Support service on the right road
Apr 1 2008 by Sue Scott, Evening Gazette
“WE ARE not what we were previously - we are dealing with businesses of all sectors and all sizes, from the very biggest to the very smallest.
“That’s what we’ve got to get across,” says the man charged with one of the biggest shake ups of business support services that Teesside has seen in a long while.
And, judging by the figures, Business Link North East chief executive Alastair MacColl is succeeding.
Notwithstanding a recent Government Annual Small Business Survey, which showed that only 5% of entrepreneurs nationally turned to Business Link for advice when starting up, close on 4,000 baby businesses in the North-east have been helped into the market by advisors - many recruited from the private sector and hot-desking in Teesside - with a further 10,000 already established firms across nine priority sectors getting what Business Link likes to term ‘intensive’ treatment.
Services range from financial brokerage via the North East England Investment Centre to training and even PR support.
According to marketing director Jonathan Lamb, the Valley is ‘risk averse’ having for years relied on a cradle to the grave employment culture encouraged by big daddy industries that kept generations in work. “There’s a gap in productivity with the rest of the UK,” he says.
But, as Business Link marks its first birthday today that gap is closing...
