Let minnows win at the Olympics

[Fiona]

THE Olympic Games are coming to London in 2012, which should be good news for small businesses in the UK.

There should be many opportunities to bid for work, and the bid team has promised business will not have to pay a penny towards the Games.

In general, small businesses seem to accept this, and are positive towards the event. However, there are signs the initial excitement is giving way to concerns about the desire and ability of the organising committee to ensure small businesses gain as much as they should from London 2012.

So what are the opportunities offered by the biggest sporting event in the world. UK companies will be able to bid for a variety of contracts, ranging from building 5,000 new homes in the athletes' village, to providing permanent and temporary seating in venues across the capital - ranging from diving in Trafalgar Square to archery at Lords Cricket Ground.

Some 17,000 athletes and officials will need catering and accommodation, while 50,000 volunteers will require specially made clothing. All this will be supported by freight and logistics services.

Furthermore, it is not only London businesses that will benefit. For example:

The organisers of the Sydney Games in 2000 reported that the event resulted in £150m of new contracts for businesses across New South Wales.

Events such as football and sailing will be held outside London.

Training camps are traditionally based outside the main centre and there will be almost 200 of these. In 2000, the British team spent £1m on their camp in Australia.

A PWC report concluded that the Sydney Games generated more than £2.5bn in spending by an additional 1.6 million visitors between 1997 and 2001.

For all these reasons, officials are confident London will more than make back the £2.375bn it is estimated that holding the Games will cost. Those costs are to be met primarily by an increase in Londoners' council tax and special Lottery games.

A vital part of the planning will involve ensuring that small businesses are given every opportunity to bid for all these contracts. There was a very clear contrast on this issue between the Sydney Games and the Commonwealth Games in Manchester in 2002.

In Sydney, they offered help completing documents, they broke contracts up into bite-sized chunks, and they advertised tenders online. We are yet to see a clear signal from the London 2012 team that they plan to do all this.

This is important, not only for the sake of those small businesses that will benefit, but for the overall legacy of the Games. If all the area is left with is a velodrome and a couple of swimming pools, it will be extremely disappointing.

The real legacy will be in the skills and employment opportunities the Games provide. The organisers must ensure contracts go to local small businesses, not to multinationals that will bring in cheap workers from abroad who will return home once the work is complete.

While a spokesperson for London 2012 says it is too early for them to have developed specific plans for how small businesses will be encouraged to bid, the London Development Authority has already produced its draft procurement principles.

These say all the right things and were echoed by the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, when he welcomed them, saying, "One of my key priorities over the next seven years will be to ensure local people and businesses benefit to the greatest possible extent.

"We will work with the companies delivering the Games to ensure they fully involve local communities and create the greatest community benefits."

We will have to wait and see whether or not the LDA's general principles translate into specific assistance for small businesses and a lasting legacy. For 284 businesses, however, the impact of the Games is likely to be felt much more rapidly. They are based on the 500-acre site that has been designated for the Olympic Park, and so are to be relocated.

The LDA has been good at engaging with landowners in the area, but has done less to help tenants. Many companies moved there specifically because it is cheap, and that is also why it's a good site for the Olympics. For those businesses, moving anywhere else will add greatly to their overheads. This is an issue that must be addressed.

Despite the difficulties, there will be many opportunities for almost every small business in the UK. Those companies need to do all they can to take advantage of them. First they must work out if they are a first, second or third-tier supplier, and then start marketing to buyers on that basis.

They must get to grips with the tendering process, as it can be complicated and intimidating. Finally, they must prepare their companies for growth.

icwales.com