Business advice for start-ups and entrepreneurial businesses: Thinking of starting a new company? We like to think of ourselves as one of your team and you’ll also need help from other experts along your journey. In this article we signpost you to your local specialists that will help you get your design idea to market.
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Your first port of call should be your local Chamber of Commerce.
A Chamber of Commerce is business network which supports a region or joint regions. Each chamber provides a voice for the business communities they represent to amplify their priorities and concerns.
The 52 accredited chambers of commerce in the UK are represented by the British Chamber of Commerce. The network supports and connects companies. They bring together businesses that build new relationships, share best practice and foster new opportunities.
Quite simply, Chambers of Commerce provide business advice to improve the local environment in which they operate.
Chambers of Commerce can help businesses through:
Find the 52 accredited Chambers of Commerce at https://www.britishchambers.org.uk/page/join-a-chamber.
We’re strategic members of our local Chamber of Commerce, and we love it. We’ve definitely taken advantage of the free networking events to meet local, like-minded businesses. We have dived into the Chamber’s local database and done business with other Chamber members. Plus we’ve taken informative training courses and our articles on growth and innovation have been published in the regional magazine (Business Direction). We’re major fans.
Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) are business-led partnerships between local authorities and local private sector businesses. They provide business advice to start-ups, multi-million pound companies and everyone in between.
LEPs play a central role in determining local economic priorities. Their activities drive economic growth and job creation, improve infrastructure and raise workforce skills in their local area.
The LEP network can be found at https://www.lepnetwork.net/about-leps/the-36-leps/. There are currently 36 LEPs.
Enterprise zones support businesses to grow. They’re designated areas across England that provide tax breaks or business rate discounts. They also have simplified local authority planning such as granting automatic planning permission for certain industrial or change of use development.
Enterprise zones have business-ready infrastructures, such as superfast broadband, easy access to transport links and a local labour pool. They often have a sector focus such as manufacturing, engineering, agri-food, construction or healthcare.
They’re great locations to do business for both new and expanding firms.
There are 48 enterprise zones and growing! Find out details at https://enterprisezones.communities.gov.uk/enterprise-zone-finder/.
Simple Design Works started life in the heart of an enterprise zone so we were in good company with numerous global businesses as neighbours.
As we grew organically, we benefited from business tax relief on our offices and an instant pool of potential clients right outside our door. You’ll often find – and our local enterprise park is no different – that your local Growth Hub and Chamber of Commerce are located close by. This really helped us foster our relationship with them and meant that networking and training events were close by. The government rolled out superfast broadband throughout the zone so as we use online software, this was a huge boost for us.
Growth Hubs are local public/private sector partnerships led by Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPS). They provide business funding, support and guidance.
Find your network of 38 growth hubs at https://www.lepnetwork.net/growth-hubs/. Alternatively call 0300 456 3565 to speak to a business support advisor during normal working hours.
We work with both the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Growth Hubs. Both offer funding advice and guidance, as well as other business growth support. We’ve consulted them on many occasions for funding advice for our clients. Their facilities are fresh and modern (plus open to rent if you need additional space to work) and the staff really friendly and helpful.
They are business schools of which there are 35 across the UK and Ireland. They’ve been awarded the Small Business Charter to recognise their ongoing work to support small businesses, local economies and student entrepreneurship. Find them at https://www.smallbusinesscharter.org/find-business-school/
Small Business Chartered Business schools provide advice, events, business tips and support through the Entrepreneurs-in-Residence (EIR) network. This group of individuals affiliated with business schools have been awarded the Small Business Charter and been an entrepreneur at some point.
EIRs feed their knowledge into business schools who improve their systems and processes. The groups help the business schools raise their profile with government and other policy makers to provide additional benefits to the SMEs they support.
