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What you missed... The London Business Forum 2005: The Fight for Competitive Advantage, by freelance journalist, Paul Tyrrell

The room was cavernous, its high ceiling vaulted with oak beams. In the centre was a boxing ring, shining under floodlights, and on all sides were hundreds of seats, arranged as if for a prize fight, their legs wreathed in tendrils of dry ice. The delegates filed in via a mezzanine, some open-mouthed with confusion, wondering for a split-second if they had the right place, as a familiar tune thundered over the giant sound system: "Eye of the Tiger."

Thus began the London Business Forum 2005. Its star attractions were two heavyweight speakers: Tom Peters and Richard Scase, the leading "business gurus" in America and Europe respectively. Yet they were not here to fight each other. Rather, they wanted to drive home the fact that Western organisations face a major "Fight for Competitive Advantage" with the maturing workforces of Asia, and with any domestic rivals who can adapt themselves quickly to the latest demographic trends.

"This is going to be a tussle over ideas," announced the day's first compère, BBC presenter John Humphrys. "It's up to you to generate the blood and sweat."

Newcomers to the London Business Forum were told they should expect the unusual and the speakers duly arrived in a burst of disco lights and dance music, wearing brightly coloured silk capes. If they looked a little unsettled as they arrived on stage, this was the intention - both would be forced to present their ideas in unconventional ways, addressing the audience in the round, taking no more than twenty minutes for each of four presentations, joining an impromptu seminar on-stage with a random selection of delegates and vying to field questions from the floor.

And, of course, they had to deal with Humphrys' sceptical, no-nonsense style of interrogation. Round One was entitled "The Future", and Scase opened it with a bleak pronouncement: "Europe is dead, it's the old people's home of the world... The future is with Asia." Countries such as India and China will soon bring the same cost-savings to the service industries as they have to manufacturing, he argued, and we must respond by making better use of our "human capital". However, he added, "in terms of professional services we have a tremendous heritage... and there is huge admiration in China for the British lifestyle." At present the UK only accounts for 1% of China and India's imports, yet we are well-placed to supply both markets with the personalised goods and services they will increasingly demand.

Scase managed to jam a plethora of eye-opening statistics and helpful tips into his presentation before a bell signalled the end of his round. Then Peters quickly filled the room with his trademark aura of inspired urgency: "Every 43 hours, a foreign-owned research and development laboratory is opened in China," he said. "We may have gotten used to losing $30k-a-year back-room jobs to Asia, but now we're talking about $250k-a-year jobs." He pointed out that Forbes magazine recently re-examined its 1917 list of the 100 best-performing companies in the US and found all but two had since died or seriously underperformed. "I've come to an intriguing conclusion," he said. "The best is not good enough. We need to take a discontinuous approach - Anita Roddick and Richard Branson are not the best, they are different." Innovation, he suggested, is now the West's main weapon.

The first coffee break of the day gave delegates a chance to use their handheld "SpotMe" devices for the first time - learning about other people in attendance, tracking them down and swapping digital business cards. Then it was time for Round Two, "Leadership", with Peters taking his turn to open the debate: "Leadership is about storytelling," he argued, citing a favourite quote: "Don't create a business, create a cause." He suggested a variety of ways to "enlist people in adventures towards excellence" so they go home at the weekend feeling they can't wait until Monday.

Scase pointed out that, increasingly, businesses work in "disaggregated units", as they try to form internal silos of entrepreneurial dynamism. "What holds everything together is a shared vision," he said. One of the most underrated but critical abilities of a leader is to make work fun - that's what distinguishes the workplace culture at Virgin. "We currently have too many 21st-century managers and not enough 21st-century leaders," he argued. "We have a flood of 300,000 MBAs and I think they should be treated like garden manure: spread thinly."

The morning session closed with two members of the audience chosen at random - one from the private sector and one from the public sector - who joined the speakers on stage for a personalised debate. Then it was time for lunch, an eclectic buffet with dishes ranging from indulgent hamburgers to health-promoting smoothies.

The afternoon saw a change of tone as the business author and comic Steve McDermott took over as compère. He managed to get the entire audience involved in a whooping Mexican Wave before re-introducing the speakers for Round Three. The subject was "Talent", and Scase immediately re-iterated the fact that the UK has left itself vulnerable to Asian competition by gearing its education system for two decades towards the knowledge economy. To hold on to our service industries we must recognise the potential of women, he argued. By 2010, 20% of the workforce will be women and 50% of those will be single parents. HR strategies therefore need to create more flexible working practices as soon as possible. Creativity was his other key concern. It could be harnessed more effectively by improving facilities management, he suggested. For example, by providing a staff canteen with a great chef. If people "buy sandwiches and eat at their desks, they are isolated from one another, and more meetings are required to get things done."

Peters added creativity was essential to business differentiation: "If there are no freaks in your department, you are history," he said, explaining why "HR should be the most important department in each enterprise," why social skills are set to become just as important as paper qualifications and why throttling wages is a false economy.

After a final coffee break, Round Four began. "Marketing" was the subject, and Peters urged the audience to focus their efforts on "women and geezers". Women already make 83% of purchasing decisions, he pointed out, and the over-50s will soon become the world's biggest spenders on consumer goods. He asked delegates to consider what they could offer in a world "where everything works". "Find something else that could be value-added," he said, and aim to create such passion for it that it becomes a "lovemark" - a brand that customers would be willing to wear on their own bodies.

Scase emphasised the rise in the number of households and the corresponding increase in demand for duplicate goods) in the UK, from 19.2 million in 1991 to 24.6 million in 2016 - a trend being echoed across the West. "Consumers are now seekers of experience," he added, and traditional demographic models are no longer dependable. Success today depends on identifying "lifestyle tribes" around which to group products and services - something Tesco did very successfully by data-mining its loyalty card scheme in the 1990s.

After the final bell sounded on the day's speeches, it was time for a reception, where Peters and Scase signed free copies of their latest books and answered further questions. Delegates got the chance to do some more networking, and to try cocktails named after the speakers - reportedly, the flavours lived up to the speeches: stimulating and soothing, yet packing a serious punch.

Professor Richard Scase's PowerPoint presentation is available for download here