Several things flow from this. Only actuaries have more disparaging jokes told about them, which suggests first that the industry has an image problem and, second, that no one is quite sure what it does.

Everyone can see the costs but are less certain about the benefits.

Hence the bad joke that a consultant is someone who borrows your watch to tell you the time; or that the central purpose of any bit of consultancy is to sell a client the next bit of consultancy.

And while we are on the subject I did once meet a consultant whose pitch was that he was better equipped than the client to judge the quality of work of consultants so he should be employed to do that.

Now in good times none of this matters very much because there is enough money sloshing around for businesses not to penny-pinch and for consultants to make a good living.

In recession it gets tougher because consultancy is one of the easiest things to cut, particularly if what it contributes is unclear.

Mindful of this, the Management Consultancy Association, reinvigorated since Alan Leaman arrived as chief executive from the Association of British Insurers, decided to bite the bullet and commission Tim Morris, Professor of Management Studies at Oxford, to conduct a study of consultants’ value.

The results were startling: some 58% of clients said they were satisfied with the work consultants did and estimated that their work was worth between two and 20 times as much as it cost. Most settled on between eight and 12 times.

Averaging this out and taking into account other projects where the value is equivalent to the price — presumably the less-satisfied customers — then the MCA reckons that the benefits provided by clients are around £6 for every £1 spent. This comes out at an impressive £56 billion.

Perhaps it’s time to kill the jokes.

Repost from:  http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/markets/article-23813774-consultants-really-do-add-value.do

The energy-water nexus

Matt Simmons, energy investment banker and author of a leading peak oil book, gave a speech in Dubai last month about the role of water in energy. Oil is priceless, Simmons said, but water is even more valuable since:

– Without water, we cannot create modern energy
– Without water, we have no food

It is similar to oil in that we will never run out of it, but good (sweet light, in the case of oil, or potable in the case of water) supplies are becoming scarce.

The problem is, as both supplies become more scarce, both are demanded more by the other – and of course, by the world’s growing population. Available water, says Simmons, is increasingly brackish or saline, which is energy-intensive to convert to drinkable water.

And energy – particularly some newer sources, such as solar thermal and shale gas, are extremely water-intensive:

Simmons is not alone in this view. At the CERA Week conference under way in Houston, the water problem was addressed in a panel on Wednesday. From the Houston Chronicle’s report, it sounds as if the most concerned of the industry representatives present was one Arnold Smith of Fluor Corp, an engineering and construction management firm:

“Water is directly tied to energy use,” Fluor Corp.’s Arnold Smith said. “Twenty years ago it was almost an afterthought to presume where water would be coming from. Now it’s at the top of the list.”

Scott Weaver of the American Electric Power Company meanwhile  “said that the current administration is focusing on environmental issues and water use is being controlled by a number of regulators”.

The panel’s conclusion?

All the speakers agreed that there are opportunities to get around the water problem, like looking at heat recovery as power to minimize water consumption. The biggest tool would be to increase efficiency, not just on the part of the energy industry, but also efficiency in how everyone uses water.

Simmons, however, sees a very specific light on the horizon in the grim picture he paints of our current oil and water predicament; that is marine energy. New breakthroughs in offshore wind technology from the University of Maine, he says, could make it a competitive energy source even without subsidies and a source of filtered water. Other ways of tapping energy from the ocean itself have barely begun. The huge power of the sea, he argues, makes it equivalent to the offshore gas and oil industry of 80 years ago.

Source: FT http://blogs.ft.com/energy-source/2010/03/11/the-water-energy-nexus/#more-49491

The University of Exeter is one of a consortium’s members providing wave prediction technology.

A consortium of companies has been given €4.5 million funding from the European Commission to deploy a wave energy device and associated wave prediction and tuning technology.

Ocean Power Technology’s PowerBuoy is likely to be deployed in Santoña, Spain.

Around half the money will go to OPT, with the remaining funds used by the other five consortium members for the steel fabrication, wave-monitoring equipment, wave resource prediction research, system monitoring and project management.

Source: Utility Week

The aim of the so-called ’seasonal tariff’ is to preserve water supplies in the dry summer months reports BBC News Online.

From June customers in Hampshire, parts of West Sussex and Medway in Kent will have new meters installed.

They will pay 6% more than the standard rate for their water in June to September, and 2% less than the standard rate the rest of the year.

Southern Water says most people will end up paying about the same amount over the whole year.

Environmental benefit

The company says it will install 487,000 meters in the next five years, meaning 93% of its customers will have a meter by 2015.

It says metering is a fairer system as customers will only pay for what they use and are in control of their water use and bills.

There have been some small-scale trials before, and some water companies, including Severn Trent, Veolia Water East and South East Water, have seasonal tariffs for business customers.

But Southern Water, which supplies water to Sussex, Kent, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, is the first company to roll out a scheme to nearly half a million people.

Seasonal tariffs are supported by the Environment Agency, which says water use by individuals in the South East needs to fall from 156 litres of water per day to 130 litres by 2030.

It says that is because forecasts suggest flows in some rivers could fall by 35% by 2050, as abstraction increases due to population growth and climate change impacts.

But research carried out by the Consumer Council for Water in 2007 found only 27% of people liked the idea.

Swindon Borough Council plans for all 186,000 citizens to have blanket “wi-fi mesh” coverage by April 2010, says BBC News Online.

• The equipment, mounted on 21 lampposts in the Highworth area, will allow people to connect to the internet via laptops or portable devices.
• Wireless internet allows computer users to access the internet without the need for wired connection to phone lines
• Under the scheme basic line rental will be free and there will be no connection charge, say council officials.
• The £1m project will be run by Digital City UK Ltd, in which Swindon Borough Council has a 35% share.
• Digital City chief executive Rikki Hunt said: ” People have done free wi-fi before, it happened in Norwich in 2006 as a test period. What we’re doing is covering the whole borough, that’s what unique, so it’s not just free access in your home, you can actually move around the borough and still be connected.”
• Some 1,400 secure access points are to be fitted around Swindon, similar to those used in homes but with a much higher performance, it is claimed.
• If successful, there is an intention of working on similar roll-outs of the technology in other towns and cities across the UK.
• The service will also have the potential to provide free internet phone-calls and remote medical consultations.
• Other UK cities have had trials of the schemes, but this is the first time an entire town area will be covered by council-backed public wi-fi.

When Chris Farrell returned to college for a plumbing qualification, he found that he had a problem not with the curriculum but the equipment, writes The Sunday Times:

                                        

• The new boilers used in the class were meant to be energy efficient but actually wasted a lot of heat. The realisation prompted him to have a crack at designing a better one. Using a welding torch and scraps of sheet metal in his garage in Devon, he knocked together a device for making the boiler more efficient.
• He spent a couple of years honing his idea before setting up a company, Zenex, with long-term friend Tony Billett to manufacture it. That was in 2002. Since then the pair have sold more than 4,000 Gas Savers and the company recently won a grant from the Carbon Trust to speed up the roll-out of a product that they claim can save hundreds of millions of pounds on domestic bills.
• “Condensing boilers are supposed to be 90% efficient but they are not,” said Billett. “In one instance we found that efficiency was as low as 30%. We think the real efficiency of condensing boilers is 75% at most.”
• The device is attached to the top of a domestic boiler and works by capturing waste heat from the exhaust gases to warm the water in the tank. These are then passed through a flue and pumped back into the system, which preheats the cold water entering the boiler. Crucially, though, the temperature of this water is kept below 50 degrees, giving a significant increase in efficiency over typical condensing boilers, whose performance deteriorates if the water is above that temperature. The result is a boiler that uses less energy.
• Zenex is targeting the domestic and commercial markets. The company estimates a typical household will save about £78 annually and avoid emitting about half a tonne of carbon dioxide. Savings could reach as much as £300 to £400 over two to three years.
• A number of recent licensing deals with the big boiler manufacturers Alpha Boilers and Baxi should help Zenex gain momentum. The company has also signed a deal with Immergas to supply the Italian market.
• At £600 the Gas Saver will be too expensive for many and it doesn’t qualify for the government’s new boiler scrappage subsidy scheme. Over its life, however, Billett said it will more than pay for itself. “A customer could recover the cost in three to five years. Solar can take 20-40 years. If we take an old boiler out and put in the best-rated boiler with a Zenex Gas Saver, you could save 50% on your gas bill.”
• Plymouth Pavilions, southwest England’s largest leisure centre, halved its gas bill, from £140,000 to less than £70,000, in the first year after the system was installed, he said.

For the full story click on: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/entrepreneur/article7017877.ece

• Britain’s big energy companies are on the brink of a price war after British Gas cut its prices by 7 per cent. The reduction, which will benefit about 8 million households, is expected to start a battle for customers with E.ON and RWE npower thought to be among the companies considering a cut as early as next week. Scottish and Southern Energy and Scottish Power are also believed to be studying price reductions.
• Centrica, the owner of British Gas, which is Britain’s biggest energy supplier, has been criticised for resisting pressure to reduce the price of gas all winter despite falls in the wholesale gas price that began more than 18 months ago.
• “Consumers could have seen prices fall earlier,” said Audrey Gallacher, energy expert at Consumer Focus. “Energy companies should have passed on the wholesale price cuts before winter.” John Hall, an independent energy analyst, pointed out that the wholesale price of gas was about 35p per therm yesterday, about one third of the levels of more than 100p per therm during mid-2008. A year ago, prices were at 60p per therm — nearly double the current levels.
• In an announcement that is likely to add to the anger felt by many hard-pressed consumers, British Gas is expected to report bumper profits at the end of this month of £540 million for 2009.
• The unusually cold weather in December, which forced people to use their central heating systems more often, prompted City analysts to raise their profit forecasts for the company by at least £10 million.
• The business is thought to have benefited by about £1.5 million in extra profits each day during the period from mid-December to mid-January when Britain was affected by its most severe bout of winter weather in decades.

BT said the service gives business traffic priority at times of contention and upstream speeds of up to 10Mbps. It allows businesses to run multiple VoIP, high-definition video conferencing and business-grade cloud applications plus download e-mails, web-pages and FTP files concurrently.

Nigel Stagg, managing director at BT Business, said, “28% of businesses are already using faster broadband to expand their website capabilities, and another 25% are using it to drive more processes online and employ more bandwidth-hungry technology, according to our research. We are committed to rolling out higher speeds and additional coverage across the UK during 2010.”

BT Retail confirmed that it will make fibre-based broadband available to 40% of the UK by summer 2012. It said four million business premises will have access to the faster broadband service by the end of 2010.

BT said new and existing BT Business customers in an enabled exchange area will automatically be eligible for the fibre service from 26 January,

Last week BT announced its Infinity service for home broadband users, which also offers 40Mbps.

In her experience working with many business owners from a variety of sectors she has identified seven key mistakes that business owners make again and again and that often lead to the death of their company;

1. Doing Too Much Yourself
Many business owners fall into this trap as they attempt to keep their costs to a minimum. But ultimately it can mean you get bogged down in day-to-day issues and fire-fighting. There’s less and less time to step back, plan for the future and anticipate problems, which then hit as the cycle starts again.

In addition guilt about the lack of time spent with the family can compound the issue and in extreme cases can lead to exhaustion and collapse.

Many business owners kid themselves that everything is OK and only start to hire staff or outsource when the cracks are beginning to show. By then it can already be too late.

So get additional help early on.

2. You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know
Many businesses are founded because the owner is good at something and enjoys doing it, so they decide to set up a business providing this service to others. What they forget that is that a business also involves finding clients, marketing, recruiting and motivating staff and managing cash flow and developing systems and procedures.

Remember, running and growing a business involves a many skills and it’s unlikely you’ll have the expertise in all the areas yourself.

 So learn to recognise where your skills and knowledge fall short and take action to remedy this gap in your business.

3. Growing Too Quickly Before Your Model Is Proven
Typically the owner’s passion and belief in the business is very high, and sales come in. So, they gear up by expanding staff and premises – only to have to cut back as the sales increase turned out to be just a blip.

Every business needs working capital and as the business increases so does the working capital requirement. So if cash is tied up in stock or in covering debtors that owe money on standard 30 day terms, then the company runs the risk of running out of cash. This is a well recognised phenomenon and the Bank of England is expecting the business failure rate to increase as we come out of recession.

So make sure you plan for any expansion – often business owners fail to do this; they celebrate the increase in business and then blame the banks for pulling the plug just when things are picking up. The reality is you need to sit down with your Bank Manager and discuss the need for funding several months in advance to avoid any panic requests.

In addition put the appropriate systems and procedures in place, so you don’t end up being sucked into more and more areas as the business grows, meaning you spend more time working in the business and less time working on it.

4. You Haven’t Got Anyone To Bounce Ideas Off
Many new businesses are too small to have a proper Board or even a Non Executive Director. Some issues are not appropriate to talk to staff about and often partners and friends just don’t get it, and advisors may have only a narrow focus or worse still have their own agenda. So business owners end up in a silo on their own.

This can be very damaging. Talking things though with others is important as it may yield new perspectives, and just as valuable can be situations where people endorse your view reassuring you that you are on the right track. Likewise if the reactions and advice are mixed then perhaps it’s an indication that there’s more work to be done.

 Develop a small network of people you can trust and be sure to talk things through and get their views.

5. Bringing In The Wrong People
Many business owners hire in their own image – so the gaps are not actually filled. It’s also common for the recruitment to be left until the last minute (to save costs) and so a rush decision is made, potential problems are overlooked, references are not checked, and business partners and shareholders are not consulted so they never really buy in to the new recruit. It’s easy to rely on friends and family – who may be good enough in the early stages – but in the longer term they can be a constraint, and a very tricky problem to deal with later on.

Remember, no matter how good someone is, if there’s a difference in values, then the only questions that matter are “When will the row happen?” and “On what subject will it be?”

If you are considering using a consultant/advisor/mentor it can be hard to choose the right one, so find out; how much real world experience do they have? Is it relevant to what you need? Are their skills and experience complimentary to yours? Do you have mutual respect? How important will you be to them? Do they know their own limits? What networks and contacts do they bring? Will they let you talk to their clients to get a feel of how they work? Make sure you are comfortable with all these areas before committing yourself.

6. Lack of self awareness
Many business owners refuse to face their fears and insecurities, often because they don’t want to appear stupid or expose a lack of knowledge. They don’t trust other people and want to hold on to everything themselves they believe no-one can do it as well as they can. They have a lack of awareness of their own personality, of their strengths and weaknesses, and their impact on others. Ultimately this means they are less able to build an appropriate team around them.

Many think they’re great delegators – but in reality they are just dumping or they’re micromanaging, so they don’t achieve any real engagement with their people. This then reinforces their view that “you just can’t trust others to do anything…”

 So be honest about yourself, and if necessary ask a trusted friend for feedback.

7. Staying in the comfort zone

It’s easy to stick with people you know and understand – but there’s one downside; who’s challenging you and testing your thinking?

Whilst it may be uncomfortable to do this, it’s better than experiencing the discomfort of a major problem in the business because no one around you had the courage to say “hang on a minute – what about X?”‘

Very often business owners surround themselves with people from the same sector. The thinking goes something like; “unless you’ve been man & boy in my sector for 50 years – you couldn’t possibly have anything to contribute”. This is undoubtedly true in some situations. However, innovation comes from picking up ideas from outside the conventional thinking. Mixing with others will increase your chances of doing this. The more diverse your contacts (whether by sectors/age/ethnic group/gender), the more you’ll also be able to “narrow the angles” on potential incoming problems; someone in your group will have had experience of issues that you haven’t – better to learn from others’ mistakes than get extra battle scars yourself!

By avoiding, at least to some degree, these seven common mistakes your business has a far greater chance of not just surviving but thriving! Take a look at each of these areas and ask yourself some tough questions, and be honest! Your answers and the resulting actions you take could make all the difference to your future wealth and happiness.

About Hilary Briggs:
To contact Hilary visit; http://www.chiefexecutive.com/display_person.asp?id=1942

Hilary Briggs, chairman of the Central London group for the Academy for Chief Executives, is passionate about helping businesses grow.

During her earlier career, she was Logistics Director for Rover Group Large Cars; European Product Marketing Director for Dishwashing, Whirlpool Corporation and Managing Director of Laird Group plc’s German-based Car Body Sealing Division, with a turnover of £200m and over 4,000 employees worldwide.

She has had her own consulting business for 10 years, and has run a group for the Academy for over 3 years.

• A chemical coating on the walls will light up the room with an even glow which mimics sunlight and avoids the shadows and glare of normal light bulbs
• A small, 3 to 5 volt, current will be needed to stimulate the chemical into action but the walls will be safe to touch
• Dimmer switches will control brightness
• TCT has awarded a grant of £454,000 to Lomox, a Welsh company which is developing the organic LED technology which will be 2.5 times more efficient than energy saving light bulbs
• Lighting currently uses over 16% of all electricity use
• The chemical coating can be applied to wallpaper or painted straight onto walls
• It can also be used for flat-screen TVs, computers and mobile phone displays
• The system could be powered by batteries or solar panels

For more, visit http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article6970927.ece