Starting a business is hard. Making it successful and keeping it growing is harder.
In our Global Village even smallest business must constantly keep in touch with the competition, the changing market, and find new customers and opportunities. Certainly that's been the experience of Mrs. Ferry since starting out in business 12 months ago.
Thus the role of the Scottish Chambers of Commerce is key - they support indigenous business, represent them at political and international level, and provide a vital network for entrepreneurs to collaborate, establish new partnerships and find new customers.
The Chambers is a venerable institution with 10,000s of company members across Scottish Small, Medium and Enterprise business, accounting for well over half of the private sector jobs in Scotland. They are seen as an exemplar for Chambers of Commerce organisations worldwide, and engage in productive relationships with their business partners such as Microsoft. Indeed HRH The Princess Royal, President of the Scottish Chambers, summed it up when she said:
The work of the Chambers of Commerce is very worthy of our support, as they exist to promote businesses locally, nationally and internationally. Scotland’s Chambers of Commerce are well placed to assist businesses of all sizes to help expand their activities at home and overseas using the worldwide network of Chambers of Commerce.
Liz Cameron, Executive Director of Scottish Chambers, knows that the Chambers must evolve from its regional footing to meet the changing needs of their members, and the evolving challenges of business.
When a delegation of the regional Scottish Chamber organisations visited the Microsoft UK head office late last year to discuss these challenges, she explained to me that the benefits of Chamber membership must be national and international rather than locally focussed - the ability to deliver services efficiently to their membership at a national level could make the Chambers network more modern and efficient, and help grow membership and spread benefits to a larger audience. Liz announced her planned shakeup and Microsoft's role in Scotland on Sunday a few weeks back.
Technology has an important role to play as the Chambers modernise and confirm their role amongst other business membership and networking organisations, and online business networking services.
The impact of social network services on business has been huge - LinkedIn now has over 10 million users, mostly in the United States of America http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2006/12/01/8394967/index.htm
Many believe social networks are for teenagers and blind daters. However, business social networks allow members to describe themselves and their companies services, and invite people they know and respect to "connect" and be part of their network. They can then recommend and introduce colleagues on a global scale, creating an efficient business network and thus oiling the cogs of the free market economy. Such networks rely on 6 degrees of separation theory which assert that any 2 individuals are connected by at most 6 others.
LinkedIn registration is free, but it soon makes money out of members through advertising (based on the topics in a member's description). Some members, such as those involved in recruitment, pay for "added value" membership services (such as searching for individuals outwith the immediate business network).
Meanwhile back in Scotland, the Chambers position is unique. Hundreds of years old, and with an long established membership and reputation, most people join the Chambers for the networking opportunity of Scottish Chambers events and are already willing to pay membership fees for the privilege.
Taking the Chambers membership online, and activating member online social networking would drive more members of the network, establish a positive feedback loop to make the network more valuable and even provide an online channel for foreign business to find the right skills and resources to trade in Scotland.
With this in mind Microsoft Scotland have just completed the "proof of concept" Scottish Chambers members Portal - codenamed CONNECTIONS - to deliver a unified set of member services, and the Chambers shop window to the world. This portal takes advantage of Microsoft Office Sharepoint
Server collaboration and portal capabilities, and was delivered in collaboration with David Elder, Technical Director of Scottish Chambers.
CONNECTIONS provides the rich set of Chambers services at a national level:
- Members can gain access to specialist news and articles based on their industry area. They can engage in industry or job function specific discussion forums to get questions answered.
- They can search the member directory to find skills and business partners to help advance their enterprise
- To support the Chambers role in influencing policy, members opinions can quickly be polled using online surveys
Most exciting though, is the opportunity to build online connections between members to build informal business networks. Existing members can send an invitation email to those colleagues not already in the Chambers to join the network as a registered online member. Members will more readily reach the skills, experience and assets of corporate Scotland.
This could be the "killer app" driving Chambers membership, and perhaps making Connections the LinkedIn of Scotland.
Ultimately this will drive a more efficient market and support the entrepreneurship which will build Scotland's impact on the world business stage.
With Scotland's skilled business players online and linked via the Connections portal, there is fantastic opportunity for business people who wish to give something back to society by sharing their skills and experience. Connections could support other organisations which support Scottish entrepeneurialism in small an startup business, such as Local Enterprise Companies, Scottish Enterprise Business Gateway, and the fantastic work of Prince's Scottish Youth Business Trust.
If Scottish Chambers can move quickly, my colleagues and I believe that Connections presents a fantastic opportunity for the Chambers network in Scotland to re-establish and re-invigorate its role at the centre of business life, and potentially become THE business portal for Scotland.
