On the evening of Monday 12 November 2007, at TU/e Zwartdoos, Mr. Marcel van Bussel has kindly accepted our invitation to discuss with us about entrepreneurship, politics and civil servants. Were present:
- Three TU/e students: two of them have ideas for starting their own business, the third is a daughter of entrepreneurs
- A student in Fiscal Economy in Tilburg who has already two restaurants and asked for a license for a third one. He faces a challenging situation with civil servants he said.
- Four Kiwani coaches (Entrepreneurs, managers or ex-professors of Technology Management)
- Two board member of Diwane, both own their starting Businesses.
Mr. Van Bussel is himself an entrepreneur (accounting, fiscal consultancy). He is also a politician member of city Hall council and Chairman of a political party in Eindhoven. He said that he has acquired the first Laptop ever in the Netherlands when he stated his own business. He simplified the way of handling fiscal and accountancy customers’ questions which brought customers to him. He never had to make an acquisition, he said. Serving customers at the best level and innovating in doing this is his motto.
Mr. Van Bussel came to politics by accident and has tried to find a reason for this later. “Politics parties”, he said, “train their own people in policies, way of working, of thinking he party thought, of talking the party language. In our party, we don’t. We are citizen, entrepreneurs who want to have an efficient civil service for citizens”. As an entrepreneur, surviving a political meeting where only one of ten points on an agenda is discussed in an evening without conclusion is an achievement in itself. An entrepreneur takes ten decisions per day with maybe a risk of failures on some of them. A civil servant has no right to fail. Rules have to be strictly respected. The civil servant manages that a decision is taken collectively. This takes time and make entrepreneurship and administration cultures clash.
Having a brilliant idea is not enough to have a successful business. One has to manage it through Tax office, laws, regulations…. These regulations, laws are there to protect and to keep the living and entrepreneurship environments healthy. As entrepreneurs (mainly when starting) we cannot be up-to-date for all introduction or changes in fiscal, space, environmental regulations. There are commissions for generating laws but there is no commission for removing them. Entrepreneurs will come one day or another in contacts with civil servants for a license from the city hall: building licenses, installation, starting a given type of business in certain location in the city, … .
There are fiscal shelters and possibilities of financial support in Eindhoven’s region, Stimulus program for example is one of them.
“We advise people to take a fit for use advice and focus on that. We advise them to prepare in advance their case before going to the fiscal advisor or accountant. We advise them not to take a cup of coffee when visiting a consultant as, at 120 Euro/hour, the 5 minutes for the coffee cost 12 Euros which makes the cup of coffee very expensive. This is a joke but it gives you how we value the time of an entrepreneur”
It was a very interesting and pleasant evening. We had time to ask questions about diversity and Entrepreneurship. He said that the best integration is the economic integration as for that one needs to know the laws, the language, and we have to wok together for a common objective etc…
Marcel: Thank you. It was a great evening, positive, an eye opening.
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