CIR Strategy Ltd

Business strategy - decision management with probability logic

Summary of expressed beliefs of some of HVM MNT 2006 delegates

 It is not helpful to complain without acting. There is a positive to everything. Every problem is an opportunity, and there are some huge problems to solve.

 The great institutions here should work together better and take a more international perspective. Many are Victorian in origin. They need more bright, adaptable people without fixed ideas. QUANGOs whether national or supranational should be allowed to exist and have freedom of expression like individuals and companies, but we should recall that they are not democratically-elected and their influence and power should not be allowed to overreach.

 Governments are often not so benevolent, and comprise the same sort of economic actors that populate the rest of the economy. They should not try to tell businesses what to do. But occasionally, there is a chance for government to take an initiative with regulation and infrastructure. The short-term nature of politics means that these opportunities usually take courage and the politicians miss them. For example, it was US legislation on fuel economy and fracking that began to make a difference there. The sustainable energy markets like others are all about economics. A delegate suggested that the UK government remove VAT and some kinds of tax on energy efficient solutions. Tax on the guzzlers is never likely to be hard enough. It is a blunt tool. The poorer are often affected more by taxes than the richer. It will become a privilege to those determined to emit CO2, when only the richer can afford to do so. This nannyist approach leads us into further problems, especially the poor and those lower paid working.

 Delegates felt that having the RDAs competing with each other was counterproductive. It made us less able to compete against well-organised nations and foreign SMEs alike. In particular, a lot of effort is dissipated as we compete with each other across regions. Companies near one of the arbitrary regional borders must take fairly odd stances. These RDA borders are neither political nor do they make a lot of sense business-wise.

People saw the combination of the British obsession with investment in property and the sustainable energy mood as a big opportunity for electronics, intelligent home, investment and property & design, architectural & construction sectors (HVM Series announces expos and conferences on these in 2007, beginning at HEAT07 in Cambridge on Tuesday 04 December 2007 at the New Hall Conference Centre).

Young people are smarter than one may think. They will do the opposite of what others tell them to do. So government campaigns (to stop them doing 'soft' degrees, and switch to engineering, etc) will tend to fail badly. One sees that it is a better life being an engineer than a financier, even if the luxuries are fewer earlier on in life. However, we have a last chance to educate, without loss of creativity, and skill people at the lower levels who are about to be left behind and threaten even more social upheaval and unrest.

You need a free, international trading model, non-parochial, to grow HVM businesses into markets with an optimisation strategy. You need the best people and places wherever they are, for the task. That would benefit people here and elsewhere the most. The conference was against protectionism, trade barriers, international cartels, bureaucracy, short-termism, hubris, governments that try to take big bets to pick winners, but also against waste and profligacy which endangers all our futures ('weak property rights' of resources that 'belong' in some way to all of us; approach to resources so that the market can still work well).

  We here are very good at trading internationally, better than most. HVM plays to our strengths.

  We cannot think the same way any more; the world is evolving and the old models may not work as well.

  We should remember we are trying to create high value rather than high cost. This brings in the design and general creative industries and marketing strongly. Some think that we should dissuade young people from the soft, creative industries, but HVM does not; the creative industries are thriving and work alongside HVM models.