Some companies already actively support firms in their supply chain to help improve their productivity, the fruits of which can then be shared. A set of structured projects are underway nationally, co-ordinated by Be the Business, which aim to use the supply chain infrastructure to disseminate knowledge and best practice across companies in the long tail. As another example, I recently visited a company which had invested in a new technology centre. This enabled them to simulate all of the processes and products in their complex business. They had created, in effect, a “digital twin” of their business. This technology allowed them to evaluate the impact of potentially productivity-improving changes to their business model, cheaply and quickly. Indeed, it was being used in just this way to drive through those changes. Once established, this digital twinning technology can be applied to any business, large or small, simple or complex. Indeed the company I visited was doing just that, inviting in companies from their supply chain to help them understand and improve their business productivity-wise, in a way which benefitted both sides. If that digital twinning model could be introduced across greater numbers of companies and lengthier supply chains, it could serve as a very effective diffusion engine for innovation. One way of doing so, recently proposed by academic and inventor Philip Bond, would be to create a central digital-twinning infrastructure that could be available to any company across the UK.
7 The gap in manufacturing is around 50%. 8 UK estimates of firm-level productivity dispersion are based on Bank of England analysis of ONS data, whereas non-UK estimates of productivity dispersion are provided by the OECD. Differences in underlying data used may therefore play a role in Charts 5 and 6. 3  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  3  low road. Capitalism always of course throws up winners and losers, hares and tortoises, gazelles and snails, upper and lower tails. In the UK, however, these differences are far-larger, and have increased by more, than elsewhere. And therein, I would argue, lie the roots of the UK’s productivity gaps. Let me start with the good news, focussing on companies on the high road. The first and most important point to make is that the UK does not lack for innovative, high-productivity companies. If you tour the UK, as I do, you find these “frontier” companies in every region and every sector. Their productivity is world-leading, their technology world-beating, their managers and workers world-renowned. They are inspirational. Micro-analysis of UK companies confirms this anecdotal impression. Chart 7 plots the distribution of UK 9  relative to French and German companies. There are more UK companies in the upper tail than in Germany, with its much-vaunted industrial reputation, and France. The top 10% of UK companies have levels of productivity at least 100% above the median.