Manufacturing magnate Dawn Gibbins challenges James Caan

by Melissa Hancock - Thursday, 24th April 2008 -

James Caan’s recent remark that the UK can kiss manufacturing goodbye has raised hackles. Dawn Gibbins, who has just sold her flooring company Flowcrete for £35m, is the latest to pour scorn on the dragon: “I challenge him on this because I think women will revive manufacturing in the UK.”

“He’s being a typical bloke isn’t he? Just looking at the bottom line all the time. Well, I believe there’s a feminisation of society going on,” says Gibbins.

“Women today are very ethical, and already you’re seeing them say we want British manufactured clothes and a local supply chain. We don't want to be responsible for a carbon footprint trailing all the way from China to the UK.”

Gibbins is confident that women’s ethical and environmental conscience will spur on the growth of a lot more small manufacturers across the UK.

“James’ comment could be fairly applied to mass manufacturing but not to niche manufacturing. The UK has a killer combination of innovation and manufacturing and because we’ve got those two together, we’ve created a niche of high-value. I've always said that innovation is the catalyst of success and it will be in this case as well.”

To read James Cann's full remarks and other successful British manufacturers' criticism of them, click here
Picture source

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