Business support

Evidence shows that businesses that access support are more likely to survive and grow than those that do not. One of the primary roles of Advantage West Midlands is to invest in business support schemes that can help companies in different sectors to become more competitive and profitable.

Advantage West Midlands took responsibility for enterprise and business support in April 2005. Since this time, we have overseen the establishment of Business Link West Midlands and brought the service closer to the Learning and Skills Council's training provision and the Manufacturing Advisory Service - West Midlands.

Additionally, Advantage West Midlands is involved in an ongoing process of simplifying the business support process, significantly reducing the confusing number of schemes available and improving the effectiveness of support programmes.

Government wants to simplify business support in England from around 3000 schemes that are currently available to no more than 100 by 2010. They want to make sure business support funded by Government is simple for business to access, has a real impact on public policy goals and represents value for money.

The Chancellor made a commitment to consult in the 2007 Budget and this consultation outlines and seeks views on the business support that government might fund in the future. It sets out the role of Business Link as the primary route to publicly-funded business support and seeks views on how Business Link can be developed to play this role. Finally, it seeks views on how to avoid business support schemes proliferating again once they have been simplified.

The consultation is aimed at businesses (including social enterprises) and their representatives; local authorities and other public sector organisations involved in business support; and private, public and third sector organisations that are contracted to provide publicly funded support to business.

The consultation document and an outline of the types of products and services currently being considered are set out in the documents available via the 'Related documents' section on the right. The consultation document asks a number of questions which you are asked to respond to. Responses should be submitted via email to tonysims@advantagewm.co.uk by Friday 7th September.

Business Link West Midlands is the first port of call for all businesses seeking support - whether they are looking for advice, funding or training. Visit www.businesslinkwm.co.uk or call 0845 113 1234.

West Midlands Business Link is a one-stop shop for all small and medium sized businesses seeking support. It seeks to understand the needs of a particular business and connect it to the appropriate solution or advisor.

Increasing the number of new businesses starting in our region is a major priority of Business Link West Midlands.

Minority ethnic enterpreneurialism is an important economic activity in the West Midlands and is a key factor in improving our economic performance.

Advantage West Midlands recognises that a key challenge is the need to draw minority ethnic owned or managed businesses into the mainstream business support system.

The Minority Ethnic Business Forum advises Advantage West Midlands on how to improve this level of engagement and has played a key role in shaping Business Link West Midlands to make it more relevant and accessible to minority ethnic businesses.

Support for sustainable social enterprise is one element of Advantage West Midlands’ overall approach to improve the competitiveness and growth of existing businesses and encourage the creation of new businesses throughout the region.   The Agency has therefore mainstreamed sustainable social enterprise development and support within our broader enterprise agenda by:-

• Funding the Social Enterprise West Midlands to act as an advisory body to the Enterprise Board on social enterprise issues and promote the value of social enterprise throughout the region;

• Improving access and including social enterprise as a key element of our region-wide suite of business support and access to finance products; and

• Ensuring Agency investment in Regeneration Zone and Market Town Initiatives  encourage partners to include social enterprise in their plans and programmes.

Details on regional and Agency priorities for invesment in sustainable social enterprise development can be found in the West Midlands Social Enterprise Framework ‘A Point to Prove’ and the Agency’s social enterprise policy.

The recently published "Connecting to Success" West Midlands Economic Strategy includes strategic objectives for Business. As part of this we are supporting a wide range of projects to promote enterprise including some aimed specifically at stimulating innovation, creativity and knowledge generation.

The Centre of Expertise for minority ethnic enterprise/entrepreneurs is one of those projects. To find out more see the Invitation to Tender document in the related documents section at the top of the page.