Globalisation, Liberalisation and Taxation
Lisa Tse, Chief Executive, Sweet Mandarin
“I believe the drive towards an enterprise culture in the UK is due to the change of structure of the UK economy – from large firm to small firm dominance, from a capital base to a knowledge base, and from relatively stable, controlled industrial environments to highly dynamic and constantly changing ones.
The major trends that will define entrepreneurship in the UK are globalisation, liberalisation, taxation, technological/internet and education policy. There is no longer the concept of a job from cradle to grave; there are more opportunities to pursue innovations; and success stories of small niche firms winning work in the marketplace encourage many to pursue their dreams to be their own boss. The media programmes make business interesting and encourage others to take the step.
From my experience of speaking at numerous schools, colleges and universities in the UK and teaching at the Sweet Mandarin master classes, ultimately I believe education and promotional activity will define the future of enterprise. The presence of entrepreneurship role models helps to advance and foster the entrepreneur agenda. This is the ignition stage.
The next issue for those ready to take the step to innovate and create their own business is the currently high barriers to entry; for example, lack of finance and dealing with a plethora of local bureaucracy. From my experience in setting up Sweet Mandarin, getting financing from the banks was the most difficult obstacle. I decided to buy a freehold property which gave me security to borrow against it. If it had been a rented unit, I would not have secured the funds. Secondly when I bought the property, there were no double yellow lines outside. As soon as I set up shop, the local council put double yellow lines outside the restaurant until I complained for months. Then they changed it to six car parking spaces, but three were allocated to disabled badge holders. These kinds of illogical acts of local government can can create serious barriers for a new start business.
The continuation of the entrepreneur spirit requires a business to be successful. Fortunately, Sweet Mandarin has continued to do well. However, we have received zero help from the government, banks or any other organisations. I have found out it is much easier to set up a business than to continue a business. Nowadays there is much help for new businesses and many organisations like Make Your Mark to encourage entrepreneurship. However, there is nothing to support and help businesses to grow. To encourage true entrepreneurship that can flourish and teach other generations, there needs to be much more support – educationally, training wise, financially to help this sector out.”
Lisa Tse is an identical twin with sister Helen. She was born in 1977 and grew up in Manchester. Lisa worked as a financier with Thomsons Financial plc in the City of London and eventually went on to set up a recruitment company to service the needs of this blue chip client. Since then she has followed in her mother’s and grandmother’s footsteps and set up the award-winning Sweet Mandarin restaurant in Manchester with her two sisters. www.sweetmandarin.com.
Her passions are food, business and people and she is probably best known for her entrepreneurial and community initiatives including Meet My Neighbour and the School of Excellence (becoming the first Chinese restaurant to open the secrets of the wok to the Western world). She heads up the first tri-lingual Chinese-English weekly radio show on Asian Sound Radio and is a key spokesperson for Make Your Mark – a campaign to encourage entrepreneurialism across schools nationwide. She has been featured on BBC Newsnight, Dragons’ Den, Blue Peter and a documentary on the challenge to set up her restaurant in four weeks on ITV Granada. She has also been featured in numerous press and magazines most notably in the Guardian and Sunday Times on topics ranging from women in business, food, restaurateurs, entrepreneurs, immigration, nationality, Chinese culture and investing in China.
