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Adapting to the shifting sands of the commercial world
9 November 2009
Leicestershire
Business Champions from across the East Midlands gathered at Pera in Melton Mowbray on Tuesday 3rd November for an inspirational discussion around how innovation, in response to social change, can be fundamental to survival.
Business Champions is a voluntary programme created and funded by the East Midlands Development Agency (emda) which recruits high-calibre proactive business figures to support a range of projects where a commercial perspective is needed.
Alastair Eperon, Business Champions Chair, welcomed delegates and set the scene for the evening. The theme for the event being the current economic climate, and how perhaps the only certainty at the moment is change. He highlighted “how business must adapt to the changing relationship between the commercial world and the social environment in which it finds itself. To flourish, businesses need to reflect, adapt and learn from other sectors. Business Champions have a key role in driving forward this approach and inspiring others to do the same.”
Key note speaker, Peter Bazalgette, former Chairman of Endemol UK, was the man responsible for the formats that re-wrote the rule book for world television. Peter spoke about his time at the forefront of emerging social trends and how he adapted to create a new wave of programming. Peter Bazalgette is widely seen as one of the most influential media figures in recent years. From 2004-2007 he was Chief Creative Officer of Endemol where he personally devised several internationally successful TV formats. He brought Big Brother to the UK and developed successful formats such as Changing Rooms and Ready Steady Cook. His book about the business of TV formats, Billion Dollar Game, was published in 2005 and he is now a media consultant and digital investor. He found the event to be “The Business Champions Programme feels like something that’s best in class; when you stand in a room with 100 participants. They have a challenging & ambitious idea of what business discipline can achieve in our society.”
Having engaged the audience with accounts of his ground breaking business strategies he went on to field questions from the floor, which made for some lively and thought provoking discussion.
Delegates also heard from the Chief Executive of the East Midlands Development Agency, Jeff Moore, on emda’s response to the economic downturn and the importance of working in partnership with business to inspire the region. He concluded the night’s proceedings by thanking the Business Champions for their contributions - “As Business Champions you have provided an invaluable source of information to us in helping to identify where to focus our efforts to support business. Your expertise, your capability, your enthusiasm and your drive continues to be absolutely indispensable to emda, and to this region.”