Conversely, if you truly hate the idea of managing any one and sort of, kind of, can get along without an employee, you delay.

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Tactics like this are never a good idea, said managing director of Spreckley PR, Richard Merrin.

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Policymakers may need better mechanisms for managing contractors, but the idea of adding many thousands of new bureaucrats in the current fiscal environment sounds like lunacy, a sure-fire way of wasting money that could be better spent elsewhere.

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Other business leaders have also recently floated the idea, including the managing director of organic food brand Yeo Valley.

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Hutchison Managing Director Canning Fok liked that idea but also saw an opportunity to get in on sales of traditional Chinese medicine in China, a segment of the pharma business that had not yet opened up to foreign investment.

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Instead, they talk earnestly about building their companies, and about the problems of managing growth in a place where every new idea, engineer or building seems to start a bidding battle.

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But by last spring some grew restive at the idea of Microsoft's owning and managing the personal data on their customers.

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Toby Hartwell, managing director of The Folio Society said he liked the idea of "recognising literature of enduring value" and it seemed a "natural extension" of the business.

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Managing director and Belu co-founder Reed Paget, a former documentary maker, told CNN the idea behind the business was to use water to create water in areas where it was not widely available.

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