After spending the last six and a half years living and travelling abroad – working, relaxing, observing and learning, I am coming back to the UK this spring to live, work and contribute full time again. I am positive, excited and enthusiastic about returning to the UK despite the very challenging economic climate that is facing us all. My batteries are recharged - I am fighting fit, ready to roll up my sleeves and get stuck in!

My only real concern about returning is my ability to cope with the UK weather! On a recent visit to a snowy Scotland, the door of my car would not shut properly due to the extreme cold. I ended up driving from Fife to Edinburgh with a dog lead tying the inside door handle to the handbrake! The garage suggested using WD40, which I tried the next day but the door froze in a closed position so I had to spend most of the morning climbing in and out the passenger door until the temperature rose and the door unfroze!

On the economic front, I am not a signed up supporter of “doom and gloom”. Living and working abroad has given me a better appreciation of the UK. Maybe absence does make the heart grow fonder! However, while the UK recession is “officially” over, the reality for most UK companies is that although things are improving a little, we are just, in my view, bumping along the bottom. We have to remember that more companies tend to go bust in the recovery period than during the recession. It remains a long and painful journey to “full” recovery but we will definitely get there! Try to keep positive.

One Scottish business that is staying positive is Network Webcams. I co-founded this company in 2004 and it has offices in Fife, Cheshire and New York. Network Webcams are IP video specialists offering Networked CCTV Systems and Remote Monitoring Solutions. They design and offer a full range of web-based video services for security (SecurityStation), project management (RemoteManager) and web marketing (Streamdays) mainly for the education, construction, leisure, tourism and retail sectors. Their website currently attracts over 200,000 visitors a month. Operating very much in a growth market, they will shortly be launching a unique web-based CCTV security product which was fully developed in-house. The company is debt free, has cash in the bank, has been profitable from year one and it made a profit of £140,000 on a turnover of £1.9m in 2009 with 14 employees. It is currently actively recruiting and by the end of this year should have close to 20 employees.

There is an interesting paper on the IOD website called “Where Do We Go From Here? - An Economic Recovery Plan For The UK”. It proposes a 20 point plan to transform the UK’s economic growth prospects over the next ten years. It states the obvious that “As the UK economy has shrunk - so the State needs to shrink as well” and suggests following Canada’s successful significant cutting of their public spending during the 1990s.

In this crucial General Election year, I would like to suggest my own personal manifesto for promoting the UK’s economic recovery:

 Cut public expenditure severely over the next 10 years to protect the UK’s credit rating;
 Completely rethink the way Government spends our money, as both companies and individuals are now doing;
 Increase standard rate VAT to 20% to share the pain and give individuals a choice;
 Phase in a significant reduction in Corporation Tax to provide encouragement to companies, particularly SMEs – less is more;
 Phased reversal of the already announced increases in Income Tax and NI which are simply counterproductive – more is less;
 Make radical reforms to the UK planning system to speed up decisions to promote jobs, investment and growth;
 Take action to speed up bank credit committee decisions which are currently taking longer and longer even for the best run companies and are, as a result, causing unnecessary problems;
 Take action against banks that try to hold entrepreneurs to ransom for sizable equity stakes in their companies in exchange for simply providing continued bank support at full rates;
 Create a Government sponsored SME Business Bank which can specialize and understand the needs of the vital SME sector (which creates most new jobs); and
 Hold a Referendum on Independence for Scotland in 2010 so the resulting strong ‘NO` vote can put this issue to bed for a generation!

Once I return to live and work in the UK, I will be splitting up my time between my various businesses (including Network Webcams and Dow Investments), charity interests and, of course, family and friends. I am particularly looking forward to working more closely with Macmillan Cancer Support having recently participated in the opening of the Macmillan Cancer Information Centre at the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh. I have been involved with Macmillan in Scotland and London since the early 90s and have always been impressed by their professionalism and positive outlook.

In conclusion, I firmly believe that 2010 will be a very tough and challenging year and that we may not see or feel any real recovery until well into 2011 but don’t give up hope!

Robert D. Kilgour
CEO, Dow Investments Ltd
www.dow-investments.com
January 2010