If you’ve spent the weeks preceding Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ first budget working hard to establish whether you’re a working person, then the Autumn Budget Statement provided some, if not quite all of the answers.

Entrepreneurialism drives innovation

At our best, Britain is an economy of innovators, inventors and problem solvers. A nation of entrepreneurial spirit. Yet the nation’s entrepreneurs could be justified in feeling a little bruised right now. Failure to protect and cherish our technology entrepreneurs risks slowing the rate of innovation. Greater emphasis on capital generation beyond the reserved tendencies of capital preservation may be needed to fuel the flames of progress, and if innovation is the vanguard of the UK economy, let’s be careful not to blunt the bayonet that leads the charge.

Holding investment to account

With the National Wealth Fund and National Audit Office set to play an enhanced role in policing the effectiveness of government investment in infrastructure, we’re likely to see more emphasis on the data that signifies progress. Infrastructure investment can be a long road (no pun), and government could learn lessons from the tried and tested technology delivery frameworks that place emphasis on speed to value, iterative development, lean agile teams, and continuous improvement with measurement baked-in from the offset.

Who will pay the price for higher employers’ National Insurance contributions?

UK CFOs, weary from widespread global economic uncertainty may feel they have been dealt a choice by the Chancellor’s increasing employer NI contributions: choose your margins or choose your people. Increased costs are likely to manifest as decreased investment in salaries, training, and employee benefits. Expect to see greater investment in modern data and technology initiatives that both increase revenue and reduce operational overhead as margins continue to come under sustained pressure.

Britain backs life sciences 

Of the Chancellor’s investment pledges, £520m for a new life sciences innovative manufacturing fund, caught the eye. Life sciences is the fastest growing global digital transformation sector and Britain boasts four of the top-10 universities in the world for data-driven life science innovation (Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial and UCL). Watch this space.

The return of democratised data

A previous Chancellor and short-lived Prime Minister learned the hard way that choosing to bypass the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), creates a delta between strategy and the data that validates it. Ignore data at your peril. Strong and transparent data foundations and governance are the biggest validator and enabler of strategic ambition. As the world becomes increasingly excited about two letters that (A)I shall not mention, there’s a growing realisation that the modern industrial strategy will be validated, built and measured by the data economy.

In the meantime, I’ll toast the Chancellor with a penny off my draught pint. Cheers! Onwards.

Richard Neish

CEO

101 Ways

101 Ways is a technology consultancy, creating enterprise value through custom software and data transformation in retail, financial services, and life sciences. 

Contact us for a data assessment using our enterprise framework, that helps you understand how to maximise the value of your data, inform decision making, and safeguard your organisation for the future. 

Note : The author’s opinions are reflections of the data and technology market, and not designed as political commentary.