Black Business Enterprise in Birmingham – Revisiting my Masters Dissertation
A few weeks ago I happened upon my Masters dissertation and research notes as I was having a clear out, on reviewing these I felt ancient, it was 13 years ago. I also felt a pride I did not feel at the time, I did quite a good job if I do say so myself.
The primary objective of my research was to present a critical illustration of the challenging issues that help or hinder meaningful participation of black British people as business owners in the Birmingham economy.
Before I get into the specifics of my dissertation, I think context regarding my passion for entrepreneurship needs some expatiation.
I come from a family of entrepreneurs. My maternal great grandmother was illiterate and widowed in her 20’s with 3 children in 1930s colonial Nigeria. She set up a business as a distributor of traditional woven fabric which enabled her to send my grandfather and his siblings to the UK in the 1950s to earn their undergraduate and Masters degrees.
She sold her fabric by carrying these on her head and back with 2 helpers walking and travelling by canoe from Ijebu Ode to Lagos and back twice weekly, a distance of between London to Northampton (a 36 hour round trip!).
My grandfather leveraged the education afforded by my great grandmother’s business into a role in the Nigerian civil service as well as becoming a journalist who interviewed the Queen and Nat King Cole and setting up his own chambers as a barrister and also setting up a Nigerian and UK consultancy business all before he was 50.
He lost his businesses with a series of unfortunate investments like most did in the 80’s, which is a story for another time.
My paternal grandmother was illiterate and widowed in her 30’s and raised my father and his siblings with her business as a market trader which enabled her to send my father to the UK for his degree. He then set up his own fabric import export company in Nigeria.
I remember one of my abiding frustrations as a young teen was always around why these family businesses generally tended to peak at the SME size and never seemed to grow into a larger commercial or corporate business.
It was with the above mindset I came to the UK in my mid-teens expecting that UK #blackexcellence and #entrepreneurship would mean several black owned corporate, commercial and medium sized businesses would be in existence and thriving as the challenges around funding, working capital constraints and international trade instruments in Nigeria would be non-existent in the UK.
I was startled to realise that my new home as a teen in the UK; Birmingham, which at the time had a substantial and growing black population had little to no black businesses of considerable size.
The disappointment was crushing, and extremely demotivating. My latter teen years were spent in the worst rebellion, feeling alien and unrepresented. This part of my life is another one of those stories for another day.
When I finally got back on track in my early twenties, after undertaking a few entrepreneurial ventures myself, I decided to investigate the hurdles holding back black business enterprise in Birmingham as my Masters thesis.
The objectives of the research were as follows:
- To prove or disprove the disinclination of black British people in Birmingham in becoming business owners or self-employed
- To clarify the reasons behind the ambiguous reluctance of black British people's entry into self-employment or becoming business owners
- To investigate the impact of funding as an issue on the ability/reluctance of black British people to own and maintain their own businesses
- To ascertain the impact of sector on the ability of black British entrepreneurs to access funding to start up or maintain their businesses
- To put forward recommendations to increase the number of self-employed black British people in Birmingham and address any causes of funding gaps.
I interviewed approximately 40 black business owners in Birmingham and my recommendations from my quantitative and qualitative research and analysis were quite comprehensive, I provide an abbreviated summary below:
Collaboration - The black community, local and central government have to work in tandem to encourage and sustain black business in Birmingham and the UK in general.
Access to research resource – This was deemed important to the survival of any business and there needed to be a One Stop Shop where black businesses could get information and market research on sectors, industries and business practices. There was also a need for more research into the black and ethnic minority population demographics, buying patterns and economy in the UK, which would give most black business entrepreneurs the ability to start a business on a solid foundation with research pertinent to their target market.
Education - In terms of promoting self-employment to black youths in Birmingham which in turn will encourage and instil self-employment in the black students going through the educational system as an option. In the process, there was to be knowledge imparted about the way businesses and the world of finance operates, which would not only act as encouragement for the black youths, but could also engage them enough to steer them towards a self-employment path if they were not academically minded.
Funding - The stringent criteria for black businesses to receive funding had to be reviewed, as black people in the UK are some of the poorest, it is inconceivable that the same requirements placed on the better off are also placed on black entrepreneurs. There was to be a fund or grant in place that could be allocated to black business owners when criteria in regard to research and viability is completed.
Banks - Banks were required to do more to engender their relationships with black businesses insofar as having more black staff in the business banking departments and also making the effort to understand the environment in which most black businesses exist in. Banks also needed to be transparent and comprehensive in their reasons for refusing black businesses loans. This would clarify the ambiguity surrounding the issue of race as a factor in banks' loan decisions.
Mentorship – This was deemed very important and 100% of the business owners I interviewed supported the idea of mentorship. Successful black business owners were to be encouraged to give support and the benefit of their experiences to new black businesses. This could be done via a committee with the same objectives as 3bs, which was at the time set up to help and encourage black businesses in Birmingham, which a lot of black business owners I interviewed in Birmingham viewed as a failure.
Premises – Access to this in retail areas were to be made available for black businesses in Birmingham at local government level. There are areas with predominantly black residents that were due to be regenerated and had a number of retail premises; a few of these could have been set aside for black businesses to fulfil the local need for ethnic specific goods.
Black businesses – The view was that these businesses in Birmingham also had to take a wider view of who their customers were, by reviewing options of serving the wider community exclusive of ethnicity, which in turn would grow their business and widen their scope.
I concluded that the success of the black business community in Birmingham and the UK was dependent on the black community, banks and UK local and central government.
By revisiting my Masters dissertation, I am hoping to use this as an opportunity to tell the stories of #blackentrepreneurs in Birmingham and possibly the UK as a whole. This might also help in its own small way to reduce barriers to their growth and fuel expansion of black business in the UK.
I wonder what changes and improvements the entrepreneurs I interviewed have experienced and if anything came out of the detailed discussions, suggestions and conclusions put forth.
If you are a black entrepreneur in the UK, please share your experiences below.
#blackhistorymonth #bethefirst #representation #inclusivity #diversity #entrepreneurship #Birmingham #BAME #blackhistory