Tuesday 14 February 2012

Keep Focused on What You’re Good at and That Should Keep you and Your Business Interests Smiling

In the musical Annie, the wee orphan girl sang ‘You’re never full dressed without a smile”. I can’t recall whether this was before being taken under the wing of Daddy Warbucks but, with or without finding my own millionaire patron, I’m determined to be more positive this year.

It doesn’t come easy to those of us on the genetically dour side of the Celtic tracks. But, one month in and my disposition is still sunny. Apparently, being - or at least appearing outwardly happy - is in-vogue now too.

While the Duchess of Cambridge has a lot to be genuinely happy about, she positively beamed forth with teeth-showing and dimpled cheeks on the front cover of January’s Tatler magazine. I’m also advised that models in adverts for luxury brands Mulberry and Chanel have dropped the moody pouts in spring campaigns, whereas Bally’s models are giddy with giggling and goats in the shoe brand’s latest shoot.

While it’s not exactly mirth, my sustained positive outlook is kind-of puzzling given the relentless churn of bad economic news that just keeps on coming.

I still went to bed in a good frame of mind at the end of a day last month which saw £5 billion wiped off the share value of a company which has been the 6th largest property seller since 2007 and which is also a significant tenant and contributor of rent to some of the country’s biggest commercial property companies.

I’m talking Tesco.

It wasn’t that I was positive just because I had sealed a deal with Sainsbury’s on a unit in Cambridge at the end of last year – I’m not naïve. The ‘model’ supermarket not performing indicates it’s not rosy for the others who’ll surely follow in Tesco’s wake come the reporting season.

Yet one person’s bad news gives somebody else a lift.

On that very same January day, when the Royal Bank of Scotland announced the shedding of 3,500 jobs, it saw its stock rise by 5.5 per cent. Mixed blessings for those employees facing redundancy yet who are also UK taxpayers and thus RBS shareholders of 82 per cent’s worth of rising shares.

Boil down the analyses and commentary on the bad fortunes of Tesco and RBS and it seems that, at the core, each company had moved away from the essence of good business and that is knowing and doing what you’re good at.

Tesco CEO Philip Clarke admitted that the supermarket’s focus on expansion beyond UK shores had been a distraction. This and a seasonal price drop in-store which it had adopted as an alternative to its usual, more targeted ‘couponing’ of its loyal customers had contributed significantly to its falling fortunes.

Equally, the expert view of RBS is that its desire to divest itself of its high stakes investment banking activities will bring nothing but good. Its pre-bail out activities had diverted RBS from what it was really good at - being a very fine high street retail bank whom its Scots customers always use to refer to with affection as ‘The Royal’ as opposed to its auld enemy on the high street, the plain old ‘Bank of Scotland’.

So what’s the lesson? Keep focused on what you’re good at and that should keep you and your business interests smiling.

Will Mooney MRICS
Partner

Commercial, Cambridge

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