By Robert Craven, published on 8th November 2011
The Business Link is on its last legs.
I have argued for and against the service and I believe that there is still a relative lack of interest in the subject (The Truth Is No-one Seems To Care About BL). Meanwhile we hear the cries of woe from the current BL staff.
But what about the clients??? What about the small/medium/growing businesses in need of help and assistance?
Another re-organisation of the Business Support Industry puts any programmes/initiatives on hold. And the ones who suffer will be the poor clients.
Leaving aside the huge irony of a Government department trying to sort out entrepreneurship, there will still be a demand for some form of support/assistance for budding and growing businesses.
I will be the first to argue that naive, inexperienced business people need help and assistance of some form – DIY is not an option.
Consultants will crop up all over the place to accommodate the nascent need. This will be a good thing for the high-performing consultants but it will be bad for many potential clients.
People who don’t know what they don’t know will get lured into buying wonderful promises and ‘get rich quick’ schemes as unscrupulous entrepreneurs fleece them of their money (Its Free And It Can Help Your Business… Whatever!!!).
So, what next?
- All BL services go into freefall – no-one knows what is going on.
- Several hundred (ex-BL) business advisers are being let loose on the market.
- New options will appear scrabbling to fill the hole that will be left by the eventual demise of the BL.
- The Government will create a new centralised solution to local problems. (How does that work?)
Maybe the market will solve the problem before the Government has finished its consultation…
Hi Robert
In our remote area of Combe Martin, Ilfracombe and Woolacombe in North Devon, we're taking things into our own hands. I'm chairman of COMBEbusiness, an umbrella business group for the area, and we were fed up with being presented with one-size-fits-all training/development/support that was unsuitable. So we started up our own support programme by asking businesses what they wanted. We applied for and received Big Lottery Funding and are now running workshops for members on the topics they ask for. We're also offering mentoring to businesses that want to grow and a support line for businesses in trouble.
We can't do everything, but the response has been phenomenal. We're even working with our local enterprise body which has agreed to subsidise some of our courses. The beauty of this is that we find out what businesses need, commission a training provider (trying to find a local one if we can) and arrange the training ourselves. This ensures funding is spent on what is needed rather than paying for trainers and advisers who may not necessarily be relevant.
We've now been approached by the local college, Jobcentre Plus and other organisations because we have created a channel to the businesses they are trying to reach. Some of these have resources available and we will be working with them to see how we can extend this tailored support.
During apprentice week, we devoted our monthly event to apprentices and opened up to the whole community. The providers who attended received good quality leads.
From our experience, of about three months, this model seems to be very effective because support is tailored to what is actually needed.
I would like to see business support evolve at a local level so businesses have more say in what they want and need and the appropriate services can be arranged quickly and locally.
Regards
Robert Zarywacz