Haines Watts managing partner on SMEs and their part in the Northern Powerhouse

IT is a difficult tightrope to walk, being an advisor to businesses and also a businessman, but Haines Watts’ managing partner Peter Bancroft seems to have hit the nail on the head.

Mr Bancroft spoke to TheBusinessDesk.com about the growth of the firm in the city, its first forays into marketing and issues surrounding SMEs, including the well-promoted concept of the ‘Northern Powerhouse’.

He is no stranger to the industry or the region; a Keighley native who attended Manchester University, and joined and trained at Armitage and Norton, which later became KPMG, before helping launch new offices under the Haines Watts brand in the late 1980’s.

He said: “I wanted to be independent, and a businessman as well as an accountant. I wanted to run my own office first and foremost as a business that provides financial advice and other services, not just a practice in the traditional sense.

“Back then we legally weren’t allowed to advertise. When that changed, paper ads were so expensive so we put an ad on the back of a bus in Bradford, and the calls flooded in!”

That was the firm’s first foray into marketing, and their pioneering attitude has continued ever since, treating themselves as a business as much as their clients.

“A lot of accountants may be very good at their job and so are promoted to managing positions, despite having had no managerial or business-owning experience themselves,” Mr Bancroft said.

The firm has gone from the days of basic accounting, buying the first computer for the firm (which cost an “eye-watering” amount for only 32k capacity), to offering a Cloud-based system of accounting and teaming up with consultants such as Velresco, to add to their offering.

Haines Watts predominantly serves the SME community, where there is a disproportionate amount of owner-managed firms, which bring with them their own specific set of problems.

“We still offer practical business advice, but we also recognise that owning a firm can be a lonely thing, especially in family-owned or owner-managed firms where there is just one main decision-maker.”

“Bigger corporations,” Mr Bancroft said, “want a totally different service. They basically want a rubber stamp on what they’ve already decided.”

“A smaller firm can be more complicated, and I feel that we’re in a unique position, as we run Haines Watts as a business ourselves so we can see both sides. Like with any owner-managed business, value for money is key as they see it as their own money, unlike some in large corporations.”

“Owner-managers find it difficult to delegate duties, and sometimes that’s part of our job. We advise that they need to be bringing in key people in the right positions that can be trusted to undertake these tasks as the business grows.”

Another issue for SMEs is access to and education around funding, as the banks remain cautious about risk-taking.

Mr Bancroft said: “Greater access to credit will allow SMEs to grow more quickly, but it’s been a pendulum, before they were lending too much with too much risk, and now there is too little. We need balance to get that pendulum to stop and remain balanced, and people need to learn to live within their means.”

There are signs that this is happening said Mr Bancroft, but the SME sector does seem to be the last sector to have their financial shackles removed, and the government might not be the best people to turn to.

He said: “Policy-makers aren’t usually business owners and don’t know first hand the issues SMEs face. Most of their advisors worked in big business, at large accountancy firms.

“Certain government organisations and bureaucrats don’t really understand what an SME is or what criteria to use to judge what is in that category.

“However the government can play a role in encouraging this evolving concept of a Northern Powerhouse.

“It would be more useful to the Northern economy to creative better links and infrastructure up here than wait 20 years for a completed line to make a trip to London half an hour quicker.”

Encouraging transport links is something many have called for, rather than allowing the government to get directly involved in business, which will create an “artificial” economy according to Mr Bancroft.

But all these things will help contribute to the growth of the SME market in relation to the rest of the world.

Mr Bancroft said: “People abroad think that Britain consists solely of London, but we and the government have to get the message across that this is just not true.”

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