Deloitte hails impact of growth event
An event hosted by Deloitte to help foster sustainable, inclusive economic growth in Scotland has seen participants across the public, private and third sectors and academia unite to bring about “tangible” change, according to the professional services firm.
Angela Mitchell, senior partner for the company in Scotland, said the Levelling Up session at the Mazumdar-shaw Advanced Research Centre at the University of Glasgow was attended by 70 senior leaders, withrepresentedorganisations including power firm Aggreko and financial services players Barclays and Scottish Friendly, who took part in groups each focusing on one of the five pillarsofthecontroversialnationalstrategyforeconomictransformation for Scotland (NSET) that was published in March.
Ms Mitchell, who underlines aims for Deloitte to grow its business in Scotland significantly in the next two years, said:“[theevent]wasanopportunity for [attending decisionmakers] to really table and champion what was important, both to their organisations but to them personally, to combine and link those priorities and generate a greater shared understanding, and to makesomejointcommitments as well, to really, truly drive change. Everybody seemed to be pulling in the same direction… The energy in the room
was absolutely fantastic.”
In terms of how the initiative that took place on Monday November 21 came about, she explained that when she took on her current role earlier this year – the first woman to hold the post – she was keen to use Deloitte’s convening power in Scotland to unite all sectors to support economic growth. She added that the event showed a “real recognition that government and public sector can't do this on their own, it needs to be an all industry approach”, and
theneedforboldandlong-term action, that now is very much the time to grasp opportunities given the level of crisis regarding the environment.
The event coincided with the publication of new data showing that Scotland’s private sector was again in contraction mode, and looked set to face an “extremely difficult period”, and Ms Mitchell said businesses are expecting the next 12 to 24 months to be challenging. “CFOS are anticipating thinner profitmargins,soit’sunsurprisingthatcorporatesarefocusing
onresilience,andtiltingtomore defensive balance sheet strategies, cost control being being a top priority”.
Thatsaid,shepointedtoresilience displayed by companies, and still sees a “reasonably buoyant”scottishdealsmarket. “If you take mergers and acquisition in energy transition, specifically,thenthelevelofdealsin Scotlandhasbeenreallystrong over the last 12 months”. Turning to boosting firms’ coffers, a new survey shows the trend
towards larger deals in Scottish equity markets appears to be continuing this year.
As for the hoped-for impact of the Levelling Up event, Ms Mitchell sees the need to close the gap between policy and implementationand“prioritise and focus on defined actions”. She also said: “There was definitely an appetite in the room to continue the dialogue, so I expect we might meet in six months’ time.”