NeW@Glam Thursday 18th January 2007
This is the first event of the Network for entrepreneurial Women for this year held at the Glamorgan Business Centre of the University of Glamorgan.
Tim and myself arrived promptly at 6:00 pm and was able to meet all those present. There were only a few at the start but the rest came in towards half past six. This gave both of us the opportunity to have a chat with several people such as Hugh and Niluka from the Rhondda Cynon Taf ICT Centre, members of Cohort 5 of the MSc Entrepreneurship (Female Entrepreneurs) scheme, and Lecturers. It was lovely to find that Charline Evans whom I met 3 days before made it to the event and promptly introduced her to Chris Atkinson and Dr Muir. It is nice to note that Charline developed an interest in the MSc course and is now scheduled for interview.
Paul Jones' findings on his research 'E-business Usage within Welsh SMEs - the reality' has been an eye opener though not exatly a surprise. It has actually reinforced my own research and readings when Tim and I started TiGra Networks that micro-businesses comprise the main bulk of SMEs in the UK. And that this is the market segment that most need our services.
The GTI+ project as presented by Pam Voisey is also a very useful resource for entrepreneurs and graduates of the University. One thing for sure, I will certainly take Pam's offer on all that GTI+ can offer me as an entrepreneur.
Opportunity Wales was represented by Philip Lee, Head of Web Services. We had a short presentation describing the various services Opportunity Wales offers - e-commerce advice and reviews, a client directory, forum for e-commerce communities and an events/training calendar to mention a few.
Niluka Eratne, ICT Advisor, from the Rhondda Cynon Taf ICT Centre also enumerated the services their organisation provides for small businesses - impartial advice on hardware and software issues among others.
My immediate thought about these support services is that they are great. However looking deeply into each initiative one thing that keeps niggling in my mind is that despite the fact that all these services are supposedly free due to being funded by local government or some other organisation, there seem to be an underlying issue about advisors who privately run businesses of their own. For example, Opportunity Wales, provides impartial e-commerce advice to SMEs, but Mr Lee himself runs a successful web development company. It would seem that these services offering free advice and support are themselves a direct competitor to small businesses such as my own. The SMEs coming to these advisors for help are a ready market for their own personal businesses. Just think about it, these advisors are employed and draw a salary from the organisation they purport to belong to. They are supposed to give impartial advice e-commerce or otherwise. Yet they do have their own business providing the same service. So what is to stop the SME who is seeking support to simply ask for their services outside of their office?
I admit I may have a bit of bias because in my own experience of trying to avail of these free support services, I have not yet encountered one that has really provided me and my business with what I really need and asked for. At the end of a few sessions, a recommended next port of call would be to book a few extra hours or days of sessions to sort out problems or issues that will be chargeable at an additional cost because you have already exhausted the total number of hours provided for free. Well sorry, thanks but no thanks.