There is no point waiting for growth. If growth won’t come to you – you have to go to it.
Here are our five reasons to be optimistic despite the tough conditions:
- Awakening. There will be an awakening in the UK that the only way to pay off the national debt and provide public services is economic growth and this will pave the way to policies that encourage growth. Overly optimistic perhaps but the dawning must come.
- It will be a new era of the ‘little guy’. The Post Office scandal has thrown into doubt the idea that the state and big corporations know best. There will be a new era of trust in smaller organisations and in people whose integrity is greater.
- The UK will start to find its feet outside Europe and really benefit – the Government will need to embrace the fact that entrepreneurialism pays more.
- A total of 15 years since the great financial recession — the time when asset prices rose and work became harder. My view is that CEO’s and CFO’s faced with higher interest rates will be stimulated to drive their businesses forward faster and harder.
- More interest in buying the buildings that companies occupy. We have always found it interesting when companies say they are not in the property business so they will rent. In my view if you are occupying a property for business you are in the property business – we would like this year to be the year of the freehold. The difference between owning and renting on a spreadsheet is massive.
And what about SBM? With a diary packed with trips to Holland, Switzerland, Singapore, Malaysia, Sydney and Melbourne, we are embracing growth.