Thank you for downloading the Bottom Line podcast.

In this week's programme, Evan Davis and guests debate whether it's time to take drastic measures with the world economy.

Hello and welcome to our new series of the Bottom Line.

Not for the first time, we've been off air for two months and we've seen the economic environment go from bad to worse.

With my three business guests today, we'll talk about

whether it's time to declare a state of emergency in the world economy, a time to adopt extreme

measures to sort out the euro crisis and the lack of economic activity in the West. And a topic

not entirely unrelated to the global economy, we'll also talk about

rumours, hearsay and speculation, the role they play in business, and we'll take a few

minutes to ask if it's hard to manage a software business. As usual, we have three business

guests who run or have senior positions within companies. They are Guy Berrier,

who's chief executive of Sage Group, global supplier of business management software, Guy, I suppose,

to small and medium-sized businesses. That's very accurate. We also supply the services

surrounding the software, and that's very important. You're French, the company's based in Newcastle.

You live in London.

It's spread out.

We're an international company, and when I became CEO,

I thought that to run a UK PLC, I should reside in the UK.

For practical reasons, being in London made more sense to me

than being in Newcastle. So I

got to Newcastle every week for two or three days and then the rest of the time I look after

the rest of the business, which is outside of the UK. No plans to move the headquarters

...