Credit Management November 2023

SEAN FEAST FCICM
MANAGING EDITOR
Editor’s column
Cows, milk and why late
payment is a complex issue
EVERY so often a story lands
on your desk that makes you
smile. This month it was
one that transported me
back to my childhood, and a
campaign from Unigate (for
anyone below the age of 50 this could all
be quite meaningless – Unigate was sold to
Dairy Crest in 2000).
Very briefly it was an advertising
campaign about ‘Humphreys’ who were
milk thieves whose only physical presence
was a red and white straw that marched
around at the bottom of your television
screen and drained the milk from a bottle
to the tune of ‘watch out watch out there’s a
Humphrey about.’ I assume it was to make
it fun for kids to drink more milk and drink
it quickly before it got pinched. It was,
frankly, genius and led to a whole series of
‘merch’ including a T-shirt that I probably
still have somewhere.
The point is that ever since then I have
always been fascinated by the dairy
industry, and as a farmer’s son was always
a little disappointed my father went down
the beef route (and the odd pig) rather
than dairy! So I was delighted to hear of an
organic dairy in Ayrshire, Mossgiel Organic
Farm, that is going places, expanding its
product offering, and collaborating with
five other local dairies as a co-operative to
act as a bridge between the farming families
and its buying partners.
In interviewing farmer Bryce
Cunningham for your magazine, I was
very interested to hear how he was using
Invoice Finance as a tool to manage his
cashflow, to fund the gap between delivery
and payment. While it is often the larger
customers who are blamed for putting the
squeeze on smaller suppliers, I was also
intrigued – though not surprised – that
Bryce hasn’t found this to be the case:
“How quickly we get paid is usually more to
do with the systems our customers use,” he
told me. “Those that are more digital, and
more compatible with our own, are usually
the quickest to pay, whereas those who are
still using primarily paper-based systems
take longer to pay their bills.”
So a note once again to the various
pressure groups, politicians and
organisations doing their bit to support
SMEs and address the late payment
challenge. Keep up the good work but
remember it’s a complex issue that cannot
be over-simplified into assuming all
big businesses are bad, and all smaller
businesses are hard done by.
As farmer Bryce’s experience shows,
his investment in technology and Invoice
Finance is paying off. If smaller businesses
gave more focus to credit management,
and the professional advice, technology
and services available, not least though our
members and partners, they could go a long
way to solving the problem for themselves.
Brave | Curious | Resilient / www.cicm.com / November 2023 / PAGE 3