Wednesday 26 August 2020

"Banging the drum" for Britain

I have always believed that Brexit is based on a fundamental misunderstanding or misreading of Britain's problems. That Britain should and can do better is not at issue. Most of our ills are down to a lack of money as anyone who has travelled in this country and in Europe will recognise.  A lot of our towns and cities look run down compared to continental counterparts, especially in northern Europe. One might even say that Brexit would never have been possible if we were as wealthy as Germany or Holland.  It was the essential intro that Farage and others exploited to blame the EU when it plainly isn't and cannot be their fault.

The idea that we will earn a better living outside Europe is as ridiculous as thinking that Morrison's would do better if it confined itself to Yorkshire and introduced customs checks when dealing with suppliers and customers outside the county.  Deliberately shrinking your own domestic market - and introducing separate Yorkshire standards - will do nothing to help and can only damage trade.

So the recruiting of Tony Abbott, the former Australian prime minister, as joint president of a revamped Board of Trade is nothing more than a distraction. He is apparently going to "bang the drum" for Britain in a revealing appointment that only shows how little the government understands about the nation it governs. 

Note Germany doesn't employ anyone like Abbot to bang any drums. But if you want a product that works and works reliably Germany is the place to go. I know this for a fact. As a small example, we have a Bosch dishwasher which is twelve years old and, used virtually every day, has never had a single problem.  I always buy Bosch power tools for the same reason. I have sold and competed against German products and know which I preferred doing.

In the last century Britain went from having the largest economy of any nation to the fifth, and in the last twenty year we have slipped even further, down, to number seven behind France and India. This was not because we lacked presidents of the Board of Trade who were "banging a drum for Britain."  Lord Digby Jones had a go at it and so did Prince Andrew, but it made no difference and Abbot won't either.

I have worked for MDs in both Britain and Europe. British directors invariably blame the salesman if he loses an order - some even fly into a rage. Almost always they have an implicit belief in the product - it is world-beating, whatever it is, and no amount of explaining why it isn't has any effect.  In fact even to hint that it might not be is the kiss of death for your career.

Continental MDs on the other hand were, in my own experience, thoughtful, rational and logical. They would listen to feedback, was it price? Was it some feature of ours the client didn't like or one we didn't have? They would learn from losses. Moreover, they would have a philosophy, a unique sales proposition that they would base the business on. They would invest in people and equipment over the long term. They had experience and expertise and valued it in others.  Above all, and without exception in my own career, they understood the market and you always felt you could learn from them. They improved products step-by-step (a phrase you hear a lot in Europe) always striving to become world-beating and many of them were - and were easy to sell too.

Johnson is essentially the MD of The United Kingdom Ltd. He has been appointed by the owners to replace the last one (and the one before that and the one before that). The owners don't understand the business either, but have invested heavily in it and have a mad belief that all it needs is a charismatic leader - whether he knows the products or the market or not.

So, in sweeps Johnson and sets about shaking the business up. Anyone who did know what they were doing is summarily dismissed, a smart a**ed Operations Director who talks in pseudo scientific riddles is appointed. He in turn appoints a new sales manager (Tony Abbot) to show the sales force how it's done.  Nothing about the product is changed.  It has fallen further behind its competitors.

The new sales manager concludes after losing a lot of orders that the product is not what it should be and he hints as much to the MD.

This marks him out as a negative person and puts his own career on a downward slope. He is soon fired and replaced by another stooge or even two, until the MD himself is sacked and the whole cycle begins again.

At no point is the idea that the company (Britain) simply does not have the right products or enough of them at the right price ever considered. It is taken as a fact that the product is world-beating. The customers and the salesmen are wrong and the company, once a world-leader must be right because it's British.

This is where we are at the moment and why Brexit must ultimately fail.  In the end there is zero benefit and only disadvantage. Sooner or later this sad truth will have to be faced.

Incidentally, this is Chris Grey's view about Abbot's appointment:
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