Business Needs a Spiritual Helper

Robert Llewellyn-Jones, Western Mail

WALES must not be neglected in the face of public sector cuts and needs to support budding entrepreneurs, the former chairman and chief executive of Tesco urged yesterday.

Lord MacLaurin, who was also chairman of mobile phone giant Vodafone, also said that the Welsh Assembly Government needs to be protective of the money needed for investment in jobs and industry for the future.

He was in Wales to speak at an Institute of Directors lunch at St David’s Hotel in Cardiff Bay.

In an exclusive interview with the Western Mail Lord MacLaurin called for the new coalition government to be “sympathetic” to areas of the UK such as Wales and Scotland in the light of planned cuts and called for a reduction in bureaucracy.

He said: “If I were Cameron and Clegg I would look very sympathetically at Wales and Scotland which are important parts of the UK that need help and investment for the future.

“We are in a black hole but there are areas like here in Cardiff and South Wales that need sensible investment going forward.

“Where I would make cuts is in bureaucracy, particularly in Westminster. The bureaucracy that we all have to work with is totally ridiculous.

“If I was in Number 11 Downing Street I would be looking at all this unnecessary paper filling, which extends to both the police force and our health service. By cutting this out we could save a great deal.”

Lord MacLaurin also said that – in the light of the problems in the eurozone following the Greek debt crisis – it was “fortunate” that the UK had not adopted the single currency.

“If we were in the euro we would be in deep trouble, like everyone else,” he said.

“I think two things about it. First, how long is Germany going to bail out the rest of Europe?

“Secondly, what would happen to the euro if Angela Merkel decided to return to the Deutschmark. If that happened, Europe would be flat on its face.”

On domestic matters, Lord MacLaurin said that Wales needed to encourage industry back through development of skills that formed the nation’s former industrial power base.

He said: “Nurturing the entrepreneurial spirit should be a high priority. Entrepreneurs should be encouraged with tax breaks but there must be money available for start-up businesses.

“They would have to go through a rigorous test before getting this but unfortunately banks are not lending. They must play their part in encouraging entrepreneurship which is what we need in this country.”

He added that the UK – as the former industrial heartland of Europe – has some “brilliant” minds that should be encouraged in a sensible way to encourage entrepreneurship.

Lord MacLaurin said that it was vital that companies of all sizes embrace the whole of their workforce and that previous examples of large companies that failed to do this had gone through “difficulties.”

He said: “One failed completely and the other two had a rocky time because the board of directors lost touch with their staff and customers. Woolworths – the doyen of the high street for generations – completely lost touch with the marketplace and passed into administration. Marks and Spencer and Sainsbury’s went through a difficult time because they had lost their way through sheer arrogance.

“Business executives cannot live in a comfort zone. Any manager who gets in that position causes his business problems.

“In the 1990s when Tesco passed Sainsbury’s as the market leader, we asked ourselves ‘do we go to America? Do we go to Eastern Europe then to Korea and Japan?’

“There is always a horizon about where you want to put your business and that’s getting out of your comfort zone. It’s about having a vision of where you want to put it.”