Institute of Directors 2018 Convention

Guernsey’s brand is, in all honesty, not an issue that I had previously been particularly engaged with. The future of the island and its place in the world did not particularly excite me, as having lived on the island all my life, I simply wanted to leave for university and never look back. I assumed that the island would weather any economic difficulties as it always has and continue to be a prosperous little safe-haven. I now realise how naïve my thinking had been. If Guernsey is to continue to flourish in today’s globalised world, it needs to innovate and find ways to solve niche global problems.

Simon Anholt’s talk, somewhat surprisingly, was quite different from what I had seen online about his globalised view of the world. In what he describes as his ‘day job’, rather than focusing on his global ‘Good Country’, he advises countries on policies that can better recommend them to the outside world. His purpose at the convention was to give a philosophical view on Guernsey’s brand, and his main message was highlighting the difference between ‘brand’ and ‘branding’. He talked of how Guernsey must focus not on how the outside world sees it – its branding – but on the core values and creative new industries that would flourish most in our community. In a survey conducted before the convention on all the attendees, Guernsey was described by over three quarters of the respondents as “an attractive place to live and work”, as well as “safe”, “secure” and “well-regulated”. These are the core elements that Simon and others identified as the Guernsey ‘brand’, which they believed must be utilised effectively to secure the island and innovate in the future.

Another issue that surprised me at the convention was how eager the island’s business leaders, most of whom are in the financial sector, are to diversify the economy away from finance. I had been vaguely aware before the convention that Guernsey focuses too heavily on finance to the detriment of other sectors, but I had not contemplated the effect that this could have in the future if we fail to promote diversification. If there is another large global financial crash, it could have huge negative effects on employment and revenues in the island. The same is true if Britain or the EU tighten their trading laws with offshore financial centres, and these together make Guernsey much more vulnerable than I had previously realised. Part of the aim of the Convention was to think of areas that Guernsey could expand into, and identify which industries suit our island’s ‘brand’ best.

This issue was very effectively and interestingly addressed by Hannah Laikko, a consultant from the London agency ‘Moving Brands’. In her outside view on Guernsey’s brand position, it was not only interesting to hear about the amusing lack of awareness about Guernsey from London millennials, but also how creative, specialist ideas such as self-driving boats provide scope for innovation and diversification away from finance. Hannah highlighted how Guernsey has adapted in the past to changing times, harnessing first the agricultural industry, then tourism, and finally finance, all in the space of 100 years. She used this to demonstrate that Guernsey is not stuck in its ways with financial services being the only viable industry for the future, and that new industries are a perfectly possible opportunity, if innovators are attracted to the island and the government and population of the island think sufficiently ‘outside the box’.

Inevitably, the debate on how best to attract new start-ups, and then how to fund the infrastructure needed to support them, centred on whether the States would support this. The panel contested that it is the responsibility of individuals and business as much as the government to advertise Guernsey as an attractive place, whilst others responded that it is simply not possible to fund huge infrastructure projects without States support. This was how I thought the debate would end, with inconclusive results and an assertion that States action is needed if any progress is to be made. And this was indeed partly true, with various politicians asserting that reports and councils existed for infrastructure funding, but in the knowledge that any drastic ideas would be rejected in the General Assembly. However, the recent Referendum result has shaken things up dramatically. The result seems to me to suggest that the population as a whole have decided that change is needed in the States and on the island, and changing the way that we elect our politicians, to force them to make alliances and come to decisions, will help with this. The future is brightening for Guernsey’s opportunity to diversify, and people are slowly coming around to the idea that the government needs to initiate changes.