SOME further thoughts after my letter to the Oxford Mail, where I quoted an American industrialist who thought the problem with British industry was it was run by accountants, and the letter by David Barnard.

Many years ago I questioned a friend, who was a business accountant, about the lack of investment in R&D in this country and his reply was: “I don’t believe in research and development – it’s a waste of money. You don’t know what they are doing. Any accountant can tell how well things are going just by looking at the figures.”

The firm that employed me for nearly 50 years spent hundreds of millions on R&D because it knew you had to keep ahead of the competition. It also believed the staff should be treated as equals with management and, because it knew employees often had bright ideas, was prepared to pay for them.

There is nothing that sells a product more than the words ‘new’, ‘recent’, ‘the latest’ etc. Which is, of course, why BMW at Cowley is constantly making changes to its products.

To be able to invest in R&D you need to maintain high sales to generate the necessary money, and it’s only after you’ve established a strong home base that exporting can be considered. Firms in big countries can take greater risks, because even low sales from a small part of the population can generate enough income to make investment possible.

With so many people in the UK unemployed, it’s going to be a struggle to generate the sort of income needed to expand. A further problem is that, with the whole world being affected by the depression, sales overseas are never going to be easy.

DERRICK HOLT, Fortnam Close, Headington, Oxford