Last week, I was at the Hay International Literary Festival and the very first event I attended was Lord Digby Jones (former head of CBI and ex-government Minister for Trade) in discussion with Sir Stuart Rose (creator of Plan A when formerly CEO of M&S). The topic was Can Big Business Be Truly Ethical?
Now “Ethical” can mean many things and the conversation flowed freely by way of such issues as boardroom renumeration, jobs for British industry and even the need for rather less legislation from government when setting the Social Responsibility agenda.
Rose gave us the statistic of the day - that 63 of the world’s richest 100 economic entities are companies not countries and thus the agenda for global development is more likely to be set by them. The developing world needs big business whether we like it or not.
I rather like Sir Stuart. He banged the drum for sustainable business models, the need for big business leaders to listen to the young, who ‘get it’ better than they do and for the bigger principle of business having a wider responsibility. He at least talks a good game.
Unfortunately the same can’t said for the former Trade Minister. Jones represents the old guard. He continually patronised and insulted the audience with self aggrandising cliches and issue dodging platitudes. But it was one particular comment that gave me the greatest cause for concern.
When asked about the wider responsibility of big business in the developing world, Jones asked the audience why African and Asian governments didn’t do a better job of protecting their own. “What are these African governments doing while their people are supposedly being exploited by Western business?” He asked.
Well Digby, they’re probably sitting by their pools in their Monte Carlo apartments bought with the latest backhander paid into their Swiss bank accounts. Everybody (except Digby apparently) knows that African governments are notoriously corrupt. The idea that big business could simply rely on them to protect ordinary people would be laughable were it not so offensive.
It troubles me greatly that Digby Jones even holds, never mind publicly espouses these antiquated views. It troubles me even more that he sits on the advisory boards of twelve major British companies including HSBC, JCB, Harvey Nash and Jaguar as well as the UKTI and the House of Lords.
More than once during the discussion, Digby bemoaned journalists for continually portraying businessmen as the ‘bad guys’ in the press. He pointed to Sir Stuart as an example of a businessman who was quite the opposite. I couldn’t agree more, but it’s not Sir Stuart that we’re talking about, Digby.
Very interesting stat of the day. It was interesting to read your views in this post.
I met with Digby Jones a few years ago at a Business Conference hosted by Harvey Nash whom you mention in the blog. Though I was impressed with his Business acumen, he clearly knew how to make a lot of money. He did seem slightly devoid or in denial of the wider issues that were of no direct concern to him.
One of the subjects raised in the conference was the “great work” that Harvey Nash were doing in Vietnam. Harvey Nash opened a Technology center / BPO in Vietnam a decade ago. The great work they referred to was to offer the Vietnamese training, give them excellent working conditions and even supply all their members of staff with Bicycle Helmets with a Harvey Nash advert on the side of it as there are a lot of road accidents in Vietnam. This is all fantastic.
However I had a major issue with this. Harvey Nash are recruitment business, originating from the UK but now a global brand. Essentially they make money in the UK by their staff placing skilled IT and finance personnel into companies for a fee. Everyone is happy; The UK employer gets a skilled worker to improve their business, the skilled worker gets a job and the Harvey Nash Recruiter gets a fee for making it happen. Everyone makes money including the Tax man who makes money of all three parties.
My issue was that Harvey Nash were now encouraging their UK work force (Recruitment Consultants) to sell the Vietnamese BPO solution to their UK clients. IE “Don’t recruit 10 UK workers for your project Mr client, why don’t you outsource it to Harvey Nash in Vietnam as it is a cheaper alternative and they treat the staff brilliantly out there”. If the sale is successful the Recruiter would get a referral fee but now those 10 jobs that would have been available in the UK are now off shored. So 10 potential UK tax payers out of work and the Taxpaying Recruiter loses out on commission as they can no longer place with that client in the UK. However Harvey Nash Vietnam do stand to make money.
I put this to him and the other Harvey Nash top dogs and raised the question as to how this would stand to benefit the UK when unemployment was high and the recession was taking hold. I also asked in particular how Harvey Nash’s own UK work force who built the company would benefit from sending their clients abroad. They looked dumfounded as if he hadn’t even considered the effect it would have on the minions. The resounding and collective response to the question was silence before a standard politicians evasive response blabbing on about bicycle helmets or something and then next question please.
The old guard were on that panel that day whereby their primary drivers were to line their own pockets first and consider the wider consequences as an afterthought but only if it is raised by someone else.