Horses for Courses

The Principles of Outsourcing

I once considered early retirement. We’d sold our core business. Children were approaching school’s end. My head was saying do something different. 

Horses were already part of my family. My wife was a riding instructor; one daughter was an equine nurse; another would shortly become a full-time equestrian. Yes, breeding sport horses seemed like a good idea.

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Make sustainability pay

Real changes don’t just sound good.

Unsustainable green initiatives make no sense. To be embedded in a business model, they need to impact on two things: cost and volume. Either they save money, or they produce more by using less.

It sounds simple, but sustainability is a tricky subject at any level.

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The Successful Exit

To take more with you, leave more behind.

When they broadcast emergency procedures as you taxi down the runway, the idea is to show you how to exit in the safest manner. It’s meant to be the most orderly solution. In any given circumstances, the fewest people will get hurt and the optimum number will survive.

A successful business exit is not a lot different. If you put together the right plan and execute it in an orderly manner, you leave all parties in the best possible shape.

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The sustainable opportunity

How saving the planet can help your business

The profit motive is not flavor of the month. It’s blamed for a lot of things, not least environmental degradation.

Business should be rightly worried about it. Public concern about the environment is growing, not receding. Business can resist the trend, but it is a market reality. What happens if we embrace it?

The word sustainability has been around for a while. It may have been hijacked by the climate change debate, but it dates to the 13^th century and derives from the French word sustenir, meaning to endure.

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