PRIME Initiative

When Enterprise Week was first invented a few years back PRIME was vociferous in pointing out that enterprise was not just for the young. Finally our lobbying paid off. In March 2008 “Enterprise: unlocking the UK’s talent“, the government’s new strategy on enterprise appeared. In it there was a small paragraph with major ramifications:

“Given the ageing population and the lower aspirations around enterprise amongst older age groups, it is important for the UK’s future growth prospects to encourage more people over 50 to become enterprising. The Government will work with Enterprise Insight, PRIME and SEEDA to develop and a campaign to encourage older people to realise the benefits of unlocking their talent and exploiting their skills and knowledge to be active in enterprise”.

So this year a number of special events designed for the over 50s will feature during Enterprise Week. Some of these are highlighted on www.primebusinessclub.com under “Up-coming events”.

Enterprise Insight has commissioned research on the thorny question of marketing enterprise to the over 50s. You might think that marketeers would have cracked this long ago - but they were too busy concentrating on the youth market!

It has been a very small start, but it is a beginning. There is a slow dawning of realisation that soon there will be more people over fifty than under fifty. The number of young people is dropping fast. Ignoring the needs of those aged over fifty is becoming a nonsense.

Why?

Well first of all nearly one person in three aged between fifty and state pension age is workless. These are people who have one-third of their lives in front of them. They need to finance this.

If we are to have a robust and competitive economy, we need a thriving start-up market. Given that the number of younger people is falling (and the under 30s start-up market was never that strong anyway), we need to invest in people with skills and experience if we are, as a country, to remain competitive in the global economy.

The sad thing is that too many people just have not got it yet.

Let us make sure that this year Enterprise Week is also Breakthrough Week for olderpreneurs.