THE PARLIAMENTARY REVIEW
Highlighting best practice
26 | REACT
Something to keep abreast of is
the ever-changing technological
world we find ourselves in. Artificial
intelligence, and the digital revolution
more generally, will disrupt the market
in all kinds of ways that we cannot
fully anticipate – as a people-based
organisation this could be daunting.
However, we see it as something
exciting that we are ready to embrace.
After all, there will always be a need
for people skills. The context might
change – for example, the leisure
industry could possibly be the pre-
eminent sector in 25 years’ time
– but we will still need people skills,
perhaps even more than we ever did.
This means there will always be room
for a company like ours to operate,
so long as we evolve. We see this
shifting technological landscape not
as a difficulty to surmount, but an
opportunity to take advantage of.
How the government can
help us
In our opinion, there should be a
benign environment for SMEs to
flourish. At present, business rates are
too high and the uncertainty of Brexit
is not helpful either. Another example
of note is the experience we have with
problems with payment terms from
bigger companies, and this can be
particularly damaging for SMEs. Many
big companies will seemingly arbitrarily
move their payment terms from, for
example, 30 to 60 days to 90 to 120
days, which can be disastrous for
cash flow. The government has a bill
which allows charging interest on late
commercial payments but – although
it sounds good on paper – this is not
feasible for SMEs who depend on the
maintenance of good relationships
with bigger companies. Threatening
them with charging interest would
quickly damage these relationships
and lose us custom. There should be
a firm emphasis put on the late payers
making things right.
The technological future
As of now, we’re in talks with
some profoundly interesting and
internationally recognised thought
leaders. It’s hard to come out of
these talks with anything other than
optimism. The vision they put forward
of the future is inspiring and exciting.
Artificial intelligence and advanced
automation will bring the human race
so many opportunities. It is a fact that
technology is replacing some of our
face-to-face human interactions. Only a
couple of decades ago we didn’t have
email, tweets or self-service checkouts
in supermarkets. Many aspects of our
lives, including work, are becoming
more digital, virtual and artificially
intelligent. This can certainly save time
and hassle, but it’s worth remembering
that life and living involves interacting
with other human beings. Our goal
as a business is to support people
and organisations to be successful. So
wherever human beings interact, we
unlock the potential to make those
interactions more successful.
The key to
continuing
getting noticed
has been
focusing on
retaining our
quality and
evolving our
products and
services to
respond to client
demand
“
“
React – Team India
Rt Hon The Lord David Blunkett
Rt Hon The Lord Eric Pickles
