Sir Richard Harpin

They want to go into lots of countries all at the same time.

And they need to get a focus plan, do one country at a time, plan it out correctly, get the right resources, hire locals in the country.

Many businesses in the U.K.

go bust.

by doing international expansion because they got it wrong.

Yeah, it's really tough here right now.

Costs are going up.

Energy prices are at a high.

Lots of other cost inflation.

The government put a tax on employers' national insurance, which was a tax on hiring people and retaining people.

And that's really difficult.

I think there's no problems in businesses paying taxes when they make a profit, but there shouldn't be taxes on hiring and employing people.

So that's made it really difficult in the UK.

But I am a great believer that entrepreneurs are optimists.

The very best entrepreneurs take any problem and turn it into a bigger opportunity.

And if you can run a business and you can grow it in a tough time, then when the times get better, the business is really going to take off.

So I would say there's no better time than to set up a business in the UK right now.

The UK is still a really good place from which to run a global business.

But actually, many UK businesses that are operating internationally, they're doing better in the other countries than they are in the home country.

Businesses need to be aware of that noise.