Small firms pick up the TAB for advice

SMALL firms in Scotland are to benefit from board-level advice thanks to a concept born in America 21 years ago.

The Alternative Board (TAB) forms groups of businessmen with complementary skills and experience into a boardroom structure, allowing them to advise and scrutinise each other.

Launched in St Louis in the US in 1990, TAB is being rolled out in the UK on a franchise model, and former Real Good Food chief executive Stephen Heslop has brought it north of the Border.

He has already formed groups in Edinburgh and Fife, with their first meetings scheduled in the next few weeks.

He said the scheme was aimed at owner managers or owners with a separate management structure, but no board of their own, who typically rely on "ad hoc business advice from their accountant, lawyer or friends".

Heslop, who acts as chairman at the board meetings, said TAB gives them a more formal structure.

"We run them as formal board meetings," he said. "They each report how their business is performing, and how they are implementing the things they said they would do at the last meeting. There's a lot of peer accountability and that's were a lot of the power comes from."

All the members of a board sign confidentiality agreements, and no two competing businesses would be placed in the same group.

Heslop said finding the right mix of characters and businesses for each board can be one of the hardest parts of his role. "You have to balance the personalities and the businesses," he said.

Heslop says he intends to take a back seat role in the meetings, but offers advice and training to TAB members separately, helping them to focus on what they want to get out of their business.