Businesses are being encouraged to realise their potential by making more of professional advice, in a new initiative by the York, North Yorkshire, and East Riding Enterprise Partnership.
The LEP is brokering relationships between professionals in Chartered Institutes and local business networks, to organise events that raise awareness of the expertise on hand. Events are backed up by searchable databases of business professionals, available through the LEP website www.businessinspiredgrowth.com
Barry Dodd, the Partnership Chairman, said:
Despite the demise of Business Link it would be wrong to say there is no help out there for growing businesses. There is a wealth of help and support available.
Our job at the LEP is to help make the most of this to promote economic growth, which is why we have worked with the Chartered Institutes about how we can enable greater access to their members knowledge.
Yes, much free business support has disappeared,” said Barry Dodd. “But companies, particularly micro businesses and the smaller SME’s, need to view professional support as an investment that will yield returns, not a cost to their business.
Chris Manners, Regional Director of the Institute of Chartered Accountants for England and Wales:
We very much welcome the public private partnership approach the LEP are taking. It’s not just government’s responsibility to help businesses to survive and thrive. As a profession that acts in the public interest, ICAEW Chartered Accountants recognise their responsibility to offer crucial guidance. We’re delighted to be working with the LEP and launching this during our national Business Advice week. With their help we organised a fantastically successful event with local networks York Professionals and SCY.
This approach builds on earlier LEP work to reach out to the many business networks and build relationships with them.
LEP Board Member Shaun Watts said:
We’re looking to develop long term sustainability and resilience in our business community which means working with the cohort of existing networks.
Working in this way will create a series of virtuous cycles. Individual businesses will benefit from forming long term relationships with professional service providers, who can help them realise additional growth, which will in turn drive demand for goods and services from other businesses.
Furthermore the LEP will help the business networks provide some added value for their members, thereby improving membership and business networking. This is not a quick win solution, it’s a long term solution that will lead to sustainable, incremental growth.
In addition to the ICAEW, the LEP are also working with Chartered Institute of Marketing and Chartered Institute of Personnel Development. These are the key areas business sought advice from the former Business Link service. For information about business events, business networks and a range of business support, visit the LEP website www.businessinspiredgrowth.com
