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NE firms urged to use their survival instincts

Business people must do more to free themselves from accepted working practices in order to survive the current economic climate.

This was the message survival expert Ray Mears gave entrepreneurs and businesses who attended the Survival 2008 conference last week at the Northern Stage.

Mears, best known for weathering inhospitable climates and taking a Robinson Crusoe approach to problem solving, was drafted in to help North East companies emerge unscathed from the economic downturn.

Mears said: “Businesses, at this time more than ever before, need to challenge conventional wisdom and practices. They need to motivate themselves to look at all the options available and find solutions which provide maximum efficiency for minimum effort. To do this they need to free their instinct for survival.”

The conference host, Dan Brophy, chair of Service Network, agreed with Mears: “Many of our region’s businesses are feeling the strain of the economic downturn and although they are not acting in a complacent manner, it really is time for them to take a different approach to problem solving. Taking certain measures now could be the vital difference between survival and going out of business.”

The importance of developing a survival strategy was the major theme addressed by all the speakers.

Leading entrepreneurial expert David Hall told delegates they had to ‘get better or get beaten’ and emphasised the importance of leadership in times of crisis.

“Any survival strategy has to be led from the top,” he said. “In difficult times a good leader has to work hard at keeping the business moving forward and this means not only re-thinking their business strategy, but exhibiting entrepreneurial attitudes such as; positivity, persistence and the tenacity to recover from any set backs.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .