You MUST Know Who Your Customer Really Is!

The OFT has confirmed that new guidance on debt collection is in the early stages of being drafted. Draft guidance is expected imminently, but the OFT does not expect to publish final guidelines before the Autumn.

The main issue here is data accuracy, and the guidelines that will eventually arrive will focus on making sure that innocent individuals are not chased for consumer debt on the basis of false or erroneous information given by creditors to debt collection agencies - but the fact is that far too many companies have been far too careless about getting their information right about purely commercial customers for far too long.

There is, of course, rarely an excuse for the existence of inaccurate - or incomplete - data on any customer of any kind at any time, but where commercial customers are concerned, the opportunities for making sure that data is absolutely complete and correct, and the margin for error is so much reduced, that there is no excuse at all for errors of any kind.

But they still happen.

I continue to receive instructions to proceed (for really quite large sums of money!) against companies that do not, and have never, existed. And I still see new account opening forms, fully completed, signed and dated by 'directors' (who afterwards prove to be untraceable!) that show false company names - and false company numbers that lack the odd digit or two.

I've been singing the 'You must know your customer' song for so many years now that I'm sick of hearing it myself - and keeping my temper and my tongue between my teeth and refraining from saying, 'I warned you', or 'It serves you right', is getting harder all the time.

But I can say it here:

If you don't know who your customer is, it's going to serve you right if things go wrong. And I've warned you about it not once, but many times.

Compromise Can Produce the Best of All Possible Outcomes

Jane Bennett, the Forum of Private Business's Head of Compaigns commented on the Queen's Speech today, and stated that it 'didn't appear to contain anything smaller businesses should be unduly concerned about'.

I listened to the Speech - and whilst I haven't had time to absorb it properly, and would like to spend some time mulling over the proposed Bills, I think Ms. Bennett is absolutely right.

What really struck me about Ms. Bennett's comments, though, was her reference to the 'not ideal' compromise reached over National Insurance Contributions.

Parties who mutually agree to 'compromise ' naturally have to accept terms that do not perfectly agree with the original or absolute desires of either or any of them, and therefore no 'compromise' can ever be said to be 'ideal' for either or any of them - but compromise can (and in many cases does) reflect the best of all possible worlds and produce the best of all possible outcomes.

Anybody who has ever been in business since the world began and the first bargain was sealed - whether by way of a handshake or a written contract - knows the price and the value of compromise. Compromise is what business is all about. Actually it's what life is all about. And now it's what politics and government is all about, too.

I think we can all live quite happily with that.

A Fair Balance At Last?

We were expecting the Budget to be a belt-tightening exercise - and it is.

I find that I can't mourn over the fact that Government Ministers will now have to use public transport, walk, or use 'pool' cars. You and I have been using our Oyster Cards, our feet, and 'pool' cars for many years now, and I don't think any of us are the worse off for the exercise - although we could probably do without the disturbing clanking noises that frequently occur whenever one changes gear in a 'pool' car...

And I don't think any of us need mourn too much over the £836M cut to the Department of Business Innovation & Skills either - or, indeed, the cuts to Local Government and many other public sector departments. They are long, long, overdue. The public sector has grown much too fat - and those of us on the outside of it have grown much too lean. It's long past time to strike a fair balance - and perhaps the time has finally come.