Enticing graduates into business

Press, 29 May 1985, Page 35

Enticing graduates into business

By

New Zealand is ripe for a graduate business enterprise scheme, and the University of Canterbury has the man to run it. He is Dr Bob Hamilton, of the business administration department. This lecturer sparked the pilot Graduate Enterprise scheme at the University of Stirling, Scotland, says Professor Tom Cannon. The professor, at Ham for a month to lecture in the business administration department, is an authority on the encouragement and developmnt of small firms. He is a politburo member, as it were, of the intelligentsia leading the remarkable industrial resurgence of Scotland, this time as a new-technology region. Dr Cannon is professor of business studies at Stirling University, the centre of the Scottish graduate enterprise scheme, which is launching selected graduates into small business. This is part of a drive to re-awaken the British entrepreneurial spirit. Stirling is a leader in other fields. It co-operates closely with IBM, and another computer leader, Wang Laboratories, which employs 1000 at the university. Dr Cannon belives that entrepreneurs are widespread within the community. Using a bell-curve analogy, he says that at one end are some who will never be entrepreneurs in any society. At the other end are those who will be entrepreneurs come what may. In the most repressive socialist societies these people may become black marketeers — or party leaders. The proportion of entrepreneurs within the main body of the population will depend on cultural factors, and it is here that Dr Cannon believes that universities can be of influence. He sees Britain, Australia, and New Zealand as countries which have curbed their entrepreneurs. The analogy he uses is that of a genie in a bottle; we have put the cap on the bottle. Scottish universities an becoming known in the business world because of the enerprise scheme. Each year, the participating colleges and universities have introductory conferences. Speakers include successful local entrepreneurs, business people, and the college “enterprise counsellor.” Those drawn into the course must then crystallise their ideas for a business and put them into a comprehensive plan. A place in the course depends on the success of this plan. Advice from businessmen, bankers, and accountants on local panels counsel the students at this stage. They then select entrants for the national finals. The students who have won a place in the course assemble at Stirling University for two days of lectures

Neill Birss

and study. They are given practical help in ways to do research for their business. Later, the four-month business course starts. The graduates are given tuition in topics such as evaluating a business idea, planning, accounting, marketing, and sources of finance. In a three-week residential course they get all the skills needed to run a business. In the next six w’eeks they contact potential customers and suppliers, building a picture of the market ready to start a business. The planning and research the student has done should put him or her in a position to obtain finance for the venture from the normal sources. If sc they are on their way. Professor Cannon says that the most successful business in the scheme is that of a New Zealander, Bill Tudhope, who graduated from Cambridge in lawin 1983, at the age of 24. Bill makes soap. He has exhibited his product in San Francisco, Cincinnati, Harrogate, and Brighton. About 700 British stores stock his product, and an offer has been made for franchise rights in the United States. Of the 84 business ideas accepted by the Graduate Enterprise scheme in Scotland in 1983 and 1984, only about 11 per cent were high technology. These included a micro-biological laboratory, application software, and an electronic medication dispenser. Others range from a grocerj’ shop and a dance studio to such activities as a “real ale” brewery to exotic schemes such as role-play-ing games and fibre-optic designs. In the three years the scheme has been running, there have been 96 start-ups and 83 of the ventures are still running. The Scottish scheme, and those which have followed it in England, Wales, Ulster, and now Texas, Quebec, Manitoba, and Melbourne.