had beenrejected in Great Britain.

Proposals to change zero hour contracts

Apple’s biggest project in Eu-rope to date. We’re thrilled tobe expanding our operations,creating hundreds of local jobsand introducing some of ourmost advanced green buildingdesigns yet.”

The project will involverecovering land and restoringnative trees to DerrydonnellForest in Athenry. An outdooreducation space will be builtfor local schools, as well as awalking trail for the communi-ty, Apple said.

The plant will help poweronline services including theiTunes Store, the App Store,iMessage, Maps and Siri forcustomers across Europe.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny saidhe was delighted with theinvestment in Ireland.

“It is a very significantinvestment in the west ofIreland and is fantastic newsfor Athenry with significantknock-on benefits for theregion,” he said.

Apple already employs morethan 3,000 people in Ireland,mainly at its European head-quarters in Cork.

Microsoft and Google areamong other tech giants tolocate data centres in thecountry, where the predictableclimate is seen as an asset inlowering cooling costs for thetechnology involved.

APPLE is building a €850m(£628m) data centre in thewest of Ireland to power itsonline services, it has revealed.

The operation at Athenry,Co Galway, and another atViborg in Denmark, representthe technology giant’s biggestproject in Europe to date.

It is expected that the Irishfacility, to be run on renewableenergy, will create 300 jobsduring its multiple phases ofconstruction.

The 166,000sq m operationis planned to be up and run-ning by 2017.

Apple chief executive TimCooke said: “This significantnew investment represents

Apple builds £628m Irish facility

▲ CORE INFLATION:The alternative measure of in-flation, which excludes alcohol,tobacco, food and energy, roseto 1.4% in January, from around1.3% in December

▲ ECONOMIC INACTIVITY:There was an 11,000-strongincrease in people neither inwork nor looking for work in thelast quarter of 2014

▲ HOUSE PRICETRANSACTIONSThere were 20,200 homes soldhere in 2014, up 22% on 2013and the highest number ofsales since 2007

▲ PUBLIC SECTOR NETFINANCES:Excluding the effect of bankbail-outs, public sector netfinances were in surplus by£8.8bn — up from £2.3bn lastyear

▲ UK NEWBUILDS:There were 137,010 new homestarts in 2014, up 10% on 2013

t SHOPPERS:There was a 2.4% fall in shop-pers’ footfall in NI in January,compared to a 1.2% increase inDecember

t CONSUMER PRICEINFLATION:CPI fell to just 0.3% in January,compared to a 0.5% year-on-year rise in December

t UK MORTGAGES:£14.3bn in home loans washanded out in January — an11% tumble on January 2013

t CLAIMANTCOUNT:The numbers of people claim-ing jobseekers’ allowance in NIslumped to 48,200 in January

t NEWCAR SALES:There was a 4.58% year-on-year drop in the number ofnew cars sold in the province inJanuary

8

AILING supermarket chain Tescoselected John Allan as its newchairman last month. But manyretail analysts think it passed overthe best candidate.

John Allan is the right man forthe job. That statement seems tobe the overwhelming sentimentamong commentators, analystsand investors looking at the manchosen as Tesco’s new chair.

But herein lies the problem.Why was Mr Allan the last ap-pointment to the board of direc-tors he will soon be leading? Isn’tit supposed to be the other wayround, with a new chair appoint-ing the right men and women,rather than inheriting a board-room packed with new arrivalsall appointed by a predecessor?

That is why Mr Allan is theright man for the job. He is proba-bly more willing to accept what hehas been handed than the otherstrong candidate in the race forTesco chair, Archie Norman.

Mr Norman was touted as theperfect candidate by many in theCity, and was even approached byTesco after shareholders told theboard to give him a try. However,the independently minded formerAsda boss was the right man atthe wrong time. Tesco knew itand even Mr Norman probablyknew it.

The problem was the outgoingchairman, Sir Richard Broadbent.In an ideal world, Sir Richardwould have fallen on his swordsome time ago, instead of startinga hunt for a new chief executive,finance director and non-execu-tives with retail experience.

Instead, he brought in DaveLewis from Unilever, financedirector Alan Stewart from Marks& Spencer and non-executivesRichard Cousins and MikaelOhlsson from Compass and Ikea.

When he sacked the super-market’s former chief executive,Philip Clarke, last July Sir Rich-ard was asked whether he toowould step aside. But he said itwould be for the shareholders todecide whether he was part of thesolution or part of the problem.Unfortunately, he was a biggerpart of the problem than anyof the shareholders could haveenvisaged, and now Mr Allan is

stuck with the board Sir Richardhas built.

That is not to say Mr Lewis, thecurrent boss, isn’t doing a goodjob. Staff morale on the shop floorhas improved, with the threat ofa visit from the unpopular MrClarke lifted. Mr Lewis is alsosending missives throughout theorganisation calling on his em-ployees for ideas and inspiration.

Investors also appear im-pressed with Mr Lewis’s slickpresentations and care-fully crafted messages.Shares are up 26%since he exposed the£263m accountingscandal. There waseven a momentousday in January whenthe chief executiveannounced plans for43 stores to close and atrimming of staff numbers.This caused shares to rise 15%— the biggest single day’s rise in27 years.

The cost-cutting was not eventhat drastic. Those 43 stores(including one in Ballymena andtwo in east Belfast, at Connswaterand Cregagh Road) representjust 1.25% of Tesco’s UK estate.Yet investors apparently saw

an impressive turnaround plan.However, not all analysts are sooptimistic. Some are awaiting formore detailed plans from Mr Lew-is before giving the thumbs up.

They want a clearer diagnosisof the causes of Tesco’s illness,which was causing the super-market to lose customers to rivalslong before the exposure of theaccounting irregularities.

But the chair/chief executivedynamic looks better. Mr

Lewis and Mr Normanwould have been

less like Jeeves andWooster and morelike Noel and LiamGallagher, jostlingfor the limelight.

Had Mr Normanaccepted the gig, he

would also be forced togive up some of his more

interesting boardroom posi-tions, including ITV. He wouldalso have had to end his tripsdown under every six weeks tosit on Australian supermarketColes’ board.

With such baggage, Mr Nor-man probably could not havemade the decision easy for Tesco.And perhaps this was why theywent with Mr Allan, who has less

glamorous titles to give up.But is the Tesco bloodbath

over? Will the move from itsspiritual Cheshunt home to thenew surroundings of WelwynGarden City help? Or will SirRichard’s hiring legacy createmore problems down the line?

Many analysts are convincedmore heads will roll, includingsome of the remaining eightnon-executives in charge duringthe worst of times under MrClarke. And even though MrAllan may have been appointedunanimously don’t expect him togo easy on his appointers.

A new chairman is a small stepon the road to recovery. But onlytime will tell if Tesco can pullitself through one of the toughesttimes in its history.

As retail analyst Mike Den-nis at Cantor Fitzgerald, whofirst raised questions on possibleaccounting overstatements, ex-plained, there is a long way to go.

“We would have preferredArchie Norman over the 66-year-old John Allan, as Allan is seen asmore of a logistics expert ratherthan a food retailer,” he says. “Anyrecovery still needs Tesco to pro-duce positive total sales growthand a credible recovery plan.”

BUSINESS MONTH 2 March 2015

Right man for the jobIthastakensomebighits,but SimonNeville lookstosee ifnewly-installedJohnAllan is thechairmantotakeTescobacktothetop

NEWS ANALYSIS

Tesco has appointed a John Allan (below) as the new chairman in a bid to stop the slide

10

selves open to criticism fromthe Organisation for EconomicCo-operation and Development(OECD), the Treasury has gonethe extra mile to minimise thepotential for abuse.

They’ve done this by adding araft of exclusions and qualifierswhich leave some people unsurewhere they stand because Treas-ury has “reserved the right” tomove the goalposts and amendthe definition of excluded tradesand activities.

Excluded activities include:l Income from non-trading

activities, such as propertyl Large parts of the financial

services industry including banksand lending — profits from theseactivities can easily be moved toa different country.

l Investment and investmentmanagement

l Long-term insurance busi-ness and reinsurance

l Oil and gas exploration orexploitation of the continentalshelf.

Most of these exclusions didn’t

come as a surprise. But the billis very complex and has manyelements where inclusion orexclusion is a bit less clear — forexample how the rates will inpractice apply to companies withmixed trade between NorthernIreland and Great Britain.

For SMEs, only companieswhich pass a test showing at least75% of staff time and costs relateto work carried out in NorthernIreland will be eligible to benefit.

Does this mean local construc-tion companies who are currentlyworking almost exclusively inEngland and Scotland will con-tinue to be taxed at the mainUK rate?

Also, to counter the risk ofprofit shifting, multinationalswill have to have a fixed placeof business in Northern Ireland(a Northern Ireland RegionalEstablishment) such as an officeor factory. HMRC says it will use“internationally recognised prin-ciples” to attribute profits whichqualify for the Northern Irelandrate, a phrase which may be open

to interpretation.While most financial services

activities won’t qualify for the NIrate, some back office functionswill. That will come as a reliefto Invest NI, who have attractedcompanies like Citi and ChicagoMercantile Exchange (CME) to setup what many would term “backoffice” centres. However, the Billalso provides the qualificationthat HMRC can decide what thedefinition of a ‘back office’ oper-ation is, which may cause somenervousness on Bedford Street.

So far, it appears that mosttax reliefs and tax credits thatapply in the UK — for exampleplant and machinery allowances,research and development (R&D)allowances, reliefs on derelictland and film and video gametax reliefs — will all still remainas valuable in NI as the rest ofthe UK.

Existing loss reliefs will bealtered to take account of thedifferent tax rates so a NI losswould first be offset against NIprofits, a UK loss would be offsetagainst UK profits and any NIloss set against a UK profit wouldreflect the differences betweenthe tax rates.

Those who have led the chargeto gain NI the power to decide itsown rate of corporation tax havealways repeated the mantra thatit was most important to gain thepower in the first place and thenwork out how it would actuallybe implemented.

Assuming the “detailed mech-anism” under development toadjust the block grant actuallyworks, and the shortfall is madeup by overall growth in the econ-omy, there are still questions toanswer.

Whether it means a cut of£300m, or £350m, or more to theblock grant, the debate over de-volved corporation tax certainlyhas a long way to run. Loweringto — or below — the 12.5% rate inthe Republic of Ireland, even in aphased manner, may require diffi-cult discussions around spendingpriorities which are unpopular inthe short term and the cost makesit a political hot potato that willrequire cross-party support if itis to succeed.


NEWS ANALYSIS

10

COUNTLESS column inches havebeen written about the lengthy,and it appears successful, cam-paign to give Northern Irelandpowers to set its own rate ofcorporation tax.

These articles have predomi-nantly been from the cheerlead-ers for the cause or the naysayerswho fear it will cost too much tolower the corporate tax rate to12.5% in Northern Ireland fromthe UK-wide rate of 21%.

Somewhere between those whofeel strongly that corporation taxpowers can be a game-changerfor the economy and those whobelieve our politicians won’t beable to handle those powers, liesthe need for some measured as-sessment of the implications forNorthern Ireland businesses inthe short to medium term.

As things currently stand, theCorporation Tax (NI) Bill looksset to pass before the next Gen-eral Election, allowing NorthernIreland to set its own rate ofcorporation tax from April 2017.According to the Secretary ofState for NI, Theresa Villiers,34,000 businesses will benefit.

Senior officials have estimat-ed the cost of moving from theUK rate to a 12.5% rate at over£300m. Any cut in corporationtax means less revenue collect-ed by the Treasury and underEuropean rules Stormont wouldhave to make up that shortfall byway of a cut in block grant fromWestminster.

Our clients have started askingthe big questions. What does thismean for our business? What isgoing to change? Do we qualifyto benefit or are we excluded?

There is a lot of confusionaround the latter question be-cause there is plenty in the Billwhich may be open to interpreta-tion and in some instances is lessclear-cut than many supportershad hoped.

The vast majority of profitsgenerated by micro, small andmedium sized companies fromtrading activities in NorthernIreland will be eligible for thetax rate.

But fearful of leaving loop-holes which could be liable toexploitation, and of leaving them-

A taxing business

The ability to set corporation tax levels is not necessarily a good thing

Richard Gray, Carson McDowell Solicitors, considersthe price to be paid for a corporation tax cut

NEWS ANALYSIS


lished cornerstone of the UK taxframework.

R&D tax credits allow for animmediate cash incentive andultimately a lower effective rateof tax, linked to the amount ofqualifying R&D expenditure in-curred by companies. They areavailable for both loss makingand profitable companies.

The patent box provides fora 10% rate of corporation tax,phased in until April 2016, whichapplies to profits arising from theexploitation of a patent. In prac-tice, this means that if a patentedcomponent is incorporated intoa larger product which is thensold, the entire profits of thisend product fall within the 10%patent box.

In the recent Autumn State-ment, the Chancellor announcedan increase in R&D relief avail-able for both SMEs and largecompanies alike, continuing theupward trend in its investmentin such relief.

This means that from April1 2015, every £100 spent by anSME on qualifying research anddevelopment will attract a cashtax saving of £26 while non-SMEsmaximising the RDEC (researchand development expenditurecredit) form of the R&D regime

will receive a tax credit of £11.Both reliefs translate to a cashrepayment in loss making firms.

As a result of these and otherrecent changes, the UK has builtone of the most competitive taxsystems in the G20. There hasnever been a better time to investin R&D and IP in the UK as aresult of these incentives.

Unfortunately it has been ourexperience that our home growncompanies are simply not claim-ing their fair share of these gov-ernment backed reliefs. Yet, thatis not to say that R&D is not beingcarried out in the region or to saythere are not many companiesmaking the reliefs. On the contra-ry, we at EY have clear visibilityof the unprecedented innovationand pioneering developmentthat is constantly ongoing in ourregion through our client base.

At EY we are committed todispelling the myth that R&Dand IP are strictly limited tohigh-tech industries such aspharmaceuticals and aerospacedesign. Far from the perception ofwhite-coated technicians in labo-ratories, we can see that it is be-ing implemented in commercialfarms, kitchens and workshops.

Unexpectedly, even North-ern Ireland companies currently

making R&D claims may also bearguably under-claiming suchrelief. In recent times we havesupported companies in makingclaims which have increased10-fold due to recent HMRCguidance and legislative changes.

As a result of our work we haveseen first-hand how such benefitshave revitalised companies andallowed them to reinvest and ex-pand well beyond their previousmeans. It can provide cash flowrelief for loss making companies,release funds for training and re-cruitment or support borrowingfor capital investment.

It is incumbent on NI compa-nies to ensure their IP tax incen-tives are maximised. With a viewto achieving this, our advice tothose currently claiming such re-lief would be to evaluate currentmethodologies and ensure thatthe most recent rates and guid-ance updates are being applied.For those companies which havenot yet considered the regime,you should make immediate stepsto seize the excellent opportuni-ty. An eligible claim requires awell-structured approach, whichidentifies eligible activities, quan-tifies eligible expenditure, andis substantiated through robustsupporting documentation.

AS the prospect of the NorthernIreland Assembly taking controlover its corporation tax destinydraws ever closer, we must ask:what can businesses do now tohelp balance the books of North-ern Ireland plc?

The optimal answer may in-deed be rooted in a corporationtax reduction, but with many in-novative Northern Ireland (‘NI’)companies still not availing of thegenerous tax incentives available,can more be done now?

In the depths of the recentrecession, amidst a backdrop ofausterity and economic stale-mate, Chancellor George Osbornechampioned “Britain Open forBusiness” as he set researchand development (R&D) andintellectual property (IP) firmlyat the forefront of his plans foreconomic recovery.

This rhetoric was supportedin action by generous increasesin R&D tax credits and the intro-duction of the patent box, both ofwhich support the Government’scommitment to having the mostcompetitive corporate tax systemin the G20.

As the UK now enjoys its po-sition at the forefront of theeconomic recovery within the EU,it is clear that this commitmentto IP tax incentives played itsrole in laying the foundation inthe road to recovery. Unfortu-nately this level of growth hasnot yet crossed the Irish Sea asthe Northern Ireland economycontinues to lag behind the restof the UK.

The devolution of corporatetax setting powers in April 2017could very well be the gamechanger we need, but other valua-ble reliefs are arguably not beingexploited to their full potential.Namely the region’s uptake ofR&D tax credits and the patentbox does not reflect the level ofinnovation in NI.

These reliefs are by no meansa new form of tax incentive norare they viewed as aggressive taxplanning as featured in the pressin recent years.

First introduced by the Labourgovernment in 2000 and support-ed by the coalition government,R&D tax credits are an estab-

Maximising tax creditsIanEdwards, taxdirectorofEYNorthernIreland

Northern Ireland companies should be applying for more tax relief

12

NEWS ANALYSIS

Mapping out:UK medium-sizedbusinesses havegrown rapidly


GERMANY’S Mittelstandcompanies are renowned ascommercial powerhouses —these medium-sized, oftenfamily-owned businesses havebecome symbols of Germaneconomic superiority. It maytherefore come as a surprise todiscover that the Mittelstand’sequivalent in the UK has grownso rapidly over the past fiveyears that it’s now bigger andbetter than Germany’s.

That, in any case, is theclaim of the accountancy firmBDO. It says Britain’s mid-mar-ket companies have collectivelygrown by 33% since 2009 andare now earning revenuesworth over €1.9trn (£1.4trn) ayear.

In Germany, meanwhile,companies of a similar size(BDO defines mid-market asfirms with turnover between£10m and £300m a year) havegrown just 12% over the sameperiod. Their annual turno-ver now stands at €1.78trn.Britain’s mid-market compa-nies have the edge on othermeasures, too. They employ9.3m people compared withGermany’s 9.2m, for example.

We even have more companiesof this size.

One area where Germanystill has an advantage, howev-er, is on government support.For years, the Mittelstand hasprospered, in part, thanks tothe assistance of German tax-payers, who have underwrit-ten investment programmesand other supportive policiesdesigned with the country’smedium-sized companies inmind. The success of the Brit-ish mid-market in recent years,by contrast, has largely beenin spite of government policyrather than because of it.

Simon Michaels, the man-aging partner of BDO, thinksthis should not be allowedto continue. “While the UK’smid-sized businesses are worthmore than the Mittelstandfor the time being, there is somuch more we can do to ce-ment our position,” he argues.

For BDO, the answer liesin a range of more supportivepolicies, including a temporaryreduction in employers’ na-tional insurance contributionsfor manufacturers, changesto government procurement

policies that allow departmentsawarding contracts to consid-er supply chain employmentbenefits as well as cost, and Vatconcessions.

There is much to be saidfor this manifesto. On Vat, forexample, Ireland has led theway by allowing suppliers toexporting firms to zero-ratethe goods and services sup-plied. In the manufacturingsector lower energy costs haveboosted businesses, but such isthe slowdown in the eurozoneeconomies that further helpis needed if they are to getthrough 2015 unscathed.

While BDO’s recommenda-tions will resonate with Britishfirms they shouldn’t hold theirbreath, for we have been herebefore. Last year, the CBI pub-lished a comprehensive studyinto how Britain’s tax system isfailing medium-sized com-panies, alongside a series ofrecommendations for remedy-ing the issues raised. Its pleasfell on deaf ears.

Why should that be? In partat least, the problem stemsfrom one area of performancewhere German companies are

still doing far better than Brit-ish competitors: the cultivationof their image. Many of theMittelstand firms are house-hold names and are held inhigh esteem. By contrast, Brit-ain’s medium-sized companiesare largely anonymous.

The result is that policy-makers tend to overlook themid market in the UK. Theyspend their time cosying upto big business or launchingeye-catching initiatives aimedat start-ups and entrepreneurs,whose rags-to-riches storiesare more likely to be celebratedin this country.

That is not to say start-upsdo not need support (thoughmost would prefer a bit less ofthe cosying up at the other endof the scale). But if you wanteconomic success and pros-perity for all, the mid marketis where the action is at. TheCBI reckons these companiesaccount for a sixth of all jobsin the UK and a quarter of pri-vate-sector sales. BDO claimsits plans would add about£1.3bn to the contribution thatmedium-sized companies areable to make to the UK’s GDP.

Taking middle groundDavid Prosser on how even Germany’s medium-sizedbusinesses could learn a lesson or two from the UK

ECONOMY WATCH


Battle fieldsWhether it’s a government attempting toor geo-political gain - or a supermarket

its shareholder profits - the rules of

THE Ukraine crisis hasjust celebrated its firstanniversary. WithCrimea annexed andback under Russian

control, a surreptitious war inEastern Ukraine with Rus-sian-backed rebels rumbles on.Western powers have respond-ed to Russian aggression byimposing economic sanctions.Economic sanctions can beviewed as the most extremeform of a trade war and areoften just one step away fromoutright military action.

The Ukraine conflict repre-sents a new frontline betweenthe East and West with geopo-litical tensions on a scale notseen since the Cold War. Thereare fears that the situationcould escalate, with Russia po-tentially seeking to extend itssphere of influence into the EUvia its new members Lithuania,Estonia and Latvia.

A lesser known conflict hasbeen even more widespreadand raging longer than theUkraine crisis. These have beenthe so-called ‘currency wars’that have followed the globalfinancial crisis and the GreatRecession. The term ‘currencywar’ was given prominencefour-and-a-half years ago whenthe Brazilian finance minis-ter, Guido Mantega, aired hisconcerns about the weakeningof the dollar. This followedthe Federal Reserve’s biggestemergency economic stimulusin history and its $3.5trn quan-titative easing experiment.

Speaking on September27 2010, Mantega stated that“we’re in the midst of aninternational currency war”.The Brazilian finance minis-ter’s declaration of a currencywar surprised the financialelite at the time, he explicitlymentioned a term that waslargely taboo. Less threateningphrases such as “rebalancing”and “adjustment” to re-alignexchange rates were frequentlyused instead.

Deliberately weakening theexchange rate as a policy is notnew. Two key sterling exchangerate events stand out. Firstly,on November 18 1967, HaroldWilson’s Labour Governmentdevalued the pound, througha formally announced devalu-ation, in order to boost UK ex-ports. This was at a time whensterling was in a fixed exchangerate regime. Secondly, 25 yearslater, Chancellor Norman Lam-ont, who was at the time beingadvised by none other thanDavid Cameron, announced theUK’s exit from the EuropeanExchange Rate Mechanism. Thelatter required the UK to keepthe value of sterling within arange linked to the GermanDeutschmark. This occurred onSeptember 16 1992 and becameknown as “Black Wednesday”.

Both of these events weretransparent and involved publicannouncements. As such, theywere humiliating for theirgovernments at the time. Thetwo examples cited above areexamples of currency crises, orbattles linked to one currencysterling. A currency war is a

rolling series of devaluationsacross a number of economies.

In a currency war, the centralbankers are the generals whocall the shots on behalf of theirrespective economies. Theconventional weapon of choiceis interest rate policy. More re-cently, unconventional weaponshave been increasingly used,namely, quantitative easing(QE) and the introduction ofnegative interest rates (bothdeposit and lending rates).Shots of QE and interest ratecuts have been used in recentyears in an attempt to weakencurrencies in order to effective-ly steal economic growth fromother economies.

However, the effectivenessof these policies is limited ifall economies follow the samestrategy. Since January thisyear, 15 central banks have cuttheir interest rates. Denmarkhas recently been franticallycutting its interest rates to keepthe value of the Danish kronedown. Sweden’s central bankhas introduced negative inter-est rates to discourage fundsand weaken its currency.

Currency wars The US and the UK, throughthe Federal Reserve and theBank of England respectively,were arguably the most aggres-sive at the start of the currencywar that began in 2010. As faras currency depreciation wasconcerned they both gained afirst mover advantage againstthe euro. Sterling depreciatedby a whopping 25% over theperiod 2007-2009. This was aperiod which saw the Bank ratelowered to a record low of 0.5%and the start of a £375bn QEprogramme.

Sterling and dollar weaknesshas aided the recoveries of theUK and US. Conversely, thestrength of the euro and theyen during the period 2008-2013 hindered their economicrecoveries. Now, however, boththe ECB and the Bank of Japanare mobilising resources tostimulate their economies withmassive QE programmes. Inturn, this will weaken both theeuro and the Japanese yen.

The battlefield of the currentcurrency war has shifted. Ster-ling and the dollar in particu-lar have been strengthening.Meanwhile the euro and theJapanese yen have been underpressure. In effect, the currencywar has gone full circle.

So what do the ongoingcurrency wars have to do withNorthern Ireland? We maysee an increasing number ofJapanese car sales due to thecompetitive Japanese curren-cy. Developments in the latestphase will adversely impacton Northern Ireland’s exportperformance with the eurozoneand the Republic of Ireland inparticular. From a sector per-spective, our tourism and agri-food sectors benefited from theboost that a weak sterling/euroexchange rate provided. Withsterling/euro currently at aseven-year high and set to pushhigher, those sectors that ben-efited from a weak sterling arelikely to be collateral damagefrom the latest currency battle.

Richard RamseyChief economist Ulster Bank

ECONOMY WATCH


Battle fieldswin a competitive advantage for economicbidding to increase market share to boost

engagement remain essentially the same

PRICE wars in thesupermarket sectorare nothing new. Butin 2015, the battle ofprice is fought on new

territory, with different termsand fresh contestants, trigger-ing unprecedented change inthe Northern Ireland land-scape. Only a few years ago thebattle raged over the growth ofout-of-town large scale groceryretail developments, threat-ening the survival of the smallconvenience grocery stores.

But, the long-lasting impactof the 2008 economic reces-sion and the growth of onlineshopping has forever alteredconsumer buying behaviourand arguably turned thetables. As price wars continueto rage in 2015, where is thebattle really fought and whoare the winners and losers?

Previous supermarket pricewars involved special offerslargely funded by local sup-pliers around one key productsuch as milk.

But, in January 2015, togeth-er Asda and Sainsbury’s firedthe first salvos in a new yearsupermarket price war withthe promise of £450m worthof cuts the price of essentialevery day items. In doing so,they hope this will thwart theplans of market leader Tesco.In a new turn of events, this of-fensive involves supermarketssacrificing some of their profitto drive sales, instead of pass-ing all the pain to suppliers.

The rising popularity ofbuying essential goods online,the ability to click, collect, andtop up at our nearest conveni-ence store is also changing theterritory for supermarkets andcould render many out of townhypermarket retailers obsoletein their current form. Tescoand Sainsbury’s are both a casein point, currently undertak-ing major cost saving exercis-es. Leanness and agility is acentral plank of the businessmodels of discounters Aldi and

Lidl and only recently have theestablished powers of Sains-bury’s and Tesco have takenthis threat seriously.

The internet, mobile shop-ping and the recession have notjust changed buying habits, butfashioned greater consumerexpectations. Once linear andone-directional, the customerjourney in a world where wecan shop anywhere, anyhowand anytime, is now a complexmaze of possibilities that hingearound digital touch points.While consumers will continueto seek value for money andembrace technology, price isnot everything in this battle.The challenge beyond the retailoffer and price war is to create asupply chain network, productassortment and fulfilment thatnot only meets, but exceedscustomer needs and wants.

Research suggests the buy-ing experience is becoming justas important as the retail offer.If the strategy of success is un-derpinned by speed, then thequestion in this battle is: whocan respond and quick enoughto win customer loyalty?

In the UK, the supermarketbattle is over the squeezedmiddle market gnawed awayby Waitrose at the top and therapidly expanding discountersAldi and Lidl at the bottom. InNorthern Ireland, the battle ofthe supermarkets has tradi-tionally been fought by the bigthree (Tesco, Asda, and Sains-bury’s). At a local level, smallerconvenience retailers includingSpar, Mace and Costcutters pro-vide an important retail offerand service and engage to someextent in price wars. But, Lidlhas become the new challenger,launching luxury food itemssuch as caviar and fine wines.Attracting the interest of themiddle-class keen to make theirpurse stretch further while alsobuying local food and productsthey enjoy, Lidl is now a strongplayer in the arena.

Other retailers like Pound-land and B&M are alsonoteworthy contenders in thisbattle, expanding their groceryoffer on the high street.

Some predict price will bethe biggest ticket in town in2015, sparking fiercer compe-

Grocery wars

Dr Karise HutchinsonHead of business and enterprise at Ulster University Business School

tition than ever before in theNorthern Ireland grocery sec-tor. Good news for consumers,but not if you are a supplier ofone of the major supermarkets.

What about the supermar-ket contestants? The promiseof lower prices to consumersmay prove to be nothing morethan a race to the bottomof the premier league. And,there is always the element ofsurprise. A new entrant likeAmazon entering the fraycould change the balance andoutmanoeuvre current playersin the market. While the battleof price may offer some short-term gains for consumers, ulti-mately it won’t deliver the shiftthe average shopper actuallywants in terms of service levelsand convenience. After all, it isnot only the shopper’s capacityto spend or the physical pricetag of the item, but ratherthe time and effort it takes tomake the purchase that counts.

Some argue this is a pricewar of smoke and mirrors,whereby supermarket retailerssimultaneously cut prices ofone product and increase theprice of others to compensate,disguising the real issues atstake. On one hand, equityinvestors are worried about theimpact of declining industrysales volumes and declininggross margins damaging thesector’s prospects for attractinginvestment in the future. Onthe other hand, the steady de-cline of the weekly shop couldrender out-of-town supermar-ket destinations obsolete.

Survival for retailers willdepend on the capacity forlong-term change: the abilityto speed up decision-making,change the culture of businessand develop an entirely newgrocery business model. In atime of unprecedented uncer-tainty there is only one surething, change is here to stay.

Additional research by LauraLaird

COVER STORY


THE GEEKEMPIRE

ENTREPRENEURHugh Cormican oncesaid: “Physicists havethis reputation forgeekiness, but things

have moved on — the geeksmostly run the world now.”

The award-winning busi-nessman made the quote toNew Scientist magazine backin 2007. Almost eight years on,his words still hold true andthe technology and innovationsector is one of Northern Ire-land’s biggest business successstories.

Mr Cormican (52) is founderand CEO of Cirdan Imaging,a Lisburn-based companywhich designs and suppliesmedical imaging solutions forthe diagnosis and treatmentof cancer in surgery, radiologyand pathology.

The company recentlyannounced a £500,000 in-vestment from Kernel Capi-tal which will aid increasedexports, further product de-velopment, and expansion intoemerging markets such as the

Asia Pacific and Middle East.“It’s not so much geeks,” he

laughs, referring to the NewScientist article. “I think thatpeople with creativity andintellectual and innovationskills now have the opportuni-ty to use and develop an ideato create a lot of wealth forthemselves.

“Before, you needed a lot ofwealth just to be able to createwealth, or you needed to be ina place that had a lot of naturalresources.

“It wasn’t easy to start abusiness. The environment isso much better now.”

To say Mr Cormican is expe-rienced in the area of businessstart-ups is an understatement.After gaining a degree in laserphysics at Queen’s University,Belfast, he was studying for aPhD when along with col-leagues, he used his physicsknow-how to build a highlysensitive digital camera.

After using the camerain various imaging applica-tions they found it was being

requested by researchers inother departments and otheruniversities. In 1989, withcapital investment from QubisLtd, the university’s busi-ness incubation unit, AndorTechnology was formed to takeadvantage of these requestsand to develop the camera intoa commercial product for usein scientific research.

Five years later, in 2004,Cormican guided the companythrough a stock market listingon the Alternative InvestmentMarket (AIM), which is de-signed for smaller businesses,and Andor grew from universi-ty spin-out into a west Belfastbased global operation employ-ing 300 people, with offices inthe USA, Europe and Japan.

However, Mr Cormicanstood down as CEO in August2006, before resigning fromthe board in September 2007.

He spent time in America asCEO of US-based imaging tech-nology firm Bioptics, beforereturning to Northern Irelandand setting up Cirdan Imaging

in May 2010 — another Queen’sspin-out, but one in which,since 2012, the university hasheld an equity stake.

“Queen’s University is oneof the world’s leading cen-tres for cancer research, andthrough collaboration we canhelp bring the benefits of thatresearch to impact on patient’slives in considerably shortertimescales than occur else-where in the world,” he says.

“The collaboration involvesresearch to develop imagingequipment using X-rays andnear-infrared fluorescence tohelp in the detection, diagno-sis, and treatment of cancer.The devices will be used tobetter discriminate betweenhealthy and malignant tissuein diagnostic procedures andcancer surgery.

“It makes a lot of relation-ships easier,” he adds of theQUB involvement. “It meanswe are not just seen as a totallyindependent company. Quiteoften universities can haveconcerns about collaborating

Hugh Cormican of Cirdan Imaging tells Audrey Watsonhow creative intellects are the new wealth creators


with businesses. Concernssuch as who is going to benefitmost? Do they just want ourtechnology? Or our people?

“When the university is ashareholder, those initial fearsand barriers are overcome.”

Also in 2012, Cirdan was oneof only two beneficiaries ofthe first Invest NI equity fund,Co-Fund NI, which gave thecompany an almost £170,000injection.

Despite Cirdan’s success, MrCormican admits to feeling sadwhen, in early 2014, Andor wastaken over in a £176m deal byrival firm Oxford Instrumentsplc, a spin-out company ofOxford University.

“I was very disappointed,” hesays. “But being in the publicmarket is a bit like being in thePremiership — you’ve got todeliver and you’ve got to get re-sults, keep going forward andkeep getting those results.

“If you stumble, or it lookslike you are standing still andsitting on your laurels, it’s veryeasy for another company to

swoop in.“If you have a business that

is growing fast and has a clearstrategy that is delivering,nobody else can buy you.

“Unfortunately, I think theboard on Andor weren’t grow-ing the business and keepingup the pace — which is oneof the dangers of being in thepublic market.

“You’ve got to be able to com-pete and hold your own andshow shareholders that you candeliver returns.

“The board have to have theexpertise and experience to de-liver on that and communicatethat to shareholders.

“If that had been the case,Andor would have remaineda public company in its ownright.”

Mr Cormican won’t bepinned down on his exact rea-sons for leaving.

“There’s never a single rea-son for doing something,” hesays. “There were directions Iwas keen to follow, but I wasn’tsure about the other board

members. Maybe some peoplefeel that the way I do businessis too aggressive, but I don’tfeel that it is.

“You need to break into newareas and territories and if youare not willing to expand, thenit’s hard for a company to keepa strong growth record.

“Too many start-ups don’tview their business as a life-time’s work, they grow it to acertain level and then sell it offand move on and do somethingelse.

“To keep growing and devel-oping a business is a lifetime’swork. There are some people inNorthern Ireland who do justthat, such as Peter FitzGeraldof Randox Laboratories.

“He is someone who willnever be happy just to main-tain his company’s position,he will continue to grow anddevelop it.

“We need more businessleaders like that.

“Northern Ireland has awealth of talent in the technol-ogy sector and we have a great

education system that supportsand develops this talent intobusiness opportunities.

“Of course, there’s always away to do more and I’d like tosee us retain more of the busi-nesses that start here, ratherthan seeing them being soldand swallowed up by a largerexternal company.

“We may have the techtalent, but we don’t have thereservoir of experienced boardmembers – people who haveperhaps worked in public com-panies and grown and devel-oped businesses and have theskills to keep things moving onand maintain the company’sability to be able to stand aloneand hold its own.

“Many businesses are nerv-ous of floating on the stockmarket. There’s not enoughexperience of it here and thereis a mystique surrounding it,which is misplaced.

“Flotation can bring newliquidity and the advantage of

Turn to page 20>>

Allen Martin, senior investmentexecutive at Kernel Capital, HughCormican, chief executive ofCirdan Imaging, William McCulla,director of corporate financeat Invest NI and Gillian Sadlier,senior business manager at Bankof Ireland

COVER STORY

Hugh Cormican is founder and CEO of Cirdan Imaging

<< Continued from page 19

20

new investors and the majorbenefit of a raised profile.”

Andor is now facing a pos-sible 18 job losses as OxfordInstruments grapples with aprofits slump due to difficul-ties in its Russia and Japanmarkets.

Did the experience with An-dor make him nervous aboutsetting up another businessfrom scratch?

“Part of me sort of thought …‘Well, if I have to …’” he laughs.“But Andor wasn’t a fluke — Iknew it could be done and Ineeded to do it again.

“I’ve never lost my enthusi-asm for technology. Businessis a nice environment andgood fun, but technology ismy passion. And the real buzzfrom developing technology isseeing it being used.

Mr Cormican manages tobalance an understanding ofthe technical side of Cirdanwith business acumen. “I liketo spend time in the lab withmy sleeves rolled up, but I alsolike to get out and meet people.It’s not a chore. I still thinkit’s one of the best jobs in theworld.

Originally from the Newrydirection he describes himselfas “a bit of a gypsy” when it

comes to his roots.“I spent my formative years

in Mayobridge,” he says. “Myfather worked in Customs andExcise and we travelled aroundquite a bit spending periods allover the UK.

“Although both my parentswere civil servants, they had areally active interest in scienceand bought me my first tele-scope when I was very young.

“Their interest was passeddown to my brother, sister andI.”

His gypsy days long gone,he now lives near Lisburn withwife Anne, a maths teacher,and their three children, James(21), Ruairi (16) and Ciara (14),and when he can enjoys scubadiving with his local club andalso abroad with the family.

“I had actually always want-ed to go into business from theage of 16, when I was a pupilat Abbey Grammar School inNewry. But I thought it best Ishould get a degree and physicshad been the subject I enjoyedmost at school,” he says.

“It was a subject that forme was more about problemsolving than learning.

“However, nowadays whenI’m travelling abroad and haveto fill in forms where one ofthe questions asked is, ‘What’syour occupation?’ I always

write physicist, not business-man.

“At heart, I’m definitelystill a bit of a geek — a gadgetfreak,” he laughs.

Since its inception in 2010,Mr Cormican has been deter-mined to keep Cirdan movingforward — and independent. Itis, for him, at least, a lifetimejob.

“One thing you always needto think about is successionplanning,” he says. “Lifespanlimits mean that it’s not goingto be humanly possible for meto take the company to where Ihope it will eventually go — butcertainly I can help it on itsway.”

In 2012, Cirdan acquiredthe intellectual property andassets of the Centricity Labo-ratory Division of Americancompany GE Healthcare IT.

As part of the acquisition, ittook on responsibility for thesupport of customers using theCentricity Laboratory Informa-tion System (LIS) across NorthAmerica, Asia Pacific and theUK.

“We had developed the wayof capturing images, but knewthat there also needed to be away of attaching relevant infor-mation to those images and ex-tracting relevant informationfrom those images,” says Mr

Cormican. “We were workingon developing software to dojust that when we heard thatGE Healthcare were looking toget rid of a particular piece ofkit called Ultra.

“We saw the opportunity toacquire that software.

“Ultra is a product that hasbeen around for a while now,but we took advantage of thatopportunity, bought it andhave further developed it forthe 21st century. Now, whenyou have the image, you alsohave the context — who is thepatient? What is their condi-tion? What are the analytics?

“Acquiring Ultra was a greatmove for us and a great way ofaccelerating the business.”

Mr Cormican has never re-vealed the amount paid for theGE division, but it’s understoodits existing customers pay soft-ware support and maintenancefees of several million dollarsevery year.

When it comes to securinginvestment, he says that forCirdan in particular, thishasn’t proved difficult.

“We haven’t had a problem,but we may not be typical ofeveryone. We’ve been wellsupported by investors and bythe banks,” he says.

“There is money out therelooking for projects, and



Hugh Cormican (above, with an Andor camera) said that when the time isright he would like to take the company public, as he did with Andor

opportunities to invest withtax-efficient schemes. InvestNI have done quite well insetting up an infrastructureand environment in NorthernIreland that enables businessesto obtain funding.

“The economic environmentfor new businesses is currentlythe best it’s been for a while.”

As well as Cirdan, whichemploys more than 20 peopleat its Lisburn HQ and also hasoffices in offices in Australiaand Canada, Mr Cormican alsosits on the board of anotherQUB spin-out, CausewaySensors Ltd, which devel-ops, manufactures and sellscomplete sensing packages,consumable biochips and soft-ware and develops solutionsfor applications in cell biology,microfluidics and nanofluid-ics, physics, chemistry, cell andparticle studies. Its customersinclude biology laboratories inacademia, institute laborato-ries and diverse industry.

A fellow of the Institute ofPhysics, in 2000, Mr Cormicanwas awarded the Patersonmedal and prize for commer-cialisation of physics in recog-nition of the success of Andor.And in 2003, Queen’s conferredon him an honorary Doctorate

of Science for services to busi-ness and commerce.

In 2011, Mr Cormican wasawarded the NISP ConnectInnovation Founder of theYear Award, in recognitionof his entrepreneurial talentand achievement in the area ofscientific technology.

He is also hugely enthusias-tic about the importance of theNorthern Ireland Science Park(NISP) to the technology sectorin Northern Ireland.

And the way forward forCirdan?

“My desire is to continue todevelop technology to improvemedical diagnosis,” he says.“We very much want Cirdanto continue as a growing com-pany and become recognisedglobally for what it does.

“When the time is right, wewould like to take the companypublic, like we did with Andor,but at the same time, continueto deliver a clear strategy forgrowth and expansion and thedevelopment of new technol-ogy, making it difficult for anoutside company to take over.

“You could stay a small pri-vate company here in NorthernIreland, but not growing yourmarket and not growing yourbusiness, seems such a waste.”

NEWS ANALYSIS


IN the 19 century, EdwardLytton coined the phrase‘the great unwashed’ torefer, in a rather deroga-tory manner, to the lower

orders, ie the majority of thepopulation. You can arguewhether today we still have aworking class, but it’s a prettyfair bet that most of them do, atleast, wash.

However, we now have a newcrowd, certainly in financialcircles, and they invested£1.7bn in crowdfunding inthe UK in 2014 — regardlessof their personal hygiene. Butwhat do we really know aboutthis new order?

Well, actually we are start-ing to know quite a lot.

For a start, the crowd aremostly men. Only 14% of thoseinvesting were women — andfor lending, the figure was stillonly 17%.

And they are mostly men ofa certain age. The lion’s shareof crowd funding is Peer toPeer (P2P) to either businessesor individuals and here over55% of the lenders are 55 orolder. However, in the fastestgrowing sector, which is equityfunding, the average age of theinvestors is only 40 (which isactually only three years olderthan the average age of thosewanting to raise money.)

And we all assume that thecrowd are very small investors.Certainly you can invest aslittle as £10. There are manystories of what are known aslunchtime investors who sticka tenner on a company in thesame way as they might do ona horse. However in reality, inequity, over two-thirds invest£1,000 or more which is a bitmore serious. Although incontrast to this, around 60% ofthe investors had no previousinvestment experience andwould fall into the categorydescribed as ‘retail investors’.

Now let’s turn the micro-scope round and look at theresults of all this funding.

The average UK crowdfund-ed share deal is for almost£200k involving 125 investors.This amount per deal is very

close to that for traditionalangel investing, but withprobably 20 times the numberof shareholders. However, ifyou have an efficient means ofmanaging this large group overtime, as the platforms claim,then this isn’t a problem. Andin fact, it can be an advantageas this is a useful group forboth providing market re-sponse and product feedback.

In P2P, borrowers receivean average of £73,000 from awhopping 796 lenders. This is asign of a very efficient market-place where lenders’ risks arespread over many deals. And

since the average interest ratereceived by lenders was 8.8% ata time when banks are paying apittance — well why not?

There are a couple of othervery useful trends from aNorthern Ireland point of view.We provide around 1% of thecrowd money but receive, as aregion, 4% of the investmentand 3% of the lending.

So our lot have been quick tosee the potential and there is anet flow of money into NI.

And surveys show that onlyaround 40% of people knowabout crowdfunding with only14% having tried it. So there

remains big potential for all ofthese figures to increase a lot.Indeed, equity crowdfunding isgrowing at over 400% pa.

So now we know quite alot more about the crowd,although their cleanlinessremains a bit unclear.

But to mis-quote a phrasewhich also has a Northern Ire-land angle, they clearly won’tgo away, you know.

Alan Watts is the director of Halo,the NI business angels network.More information can be found atwww.haloni.com. Alan can also becontacted through this site.

Joining the in crowdAlan Watts explores crowdfunding as a way of investing money

More people are getting involved in crowdfunding

BREAKING THE MOULD

24

these companies whom I workclosely with and take pride inseeing the transformation intheir business. I also have aprivileged role in working withour young people to encour-age them to start their ownbusiness.

The person I take inspiration from...As a proud Derry woman, youwill not be surprised that I saymy mother. She has instilledin me a sense of social respon-sibility and helping others. Mymum has recently recoveredfrom a critical illness and thishas been a stark reminder ofwhat really is important in life.

She inspires me every dayand has made a real impact onso many people’s lives.

I’m also very lucky to have aclose-knit group of friends whosupport and encourage eachother.

My advice to anyone starting off inbusiness is...No man is an island, as theysay. The best leaders out thereknow when they need help, andthey know where to turn toin order to get it. Nobody canknow everything, so findingsomeone you trust for advicewhen things get tough canmake all of the difference. I’mvery fortunate to have a groupof informal mentors who offerme free corporate therapy.

Which brings me on to myfinal point which is to havefaith and courage. My point

here is for you to believe thatwhen you jump off the cliff,having followed your dreamand decided to take a risk, thelanding will be a soft one.

Also, remember that veryfew things are set in stoneand that life can have manydifferent chapters. It’s a cliché,I know, about doors closingand others opening, but I’vefound it to be true and it’s onlywhen you’ve really committedyourself to something andgiven up other, perhaps safer,things that you really start tosee those new opportunities.

If you get a chance, take it. Ifit changes your life, let it. No-body said that it would be easy,they just promised it would beworth it.


I got into business and SME supportbecause...Anyone who has met me willknow that I am passionateabout supporting SMEs. I enjoythe challenge of working close-ly with them, helping thembuild their businesses anddealing with the challenges intheir sector. I see my role as achampion for SMEs, to ensurewe have the right conditions inNorthern Ireland to help themgrow and prosper.

Our SME centre at the Ul-ster University Business Schoolis committed to providing thetools and skills to enable ourlocal companies to complete ina global economy. Any SMEsreading this article, if we canbe of assistance to you thenplease do get in touch, I wouldbe delighted to hear aboutyour business and how we cansupport you.

I haven’t always done this...I graduated from in IT fromQueen’s University, Belfast,and then emigrated to Cal-ifornia to work as a projectmanager for six years. I workedin Silicon Valley during the dotcom boom and bust, which wasa once in a lifetime experience.

Working in America was animmense learning curve. Deal-ing with different cultures andgave me a wealth of interna-tional experience that I couldutilise in future roles.

I returned to NorthernIreland to complete my MBA atthe Ulster University BusinessSchool and then began careerworking at the Confederationof British Industry and UlsterUnivesity Business School.

The best thing about my work is...My career challenges me everyday in different ways. No twodays are the same. I enjoythe interaction between theacademic life and the com-mercial world. I enjoy beingable to provide assistance to

Championing SMEsKirsty McManus speaks about starting off in business

Ulster University Business School’s SME centre aims to help Northern Ireland firms compete in a global economy

Name: Kirsty McManusCompany: University of UlsterJob title: Director of the centrefor SME development

AND I’LL TELL YOU ANOTHER THING...


Name: Harry McDaidCompany: Ulster CommunityInvestment TrustTitle: Chief Executive

My first job was....Aged 15 as a waiter in theDerry City Club. I was theyoungest in a family of eightand as soon as we wereeconomically viable we wereexpected to work — no com-plaints there. Bar work taughtme a great deal about humanbehaviours, customer careand the integrity of workingin a cash business. Nowadayswhen I look at the CVs of youngpeople applying for jobs I amimpressed by those who haveworked to help finance theireducation. It demonstrates aresourceful attitude, a willing-ness to work hard, disciplineand motivation.

The business person who taughtme to succeed was…No one person — I watchedand learned from many.There’s the old line about theyoung guy telling his boss: “Ihave plenty of initiative butno one has told me what to dowith it.” The onus has to be onself-development. If you wantto succeed you must seek outopportunities and do it your-self. Thirty years ago I cameinto contact with the conceptof continuous performance im-provement and I have workedwith that every day since. It isimportant to take time to de-velop the skills and the vocab-ulary required to work in yourchosen field. Every career hasits own language, be it in law,medicine, finance or business.To effectively understand andcommunicate at the top levelof business and in the processinfluence others, one must firstget the vocabulary right.

My business mantra is…Make a difference to thebusiness you are involved in.During my time in banking Iinsisted when recruiting thatwe not employ someone simplyto add to numbers or fill space.There should be no compro-

mise in recruitment. Youmust hire someone who willgenuinely make a difference tothe business. Only then willcompetency be built, skills de-veloped and performing teamsformed who will ultimatelydifferentiate the business andfacilitate its growth.

It’s all changed since I startedout…It certainly has. When I joinedthe Bank of Ireland in 1970 itwas to post ledgers and rundaily batches — great funas most ledger clerks were

ladies! No one over the ageof 20 was permitted to enterthe “service” of the banks andladies still retired on marriage— so career competition wasrelatively limited. We have seenchanges in processes, systems,governance, regulation, report-ing structures, selling productsand services, delivery channels— basically everything. Onething has remained constantand that is that banking isessentially a people businessand those banks that mostquickly reattach themselvesto the communities they serve

will ultimately be the winners,so long as they bring with thema professionalism and under-standing of business that theircustomers deserve.

In 10 years the world will be…Different. In the banking worldthe progression of digital bank-ing will continue, as new ser-vices and products come to themarket. It is likely that this willmake banking a more compet-itive sector to be involved in.The next generation are verycomfortable with the digitalprovision on offer and we areheading towards an increas-ingly cashless society.

My one business regret is…I have no business regrets. I en-joyed at least part of every dayI worked in banking and thesame can be said for my timenow with UCIT. As UK directorof credit in the bank, I was re-sponsible for €20bn of loans. Inmy current role, that numberis slightly reduced to £12m andI’m enjoying every minute ofit. One has to know when thetime is right to exit a primarycareer and find an alterna-tive that represents a freshchallenge but takes account ofone’s stage of life. UCIT makesa real difference to communi-ties basically enabling them toenable themselves. Many of theprojects we work with wouldn’treceive funding through tradi-tional lending channels.

My one piece of business adviceis…Concentrate on your cus-tomer’s needs and build ateam which can deliver them.Without customers you don’thave a business. Set out clearlywhat you want to achieveand allocate responsibilitieswithin your business. Ensureyour people feel valued andthere are many ways to do this.Create a learning organisationand invest in developing skills.There is no such thing as onepiece of business advice.

I couldn’t start the day without…Getting up.

Learn the languageHarry McDaid, of Ulster Community Investment Trust, shares somesecrets of his success and why he thinks self-development is the key

Self Development plays a crucial role in business

SME WATCH

Taking the biscuit: People love to dress up to celebrate St Patrick’s Day


AS Irish people athome and aroundthe world get readyto celebrate StPatrick’s Day later

this month, it’s remarkable tolearn that shamrock-shapedshortbread sold the world overis made right here in NorthernIreland.

William Bullock fromDonaghadee, the manag-ing director of Grace’s IrishBiscuits, told Business Monthwhy the tasty products made athis family firm are “the best”and of the plans he has for thesmall but ambitious firm.

“It is the best shortbread inthe market,” William said.

“People have to try it.”William’s background in

business included being oneof the first people to bringAir Miles to market back inthe 1990s. He also worked forUnilever.

Then in 2009 he set upGrace’s Irish Biscuits, namedafter his daughter, as he want-ed to develop an “Irish icon”from the Balloo industrialestate in Bangor, Co Down.

“I thought we in NorthernIreland really needed to seeif we could produce an Irishicon,” he said.

“We have got an Irish icon inBushmills and also in Baileys.

“An Irish icon in my view is aproduct sold all over the world.That is what we want.

“Walkers is the benchmarkfor shortbread, it is Scottishand it sells all over the world.

“It was my consideredopinion that Ireland, we were abigger brand than Scotland.

“That could be debatable butwhat Walkers sell in my view isthe tartan. Go to any airport inthe world and you will see thetartan so I thought we shouldgo into the marketplace withthe shamrock.”

William champions Irelandas being one of the “biggestbrands in the world” and iskeen to capitalise on interna-tional affection for our shores.

“We have got St Patrick’s Daywhich is growing year by year,”he said. “A lot more countriesare celebrating it so with thatin view and the experience Ihad with the Unilever the foodcompany I launched Grace’sIrish Biscuits.

Best bitesAmanda Ferguson talks to William Bullock of Grace’s Irish Biscuitsabout his world domination plans with shortbread and other delights


“We in Northern Ireland inparticular have a reputationfor producing some of the bestfood in the world.

“We use Ballyrashane butterin our products. It really doesmake a difference.”

Grace’s Irish Biscuits arebaked in two bakeries locatedin Dromore and Portadown.

“Bangor is our centraldistribution,” William said.“We go to Tesco, Sainsbury’sand so on. We are in America,Germany, Japan, Spain, we arestarting to get quite a goodreputation and our exports arenow 60% of our turnover.”

The products are distribut-ed to a variety of stores fromsupermarkets to airports.

“We have a range of prod-ucts,” William said. “Rory’sis designed for the budgetmarket. It sells very well.

“Grace’s is very much of aniche market. We are in allof the airports which we dofantastically with. We haveshortbread, oatmeal, chocolatechip, double chocolate chipsold in supermarkets here andwe export as well.”

Biscuit fans have given thetasty treats the seal of approval

as have food judging panels.“We just won a double gold

for the oatmeal biscuits at theTaste awards,” William said.

“We have also brought outGrace’s Irish fortune cookiesand we are bringing out a choc-olate-enrobed shortbread.”

William has big plans for thefuture.

“Our business is growingpretty rapidly,” he said.

“Wherever we are sales areincreasing and the exportpotential is good.

“We need to capitalise onwhat we have done so far.

“We are into America andnow into Australia. Spain isgrowing at a good rate.

“We want to turn Grace’sinto an Irish icon, as manycountries as we can get theproducts into.

“That is what NorthernIreland needs. We need to beproducing and exporting. Thatis where we need to focus.”For more information visitwww.gracesirishbiscuits.com

Grace’s Irish biscuits have been growing in popularity

ASK THE EXPERTS

All questions should be addressed to: [email protected] and advice are publishted in good faith but should not replace the advice of your professional financial advisor.

I have heard from other business owners that strategies can be imple-mented to reduce the overall cost of workplace pensions and automaticenrolment. What are these and how can they help ?

BDH: Two key cost saving strategies you should consider as an employerare ‘postponement’ and ‘salary exchange’.

Postponement is how it sounds — you postpone commencing contribu-tions for your staff up to a maximum of three months. This can be utilisedat your ‘staging date’, on an employee’s first day of employment or when anemployee first becomes eligible for automatic enrolment. Essentially youcan save up to three months’ worth of employer contributions for those‘eligible’ staff at outset and future newly eligible members of staff.

Salary exchange (SE) is a method of pension funding whereby an em-ployee agrees to exchange part of their salary to fund a pension from grossearnings. The result is that both parties, the employer and the employee,save National Insurance Contributions (NICs). Pension contributions there-fore cost less for everyone.

From experience, SE can save a business thousands of pounds on ayearly basis. The savings for the employer are exacerbated when theminimum compulsory contribution percentages increase in October 2017and 2018. As an example, based on the minimum percentages applicablefrom October 2018, the employer saving on pension contributions for anindividual utilising SE equates to 18.57 %.

Regulatory documentation is required for both of the above strategies.It should be noted that implementing SE without the assistance of an in-

dependent financial adviser (IFA) is difficult. Staff typically require adviceon SE as it can affect their entitlement to, as an example, state benefits.Other financial professionals such as accountants cannot typically provideadvice to staff regarding pensions and strategies such as SE.

I would recommend that you engage a local IFA who can assist withall of the above and your overall responsibilities and duties in relation toworkplace pensions and automatic enrolment.

ASK THE EXPERTS


CD: First of all I’ll say you arenot alone. In the last 12 monthsover £35bn of property loanshave been sold by Irish banks,which have affected hundredsof businesses across the island.Automatically you will have anumber of concerns. How shouldI approach this company and willthey be supportive of my businessand me?

Loan trades are now hugebusiness and the private equityfirms who specialise in this spacegenerally work to three to fiveor seven year business plans,whereas most business ownersin Northern Ireland are used toworking with their banks overlonger term facilities like 10/15years.

If you find yourself in this posi-tion you need to be well prepared.The new owner of your loans willwant to understand very quicklyhow you propose to pay themback. This maybe particularlytricky to do and more importantlyit requires you to ascertain theoptions open to you.

You will have to quickly iden-tify a capital partner or partners.Local banks might able to assistin some capacity — however itis probable that you will requirean additional capital partner tocome up with a more creative

My property loan has been sold to a private equity fund — whatshould I do?

finance package. There are anumber of specialised peoplein this arena however I wouldadvise you to look hard and fast

at the options and engage as soonas possible to ensure you stay incontrol of your assets and yourbusiness.

I am a small business ownerwho had 20 employees inmy Paye scheme as at April2012. What is my stagingdate and what are my pensionrequirements/legislativeresponsibilities?LR: Your staging date will beat some point between 1stNovember 2015 and the 1stApril 2017. The exact date willbe dictated by your PAYE ref-erence number and you shouldcontact the Pensions Regu-lator to confirm your stagingdate. The staging date is whenyour legal duties initially affectyou and oblige you to enrolsome or all of your workers intoa qualifying pension scheme.

You should start makingplans in good time as theremay be costs to consider.These might include the costof setting up the scheme, ob-taining the correct software tomanage automatic enrolmentand any independent adviceyou might decide to take.

If your initial assessmentof your workforce identifiedthat you have any staff whichare eligible for automaticenrolment, you’ll need to put apension scheme in place andenrol them into it.

You will need to choose anautomatic enrolment schemethat will provide a goodoutcome for your staff. Youmust have agreement from thepension scheme you’ve chosenthat, from your staging date, itwill be ready to accept all thestaff you need to enrol.

If you have a pensionscheme in place, you mustreview it and decide whether ornot you wish to continue usingit. The law relating to automat-ic enrolment means all work-place pension schemes mustmeet certain conditions basedon the contribution rates.

At your staging date youshould identify the staff whoneed to be automaticallyenrolled and also those whohave a right to join the schemeif they wish to do so. Youmust then write to your staffto tell them how automaticenrolment has affected them.Finally you should completea Declaration of Compliancewhich confirms to the PensionsRegulator that you have ful-filled your legal duties.

Sound advice can be a valuable commodityWe put your questions to the experts with the answers

Luke Robinson,Financial adviser at ASM

Conor DevinePrincipal at GDP Partnership

Brian David HornerM&D Financial Management Ltd(Independent financial advisers)

INSIDE REPORT

32

TRENDS move in one direction,but often then turn again. So it iswith off-shoring.

Back in the 1990s and early2000s, many companies sawthe opportunity to cut costs bytransferring production awayfrom the developed economies,to developing nations. Nowherebenefited more from this thanChina, with its low labour andother production costs. By thebeginning of the 21st Century,a quarter of Western Europeanmanufacturing was producedoff-shore, while half of all USmanufacturers off-shored someproduction.

But things have changed. Chinais no longer as cheap as it was,with wages often rising at abovethe inflation rate of the West.When oil costs soared — before,more recently, going down again— much of the savings from lowerwages were eaten by high logis-tical costs.

And then we had ‘just in time’stock management systemsadopted more widely. How couldstock be managed effectively ifit took weeks to receive orderedgoods? And buyers were forcedinto making guesses about howfashions would change, manymonths ahead.

Move the clocks forward afew years and the trend hasmoved into reverse. Where weonce had ‘off-shoring’, now thefocus is more on ‘re-shoring’ and‘near-shoring’. The prime exampleis manufacturers in the UnitedStates that have pulled produc-tion back from China to nearercountries, where it is quicker tobring goods to market, yet costsare still lower than within theUS. Mexico, in particular, hasbenefited.

But even this is not the endof the story. The latest survey byAlixPartners of the ‘re-shoring/near-shoring’ market has found

that many US companies findeven Mexico too far away. Moremanufacturers are now quotingrising labour costs, supply man-agement challenges, shortagesof skilled labour, quality controland regulatory and distributionproblems as factors leading themto move even closer to home —within the US. That near-shoringmovement has accelerated muchfaster because of cheap shale oiland it is one factor behind betterthan expected employment fig-ures in recent months.

It is plausible that NorthernIreland could similarly benefitfrom the ‘near-shoring’ process,

For decades companies have been ‘off-shoring’ jobs to developing nations in a bid todrive down costs, but is this trend being reversed? Paul Gosling investigates

TURNING THE


33

with UK companies pulling ac-tivities out of far away locationswhere they have insufficientcontrol, over to Northern Irelandwhere costs are lower, yet it iseasier to manage operations.In fact, this process has alreadybegun.

Arkk Solutions is a Lon-don-based financial regulatoryand compliance software compa-ny, which has just set up a smalloperation in Belfast. The officewill initially employ only 10 staff— but that is not the significantpoint. Rather, the significancelies in the fact that the companyhas opened the office in Belfastin place of one in India.

The company provides soft-ware services in the XBRL andiXBRL languages that are in-

creasingly being used to tag,understand and report data,including for the filing of fi-nancial information for tax andregulatory purposes. There is anavailability of skilled softwareengineers in Belfast to undertakethe work, just as there is in India.

Arkk Solutions’ founder andCEO Richard Metcalfe explainsthe attraction of Northern Ire-land: “We read in the press abouta lot of firms moving to Belfasta couple of years ago and thisseemed like an interesting op-tion for us,” he says. “We hadstarted to have misgivings overour operations in India — costswere starting to rise whereas pro-ductivity wasn’t, so we needed tofind a solution that would workwell for the company.

“We hired someone in Belfastwho we thought would be a greatteam lead, so strategically wehad been considering the movefor some time. With the supportof Invest NI who granted us£45,000 from their Jobs Fundwe now have an office for 10employees — seven currentlyhired — and we already think itisn’t big enough.

“Over recent years there hasbeen vast investment in NorthernIreland, particularly in educationand the technology sector. Thishas helped foster a spirit of entre-preneurship, IT innovation andproduct development — theseare all things that complementArkk Solutions and echo ourrapid growth.

“Having our operations based

within the same time zone as themajority of our clients allowsus to be nimble and to be ableto respond to our clients’ needsimmediately. This, coupled withlow office rents, labour coststhat are lower than in many UKregions and the fact that themajority of our clients are basedin the Republic of Ireland, UKand mainland Europe makesthe move to Belfast a low riskand very attractive proposition.”

Nor is Arkk alone. Lastyear mobile phone companyEE — which is currently beingbought by BT — reshored about1,000 jobs from the Philippines.Around 250 of those jobs will berelocated to Londonderry.

TIDE ON JOBS

CONTINUED ON P34>>


INSIDE REPORT


costs and good digital infrastruc-ture provide Northern Irelandwith particular advantages incompeting for nearshored jobs,he explains.

Many international companiesthat are ‘re-shoring’ — bringingactivities back, closer to home— have specific concerns driv-ing their relocations, adds DrBirnie. These include fears ofpolitically inspired disruptions

and electricity supply anxieties.But logistics is another majorworry. So Northern Ireland is ina weak situation in competing fornearshored activities if it cannotimprove transport connectivity,including a wider range of airroutes, he argues.

Despite this, the narrowing gapbetween wages in countries suchas China and India with those ofthe UK, have in particular under-

mined the traditional off-shoringbusiness model, believes PwC.

PwC points to a survey carriedout in 2013 by the Manufactur-ing Advisory Service Barometerwhich found that 14% of business-es have already reshored some oftheir activities, with companiesnow more likely to ‘near-shore’than to ‘off-shore’. NorthernIreland just might be in line fora big bite of this new cake.

Dr Esmond Birnie, chief econ-omist for PwC in Northern Ire-land, believes that this processof near-shoring could be an im-portant economic trend. He says:“A year ago, PwC published oureconomic outlook at a UK-widelevel. We said that by the middleof the next decade, near-shor-ing could potentially generate100,000 extra jobs in the UK,mainly in manufacturing, butalso in business services.

“We see opportunities in tex-tiles, clothing, computer andelectronics manufacturing andin business services. We did notdo any forecasting at a regionallevel, but I suppose NorthernIreland should get at least a prorata share of that, so that wouldbe 2,500 to 3,000 extra jobs bythe middle of the next decade.But this is subject to NorthernIreland getting the policy right,as with so many other things inthe economy.”

The prerequisites, suggests DrBirnie, include improving ourtransportation infrastructure,cutting our energy costs andensuring that we have the rightskills base. But our low labour

Near-shoring could create up to 100,000 manufacturing jobs in the UK over the next 10 years

<<CONTINUED FROM P33

TICKERS


LAST month’s labour marketstatistics contained a raft ofencouraging unemploymentheadlines. In terms of claimantcount unemployment (whichmeasures those individuals inreceipt of means tested unem-ployment benefits), NorthernIreland extended its winningstreak of falling unemploy-ment to 25 months.

Furthermore, January’smonthly decline of 1,700 claim-ants marked the largest de-cline since May 1999 (-2,200).Northern Ireland’s claimantcount stood at 48,200 in Janu-ary, which is the lowest level in69 months (April 2009).

Northern Ireland’s claimantcount has now fallen by 10,300(-17.6%) over the last year andby 16,600 (almost 26%) sincethe peak in December 2012(64,800). As a result, 40% ofthe cumulative rise in unem-ployment that occurred fol-lowing the downturn has beenrecovered. Northern Ireland’sLabour Force Survey (LFS) alsoincluded a variety of positiveunemployment headlines. TheInternational Labour Organ-isation (ILO) unemploymentrate eased to 5.7% in Q4 2014

and remains in line with theUK rate. This represented thelowest unemployment rate in71 months.

The number of ILO unem-ployed fell by 3,000 in thelatest quarter to 50,000. Thiscompares with a peak of 72,000in the three months to January2013. The younger generationhas borne the brunt of therecession as far as the labourmarket is concerned. Havingpeaked at 25% in Q3 2013, theunemployment rate for thoseaged between 18-24 years ofage has remained stubbornly

high. Encouragingly, however,the latest figures reveal a fallin Northern Ireland’s youthunemployment rate to 17.8%in Q4 2014 — a 34-month low.Whilst unemployment ine-quality based on age remains amajor policy concern, there hasbeen a significant convergencein the unemployment rateinequality between males andfemales. The male-dominatedmanufacturing and construc-tion industries bore the bruntof the job losses during thedownturn. This gave rise tothe term ‘mancession’ with

the male unemployment ratepeaking at 10.5% in early 2013.Conversely, female unemploy-ment peaked at 6.4%.

The year 2014 witnessed adramatic decline in the maleunemployment rate whichstood at 9.3% in Q1 2014 andhas fallen to 6.1% by Q4 2014.The latter represents thelowest rate in over five yearsand is just 0.7 percentagepoints above the equivalentrate amongst females (5.4%).This represents the narrowestdifferential in unemploymentrates in over seven years.

Ulster Bank chief economist Richard Ramsey gives a rundown on the lastest key pointers

UK consumer prices postedtheir lowest reading on recordwith an annual rise of just0.3% in January.

This compared with the0.5% year-on-year rise inDecember. Food prices fell by2.7% y/y in January, the steep-est annual decline on record.

UK food prices are nowat their lowest level sinceNovember 2012 and have fallenby 3.1% since last February.Transport fuels and lubricants(petrol and diesel) recorded arecord annual decline of 16.2%last month with prices down

almost 23% since their April2012 peak. Household utilitybills fell last month by 2% year-on-year.

The Monetary Policy Com-mittee (MPC) estimates thattwo-thirds of the gap betweenthe current inflation rate andthe 2% target rate is explainedby sharp falls in food and ener-gy prices. Further falls in CPIare expected.

Beyond this short-term,consumer price inflation isexpected to rise back towards2% (the MPC’s target rate) byQ1 2017.

The latest Northern IrelandResidential Property PriceIndex (RPPI) reported itsseventh successive quarter ofprice rises.

Residential property pricesincreased by 1% q/q in Q4 withprices some 8% higher than thecorresponding period in 2013.Northern Ireland’s residentialproperty prices recorded apeak-to-trough decline of 57%between Q3 2007 and Q1 2013.Prices have subsequently risenby 13%.

From a wider economic

perspective, the continuedrise in transactions is a moresignificant signal that therecovery is strengthening. Res-idential property transactionsincreased by 22% in 2014. Thistook the volume of transac-tions to a 7-year high.

Transactions remain halfof the level in the ‘freak peak’that was 2006 and 30% below2005’s more ‘normal’ levels.Further growth in houseprices, and more importantlytransactions, are expected inthe year ahead.

This month’s local indicators at a glance

BUSINESSPEOPLE

people on the bus, the wrongpeople off the bus, and theright people in the right seats.”

At Simple Power, we aredeveloping a network of smallscale 250kW wind turbines onfarms throughout NorthernIreland. We handle the wholeprocess, from site assessmentand planning to constructionand grid connection. Withinour multi-functioning team,it is important for me as the“captain” to read the game andprovide direction, to ensurethe success of our strategy.Like rugby, we must play toour strengths as a business,acknowledging weaknesses,challenges in the market andfiguring out the “best play” toovercome these.

My teammates and I were nodifferent to the driven youngathletes playing in this year’sSix Nations. Above all, we had

a strong sense of belief. Thisbelief cannot be underestimat-ed. It is as applicable in busi-ness as it is on the pitch. Beliefin yourself helps you confrontobstacles that come your way.Belief in others helps you do sowith support, encouragementand confidence.

I adhere to a ‘carpe diem’approach in both businessand in life. This was enforcedin a very real way during myrugby career, when, one dayin 1987, myself and threeteammates were caughtup in an IRA car bombon the Irish border. Itwas devastating forall involved; Lord andLady Gibson, a judgeand his wife who weretravelling in the car infront, were killed in theexplosion.

Tragically, due

WITH the SixNations upon usagain, it’s a goodtime to reflecton the valua-

ble lessons I learned duringmy rugby career as a formerBallymena, Ulster and Irishinternational rugby player.

I’m in no doubt that themany skills I picked up duringmy sporting days — from theability to “read the game”,work as part of a team andmotivate others — have servedme well in the twin worlds ofbusiness and management.These core sporting abilitieshave, most recently, shaped myrole as chief executive of localwind energy company, SimplePower.

Primarily, rugby taught meabout commitment as a pre-cursor to achievement. To getanywhere in any sport requireshard work, dedication andunwavering determination.Rugby introduced me to theage old mantra, “the more youput in, the more you get out”.

Rugby is also a team game.From an early age, it providedme with an invaluable insightinto the benefit of workingwith others to achieve the bestoutcome. There’s one particu-lar match — the 1984 clashbetween Ulster and the tour-ing Australian side — in whichI’m often remembered as theplayer who scored the winningpoints, but it was in fact a realteam effort.

It’s very much the sameoff the pitch. Every businessis, in essence, a team; whereeveryone has their own role toplay, and if they play it well,the whole company succeeds.Rugby taught me the impor-tance of having the right peo-ple in the right positions, usingtheir complementary skills towork towards a common goal.As management expert JimCollins puts it: “Get the right

The Northern Ireland Businessperson who...

Simple Power boss Philip Rainey on how his rugby career taught him to seize the day

Philip Rainey playing rugby for Ireland v New Zealand, November 1989

... played rugby for Ireland

to his injuries, it ended therugby career of my Irelandteammate, Nigel Carr. I wasremarkably unscathed, but,like everyone in that car,incredibly shaken. It was oneof those things that you neverthought would happen to you.But the events of that day pro-vided us all with a new sense ofperspective. On the pitch, webecame known for pushing theboundaries.

As for me, my experiencesfrom those days — both goodand bad — have undoubtedlyshaped my career. I certainlydon’t worry so much about thefuture, and never let myselfdwell on the little things in life.

Possessing such an attitudeencouraged me to move intothe renewable energy indus-try in 2012; back when it wasa relatively unknown world.I wanted to take a risk onsomething I believed in. Sincethen, I hope that I have becomea collaborative, flexible andopen-minded chief executive atSimple Power. We are currentlyfacing a range of challenges —such as helping Northern Ire-land to reach its 2020 energytargets — and such a perspec-tive is helping keep me drivenand focused every day.

Throughout my rugbycareer, I worked with someincredible mentors who havereally shaped my leadershipstyle. One who stands out isthe late Jimmy Davidson, ourUlster coach, who constantlyencouraged us. He invested

his time in us and, in return,we respected him above

all else.This is an approach I

try to bring to my teamin business; motivat-ing us all, together, toachieve our goals. I’m

confident it will helpus win, both on

and off thepitch.


FOCUS ON: THE MOTOR INDUSTRY


THE state of the motor-ing industry is one of thekey barometers of thehealth of the economy.

Soaring consumer con-fidence has translatedinto an eight year peakin new car sales in Brit-ain in the first month ofthe year.

However, the numberof vehicles leaving North-ern Ireland’s forecourtsfell by nearly 5%, thoughmotor dealers and ana-lysts alike have said theJanuary fall was a blip.

Figures from the Societyof Motor Manufacturersand Traders (SMMT) saythat 6,356 new cars weresold in Northern Irelandin January, compared to 6,661 in January2014.

The shrinkage compares with recordgrowth of almost 7% for the UK and 31%for the Republic of Ireland.

However, the fall in January markedonly the second time since February 2013that Northern Ireland had recorded ayear-on-year decline in new car sales,following a slump in August 2014.

Despite the dip, new car sales in Jan-uary still surpassed levels in Januaryin the five years up to 2013.

The latest January fall contrastswith a 6% rise in the number ofnew cars sold in the previous12-months.

Despite the healthy marketover that year, when some56,897 new automobiles weresold, Northern Ireland’s mar-ket experienced a steep peak-to-trough decline in sales in thedownturn that was higher than therest of the UK. (-32% versus -25% forthe UK and -69% for the Republicof Ireland).

Ulster Bank chief economist RichardRamsey said: “To date, Northern Irelandhas recouped less than half (46%) of thedecline in new car sales that occurredbetween 2007 and 2012.

“During the 12 months to January 2015,the number of new cars sold in NorthernIreland was 11,811 fewer (or -17%) below

the peak (68,708) in 2007,” he said.“Conversely, UK new car sales

are at a 10-year high.”Mr Ramsey maintains

that reductions in fuelprices will continue toboost disposable incomes

in the months ahead,thus “should supportthe new car sales market

in the near term”.Meanwhile, Belfast

Harbour, the main entryand exit point for goodsand services to NorthernIreland, reported thatthe number of vehiclespassing through in 2014was up 10% to 48,000 —the highest level since2007.

And despite January’sdrop, Northern Irelanddealerships SERE Mo-tors, Donnelly Groupand Charles Hurst, areall confident about thefuture.

Stanley Edgar, man-aging director at SEREMotors, said much of

January’s decline in sales could be owingto the withdrawal of the Chevrolet fromthe UK market.

Using figures from the Driver and Ve-hicle Licensing Agency, he said the dropof 172 car sales in January — when 6490cars were sold — compared to the previousyear’s tally of 6318, was “not a lot of carsin the scale of things”.

Around 80% of the SERE Motors busi-ness is from the used car market — and he

said January had seen a 30% increasein all sales.

And “standard small cars” likethe Volkswagen Golf, VauxhallCorsa and Seat Ibiza were amongthe most popular. “People aremoving away from the 4x4s into

the mainstream cars and aredown-sizing,” he says.

But for those with deeperpockets, he said that sales ofused Mercedes had also goneup. He believes though, thatwhile the green market hadbeen “struggling” to gain a

Motor industry revving upfor a full throttle futureNorthern Ireland’s forecourts expect attractive finance deals, falling fuel costs and anenthusiasm for hybrid models will continue to boost their trade, writes Lesley Houston

Continued on p40 >>

Ulster Bank chief economist Richard

in the near term”.Meanwhile, Belfast

Harbour, the main entry and exit point for goods and services to Northern Ireland, reported that the number of vehicles passing through in 2014 was up 10% to 48,000 — the highest level since 2007.

drop, Northern Ireland dealerships SERE Mo-tors, Donnelly Group and Charles Hurst, are all confident about the future.

aging director at SERE Motors, said much of

January’s decline in sales could be owing


FOCUS ON: THE CAR INDUSTRY

<< Continued from p39


tric models and the improvingvariety of ‘plug-ins’ means “moreand more people are keen to trythem out”.

Malcolm Kerry, managing di-rector of Donnelly Group, saidthere had been “a huge uplift inactivity in February” across its

seven sites. The Corsa and Golfwere still popular models —though he also named the Fiat500 among the top sellers, withthe Renault Captur among thepopular SUVs.

Mr Kerr agreed with thegrowth in ‘plug-ins’, particularly

with the launch of the MitsubishiOutlander PHEV, an electric vehi-cle which is exempt from car tax.

“While small vehicles will dom-inate the market for some yearsyet, we are witnessing the slowrise of a new dawn in motoring,”he said.

operations director at dealershipCharles Hurst, part of Lookersplc, said it was important toput the January fall in sales“in context”. “Overall, new carsales in Northern Ireland havebeen growing solidly, steadilyand strongly since volume salespeaked in 2007, with last year’sfull year figure of more than57,000 vehicles the strongestsince 2008.”

He says key market variableslike choice, attractive financedeals and promotions will un-derpin future growth, aided bycheaper fuel.

“We’re confident, given ourown registered sales last monthand the increase in enquirieswhich were produced, whencombined with the increasedattractiveness of cheaper fuel,that the local market is well posi-tioned for more growth in 2015.”

Mr McNab reported a spikein SUVs — up 9% on the year— including a strong showingfrom the Hyundai IX35 andNissan Juke.

On the luxury scale, Ferraris,Bentleys and Aston Martins wereup as much as 70%, while elec-

Hurst expects attractive finance deals and promotions to underpin growth, boosted by a drop in fuel prices

FOCUS ON: OFFICE SPACE


THE workplace of thefuture won’t be whatwe’re used to.A massive growth inhot-desking, home-working, and staff whowork ‘on the move’means the traditionalconcept of the office israpidly being shelved.

Technological ad-vances such as cloudcomputing have creat-ed virtual offices at astroke, making manyof the trappings of theconventional ‘fixed space’office redundant.

For a growing num-ber of workers, the officeis now the sofa, kitchentable, café or train. Indeed, a bigtrend is for workers to abandontheir office entirely and organisetheir working day from a thirdspace that is neither the office,nor the home – a place that hasbeen nicknamed the ‘coffice’.Rather than having a fixed loca-tion to work from, many workersare gravitating towards coffeeshops or fast food chains wherethere is wifi connectivity andcoffee on demand.

Companies and employeesare reaping the benefits of thisrevolutionary transformation inwork practices.

For employers, it’s an oppor-tunity to cut overheads. Forhome-workers, it offers reducedcommuting times and travel costs— together with the option to be‘at work’ instantly.

The phenomenon of mobileor remote working is spreading— and the rapid pace of changelooks set to continue.

Nearly half of all UK busi-nesses now enable staff to workat home on an occasional basis,

according to a recent BTBusiness Insights poll,

Indeed, many workers alreadyoperate on the move and doso more effectively than theiroffice-bound colleagues, the BTstudy found.

These trends are shaping andtransforming the planning anddesign of tomorrow’s offices.

Modern office designers arenow being asked to put the funinto functional, by creatingflexible ‘breakout zones’ and

‘brainstorming hubs’ thatappeal to a more flexibleworkforce. As a result,staid meeting rooms andlifeless staff canteens areundergoing a process ofreinvention.

Where this trend is hav-ing the biggest impact isin firms that require staffto work from a fixed of-fice space at all times, be-cause as mobile workingbecomes more common,fixed space offices areunder increasing pres-sure to remain attractiveplaces to work. Officedesign is therefore seenas playing a vital role in

helping to boost staff morale andassist with employee retention.

Grant Thornton, whichemploys 250 staff atits ClarendonDock officesin the city,sees officedesign asimportantin helping toattract and re-tain young grad-uates.

The Bel-fast-based businessconsultants have in-vested large sums ofmoney in re-inventingtheir workplace to “inspirecreativity and productivity”among staff.

“Office space does not haveto be traditional and boring — itcan be a fun place for people towork and relax during breaks andrecommend to their friends as agreat place to work,” said LisaAllen, the design guru who led

RE-INVENTINGWith the growing trend for ‘hot-desking’, ‘working from home’ and

‘on the move’, Simon Rowe looks at the implications for firms whichrequire their staff to continue working from traditional office spaces

Office spacedoes not have

to be traditional andboring — it can bea really fun place forpeople to work andto relax in duringtheir breaks

Grant Thornton, which employs 250 staff at its Clarendon Dock offices in the city, sees office design as important in helping to attract and re-tain young grad-

The Bel-fast-based business consultants have in-vested large sums of money in re-inventing their workplace to “inspire creativity and productivity” among staff.

“Office space does not have to be traditional and boring — it can be a fun place for people to work and relax during breaks and recommend to their friends as a great place to work,” said Lisa Allen, the design guru who led

workplace of the future won’t be what

massive growth in hot-desking, home-working, and staff who work ‘on the move’ means the traditional concept of the office is rapidly being shelved.

Technological ad-vances such as cloud computing have creat-ed virtual offices at a stroke, making many of the trappings of the conventional ‘fixed space’

For a growing num-ber of workers, the office is now the sofa, kitchen table, café or train. Indeed, a big

according to a recent BT Business Insights poll,

‘brainstorming hubs’ that appeal to a more flexible workforce. As a result, staid meeting rooms and

helping to boost staff morale and assist with employee retention.

CONTINUED ON P44>>


ust volorrum utatiata volenda quiani alitati ratiumet et vendus diset voluptas ut ium nihilla quamusduscipis ressequam quassimus.

‘OFFICE LIFE’

FOCUS ON OFFICES


the Grant Thornton design pro-ject.

“We sought to design a crea-tive workspace where staff feelexcited to work,” she said.

Grant Thornton engaged theservices of local fit-out specialistsMarcon to advise on buildmaterials and furniturein its office revamp. Theend product was a se-ries of themed meet-ing rooms based onHollywood block-busters HarryPotter, Star Wars(right) and WillyWonka.

“Inspirationfor my designscame from what the likes ofUniversal and Disney can cre-ate,” said Ms Allen. “Life, alongwith work, can be stressful andpeople can find it hard to gain awork-life balance. My design aimwas to create an open functionaloffice design for Grant Thorn-ton people to work in, yet haveunique meeting rooms wherethey can step away from their

desks and feel theyhave been transported

to a jungle when theyare in the Jurassic Room,

or a spaceship when in theStar Wars room, or magically

be in the Common Room atHogwarts.”

Marcon, which has an im-pressive track record in officeredesign projects and has justcompleted work for Google,Amazon and Groupon, manu-

factured and installed all of thespecialist joinery throughoutthe Grant Thornton project. Aswell as constructing the mov-ie-themed meeting rooms, Mar-con manufactured and fitted anew curved walnut receptiondesk, fabric wall panels, fea-ture boardroom tables, glazedscreens, and breakout areas.

However, while fun is good,functional still has its place whenit comes to office furniture, espe-

cially for reasons of ergonomicsand health and safety.

Allister Mulligan, boss of DeskWarehouse, a major supplier ofoffice furniture to call centresand construction firms, saysworkplace safety remains a bigfactor in office furniture trends.

“We have a lot of companieswho spend a lot of money onchairs just to eliminate any riskto themselves from back injuryclaims. These companies don’tmind spending hundreds andhundreds of pounds to stop thishappening,” he said.

Desk Warehouse is one ofBelfast’s biggest office furniturespecialists with a 6,000 sq ftshowroom and 10,000 sq ft store.

Investment in office designalso sends a strong message toemployees and makes them feelvalued, said Gareth Neill, a sen-ior partner at Grant Thornton.

“It was important for us toinvest in a creative environ-ment, showing we care aboutour people, while inspiring themto grow with the business andmost importantly recognisingthe excellent work that theydo,” he said.

Office revamp: an exciting place for staff to work

<<CONTINUED FROM P43

45

RISINGABOVE

IT ALLA JOURNEYON PERU’S

LARES TREK

MOTORING

RIGHT MIXMitsubishi’s Outlander enhances hybrid cars

DAY INTHE LIFE

PAUL CONVERYHead of BT Business

MANABOUTTOWN

THE CHAIRMANInside track on Northern Ireland business

OFF LINE SECTION


OUT TO LUNCHof

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OxSoup £4.00Celeriac £7.00John Dory x2 £36.00Desserts x2 £8.00Wine x2 gls £14.00Espresso x2 £4.00Total £73.00

We’re headingin the rightdirection, but. . .Joris Minne goes out to lunch with Noel Brady, one of the top business advisors and fixersin Northern Ireland, and hears his views on the latest bid to rebalance our economy

IN the last 20 years the Northern Ire-land business community has grownin numbers, learned to dress well andbecome younger. While older estab-lishment figures still rattle around the

members’ lounges of the CBI and IoD, thenew suits are dominating.

The ICT sector, for example, employsmore than 18,000 in greater Belfast, mar-keting and design agencies are matchingthe quality of top Dublin and Europeanoperators and the agri-food sector hasgone all street-foodie and cool.

Is there room in this brave new worldfor any of the experienced seniors? NoelBrady’s record goes back to the 1980swhich makes him one of the establish-ment. But Brady has approached the chal-lenges with a David Bowie style strategy ofcontinual change and adjustment.

The former CEO of SX3 is now one ofthe top business advisers and fixers in thenorth. His agency, NB1, offers potentialnewcomers, investors and expansionists toNorthern Ireland markets the kind of ser-vice only an insider with the deepest rootscould provide. He says these roots go back37 years in public and private sectors.

“When I was a civil servant and Mar-garet Thatcher was in charge, a policy ofmarket testing was introduced to identifyareas of government which could be priva-

tised,” he recollects over a light and invig-orating lunch in Ox. (We are surroundedby some of those earlier establishmentfigures and Noel nods graciously to themall. They all know him.)

“One of the first functions to be markettested was the area I was in, computing,in the then Department of Finance ,” hesays. “The Central Information SystemsDivision became the first to be outsourcedin 1991 and I went with it.” The divisionbecame part of the CFM Group, then ICLand now operates under the Fujitsu brand.

Brady appears flamboyant with anexpensive brush top hair cut, a pair of red-framed spectacles and chunky gold jewel-lery. His manners are impeccable, there isno hint of narcissism and the clarity of histhinking is unparalleled.

“When companies approach me witha view to entering Northern Ireland Ianalyse them back to the bare metal. OnceI understand their offer, I work out a net-work engagement plan to begin pluggingthem into Northern Ireland’s fabric. Thereare many layers of this fabric. My job is toconnect them to those networks,” he says.

There’s something of the doctor’sbedside manner about him. His ability tolisten and assimilate complex informationis well known. His experience crossingfrom public to private sector also informs

him of his current economic views.“Market testing worked 25 years ago so

why would it not work now? This is notabout taking jobs out of the public sectorbecause 20,000 posts are already ear-marked. It’s about doing what we said we’ddo which is create more private sector jobsto replace the shrinking public sector.”

If Finance Minister Simon Hamiltonwants to rebalance the public and privatesectors here, Noel Brady’s advice is to de-vise a new privatisation strategy, reintro-duce market testing and get on with it.

Despite the challenges our economyfaces, his outlook is cautiously positive.“There is a distinct sense that we areheading in the right direction. But I neverunderestimate how fragile our collectiveconfidence can be.”

YOUNG ENTERPRISE

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This month I’m going to tellyou about my first experienceselling at a trade fair. If youhad seen me you would havethought I was on The Appren-tice or Dragon’s Den.

On February 4 a few mem-bers of my team and I rockedup to the Kennedy Centre withour products, posters and dis-play board, ready to ‘wow’ theBelfast public — and we did.

But let me tell you, it’sharder than it looks. Sellingis hard. People don’t want tobe stopped during their busylives by someone trying to getmoney from them. They justaren’t interested. And I thinkcharm is one of those thingsthat either you’ve got it or youdon’t. But after a short periodof flopping we clicked on tothe trick — freebies. Who canresist free stuff? Suddenly ourtable was constantly crowdedwhich gave us an amazing

opportunity to promote ourbusiness, showcase our hardwork and efforts, and get directfeedback from customers on allwe’ve done.

For anyone who didn’t getthe chance to see us at theKennedy Centre, our companyis selling branded sports bags,which is funding our social aim

to put together a road safetycampaign to create awarenessamongst young people aboutthis serious issue. We havecreated a presentation thatwe hope to deliver to youngchildren, educating them onthe dangers we face on theroads and give advice on howto be safer.

By Aoidin Gormley of RathmoreGrammar School, Belfast

Young entrepreneurs turn on a slick sales techniqueAt the Kennedy Centre we

gave away free reflective gearsuch as high visibility vests,slapbands, bike lights, bagsand pens. We were thrilled toreceive such amazingly feed-back from the public.

There was a lot of work putin before we were ready toattend the event so the fewdays prior were very stressful.Everyone was running aroundlike headless chickens printingposters for our displays, en-suring we had enough stock tolast the day and checking theteam was prepared for the day.

To be honest, we came homeexhausted. However, it helpedus identify our strengths andweaknesses as a team and wegained valuable first-handskills such as persuasive salestechniques and customer in-teraction which will no doubthelp us later down the line.

It was an all-round very suc-cessful and enjoyable day, andcoming home with two awardsdefinitely made all the stressworth it.

Michael Lynch, Damon Teer and Aoidin Gormley, from Rathmore Gram-mar School, take their company, AirOis, to the Young Enterprise TradeFair at the Kennedy Centre

DAY IN THE LIFEof

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‘It’sthevariationthat makesBTan excitingplace to work’

Paul ConveryHead of BT Business

6.30amMy morning starts with myselfand my wife Dervla gettingthe children up and ready forschool. We have a four-year-oldand a 14-month-old so you canimagine that breakfast timeis never a quiet occasion inour household. It’s definitelya team effort as we both workfull time so we usually prepareas much as possible the nightbefore so that each day startssmoothly. When it’s my day forthe school run, I tend to checkemails at home before I takeour daughter to school andthen I travel into the office,where I am based at BT’s Tele-phone House in Belfast.

8amThis week, we are hosting anevent for key SMEs in the localmarket to introduce them tothe benefits of our latest offer-ing, BT Cloud Voice. BT CloudVoice is a new business-gradeIP voice service, which usesproven IP communicationstechnology to deliver reliable,high quality calls over theinternet. This technology isthe future of business voicecommunications and it is animportant tool to help equipcompanies for success. We

are proud that the event willoffer businesses the chance tolisten to two inspiring specialguest speakers. This willinclude Jonny Quinn, drum-mer in international bandSnow Patrol and co-founderof music publishing companyPolar Patrol Publishing, andChris Johnston, founder andCEO of Adoreboard, a brandintelligence company that wasrecently awarded ‘Best techstart-up’ at the ITLG SiliconValley Global TechnologyForum. Both businessmen rec-ognise the importance of usingtechnology to future-prooftheir business and stay con-nected to clients even whenthey are out of the office — akey benefit of BT Cloud Voice.

11amI manage a large team ofpeople located across NorthernIreland and I am ultimatelyresponsible for the customerexperience of our businesscustomer base in NorthernIreland. It is extremely impor-tant for me to remain in touchwith my teams on a daily basisto help them to deliver the topclass experience that you ex-pect from BT as a world-classcommunications provider. As

many of my teams are basedoutside of the office, technol-ogy is key to staying connect-ed with them. Throughoutthe day, I rely heavily on ourconferencing facilities to keepin touch with the local salesteams and to also bring largervirtual teams together fromacross the UK to ensure sharedlearning and regular contactwith colleagues in GB. Commu-nication is what it’s all about.

3pmCustomers expect superiorcustomer service from BT andwith this in mind high levels ofservice delivery are expectedfor each customer. As well asusing technology to stay con-nected to customers when I amin the office, it is also impor-tant for me to regularly meetwith as many customers andpartners as possible and talk tothem about their experiencesof our services. Any given daycan involve a customer sitevisit so this could mean I amtravelling to Derry one day andthen to Carrick the next. Mo-bile communications are at theheart of what we do and givenour agile working lifestyle, theability to stay in touch reacheswell beyond the office.

5.45pmI normally aim to leave theoffice at around 5.45pm to tryand avoid the height of therush hour. Once I’m home,Dervla and I spend time withthe children. We all have din-ner together and always makesure that there is time for play.I tend to prepare all eveningmeals the previous weekend,so it usually makes for a hasslefree night for the whole family.Bedtime is a tag team opera-tion, with Dervla and myselfputting our daughters to bed.What’s left of our evening isnormally given up to a tidy upand preparation for the nextday. But one of the great ben-efits of working for BT is thatI can use the latest technologyavailable to stay connected re-motely from my home office, soI generally check the inbox toensure that things are as theyshould be and if there is a cus-tomer escalation or somethingthat needs urgent attention, Ideal with it quickly. Every cus-tomer is important and I like todeal with every mail as quicklyas it comes to me.

It’s fair to say no two daysare the same, but it’s the vari-ety that makes BT an excitingand innovative place to work.

MOTORING NEWS

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THE Freight Transport Asso-ciation’s Transport ManagerConference is taking place atTitanic Belfast on March 3. Theconference provides all the in-formation and advice transportmanagers need to meet thechallenges of the rapidly chang-ing transport scene in NorthernIreland.

The event, sponsored byBrigade Electronics and VolvoTrucks, and supported by me-dia partner Export & Freightmagazine, is covering the keyissues facing transport manag-ers in the year ahead and willinclude a keynote address byEnvironment Minister Mark HDurkan.

The minister will addressthe conference on the latestroadside enforcement meas-ures, future proposals andlegislation. There will alsobe an insight into the futureenforcement of regulations bythe Transport Regulation Unit(TRU).

Keith Morrison, the chiefexecutive of the Health and

Safety Executive NorthernIreland, will discuss safety intransport and warehousing.

Volvo will discuss the trucksof the future. Sally Gilson fromthe FTA will discuss the drivershortage/

There will be a TransportManager interactive quiz,while the PSNI will discuss thelatest enforcement priorities.

Call for politicians tohelp reduce road deathsTHE Royal Society for the Pre-vention of Accidents (RoSPA)is backing calls for graduateddriver licensing to help cut thenumber of young drivers killedor injured on the UK’s roads.

It is one of a range of poten-tially-lifesaving initiatives thatRoSPA would like to see includ-ed in a Green Paper on youngdrivers, in a bid to save thehundreds of 17 to 24-year-oldskilled or injured on the roadsevery year — 131 were killed in2013, while 1,159 were left withserious injuries.

RoSPA has written to allmajor political parties, askingthem to agree to a Green Paperon young drivers and include

it in their manifestos ahead ofthe General Election. Gradu-ated driver licensing is a partof this, along with telematics(or black box technology) andenhanced training. It is backedby 24 influencers, charities andorganisations.

Tom Mullarkey, RoSPA’schief executive, said, “Far toomany young lives are being loston our roads each year, so it isimperative that we take a moreradical approach in order to re-duce the number of casualties.

Premier driving eventcomes to BedfordshireCOMPANY Car in Action(CCIA), the UK’s premier driv-ing event, will celebrate its 25thanniversary when it returnson June 16 and 17 at MillbrookProving Ground, Bedfordshire.

Over 20 motor manufac-turers, including BMW, FiatGroup, Ford, Hyundai, Infiniti,Jaguar, Kia, Land Rover, Lex-us, MINI, Maserati, Peugeot,Renault, SEAT, Toyota, Vaux-hall and Volvo, will be bringingtheir latest cars to the ‘arriveand drive’ event.

Organised by Fleet News, the

fortnightly business-to-busi-ness title for the fleet industry,CCIA offers motor manufactur-ers and fleet industry suppliersan opportunity to reach keyfleet decision makers.

As well as driving on fourunique and purpose-built testroutes — city, off-road, alpinehill and high speed — all in onelocation, visitors to this year’sevent will be able to view in-formative displays and servicesin the exhibition hall. Theywill also be able to take part inseries of industry debates onrunning a low emissions fleet,which will offer practical stepsto implement policy to drivedown fleets’ CO2 emission.

There will be a debate onrunning a safer fleet, whichwill combine presentationsand a panel discussion withspecialists who have experi-ence implementing duty ofcare policies. There will also bediscussions on running an effi-cient fleet in the public sector,which will share best practiceas well as offer a comprehen-sive guide to the very bestand most innovative means ofefficient, compliant and costeffective fleet management.

Titanic hosts conferencefor transport managers

MOTORINGof

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Best of both worldsMitsubishi’s new Outlander enhances the appeal of hybrid cars, says Jim McCauley

Mitsubishi’s Out-lander PHEVis the world’sfirst all-wheeldrive, plug-in

hybrid SUV which is set toextend the appeal of this newgeneration of vehicles.

Hybrid or twin-poweredvehicles represent the mar-riage between the internalcombustion engine and elec-tric motors in order to im-prove economy and addressenvironmental issues.

As with petrol and dieselengine technologies, man-ufacturers have developed

their own unique packagesfor hybrid vehicles with Mit-subishi being one of the firstto address electric power andhave a car in series produc-tion.

Now that early expertisebased on 40 years of researchhas been further developedin their Outlander SUV, pro-ducing a vehicle that can betruly seen as the leader of thepack, in that is has coveredall options in an attractiveand well packaged solution.And furthermore, the newOutlander PHEV is not onsale at a crippling premium

over the company’s dieselalternative, but at a similarprice, an initial bonus forpondering customers.

The driving power in theOutlander PHEV is a pairof 80hp electric motors, oneon each axle which providepermanent all-wheel drive.Supporting the power ofthe electric motors is thecompany’s well proven119bhp 2.0-litre petrol enginewhich essentially sees thatadequate battery charge isalways available, but canadditionally directly com-plement the electric motor

on the front axle as the needarises. The total motive pow-er package is rated at 200hp,indicating the performancepotential of the vehicle.

As well as the on-boardgeneration of electricity,the Outlander PHEV can beplugged into the mains fora full battery charge whichwill allow it to cover around32 miles before the petrolengine needs to cut in. So im-mediately it can be seen thatrelatively short drives, whichare statistically what wemost use our vehicles for, canbe covered for a few pence of


MITSUBISHI OUTLANDER PHEV

Engine: 2.0 litre petrol and2 X 80 HP electric motorsgiving a total workingoutput of 200 BHPDrive: Automatic to all fourwheelsPerformance: 0-62mph(100km/h) in 11.0 seconds;max, 106 mph (170 km/h)Fuel on combined cycle:148.7 mpg (1.9 l/100km)CO2: 44 gms/km; VEDBand A for zero annual car taxTrim: GX3HPrice: £28,249 including £5,000 government grantInsurance: N/AWarranty: 60 months / 62,500 milesBenefit-in-Kind: 5%Euro NCAP: Percent driver: 94%Percent pedestrian: 64%Percent child: 83%

mains electricity, while onlonger journeys with the pet-rol engine support, the rangefrom its 45-litre fuel tank isin excess of 500 miles.

On road, and with a fullycharged battery pack, a sim-ple ‘Ready’ on the instrumentpanel allows you to driveoff silently with no tailpipeemissions. Simple graphicson the display highlightthe power source and alsoindicate when regenerativebraking further assists incharging the batteries.

With automatic powerdelivery, there are just twochoices on the ‘gear-lever’ —forward or reverse — and thevehicle drives no different-ly from any other engineoption.

The Outlander PHEV cancomplete the benchmark0-62 mph sprint in just 11seconds with mid rangeacceleration always instanta-

neous en route to a top speedof 106 mph.

With the weight distri-bution carefully balancedthroughout the vehicle, itrides well and steers compe-tently, disguising its hi-tecpackaging to feel like anyother SUV competitor, andconfirming its engineeringexcellence as well as driverappeal.

Keeping to the main-stream feel, the cabin is alsobiased towards traditionallayout, reinforcing the factthat this is an alternativechoice in the Outlandermodel range rather thansomething that has to bedifferent for the sake of it.A cavernous cabin providesexcellent room with comfort-able seating for all occupantsas well as a large boot area.And this traditional familiar-ity extends to the exteriorin a vehicle that carries an

elegance in a softer designstatement than is generallyassociated with SUVs.

But the true appeal of thevehicle is in its economy andlow running costs. While thelimited mileage official econ-omy test records the modelat 148 mpg in mixed driving,the truth is that this couldbe exceeded if the majorityof driving was done withfrequently mains chargedbatteries using the vehiclemostly in electric (EV) modeonly. For longer journeys,when the engine would alsobe used as a generator orfront axle power support,the figure would be muchless. However, in several daysmixed driving on local roadswith overnight charging,I was able to comfortablyexceed the official mileagefigure for the diesel Out-lander.

With a CO2 emissions

figure of just 44 gms/km, theOutlander PHEV is exemptfrom annual road tax and isparticularly appealing forbusiness users with a BIK taxrating of only 5%.

Equipment-wise, the testvehicle was in basic GX3Htrim but includes seven air-bags, 18-inch alloys, hill-startassist, rear parking sensors,automatic lights and wipers,dual zone climate control,fabric/leather-look uphol-stery, cruise control withspeed limiter, and Bluetoothconnectivity as the high-lights in a comprehensivespecification list.

Including the Govern-ment grant of £5,000, theOutlander PHEV is availablefor £28,249 and is coveredby Mitsubishi’s comprehen-sive three-year/unlimitedmileage warranty, with fiveyears support on electricalcomponents.


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1. JUNE AVBracelet approx £70@ www.netatmo.com

Electronics company Netatmo unveils itsfirst bracelet that measures sun exposureby advising women how to protect theirskin from its rays. The JUNE braceletand its companion App track UV in-tensity in real-time and the total sunexposure absorbed by the user’s skinthroughout the day. Depending on thewoman’s skin type, the App calculates

the suggested maximum daily exposure. To avoid sun damage, theApp can notify the user when to protect their skin and the Appalso features a summary of time spent in the sun. The braceletobserves the habits of the user and the companion App determinesthe recommended sun protection for their skin type whether itbe applying SPF, putting on a hat, wearing sun glasses or seekingout shade. It comes in gold, platinum and gunmetal.

3. Smarter Coffee wificoffee machine£149.99@ www.firebox.comDo you literally want to wakeup and smell the coffee? Wellnow you can with anothereveryday device that has be-come smarter. Now you cancontrol how and when youmake your coffee with yoursmartphone or tablet. Thisfuturistic appliance makesdelicious coffee straight frombean to cup, grinding andbrewing it in one fell swoop.Best of all, it grinds and brews“on de-mand” soyou won’twaste asinglebean. AndSmarterCoffee istailoredto yourpersonaltastes.

4. Sony 4K BRAVIATVsapprox £1000 @ www.sony.comElectronic giant Sony is launching 12 new 4K Ultra HD BRAVIALCD models. Boasting even more picture quality than before thisnew line of BRAVIA sets includes the world’s thinnest series of TVsas well as the world’s first series with Hi-Res compatible speakers.In addition, Sony is equipping a wide range of 4K and Full HDsets with Google’s latest AndroidTM TV operatingsystem to make cross-functionality betweenTV and mobile richer than ever.Sony’s One-Flick Entertain-ment interface provides aunique user experience withintuitive flick-operation viatouchpad remote to access alibrary of content just a flickaway.

2. Bluesmart Suitcaseapprox £200 @ www.Bluesmart is the world’s first smartcarry-on suitcase. It connectswirelessly to the users’ phonesallowing them to lock and unlock,weigh, locate, receive alerts andtrack their suitcase and trips, allfrom an easy-to-use mobile app.The suitcase has a built-in batterycharger that allows the user tocharge a device up to six times,with easy-access, protected com-partments for laptops and elec-tronic devices. The Bluesmart appsyncs with the suitcase and onlinetravel services to provide the userwith reports, smart notificationsand alerts. The technology allowsfeatures suchas digital lockthat gives us-ers the free-dom to forgetabout keys orcombinationsand lock andunlock thesuitcase fromthe phone app.

“on de-mand” so you won’t waste a

bean. And

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Light side

CamdenTownbag£199@Radley

Biker-knitcardigan£99 @ KarenMillen

532 March 2015 BUSINESS MONTH 53

By Grainne McGarvey

PASTEL colours arealways a strongtrend when itcomes to this timeof the year. They

just ooze a spring feeling thathelps us embrace the lighterside of life.

However if you can’tdecide which soft tonessuit you best, then combinea mix of pastels in col-our-block layers or delicateombre washes. For SS15 theinspiration is the sky withplenty of cerulean blues andsunny yellows, which offer asubtler palette.

As there is plenty of choiceon the high street you willhave the chance to integratethe trend easily into youreveryday wardrobe.

Ice-blue herringbonecoat £99, Jaeger@TheOUTLET

Greychinos £30@ RiverIsland

Leerid Graphic T-Shirt £45 @Ted Baker

Pleatedskirt approx£45@ M&S

Openweave polo£69@ Reiss

TRAVEL


MOUNTAINS bringout the philos-opher in you. Itcan’t be helped.It’s something to

do with fundamental conscious-ness, the presence of eternity,the freighted Zen of the earth’snatural monuments, the close-ness of the transient sky. So, at4,414 metres up in the HuchuyQosqo Pass in Peru’s SacredValley, when I should havebeen contemplating the legacyof Pachacutec, Atahualpa, andother Inca rulers, why was theprospect of a hot Jacuzzi, a coldbeer, and an emerging blisteron my left foot the only stuff onmy mind?

There was a time when Icould bag a Munro beforelunch and head home for around of golf that afternoon.Now, the fourth floor of thePeter Jones department storein London might as well be theEiger Nordwand if the escala-tors are out of action. Given anover-worship of the sedentarygods, a week’s high-altitudehiking in the mountain passeseither side of the UrubambaValley, with 7am starts andtwilight finishes, was likelyto end like a scene fromA Fistful of Dollarswhere I’d be takenback to town, life-less, ignominiouslyslung over the backof a mule. A Munrosuch as Schiehallionnear Aberfeldy, at justover 1,000m is, as thelocals say, a tough wee walk.

But marching about at 4,500m,the level of the summit of theMatterhorn? Well, you couldhitch a lift from the Interna-tional Space Station at thatheight.

High in the Andes, out ofbreath just thinking about thenext step, and with a heart-rate mimicking the WilliamTell Overture, they say you’llfind out what you’re made of.Sensing my answer wouldn’tbe good, I flew from Lima intothe Inca capital, Cusco, andbegan following advice thatdrinking tea made out of cocaleaves helps alleviate altitudesickness. The psycho-activealkaloid of coca is cocaine; sococa tea is surely the cuppawhich would’ve had Jimi Hen-drix’s approval.

Apparently an excessivecoca tea regime is a mistake.I’d also been taking acetazola-mide tablets without realisingone side-effect was paresthe-sia, pins and needles in yourfeet and fingers. I woke up inCusco at the ultra-comforta-ble El Mercado hotel sensingjust the hint of a Nazca Plateearthquake in my room. There

wasn’t one.The Sacred Valley,stretching from Pisac

to Ollantaytambo —where an hour onthe train will thentake you to AguasCalientes just below

Machu Picchu — wasthe heart and soul

of an empire that fromthe 13th century stretched

out from Cusco to conquer alarge swathe of pre-Columbi-an South America. Before theSpanish conquistadores, led byFrancisco Pizarro, destroyedthe Inca dynasty in the mid-16th century, their governedterritory covered an area thesize of western Europe.

The hard-schoolexploration of thehigh mountainroute whichends at MachuPicchu’s SunGate is theclassic four-dayInca Trail. Butconveyor-beltovercrowding inplaces has led to analternative route northof the Urubamba River, theCamino Salcantay, gaining inpopularity. A few years ago, alocal operator, Mountain Lodg-es of Peru (MLP), opened plush,small-scale lodges along theSalcantay receiving applausefrom no less an authority thanNational Geographic, whichcalled it “the cool way” to theInca ruins.

MLP, sticking with the samehigh-end formula, has nowturned to the Lares Trail inthe Sacred Valley and openedtwo classy lodges, with a thirdon its way this autumn, thatserve as a deluxe reward after ahard day’s trekking. The basicidea is that a drafty bothy,re-heated soup, and a dampduvet isn’t always required forthe full mountain experience.So instead there are beautiful

bedrooms, Michelin-aspirationcuisine, hot powerful show-ers — and, as mentioned, theabove-the-clouds Jacuzzi at3,800m at Huancahuasi. If youthink your legs and lungs areincapable of another grindingstep, it’s surprising what the

peace of a five-star kipin crisp linen and

a decent Chileanmerlot can do forthe spirit.

The partythat set outon the LaresTrail includedtwo young MLP

staffers, twoexpert guides, and

Tracey, a middle-agedredoubtable traveller

from Australia’s Northern Ter-ritory who was taking in Peruen route to a family Christmasin Las Vegas. A weekly footballgame in Cusco at 3,431mmeant the two staffers wereused to altitude and took tothe mountains like teenagersusing shopping mall lifts. Thetough Australian wasn’t goingto cave. And I assumed that asthe ritual sacrifice of journal-ists — helicoptered off the hillsuffering deflated egos — wasno longer practised, I’d be okay.

My backpack on day one hadenough clothing to accommo-date weather in the Bahamasand Nepal. I was a bit over-pre-pared. However, on the firstday’s hike from Chinchero, overthe Huallata Pass and thendown towards a late lunch atHuchuy Qosqo (‘Little Cusco’)

James Cusick has a philosophical journey on Peru’s Lares Trek, which is quicklycatching up on the famous Inca Trail to Machu Picchu as a tourist attraction

HEAD FORTHE CLOUDS


I’d been sweltered, cold, rainedon, and went through nearlyevery item, plastic ponchoincluded, that had been stuffedinto my day-pack.

There are no roads into thearchaeological site at HuchuyQosqo (pictured left). You needto walk. Below the main site,there are renovated store hous-es where the Incas used to keepthe maize, potatoes and beansthat guaranteed a regularfood surplus throughout theirempire. The Incas masteredhigh-altitude farming byconstructing layered micro-cli-mates and storage complexesthat could accommodate 70crops capable of being stock-piled for up to seven years.

Day two meant a climb to theChallwaccasa Pass, a downhilltrek to the village of Viachaand a further trek to the hilltopInca fortress at Pisac. Sanctu-ary at the end of the first twodays was at Lamay Lodge justsouth of Calca. The next twodays’ base camp was Huaca-huasi Lodge, which is northof the Urubamba River andsits on the edge of a mountain

village. Both buildings are new,big, and have yet to work outhow they can deliver intimatecomfort in open public spaces.

Americans might expectroaring log fires. I would’vetaken a blanket, a big sofa, alarge malt whisky and a roomfull of candles. The food iselaborate, international, andborders on being over-formal.That’s not a criticism, but thechange of pace from mountainphysicality to dining room doesthrow you. If dining is to be theday’s major sign-off, the con-nection with the location needsto feel stronger. It’s early days— and the right mix will come.The balcony Jacuzzi didn’tthrow me. I ran the boilingwater nearly to the brim of thehuge bath and waited, gettingin as the clouds encircled thelodge. Memorable stuff.

Day three meant Cuncani, atwo-hour hike to the CruzccasaPass at 4,188m and a lengthydescent back to Huacahuasi.Day four was the toughest witha series of ascents and descentsthrough two passes, lunchat Qeywaqocha Lake and an

end to the day at the village ofQelqena, where a beer felt likea justified survival ceremony.

The fifth day, supposed tobe easier, wasn’t. It involveda trek up the Ipsaycocha Pass(4,333m) and then down to aglacial lake for lunch.

Over the week, the trail’stented lunches became ahybrid of rescue and emergen-cy miracle work. Soup, troutfarmed in high lakes, mashedspuds, stir-fries, wine-poachedpears, barbecued guinea pigand chicken, sweet fruit andteas: all appeared just whenyou felt your feet might aban-don you. So, resuscitated andrevived, you go on.

Out of the mountains, on thedrive to Ollantaytambo, andlater on the train to Aguas Cali-entes and the morning spent atMachu Picchu, I began to sensethe importance of the journey,glad that it hadn’t happenedwithout a bit of a adventure.

The Camino Salcantay andthe Lares Trail are about beingin the mountains with all thetime you never seem to have.Here you’ll think, wonder at

nature, and marvel at Inca his-tory? Maybe. But your heart-rate, breathing and stamina,and the next step, will seemjust as important. You’ll findyou’re capable of keeping goingwhen you can’t. And that PlanB thing, quietly on offer forthose who can’t cut it and needan easy day. Well, you sure ashell aren’t going to let thathappen.Getting thereJames Cusick travelled withRainbow Tours(020 7666 1250; rainbowtours.co.uk), which offers a 10-nightLares Adventure to MachuPicchu from £3,135 per person.The price is based on twosharing a twin or double roomon a bed and breakfast basis,with all meals included duringthe Mountain Lodges of PeruLares trek.Flights from Heathrow areincluded along with airporttransfers and a guided tour atMachu Picchu on the final dayof the trekking programme. Heflew from Heathrow to Limavia Madrid with Iberia(020 3684 3774; iberia.com).

Stayingthere

El MercadoTunqui, Cusco

(0800 014 8886;elmercadotunqui.com).Inkaterra Machu Picchu

Pueblo Hotel (00 51 84 582640; inkaterra.com).More information

Peru.travel/

TRAVELof

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Ten of the best: romantic getaways

Valentine’s Day may be over butthat’s no reason not to consider aromantic getaway. Liz Simpson,editor of boutique accommoda-tion website i-escape.com,suggests hideaways to quickenthe pulseCroft 103, ScotlandWhat could be more romanticthan complete seclusion? Thesetwo self-catering boltholes are atthe very tip of Scotland in alandscape of soaring mountains,aquamarine seas and views thatstretch for miles under a vast sky.Port na Con, Laid, Durness,Sutherland IV27 4UN (01971511202). From £242.Iglu-Dorf Zermatt,SwitzerlandSnuggle down on fur throws for anight on ice. This collection ofigloos in the Swiss Alps is thestuff of fairytales. The bedroomshave murals carved into the icywalls and sleeping bags that ziptogether.Rotenboden, GornergratSkigebiet, Zermatt, Switzerland(00 41 41 612 27 28). From Sfr518(£491), half board.

Le Grotte della Civita,ItalyEver slept in a cave? It’s moreromantic than you could possiblyimagine at this stunning hotel inthe Unesco-listed troglodytetown of Matera. Flickeringcandles, roaring fires and centralheating warm the 18 cavebedrooms.Via Civita 28, Matera, Basilicata,Italy (00 39 0835 332744). From€140, B&B.Metafort, FranceThe perfect place for starry-eyedlovers. The “Sous les Etoiles”room at this hilltop B&B in ruralProvence near Avignon has aprivate roof terrace, and the bedis on a track so you can wheel itout to sleep under a blanket ofstars.31 Montée du Vieil Hôpital,Méthamis, Vaucluse, Provence,France (00 33 4 90 34 46 84).From €190, B&B.Argos in Cappadoccia,TurkeyA glorious jumble of ancientstone houses, caves andunderground tunnels, this hotel is

unique. Uchisar, Nevsehir, Turkey(00 90 384 219 31 30). From €178,B&B.The Caves, JamaicaThis extraordinary cliffsidecluster of colourful rooms inNegril is dazzling in all respects.Adults only, with blissful views,superb service and peacefulseclusion, it’s a place to rechargebatteries and watch sunsets.Lighthouse Road, West End,Negril, Jamaica (001 876 9570270). From US$480 (£320)room only.Kalundewa Retreat, SriLankaDeep in Sri Lanka’s CulturalTriangle, hidden among lushfoliage and stilted over a lake, isthis ultra-peaceful trio of chalets.You’re rafted out to youraccommodation, then left aloneto enjoy lake views.Kalundewa Road, Dambulu Oya,Dambulla, Sri Lanka (00 94 77307 63 41). From US$258 (£172),room only.The Sarojin,ThailandService is with a capital S at thisdreamy Thai beach resort in Khao

Lak. Naturally there’s a superspa, double daybeds in aturquoise pool, and rooms areboth elegant and spoiling.60 Moo 2 Kukkak, Takuapa,Thailand (00 66 76 427 900).From TB7,150 (£145), B&B.Lotus Houseboat atNeeleshwar Hermitage,IndiaI defy you to find a more beautifulcraft than Neeleshwar Hermit-age’s Lotus Houseboat. Book itexclusively (there are two teakbedrooms, with baths andshowers) and take a two-nightcruise through Kerala’s tranquilbackwaters.Neeleshwar, Malabar, Kerala,India (00 91 124 236 7088). FromR12,017 (£130), full board.Bamurru Plains, Aus-traliaGetting here is no easy feat, butthe remoteness of this retreat, atthe edge of Kakadu in NorthernAustralia, is its appeal. It’s a placeto switch off. Luxury here isexhilaration: a 180-degree viewof wildlife from your bed — and

OUT AND ABOUT

offl

ine

withTheCHAIRMAN


The Chairman is relieved to report from a string of interestingsocial events as the glitterati lure him from his BT9 mansion

IT’S the most wonderfultime of the year....no, notChristmas, but the start ofblack-tie season for North-ern Ireland’s business

community.The Institute of Directors

had the honour of firing thestarting pistol with its annualdinner in the pleasing sur-roundings of the Europa Hotel.The Chairman donned his

finest, cummerbund includ-ed, and was delighted to runinto his old friend, the alwayscharming Alyson Englishfrom Lighthouse PR.

Ms English was joined byher fellow Lighthouse keep-ers Amy Black and StephenSmith – and the conversationwas given even more sparkleby the presence of the elegantNaomiMcMullan of the ProfitMargin.

There was also plenty ofmerry banter with GaryMcDonald of the Irish News,who declared he was enjoyinghis third black-tie do in asmany weeks, the lucky devil.The Chairman was deprived

of the chat of David Elliottof Ulster Business, who wasseated away from the unrulypress pack with his lovely wifeGeraldine Elliott.The Chairman has enjoyed

his business career but isconstantly plagued by ‘whatifs’ every time he hears anafter-dinner speech from anentrepreneur.

What if The Chairman hadbrought his Auntie Angela’scrab apple jelly to market? Oreven his grandmother’s lemoncurd?

Could he have been success-ful as young Scots whipper-snapper Fraser Doherty,whose SuperJam range isstocked in Waitrose, and who

Appointments

enjoys a particularly devoutfollowing in the Far East?

The rosy-cheeked laddiomade a mint from his grand-

Gillian Skelton has beenappointed consultant withDMS Ireland. She will designand deliver Chartered Instituteof Personnel and Development(CIPD) qualifications and pro-grammes and brings to DMSan extensive background in thehuman resource field.

Catriona Saunders has beenappointed finance manager atNorthern Ireland Chamber ofCommerce and Industry. Shehas been responsible for the fi-nancial management of variousorganisationsin both privateand public sectors, and hasexperience across the fields ofaccountancy, tax and audit.

Malachy McLernon has beenappointed an equity directorwith PKF-FPM. He has morethan 16 years’ experienceworking with private business-es across the UK and Ireland,and has significant generalpractice and corporate financeexperience.

mother’s jam recipes after ex-perimenting with her recipesfrom the tender age of 14, andhappily shared the secrets of

Bill Beers, David White and Adrian Kerry at the Insitute of Directors’annual dinner

Catrina Gibson and Rosemary Lundy also attended the dinner at theEuropa Hotel


Appointments

Grace Collins has beenappointed sales developmentmanager with WillowbrookFine Foods, having previouslyworked for Deli Lites and theBite Group. As well as support-ing and developing businesswith existing customers, shewill identify business opportu-nities in the Republic of Ireland.

Kieran Mailey has beenappointed specialist agri-ad-visor with First Trust Bank.Having previously worked asa livestock specialist with theIrish Farmers Journal and asfarm development adviser atthe College of Agriculture, hewill provide on-farm support tobanking customers.

Elaine Smyth has been hasbeen appointed Head of Pro-grammes with NISP CONNECTat the Northern Ireland SciencePark. With more than 18 years’experience in the science andtechnology industries, shewill oversee NISP CONNECT’sprogrammes.

his success with the IoD crowd.The Chairman was also

pleased to surprise his oldpal Dr HelenWright with ahearty ‘hello’ after overhearingher dulcet tones.

...

THE Chairman does enjoythe odd cold and frothy tipplewhen not sipping a fresh andvibrant little Pinot Noir.

And as the lights dimmedamid the backdrop of Dublin’sSt James’s Gate, Ireland’s mostfamous brewing export re-

vealed its latest attempt to easein to the craft beer market.

And with much aplomb,Guinness unveiled Hop House13 to the awaiting media – nes-tled among massive mash tunsand glitzy branding.The Chairman then enjoyed

a rather diminutive and some-what over-chilled sample oftheir new brew, in the companyof brewer Peter Simpson.

He’s the enthusiastic manbehind the hop and malt crea-tion which the firm is hopingwill help penetrate the bur-geoning market for beers with

sizeable flavour and depth.Of course it’s not the first

time in its 256 year historythat the Dublin beer maker hasbrought a new lager into themarket.

They’ve tried with the ratherunsuccessful Guinness Black,which failed to attract Ireland’slager drinkers to the dark side.

But St James’s Gate willbe hoping that the third newproduct in its Brewers Projectline will prick the taste buds

Marie-Thérèse McGivern, chief executive of Belfast Metropolitan College received the IoD Lunn’s Award ofExcellence from Suzanne Lunn of Lunn’s the Jewellers; Paul Terrington, chairman of IoD Northern Ireland, IanSheppard of Bank of Ireland and Alan Taylor of Arthur Cox.

Turn to page 60>>

THE CHAIRMANof

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60

of the public and enliven sales.And while it’s certainly not

pushing any boundaries by anymeans, The Chairman certainlyprefers it over the firm’s blandand lacklustre lager stalwart inthe form of Harp.

...

As well as making the most ofblack tie season – limberingup for the Belfast Telegraph’sWomen of the Year Awards laterthis month, to say nothing ofhis excitement at the BusinessAwards next month - the Chair-man is already looking forwardto the Balmoral Show.

So it was with great en-thusiasm that he attended abreakfast hosted by Ulster Bankto mark their sponsorship of thegreatest (agricultural) show onearth.

Yes, The Chairman shunnedhis customary Thursday ked-geree to save some room for aremarkable breakfast spreadprepared by the fair hands ofnone other than celebrity chefPaulaMcIntyre.The Chairmanwas nigh-on

moved to tears, not to mentionbursting point, by the splendidproduce provided.David Elliott of Ulster Busi-

ness popped up anew, beam-ing with pride as his parents’enterprise Marlfield Farm hadprovided the eggs for the occa-sion. Other produce on the plateincluded potato bread fromJackson’s of Ballynure, sau-

sages from McAtamney Meatsand, the Chairman’s childhoodfavourite, vegetable roll fromMcKees of Maghera.The Chairman enjoyed a

catch-up with EllvenaGrahamand CormacMcKervey ofUlster Bank.

And it’s no show withoutpunch – so the media pack wasmuch in evidence, includingMargaret Canning of theBelfast Telegraph,AdrienneMcGill of Ambition,GaryMcDonald and SimonCun-ningham of the Irish News andAlysonMagee from the UlsterGrocer.

Wholeheartedly appreciatingthe produce were food criticsJorisMinne, JohnFerris andKevinMcGuinness.

...

The Chairman seldom makes

Appointments

Joanne Stuart has beenappointed director of develop-ment at the Northern IrelandScience Park. She has morethan 25 years of experience inthe IT industry, including nineyears with the Oracle Corpora-tion and will be responsible forthe development of strategicrelationships.

Andrew Ryan has beenappointed planning andenvironment partner withTLT. Previously partner andhead of energy, environmentand planning with Tughans,he has particular expertise inthe Northern Ireland planningsystem having advised onnumerous projects.

Gareth Morrison has beenappointed managing directorof biometric technology firmThe Lava Group. Mr Morrisonworked for three years as tech-nology manager at the firm. Hewill be using his experience totarget new export markets andthe connected health sector.

it to the pictures but has beenpondering making a trip tocheer on home-grown thespianand former male model, JamieDornan.

However, he understands acontingent from at least onebusiness in Northern Irelandhas already enjoyed an outingto watch the blockbusting FiftyShades of Grey in a Belfast mov-ie theatre.

It’s believed staff wereturning 50 shades of pink atthe prospect but the offer ofcocktails before curtain-up wastoo much to resist.

An institution that likes tosay ‘yes’ took over one screen totreat staff to an exclusive sneakpeak of the hot – sorry, hit –movie.

Perishing the thought of run-ning into any acquaintances, theChairmanmight just wait forthe DVD...

Fedora Heavey, Peter Simpson and Luis Ortega announcing the release of Hop House 13, a double-hopped lagermade from Irish barley and aromatic hops

<< Continued from page 59

Anita and Donna Ross from My Sister’s Closet Blog collected new SkodiaFabias from John Mulholland Motors. The sisters were joined at therevamped site in Randalstown by managing director John Mulholland and


THE LAST WORD

with JohnSherrocks


IT’S jokingly said that Bikram yogisdon’t drink alcohol because it inter-feres with the suffering. As someonewho enjoys a glass or two of wine I canvouch for the fact that no amount of

booze detracts from the tortuous delights ofthe 90 gruelling minutes spent putting myageing body through 26 contorting posturesin a room heated to a sweltering 40°C.

No, I’m not a masochist; I enrolled atthe local studio as part of a New Year’sresolution aimed at avoiding the stroke I’mheaded for unless I get a little less unfit.Signing up also enabled me to takeadvantage of my employer’s offer tosubsidise the cost of such activities.

Every Bikram session ends with Savasa-na or ‘dead body’ pose, which entails lyingon one’s back for at least two minutes,thinking of nothing but the mechanics ofbreathing. Despite having endured at least20 classes I’ve yet to succeed in emptyingmy head of all other thoughts.

During one of my mind-wanderingexcursions I got to thinking aboutcompany perks, which are on the rise asbusinesses around the globe compete toattract and retain the best of the relativelysmall pool of skilled and talented people.It seems that the prospect of more moneyor a corner office is no longer sufficient aninventive to keep us motivated and loyal.

And it’s not just the corporate giantswho are out to woo staff with ever moreinventive enticements. The likes of Face-book’s offer to freeze employees’ eggs (the$20,000 perk is intended to enable womenstaff to establish their careers before tak-ing time off for motherhood) and Virgin’suncapped holidays might be grabbing theheadlines, but run-of-the-mill companiesare also upping the ante. Typically, extrasinclude paid maternity and paternityleave, on-site childcare, flexible work hoursand 100% paid health benefits.

The question that most distracted mefrom focusing on my laboured wheezingwas whether companies reap sufficientreturn on perks or is the business world, assome commentators suggest, caught up ina ‘perks arms race’ gone mad?

Do perks such as free fresh fruit boostmorale and loyalty? Are employees moreproductive if make-up or spa services areon offer? Does a lunchtime massage stoptalented staff from jumping ship?

Or does the interest-free loan to buy abike to cycle to the office just feed resent-ment among those employees who do notwish to take advantage of the perk but are

not presented with a suitable alternative?What about the risk of inequities ruiningthe good intentions if certain benefits arelinked to the seniority of the employee?

On the whole it appears that employeesdo value perks. A study by the CharteredInstitute of Payroll Professionals indicatedthat 85% of workers rate flexible employ-ee benefits as either ‘very important’ or‘important’.

Interestingly, a study by Mercer, the HRfirm, conducted across 12 European coun-tries had UK firms are leading the waywith close on half (48%) providing optionsfor employer-paid perks.

According to the study, the vast majorityof employers believe it is necessary tooffer flexible benefits, with 80% doing soprimarily to stay competitive in the huntfor the best staff. And 55% claimed thatthese schemes also help to improve levelsof motivation among employees, which inturn can lift productivity.

Even during the economic downturnmost organisations retained flexible ben-efits offerings, the Mercer study revealed.Some 62% of the companies surveyedacross Europe said the recession and itsaftermath had not caused them to altertheir strategy in this area. In fact, 13% ofthe companies polled actually offered awider range of choice when the economygot tougher – presumably in the hopeof appeasing staff when pay freezes andredundancies became unavoidable.

Of those who have introduced a flexiblebenefits programme, just 18% said itpushed up total costs. Over a third ofemployers maintained that they are able tosave money, while 46% said their schemehad been cost neutral.

To sum up the reams of research on thesubject, it seems that the secret tosuccessful perks lies in being able to tailorincentives and to allow employees tochoose those which best suit their needs.

After all, what excites one employeemight well be a complete turn-off foranother. More money might work for some-one with a huge mortgage, while extratime off will motivate another. Workingfrom home isn’t everyone’s idea of bliss –especially if your home also doubles up asa playground for your toddler children.

Before introducing any benefits,employers need to do some research – bothin terms of what works generally and whatwill best suit their particular workforce.Having an HR department might make lifeeasier. Conversely, a small business can geteveryone involved in the decision making.

Personally, if the choice had comedown to half a dozen bottles of nice winea month or subsidised membership of aBikram yoga club, I’d probably have optedfor the former. It might have increased therisk of a stroke but it has to beat standing,sweat-soaked on one leg in a heated, mir-rored room, staring at my ‘third eye’ whilepretending to be a tree.

As companies compete to find and retain the most talented, skilled employees, areemployers getting value for money in what’s fast becoming a ‘perks arms race’?

Before introducingbenefits, do some

research – in terms of whatworks generally and whatbest suits your workforce

63

Documents

Business Month March 2015