ICAI member, Bernadette Flynn, reviews the ICAI Annual Conference, which took place on 15th & 16th May 2009; "Inspiring Confidence - Getting Irish Business Back on Track".
I feel privileged that CPD Manager, Dearbhla Carmody, has asked me to write a review on our Annual Conference, and the first thing I have to complement is the organisational skills of Dearbhla and co. The entire conference ran smoothly and on time, with the majority of speakers keeping to time allocated.
I can only write from my own perspective, being a sole practioner with a very small practice in Loughrea, Co. Galway. Being a Galway native, it is a joy to see the annual conference come to Galway 3 years in a row. This year was my first year of attendance, but definitely will not be my last. I have come away from the conference feeling inspired by the amount of innovative business people we have in this country, and with this knowledge, education and experience we have surely enough capabilities to bring us out of this low in our economic climate.
All the keynote speakers were wonderful to listen to, first up was Eamon Gilmore, labour party leader, he spoke of nationalising the banks, but in my opinion more importantly spoke of developing indigenous companies that will provide high-value added high-paying jobs, and help to drive growth. He may have got plenty of jibes from other speakers about his socialist views, but his points about this country needing vision and values to move forward has to be admired. David McWilliams on the other hand has a very sensationalist view of how to deal with the crisis we are in now, dump the banks, let new ones set up, leave the euro, print new money, devalue and start all over again on our own!, Wow ! was my reaction to all this, I felt like jumping of my seat and cheering him, revolution lets all follow David! But soon dampeners were put on this, we were reminded of the guarantees that are in place, and when we calm down and think do we really want to be isolated on our own? I think not but I'd listen all over to David McWilliams argument for it!
For me then it was off to the business stream, where first up was David Carson, whom in my opinion, spent a little too much time on worst case scenario situations. The title was "Evolve to succeed Assess, Adapt, Advance", and I felt not enough time was spent on ideas to evolve and advance businesses in these trying times. Tim McCormick followed on from this with some very sound talking on the recession and the credit crunch, which as he reminded us is a real situation that needs to be dealt with. I came away still not sure on his views on budgeting, but feel he is wary of budgets and their benefit. My own personal view on this is that timely actual information is of far more benefit to any business than the best thought out budgets. I loved the fact that he emphasised that ill-considered cost cutting can have detrimental effects on businesses. Much of what he spoke about in Working Capital Management, we all learned in our college days, but now is the ideal time to be reminded of them and put it into action.
After a delightful lunch, for me it was the Tax stream, and tax being tax, a tough one for speakers after lunch! Pat O' Brien spoke about Income tax and pointed out some interesting issues for the new tax levies, and the very relevant issue of taxation on redundancy. He also gave some interesting options on restructing remuneration and the issues to consider. Dermot O'Brien followed on with some basic but important facts on VAT on property, which were very well explained and well delivered. So now we are fully up to date with our VAT rules and what's going to happen, a host of new rules for January 2010, yippee!! With the construction industry in decline so goes with it the favourite for revenue audits and now seemingly all cash business of any sector is liable for an audit. We were given the vision of a mob of revenue inspectors invading our small towns and targeting all our retail businesses. Brian Keegan then gave us a very in depth talk on revenue audits and what to expect in the future.
The first day was signed off by Gavin Duffy, who spoke about some wonderful and not so wonderful business people he met on Dragons Den. I for one will be ensuring my Santa order for Animatazz animation kit, as invested in by Gavin. Gavin also gave us some hidden moments with his interview with Stuart in the Apprentice, we all thought Phoenix started with an 'F'!
Ivan Yates was first up Saturday morning, after what I believe was an excellent night, being a Galway native I could justify going home, (my 5 year old little man said when I rang to check things were fine, "Mommy do you have to go to the dinner", to which I replied "No, I suppose I don't" and duly went home), undoubtedly better off as a result Saturday morning to enjoy Ivan's presentation. Ivan I believe is a great loss to Irish politics, as it is more people like him who have started and succeeded in business that need to lead our country out of these times. He has faced hard challenges through his life and has made tough decisions for the better of his business, which we all need to do now.
Graham Law then gave us a very in depth look at the Google Business and how it has developed amazingly in 6 years since 2003 and 5 employees in Dublin. He explained their mission statement "to organise the worlds information and make it universally accessible and useful", and how Google has achieved this and continues to strive to make it better, faster and off course profitable!
Ray Mack was wonderfully inspiring at the near end of the conference and spoke firstly about the opportunities in recession times. He spoke of utilising staff more effectively rather than losing good staff now, and possibly not being able to rehire these same staff when good times come again, which they will. Ray gave us some very good ideas on how to become paperless, (and he would be glad to hear this article has not been printed once by me). It will be tough getting totally paperless but I believe it is definitely where we should aspire to be. Imagine a lovely clean desk, no paper, and 3 screens - the joy of no tiding the desk at the end of each day!
Brendan Foley was a refreshing end to the conference with his A.P.B. on FEAR and Formula! Despite David McWilliams view that we Irish at first fight change, which is probably correct, Brendan spoke about how we must accept change in all areas of our life. We must own the change and be the change, with no fear. If at any point we get stuck all we have to do is stop and breath! So inhale in and deep breathe out! So simple but we definitely forget to stop and breathe slowly to slow us down and think. Our life in business and on a personal level just might be a better place.