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<\/p>\nFor the northern entrepreneur, the problem is rarely a lack of ambition. The harder question is how much risk to take to turn that ambition into growth \u2013 and whether the prize at the end is worth the cost of getting there.<\/p>\n
At a roundtable in Sheffield, hosted by Rathbones, there was plenty of confidence in the businesses being built. There was less certainty about the economic, political and tax landscape in which those businesses must operate. <\/p>\n
For some, the priority is expansion. For others, it is building the workforce and productivity needed to support that expansion. For others still, the question is when \u2013 and whether \u2013 to sell, and what happens to the business and its founder afterwards.<\/p>\n
Running through all those decisions was the same tension: entrepreneurs are being asked to make long-term bets in an environment that can make short-term planning difficult.<\/p>\n
Lee-J Walker, joint managing director of TheBusinessDesk.com, summed up the dilemma neatly. \u201cWe\u2019re wanting to go ahead, but it\u2019s at what pace can you do it at realistically, without onboarding too much risk?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
That question goes well beyond the decision to open another site or enter another market. Growth needs people. It needs finance. It needs customers willing to spend. And increasingly, it needs businesses to work out where artificial intelligence (AI) can make them more productive – without throwing away the experience and judgement that made them successful in the first place.<\/p>\n
For northern businesses, that calculation is being made against a backdrop of subdued consumer demand, rising employment and supplier costs, uncertainty over tax and borrowing costs and a workforce that can be difficult to recruit and train.<\/p>\n
Steve Adams, chief executive of Rotherham-based Mattress Online, described the pressure from the consumer end of the equation. \u201cWe\u2019re stuck between low consumer demand,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
For a retailer selling products which consumers can choose to put off buying, the problem is obvious. Costs rise, but passing those increases on to customers risks sending them elsewhere.<\/p>\n
The same squeeze is being felt across many sectors. Businesses around the table talked about higher employment and supplier costs, while clients are not necessarily willing or able to pay more. For an events-led business, for example, higher hospitality and supplier costs can collide with resistance to higher sponsorship or ticket prices.<\/p>\n
That makes investment harder to call. A business may know exactly where it wants to be in three or five years but have far less certainty about what the journey will look like.<\/p>\n
Rob Travis, senior investment director at Rathbones, said that was partly because entrepreneurs are trying to make decisions around factors they simply cannot control. ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thebusinessdesk.com\/_files\/images\/oct_26\/rob_travis_sq_sheffield-300x300.jpg\")
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He pointed to a recent survey of SME founders in which, he said, \u201cnearly 70% said that they are really confident about their own business, but nearly the same number said that they don\u2019t feel like getting enough support from the government.\u201d<\/p>\n
That distinction \u2013 confidence in the business but uncertainty about the environment \u2013 was one of the strongest themes around the table. Owners know their customers. They know their teams. They know where they believe the opportunities lie.<\/p>\n
What they cannot know is exactly what tax rules, employment costs, interest rates or consumer confidence will look like by the time an investment starts paying back. And that uncertainty has a cost of its own. It can make an owner delay a hire, postpone an expansion or sit on the sidelines waiting to see what happens next. That may preserve flexibility. It can also mean missing the moment.<\/p>\n
The people problem<\/strong><\/p>\n One of the paradoxes of the productivity debate is that businesses are being told to become more efficient while still struggling to find the people they need to grow.<\/p>\n For AML, the advanced manufacturing business founded and run by Dr Gareth Morgan, demand has moved faster than the workforce. \u201cWe can\u2019t get people in quick enough for what we need to do to grow,\u201d Morgan said.<\/p>\n That is a business problem in its purest form: the opportunity is there, the investment can be made, but the people required to deliver it cannot simply be conjured up.<\/p>\n AML has responded by developing its own workforce through apprenticeships, training systems and team-leader development. But training takes time.<\/p>\n The question of where the next generation of experienced workers comes from becomes particularly acute if businesses become more cautious about taking on younger employees.<\/p>\n Walker said TheBusinessDesk.com had nevertheless had a positive experience with recent graduates. \u201cOur recent hires straight from university have been brilliant,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The challenge is not necessarily a shortage of talent. It is the willingness of employers to carry the cost and risk of developing it.<\/p>\n The same challenge was evident in Ray Boulger\u2019s rehabilitation business. The family-run company provides residential care for people with complex needs after injury. Its 23-bed facility employs around 180 people and provide around-the-clock care.<\/p>\n Boulger has developed a model in which employees can gain qualifications and take on more responsibility while remaining in the business.<\/p>\n \u201cWhilst they\u2019re working with us, they\u2019re getting more skills, which helps the job they\u2019re doing, which helps us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n It is a simple proposition, but one with a wider significance. In a difficult recruitment market, the people already inside a business may be its most valuable source of future talent.<\/p>\n The catch is that not every business can offer unlimited flexibility. In a 24-hour care operation, somebody still must be there to look after residents.<\/p>\n And then there is AI<\/strong><\/p>\n If recruitment is one side of the productivity equation, AI is rapidly becoming the other. But the conversation was less about machines replacing people and more about businesses working out how to use technology without creating a new set of problems.<\/p>\n For Ryan Daniels, founder and managing director of digital agency Hydro Creative, the starting point is straightforward.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve always looked at AI as being a productivity tool,\u201d Daniels said. \u201cIt will always help us get quicker, faster, better. But you need a human in the loop.\u201d<\/p>\n That final qualification is becoming increasingly important. AI can produce an answer quickly. That does not necessarily mean it is the right answer.<\/p>\n Businesses must decide what information can safely be entered into AI systems, which tools are appropriate and who is responsible for checking the output.<\/p>\n Cost is another consideration.<\/p>\n Melanie Brownlow, founder and chief executive of Sheffield-based beauty business Hothouse Beauty, said different parts of the company were already looking at different AI systems.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore you know it, you\u2019ve got lots of licences around the business costing a lot of money,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n It is a deceptively simple warning. The AI revolution may be about productivity, but there is a risk that businesses simply accumulate another layer of software subscriptions without being clear about the return.<\/p>\n For a northern business trying to squeeze more output from every pound of investment, that is not a trivial issue.<\/p>\n Finance is available but not necessarily attractive<\/strong><\/p>\n The same calculation applies to borrowing. Money is available for businesses with reliable cash flow, assets or a convincing growth story. But access to finance does not automatically mean taking it is the right decision.<\/p>\n For AML, specialist machinery can support asset finance, Morgan said, but other forms of borrowing may come with higher costs or more demanding terms.<\/p>\n The question is therefore not simply: can we borrow? It is: should we? Walker said TheBusinessDesk.com has access to cash and funding options, but taking on finance only makes sense if there is a sufficiently convincing opportunity on which to deploy it.<\/p>\n That distinction between access and appetite was central to the discussion. A business can be offered a loan and still decide that the risk is not worth taking. The cost of the finance matters. So does the strength of the opportunity and, crucially, how quickly the investment is likely to generate income.<\/p>\n For Daniels, the same principle applies to investment in his own agency. If clients are cutting or delaying their spending, an agency must think twice about committing money to new markets or additional capability.<\/p>\n Growth, in other words, cannot be planned in isolation from the confidence of the customers paying for it.<\/p>\n The tax question hanging over the exit door<\/strong><\/p>\n For many entrepreneurs, however, the biggest financial decision is not whether to borrow but whether to sell.<\/p>\n The prospect of changes to capital gains tax and business relief has added another layer of uncertainty to succession planning.<\/p>\n Owners may bring forward a sale. They may delay it. Or they may reconsider whether passing the business to the next generation makes more sense. But the discussion made clear that selling a business is rarely just a financial calculation. Travis said the decision is personal as well as financial.<\/p>\n For Walker, TheBusinessDesk.com has received expressions of interest, but he said the business is not yet at a stage where he wants to sell. The focus remains on building the company and improving its position so that it becomes more attractive in the future.<\/p>\n That creates another familiar entrepreneurial paradox. To achieve the valuation an owner wants, the business may need to grow. But growing may mean taking on more people, more premises, more finance and more risk.<\/p>\n The value of the business is therefore partly dependent on taking the very risks that can make an owner hesitate about the next stage.<\/p>\n Boulger faces a different question. His daughters helped establish the rehabilitation business and there is a management team in place. But it remains a highly personal service business.<\/p>\n A future sale would therefore raise a question which cannot be answered by a spreadsheet: who will preserve the way the business is run?<\/p>\n The highest offer may not necessarily be the best offer if the buyer’s plans for staff, clients and the service itself are fundamentally different.<\/p>\n Morgan has taken another route. He described a partial buyout which brought in a larger overseas partner but stressed the importance of finding somebody who could help the business continue rather than treating the transaction as an immediate departure.<\/p>\n It is a reminder that an exit does not have to mean walking away on completion day. An entrepreneur can sell part of the business, bring in a strategic investor or prepare the company for a later transition.<\/p>\n What happens when the deal is done?<\/strong><\/p>\n That question led to another which is often overlooked. What happens to the entrepreneur? Selling a company can unlock years of value creation. It can also remove the routine, relationships and challenge which have filled a founder’s working life.<\/p>\n Walker does not see retirement as the objective. He wants to remain active and involved in business while continuing to build wealth. That is important because a company can be ready for sale before its owner is.<\/p>\n The business may have reached the right scale. The numbers may look attractive. The tax environment may even suggest that now is the time. But the founder still must wake up the morning after the deal and work out what comes next.<\/p>\n Brownlow offered another illustration of how northern businesses are responding to uncertainty.<\/p>\n Hothouse Beauty has adjusted its international plans in response to changing trade conditions and is considering where future growth makes most sense.<\/p>\n \u201cWe tend to try and go where there\u2019s opportunities,\u201d she said. It is a pragmatic approach.<\/p>\n Rather than staking everything on one market, the business can look for opportunities where they emerge while protecting the operation it already has. But flexibility itself requires resources. It is not a substitute for planning.<\/p>\n The Northern approach<\/strong><\/p>\n Perhaps the most striking thing about the discussion was that there was no appetite for pretending the risks had disappeared.<\/p>\n These were not business owners paralysed by uncertainty. Nor were they entrepreneurs charging blindly towards the next opportunity. They were trying to preserve options.<\/p>\n That means investing in people rather than assuming recruitment will solve itself. Using AI where it genuinely improves productivity rather than because everyone else is doing it. Borrowing when there is a clear opportunity rather than because money is available. And thinking about succession before circumstances force the issue.<\/p>\n Morgan made the frustration with short-term thinking particularly clear when discussing the way policy decisions are assessed. \u201cWhen they do the fiscal analysis, they always look at the last year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n That is perhaps the central complaint running through the roundtable. Business investment does not always pay back neatly within a financial year.<\/p>\n A machine may take years to earn its keep. A trainee may need years before becoming an experienced operator. A new market may take time to establish. A founder may spend a decade building a company before deciding whether to sell it.<\/p>\n The northern entrepreneurs around the table were not arguing that risk should disappear.<\/p>\n Quite the opposite. They were arguing that risk must be understood, priced and taken for a reason.<\/p>\n The roundtable did not produce a single answer to the question of when to grow, when to borrow or when to sell. It produced something more useful: a picture of businesses trying to build for the long term while keeping enough room to change direction.<\/p>\n That may be the most important lesson of all. The northern entrepreneur is still betting on growth.<\/p>\n But increasingly, the smart money is on keeping your options open while you do it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For the northern entrepreneur, the problem is rarely a lack of ambition. The harder question is how much risk to take to turn that ambition…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":271992,"featured_media":2140824,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53262],"coauthors":[137100],"class_list":["post-2161325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-news","tag-featured-story","tag-yorkshire"],"yoast_head":"\n