As we enter month eight of the fincancial crisis, the media still predicting worse to come but Chris Dearden says we are not necessarily all doomed.
Monday morning 8am at the factory and offices at Medem UK. The phone rings, the usual 'good morning Medem' brings the response 'how do you know I'm a woman?'

You may or may not think that funny, though it really happened. That little occurrence does, by accident rather than design, demonstrate an intangible asset in any company, that of anticipation.
Though we did not anticipate the caller would be female she thought we had. As it turned out it was a call from the performing rights society enquiring as to whether we listened to the radio in the building.

Listen to the radio! Not likely.

Last September I stopped listening to the radio because the news media put so much emphasis on 'the end is nigh' and none at all on 'the Arcs construction is ahead of schedule' that I had to switch off.

Even watching an episode of Dads Army on television brought to mind Robert Peston, the BBC's business editor.

As Private Frazer was shouting 'doomed, we're all doomed' I just imagined Robert Peston with a tin hat on standing outside a part built private finance initiative school shouting those exact same words.

I stopped reading Peston's blog on the BBC website in October because the cliff edge near my home was becoming a very inviting place to take a run over to and by run I don't mean a jolly outing in the car.

Minds on other things

Our prime minister's tailor and hairdresser seem to have their minds on other things when measuring him for his suits or styling his hair, their concentration on the job in hand has probably been affected by the doom and gloom.

So I do not listen or watch so much news anymore.
OK, I know the gold reserves were sold off when gold was at its lowest value for decades and I know that the tax man raided the pension funds and falling stocks made our pensions fairly worthless, I know the private finance initiative was first tried by Mussolini in the 1930s but the off balance sheet looks good, well for a few years at least.

But, to mix metaphors, at the end of the day, it's always darkest just before the dawn.
So, back to the beginning, it's dawn on a cold Monday morning in January at the factory of Medem UK. It's 8am and as that phone rings, at that same moment production starts on our latest panel design, the APS-3 gas detection and gas pressure proving system.

Our design, our build but its existence is a result of anticipation. We knew that a fire safety building bulletin was being updated some time ago. We also knew that gas detection in school boiler houses was being encouraged as well as gas isolation in the event of a genuine fire alarm.
So we developed a safety system which we felt would tick all the right boxes at some point in the future. The future arrived and we had the product ready for the market demand.

Stayed in bed

If I had continued to listen to the prophets of doom that production line would not have been running that day because we would not have anticipated our market.

We would instead have stayed in bed and waited for all the lights to go out and the sky to fall in.
Reading this you might say 'hold on a minute, design, manufacture... here in the United Kingdom?'...Yes, it's really true, though, again, if we had listened to the prophets of doom years ago and if we had not anticipated that innovation and service were the way forward then we would not be here to answer the phone or design and build any gas safety panels.

Perspective, determination, planning and anticipation: those are the words that best describe what is needed in these more difficult times.
There are many and various types of businesses in the building industry today that, like ours, are well run and see profit as the bonus of success and innovation as the product of the positive mind.

At Medem UK we enjoy, yes we really do enjoy, striving to exceed our clients' expectations and designing the best products in the gas safety market today.

In conclusion if Captain Mainwaring had been running the banks and - but, no, I will save that one for another day and, no, I won't give up my day job!

// Chris Dearden is a director of Medem UK //