For many years, Engineering and Manufacturing has suffered from a poor image.  It seems that the media insist on continuously showing images of the old guy in overalls standing at his bench with a file in his hand whose length of service was judged by the length of the fingers he had left.

But the question is: how do we help ourselves in this?

Few companies within our industry ever covet press coverage or publish press releases or case studies shouting about the technological or process advancements they've made, the efficiencies achieved or even something as simple as a new machine being delivered.

Even fewer have a strong corporate image with memorable company logos which create an overall brand resulting in facilities with a themed colour scheme, matching corporate work wear, uniform documentation combined with an effective website to ensure the brand is seen externally by a national or international audience.

Within smaller companies in our industry, many are owner-managed or are run by excellent engineers who have never been involved in sales and marketing activity - they know how to make the parts, but not how to play the game!

As companies, regardless of size or speciality, we need to show just what we do and how well we do it. We need to look as good as we are.  And we need to let people know about it.  We are always told to focus on the 4 Ps - people, place, process and product - but without the 5^th P - profile - it's irrelevant as nobody knows just how good we are.

And so as an industry, we need to look to the brands we remember and ask ourselves what made them memorable?  Then we apply that to our own businesses, however small and with whatever budget we have available to us.

It costs nothing to come up with an eye catching logo, to ensure this brand continues across all levels and throughout all functions of the business; and to ensure that when the telephone is answered, it is always in the same, bright, professional, bubbly and courteous manner.  It costs nothing to ensure the facilities are clean, tidy and create a great first impression.  And to ask people what they thought during their visit and act upon their feedback.

For those potential customers that cannot come for a visit there may be a small investment required to ensure that you can create a website that follows the same principles as your people, place, product and processes.

Once this is in place, it costs nothing to ensure your website is listed on all the free listings pages available, of which there are hundreds.  Each entry moves your site up the rankings of search engines such as Google.

Advertising within trade magazines Services & Capacity listings is usually exceedingly cost-effective - less than a few hundred pounds for the entire year.  But having a consistent presence raises awareness of your company and reinforces the brand each time it is seen.

Also, once these entries are placed, the magazines are usually much happier to include press releases and case studies from you which are placed free of charge and yet again tell your story, reinforce your brand and raise confidence in the continuity of your company and the services you provide.

The press releases can then be forwarded to your customers on a regular basis keeping them informed of your successes, investments and developments.  Again, this costs nothing but offers a massive boost to reinforcing your image and keeping you at the forefront of your customers' minds.

The benefits of these simple steps are that your company - which may well be exceptionally professional - is also perceived to be so.  Not just by those that know you, but more importantly, by those that don't.

You can build a brand and a profile for the minimum of investment and simply by playing the game you can tell the world about your fantastic people, about your safe and efficient facility, about the quality of your product and the effectiveness of your processes - all through one simple profile.

The greater hope with this is if more of us get this right, the less companies there will be for the media to use in order to portray manufacturing as an antiquated, outdated industry with little technology or progression for the youth of today.  We have more chance of showing CNC machinery, sharing stories of technological advancements, highlighting companies consistently investing in continuous improvement and reinforcing the fact that manufacturing is the best and safest way of balancing our economy and therefore deserves the recognition and support of everyone - the media, the Government, the country and those within it that don't shout loudly enough about their contribution to the most exciting and innovative industry in the world.

The world of the NED has been moving at a pace, the traditional view of a NED; ex-top executive, one or two board positions after retiring and aged in 'his' 60s, is still with us, but there is a marked trend towards, younger professionals, who are making a deliberate choice to abandon corporate life and pursue an NED portfolio and who have reached senior executive positions relatively early in their careers and want a change of lifestyle.

This trend has been articulated in the recently published IDDAS NEDs Perspective Report, which is the third in the IDDAS Board Dynamics series.  These Reports provide a unique insight into the Board world, with the previous two Reports giving the Chairman's Perspective and a Females FTSE 100 Perspective on Boards.

This powerful triangulation of Reports provides a real sense of how the Board works and what it is like to be on a Board; 'hearing' directly from NEDs, Chairman and FTSE 100 female Directors the reality of the Boardroom.  The most recent NED Perspective Report has given a number of insights and views, for example.

• The majority of NEDs are reluctant to have compulsory quotas introduced to increase the numbers of women on boards, but recognise the need for change
• A third think the level of remuneration for NEDs is too low given the increased workload and greater risk to corporate reputations now involved with the role.  However, most acknowledged they were well rewarded and that too much focus on financial reward could compromise independence
• NEDs see challenge in the boardroom as vital to their position, however they agree this should come with an equal measure of support - a balance they sometimes find difficult
• The lifestyle and practical changes between executive and NED roles are vast. As well as stepping back and accepting less control, NEDs commented on the lack of administrative support they were used to in their corporate careers
• NEDs have mixed views on whether those from outside the corporate world such as media, HR or academics should be considered for NED roles
• Many said that the board should not be a team, rather that they should learn to understand each other and work effectively, which should be done outside the boardroom

The full report consists of a wonderful array of quotes directly from the NEDs and we hear the 'real voices' of their motivation, frustration and excitement.  In particular, I was stuck by the sense of the 'Board' not being viewed as a team, but as a collection of individuals who meet in a common space, the inference being that being a 'Team' takes away objectivity and is too cosy.  This provided a fascinating insight which got me thinking of how we define this Boardroom space.  How can we start to provide the 'Board' with the sense of their own worth as a 'Team', based on the definition of a high performing team, as needing, a common vision, values and strategy; constructive, creative, challenge and debate, which surely is a prime function and description of an effective Board?

Potentially, this misunderstanding of what a team is, could well be at the core of how we develop effective challenge and behavioural frameworks for the 'Board Team' to become most effectively.  We may need to re-calibrate this space in a different way from traditional 'team working' and be more cognisant of the different perspectives that the constituent cohorts bring to the Board. Certainly the NEDs are coming to this 'team space' with a clear and increasingly demanding 'governance' perspective and a keen eye on their duties and responsibilities as a NED, which are increasingly in the spotlight.

The Executive Team, additionally brings a set of perspectives and energies which are closely linked to their central individual values and 'status', to which any 'threat' is likely to elicit a strong reaction.  One of the key developments emerging from neuroscience research is the impact that threats and anxiety can have on our power for rational deliberation and perspective.  As the brain is threatened it becomes overwhelmed and reverts to a short term protective mode, with a shortening of horizons and acute awareness of the immediate, at the expense of the longer term.

The Chairman's role is to 'orchestrate' this space and develop a coherent and robust atmosphere of Trust, Challenge, Vision and Coherence, which is quite a balancing act.   There are many artful Chairman who able to 'pull' this off, but one of the aspects of our Chairman's Research was how little Development and Support Chairman had received to achieve this level, most having got there through a process of previous experience, trial and error.

Some of the aspects of this balancing act have been identified by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) in their 'Guidance on Board Effectiveness', which identifies the need for appropriate decision making frameworks and the creation of an atmosphere of effective challenge towards strategy and the risk model of the organisation.  The refining of this 'Board Team' space is overdue, the challenge is for Boards to more clearly understand their own interpersonal dynamics and create an open and recognised decision making framework which stands the test of tough times.  The FRC guidance describes the dangers of 'group think', and a casual and untested decision making process which can be overrun by events.

Additionally, the IDDAS Chairman's Report and the FTSE 100 Female Directors Report, along with other reports in this area have identified the 'female' approach to challenge and decision making, which is less directly confrontational, more systematic and less ego driven, as a positive influence on Board performance.

It is likely, that as we drive toward the achievement of the Lord Davies Report targets of 25% females on FSTE 100 Boards by 2015, there will be an updraft of females onto Public quoted Boards and also onto the organisation's Executive Committee, which the Davies Report rightly identifies as the feedstock for Board Directors of the future.

So, it is my hope, that as Boards review their performance and fitness for purpose for the future that we will see both the desire for; and increased capability, to deliver an open and interactive 'Team Space' environment which leads progressively to enhanced Board Effectiveness.

IDDAS

IDDAS is a leading boardroom consultancy firm, specialising in individual director and boardroom effectiveness.  Its work covers board assessment, experience-based coaching and mentoring, leadership facilitation and development, individual assessment and corporate governance services.  IDDAS also assists directors and senior executives with their business and personal career transitions.

IDDAS services are designed for chairs, CEOs, main board directors, subsidiary/divisional and functional leaders of FTSE, international and private companies, financial institutions, public, not-for-profit and charitable organisations, and for partners in professional services firms.

The IDDAS offering covers:

• Boardroom effectiveness and governance
• Board and leadership facilitation
• Executive coaching
• Business mentoring
• Executive assessment
• Career mentoring

he 3,000 redundancies planned by BAE come as a bitter blow to the firm's employees and to perhaps, the 6,000 subcontractors who supply the firm.  But what does it say about manufacturing in general in the UK?  As someone who trained as an Engineer but is now a Partner at a chartered accountancy firm I believe that unless some real action is taken to fundamentally shift the balance of our economy, these redundancies and more like them will change nothing.  Whether we are talking about BAE or Bombardier (1,400 jobs lost at the train manufacturer in July 2011) or numerous other examples down the years, what seems obvious is that as a nation we continue to lie back whilst our engineering and manufacturing skill-base is inexorably eroded.

For more than 30 years manufacturing has been written off as a mainstay of the economy.  We've blamed foreign competition, trade unionism, poor management and a lack of investment for the decline in our manufacturing fortunes but the truth is we haven't as a nation stepped up to the plate.  If the same care had been taken to protect and nurture manufacturing as has been put into promoting the UK as a major global financial centre we would have a strong and vibrant manufacturing base keeping people employed, paying valuable taxes and selling the products we are so good at inventing and developing for other nations.  Imagine the engineering equivalent of the redeveloped square mile and Canary Wharf and you start to understand the analogy. I'm not for a minutes suggesting that we abandon our banking and services industry, but what I am saying is that we should recognise that the balance has swung too far away from creating tangible wealth.  We've come to depend far too much on the intangible wealth associated with city.

In the words of George Osborne, wrapping up his last budget speech;

'We are only going to raise the living standards of families if we have an economy that can compete in the modern age. So this is our plan for growth.

We want the words: 'Made in Britain' 'Created in Britain' 'Designed in Britain' 'Invented in Britain' To drive our nation forward. A Britain carried aloft by the march of the makers. That is how we will create jobs and support families. We have put fuel into the tank of the British economy.'

Sadly the present government, despite its own words, has still not woken up to the fact that manufacturing should be the linchpin of the economy rather than the poor relation of the banking and the business service sector.  To put manufacturing back into centre stage will take billions in investment and a long term structural shift, but it has to be the future.  Now is the time for the government to stop talking and to start to take action.

Chris Coopey is a Partner with Carpenter Box LLP, Chartered Accountants and Chartered Tax Advisers.  He originally trained with a subsidiary of Simon Engineering in Gloucester, qualifying as a design draftsman.  In 1979 he moved to the telecommunications industry where he worked for 10 years.  Chris subsequently went to Exeter University before qualifying as a solicitor.  He joined Carpenter Box as Practice Director in 2005.