Infrastructure investment key to Northern Powerhouse being more than ‘buzz words and hot air,’ warns entrepreneur

A serial Yorkshire entrepreneur has said that major infrastructure investment is key to ensuring the Northern Powerhouse amounts to more than just “buzz words and hot air”.

Dean Sadler

Dean Sadler, who is based in Sheffield and revealed some of the main attributes of a successful entrepreneur, also spoke to TheBusinessDesk.com about the future of AI in business and explained how employers can help retain the best talent in the Yorkshire region.

“Business is not about ‘winner takes all'”, he emphasised. “There’s plenty of opportunity for everyone out there.”

Sadler started out as a bus driver before co-founding internet service provider Plusnet – growing it to more than 700 staff, overseeing its IPO and exiting via its sale to BT.

After Plusnet, Sadler looked to recruitment as the next industry in need of disruption and founded specialist recruitment software provider TribePad. He is now CEO of the business, which works with the likes of KFC, Subway, BBC, Church of England, Selfridges and Tesco.

Sadler said: “I think the Northern Powerhouse concept is great in terms of redistributing resources, and if it gains momentum it could achieve amazing things. But the reality is somewhat different to the PR and there’s not a lot of real action on the ground.”

He said the money spent on transport in London made it much easier to get from one side of the capital to the other than to travel between major cities in the North.

Sadler warned this put workers and employers in northern England at a disadvantage, pointing out that technological advancements in communication have yet to make face-to-face business meetings a thing of the past.

“It’s very rare, for example, for someone living in Sheffield to be able to work in a job based in Manchester or Leeds because the transport infrastructure just isn’t good enough,” he said.

“HS2 is only going to shave 15 minutes off the Leeds to London journey time. Why not make connections better between northern cities?”

Sadler said he appreciated Yorkshire people’s pragmatism and their interest in life rather than in work for work’s sake. “People in Yorkshire become entrepreneurs because they want to be in control and to make a difference,” he said.

“They have a ‘can do’, get up and go attitude, in spite of the fact that the early days of being an entrepreneur can be horrible. People look at individuals such as Bill Gates or Steve Jobs and don’t always understand what it’s like in the beginning when you’re just starting out and lying awake at 4am, worrying about what could go wrong.

“You find that some of the most valuable learning experiences come when you’ve made a mistake. When you’ve found yourself backed into a corner, but you still manage to get out of it. There’s nothing wrong with making mistakes, so long as you rectify them as quickly as possible.”

Outlining some tips for commercial success, he said other would be entrepreneurs could learn a lot simply by reading about their subject area, adding he was a big believer in the importance of books.

“You might read something which isn’t relevant to you at the time, but years later you’ll remember it and it comes in useful,” he said.

“Also, it’s hard doing everything on your own. You should make sure you have a decent support network around you, people you can bounce ideas off.”

Commenting on artificial intelligence’s role in business, Sadler emphasised different sectors would always need the human touch, even if AI removes some of the repetition and drudgery from the workplace.

“AI does not have a sense of empathy, care or social justice,” he said. “It’s only a data model which has been programmed by a person with unconscious biases which affect the algorithm.

“But there are certain areas where AI will remove people from the process over the next five years. You’ll be able to ask AI technical questions on subjects such as law or medicine and receive robust, verifiable answers because it’s just about facts.

“However, for more nuanced areas such as Common Law, that is where human influence will continue to have a role.”

Acknowledging the impact of the brain drain on cities such as Sheffield and Leeds, Sadler said employers in these places need to identify what is most unique and attractive about their locations then actively promote themselves to job seekers.

“It’s now a two-way process, businesses should sell themselves just as much as candidates should sell themselves to employers,” he argued.

He said his own company offers its employees non-monetary benefits such as a flexible training budget, courses on sound financial management and even interest free loans.

“We don’t like debt and we don’t want our staff coming to work stressed out,” he said. “If they come in with a clean, positive mindset that makes them more creative.

“And I’d rather spend money on making sure we employ the right people, and having those people properly looked after and able to progress through the business. When they do leave, I want them to be in a better position than they were when they began with us.”