The brand of the Isle of Man has developed well because of our response to the crisis, says a leading business figure in the island.

Greg Ellison, chief executive of Capital international, was speaking at the Topical Talks discussion, sponsored by Manx Telecom.

He referred to reports about rising property prices and the volume of transactions ’going through the roof’.

He remembered times when the island’s brand recognition was not high enough.

But he believes the response of the government and the set up in the island ’has now been really valuable for the island’s reputation’.

He believes it has been a ’definite win’ for the island.

He said many of his company’s clients are from overseas and they have simply had to adapt to ’virtual business trips instead of real ones’.

This was proving to be cheaper, quicker and effective.

He said: ’Instead of flying around half a dozen countries over two to three weeks at great expense we have been holding online webinars where we have had 30 to 40 people join who have been going across a dozen different territories. It takes you a bit of prep time, 40 minutes in delivery and then there are inquiries on the back of that.’

Isle of Man Newspapers editor Richard Butt, chairing the meeting, suggested that sort of thing had already been happening but the events of this year had accelerated that process.

Mr Ellison said there had always been the belief in business development that you have to be face to face and it is all about relationships.

’And actually there’s still an element of that. But we have found it to be effective to do digital webinars.’

Katherine Ellis, group chief executive of Boston Multi Family Office, said there had been an uptick in conversion of new business during the lockdown period for her business.

She added: ’What we have not seen, and for which I am a little bit nervous, is increasing levels of enquiries that are completely new to the island or new to our group, finding their way here.’

She agreed innovations such as webinars definitely work but for some high net worth people, dealing with a family office, ’they just want to see someone face-to-face. They want to meet the person and talk to them not over a screen and that’s where I think we need to be able to, at some point, be able to have that movement again. But I agree it has to be at the right time.’

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Gary Lamb, chief executive of Manx Telecom, pointed out that one advantage of having digital meetings is that it is now easier to contact people because they are in their homes.

Mike Foy, chief executive, Utmost Group, said business appeared to get done quicker with digital conferencing because there were fewer interruptions and more focused discussions.

Graham Sheward, managing director, Sancus (IoM) Ltd said that he and his team took to using digital after being unable to visit places outside the island on business.

He said: ’Using Zoom and some quite innovative backdrops we designed as a flavour of the markets we were unable to go to in person, we have done two virtual tours.

’The first was Northern Ireland where over a week and a half we had Zoom meetings in the way we would have done if we visited and as a result of that we generated business opportunities.

’The second virtual tour was to Scotland and the Scottish flag was used as a backdrop which helped to break the ice.’

Mr Sheward stressed they had appeared not to have lost much business because of not being physically at meetings.

In fact they had saved money in expenses and travel ’and once we have adapted we can probably carry on like this’.

During a discussion on the working environment Mr Ellison said some staff had found they could be more productive working from home. He said however that for some teams it was better that they worked from the office because of the processes they were involved in managing.

’But where there are hybrid roles people have the choice.’ He added that they have an office in Castletown as well as the head office in Circular Road, Douglas. And he found that there were now some people working permanently from the Castletown office because they live down south.

’He said: ’We are still insisting that various events must be attended in the office. So for example on the last Friday of the month I hold a staff update with all the people in there in person to develop the culture and it is important not to lose that. We believe in the investment we have made in our organisational culture, which has helped keep everybody motivated and together during this year.

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Gary Lamb said they faced a similar challenge at Manx Telecom. He said that when everybody came back after the lockdown it was decided there could be a hybrid model where some people could spend some time working from home as well as the office.

He added: ’Now the challenge is that we don’t want to force people back in, it is about how you slowly migrate as many people as you can back to the office.

’It makes me wonder if others here in the island have a smilar challenge getting people back into work in the workplace.’

Mike Foy said this was a topic brought out at a recent meeting of a group of local insurance companies. ’Collectively, we see ourselves as office based organisations but it is the way we operate. We are four years into being private equity owned and we have brought people on a cultural journey. We have invested massively into trying to keep everybody engaged. That said, we are a lot more flexible in various personal situations where someone might need to work from home.

’We have however made a virtue of being an office based business.’

Chairman Richard Butt asked Lars Ugland, chairman of the Steam Packet Company if they had faced challenges in their working environment.

Mr Ugland said management had let some people work from home at the beginning.

Mr Ugland said he was a big supporter of people working from the office because that was a place to exchange ideas.

’My personal feeling is that there comes a point where you should have everybody back in.’

Mr Lamb said that it was interesting to see the different approaches companies were taking.

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He said: ’Some companies are not back to work at all in the island and there is such a wide range of views; it is interesting and a huge challenge.’

Mr Lamb is also chairman of the Strix Group and he said that at the company’s plant in China everybody was back in the office after being shut for three weeks at the start of the crisis.

He said: ’If you look at it here you have a mix and some companies are looking at trying to get people in without creating any issues.’