London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games – Opportunities 

London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games – Opportunities

for the Hindu community to engage
By Alok Mitra Chair of EMBG the lead executive for business for HCUK,

Our May event at London City Hall was a great success with over 150 businesses and VIPs attending. They came to share their experiences, network and find out how businesses can get their slice of the £9.3bn Olympic Games budget.  This was a high profile important event for the Hindu Community in London and was well attended by the wider community as well.

The event was organized by the Ethnic Minority Business Group (EMBG) for the Hindu Council UK (HCUK) and hosted by the Greater London Authority (GLA) with participation from London Organizing Committee of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG). It was chaired by the Deputy Major of London, Richard Barnes.

Richard Barnes welcomed EMBG and HCUK to the event and said that the Mayor recognized the importance of the Hindu business community to London in providing and sustaining over 216,000 jobs and making a great financial contribution to London’s economy.

 Alok Mitra, Chair of EMBG the lead executive for business for HCUK, welcomed the delgates on behalf of HCUK and EMBG.  He said “Although this event is primarily aimed at the Hindu community in London it is fantastic to see so many friends and colleagues from other communities here. I believe this is a reflection of the success of the Hindu business community and its values that enable it to build bridges across communities and work with others to improve the economic life of all Londoners. I believe that by working together to our strengths in areas of common interest we can make a difference. In the current economic situation where many businesses are struggling to remain profitable and some are going bust it is even more important to ensure we tap all business opportunities. Both HCUK and EMBG supported the London bid for the 2012 Games but it does not matter whether one supports the games or not as they will now happen. So let’s now all get behind these games and see how we can participate and gain business.”

“The HCUK through EMBG wanted to ensure that Hindu businesses in London did not miss out on the business opportunities from the 2012 games. Our research showed that the knowledge amongst the Asian businesses was patchy, especially regarding where to get government help to bring their businesses to a point where they can meet acceptable procurement standards and become ‘fit to supply’.  This event was put together to bring them up to speed.”

 “The current budget for the games is £9.5bn and approximately £6bn has already been allocated but there are still many contracts to be won. The LOCOG presentation will cover the types of opportunities available and how to tender for them.”

“There will be a session on the barriers to getting contracts which will include a question and answer session. Our business and community Leaders will also touch on some of these issues.”

“Represented here we have businesses both large and small who are contributing massively to the wealth of our capital city. Indeed the south Asian community supports over 200,000 jobs in London and contributes significantly to the GDP of the capital.”

Alok highlighted that the potential legacy of the e-procurement process could be that around £35bn of contracts annually will be up for grabs as local authorities and government departments use the system going forward. But for now, there is a great danger that Asian businesses will miss out on the remaining £3.3bn unless they proactively take action now.

LOCOG representative, Neil Walker, introduced the games while his colleague Kristina Richmond presented the opportunities for communities to take part in cultural events. The CEO of the London Business Network, Mike Mulvey, explained how to register and use the ‘Competefor’ site to gain contracts.

The formal session was followed by Alok Mitra highlighting the barriers SMS’s face in accessing contracts. These included:

•  That many SME’s do not have the resources, technical skills nor the time to register, track down contracts on the ‘Competefor’ site and go through the onerous bidding process.
• That the requirement for 3 years plus audited accounts and trade references are discriminatory to SME’s, especially young businesses.
• The lack of feedback and ineffective support from Business Link is unhelpful.
•  Many SME’s believe that Competefor system does not validate the data thus making thus making it easy for unscrupulous businesses to gain an advantage imputing false data.
• There is a perception that buyers deal with their favored contacts and only use the system so that they are seen to be complying with the process.  

In the Q&A session Mike Mulvey explained that the Competefor system was robust, easy to use and anonymous to the supplier at the initial selection stage. He also said that over 71,000 businesses have registered and urged everyone to register. In reaction to Baroness Verma’s comment that “large scale public sector contracts were still not accessible to most  Asian businesses”  Mike said that they can’t do anything about the public sector procurement rules as they are set by the government but that he was doing everything to persuade the buyers to ease their rules. Unfortunately, the time allocated to the Q&A proved too short and many did not get a chance to ask their questions.

Mike’s responses could not deal adequately with delegates questions because he is responsible for the Competfor site which is the front end tool within the overall process; as the critical barriers to obtaining contracts lay with the government procurement process that is outside his remit.

It was regrettable that the most senior of the LOGOC panel were unable to stay for the presentation from the business leaders and some expressed their disappointment feeling that “they have come here to teach us and not listen to us” and felt frustrated. Those who have experience of the tendering process felt especially aggrieved that the procurement process itself is the problem and that this is not being adequately dealt with. Our analysis of the feedback during and after the event showed that the LOGOC presentation concentrating on the Competefor site as the route to gaining contracts raises expectations which are then later dashed by the burdensome procurement rules at the second stage of the process (post registration). Without addressing the root causes SME’s are going to lose out. Clearly there is a flaw in the way the information is being disseminated to businesses. 

A number of high profile business leaders from the Indian/Hindu community including CB Patel (Publisher/Editor, Asian Voice & Gujarat Samachar), Dolar Popat (CEO of TLC group – Holiday Inn Express), Dr Rami Ranger (MD, Sunmark Ltd), Alok Mitra (MD of CJM Consultants and Chair of EMBG) and Kamel Hothi (Asian Markets Director Lloyds TSB who spoke in support of the games. Some expressed their concerns that the current procurement processes were discriminatory to SME’s and that Asian businesses need to become more pro active in order to get a fair slice of the business.

Following the address by the business speaker Dilip Joshi (Equality & Representation HCUK) chaired the session for addresses by politicians and community leaders who all spoke in support of the games and urged the community to get behind them. The speakers were  Anil Bhanot, Chair, Hindu Council UK, Anjana Patel, Councillor, London Borough of Harrow, Navin Shah, London Assembly Member, Yogesh Teli, Councillor, London Borough of Harrow, Dhuv Patel, Chair, City Hindus Network. Representatives from all Hindu organisations were invited including Ramesh Kallidai, Chair, Hindu Forum of Britain, who was unable to attend and sent his apologies.

Anil Bhanot highlighted the additional opportunities for Indian cultural organisations to participate in the Olympic cultural events for which funding may be available. He urged  Hindu businesses to start a social fund using some of the profits they make out of the Olympic contracts to support sports and culture amongst those who are talented but not fortunate enough to be able to fund it themselves.

The Councillors Anajna Patel, Yogesh Teli and London Assembly Member Navin Shah suggested the need for a Hindu Businesses Consortium to enable us the competitive buying power. Dhruv Patel reminded the audience how Hindu philosophy of worshipping Goddess Luxmi, makes us value money and develop successful business models.

EMBG and HCUK received many calls and emails from the attendees to congratulate them for arranging such an important and informative event and said that it was a great service to the community.  EMBG received valuable constructive feedback and were urged by delegates to continue to represent their cause. In response, EMBG will consult its members and affiliates to see how best to help ease some of the barriers SMEs face.

Links: There is further coverage of this event visit www.embg.co.uk

Alok Mitra
Executive Member – Ethnic Business Group
Hindu Council UK