Business growth and finance Archives - Page 22 of 29 - North East Local Enterprise Partnership

Durham University hosts UK and international maths, probability and statistics specialists this spring

The North East Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) has teamed up with Durham University and the Smith Institute to offer a unique opportunity for the region’s businesses to have their problems solved by some of the world’s top maths, statistics and probability experts.

Durham University will be hosting the UK edition of the 116th European Study Group with Industry from April 11 to 15. The Study Group series includes one annual conference in the UK, which brings together specialists from all over Britain and beyond in order to seek solutions to maths-based corporate conundrums.

The North East LEP and Durham University are offering local businesses the opportunity to present to a team of expert thinkers the mathematical, statistical or probability problems that they feel are holding back their growth or preventing them from reaching their potential. The scientific panel will be able to consider industry issues of up to eight businesses, including some from the North East, and suggest ideas to tackle them.

In previous years, panels of the order of one hundred academics have worked with a wide cross-section of sectors and were always able to offer some novel approaches to help finding solutions.

Previous projects have included the use of track curvature as measured by cameras positioned on trains to determine their exact location; working out the best price for consumers for a large retailer; customer focused price optimisation; image analysis; decision support for nuclear arms control and studying the degree of mimicry of speech between people.

Dr Bernard Piette from Durham University’s Department of Mathematical Sciences, said: “We’re honoured to be hosting this year’s UK edition of the European Study Group with Industry at the Palatine Centre and Durham’s Collingwood College.

“It offers a chance to see how mathematics is used in the real world to offer solutions that can help businesses become more efficient or to boost their profits. It’s a great opportunity for North East businesses to take advantage of some of the world’s best mathematical thinking and gain new insights into complex problems that may be frustrating their growth.”

Submissions from North East businesses that are accepted by the panel of experts will be studied intensively over the week, and included in a presentation on the final day of the conference. Each business will also receive a written report a few weeks after the event.

Hans Möller, Innovation Director at the North East LEP, said: “This really is a fantastic chance for businesses to find innovative solutions to issues that may be holding them back.

“Even if the panel can’t solve the problem within the timescale, in every case so far, progress has been made towards finding a solution, which has often resulted in further collaborations between the parties involved.

“I’d urge any North East business that has a problem that could benefit from an appraisal by the team to get in touch with Durham University and apply to take part in the event.”

Businesses interested in submitting a proposal can find out more at https://www.maths.dur.ac.uk/events/Meetings/ESGI_116/ or contact Dr Bernard Piette on [email protected]

A major new research project has been launched to explore how the Creative, Digital and IT (CDIT) sector in the North East can be developed in order to play a leading role in the region’s economy.

The new £3m ‘Creative Fuse North East’ project will involve all five of the North East’s universities – Newcastle, Northumbria, Durham, Sunderland and Teesside – and is funded jointly by the universities and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Working with the region’s 12 local authorities, businesses, artists, cultural organisations and other partners, they will research how the CDIT sector can ensure it has the right skills for a sustainable future.

The 30 month project will look at how the skills within the region’s CDIT sector can benefit the wider regional economy, for example by exploring opportunities for placing creative practitioners in businesses in other sectors as a way to increase innovation. It will begin by mapping the creative, digital and commercial landscape of the North East in terms of the mix of skills, knowledge and support available, and how the region’s universities can support the sector more effectively.

The project is led by Newcastle University and will draw on expertise from more than 40 academic and business support staff from across the five institutions, from creative arts, cultural heritage and digital humanities to business schools and cloud computing.

Professor Eric Cross, Dean of Cultural Affairs at Newcastle University, said: “To ensure that the North East’s CDIT sector can realise its full potential, businesses and creative practitioners need to be able to connect with, and benefit from, the best that our universities have to offer in terms of research, training and talent.

“Creative Fuse North East will work hand-in-hand with the CDIT sector to discover and promote best practice, join up support, and drive creativity and innovation across the North East’s economy.

“By bringing businesses, artists and academics together, this project will create value – both in economic and cultural terms – regionally and nationally.”

For more information about Creative Fuse, email [email protected]

Launched on the 27 March 2015, the North East Automotive Alliance (NEAA) was set up to support the sustainable economic growth of the North East Automotive sector. The NEAA provides member-to-member engagement, connect the supply chain to business opportunities, and enable members to work together to solve skills issues and promote business excellence.

Paul Butler, the CEO of the NEAA, is the only UK based cluster benchmarking expert for the European Secretariat for Cluster Analysis (ESCA) and has drawn on his experience to ensure the NEAA follow cluster management best practice from across Europe. Building on his experience, the NEAA has made an immediate impact upon the region’s automotive sector.

Paul updates us on the organisation’s achievements in its 10 months.

Here in the North East, our industry-led cluster of automotive organisations has members ranging from world renowned original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), to world class Tier 1 companies, through to innovative SMEs and sole traders, as well as professional associate members.

Since the formation of the NEAA at the end of March 2015, we’ve grown faster than any other cluster in the UK and are on course to become the largest automotive cluster in the UK this year.

As a collective, the NEAA has a strong portfolio of experienced companies all working together to promote and support the sustainable economic growth of the North East region’s automotive industry.

Here are some of the highlights since the formation of the NEAA in 2015:

Membership
Members are central to the success of a cluster therefore attracting companies to the NEAA has been a priority. Today we have 110 member companies and a further 21 companies who are part of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) SME Programme. As we grow our voice gets stronger we are able to better understand our regional capability and the value being created by our North East automotive companies, which currently stands at over £9bn. However our aspirations are to grow and become the largest automotive cluster in the UK, which we will achieve shortly.

Industry leadership and working groups

Being an industry-led alliance ensures that we focus on initiatives that offer our members and the region the best opportunities for growth and that we are able to identify and address common constraints.

We identified Business Excellence; Skills; Innovation and Technology; and Trade and Investment as priority areas, to be focused on by our industry-led working groups.

So far, we have three established working groups, each with a different focus and at varying stages of development.

Business Excellence

This is the most established working group, working on the following:
Benchmarking – a benchmarking process across 15 KPIs in order to identify best practice.
Best practice visits – so far, seven best practice visits have generated approx. 140 ideas for company improvements.
Focus groups – a natural progression of the best practice visits, two focus groups have been established to date, concentrating on productivity and energy.

Skills

The Skills working group has established a strategy centred on four pillars of activity:
Future workforce – aiming to increase the number of companies engaged with schools.
Apprenticeships – looking to increase the number of companies taking on apprentices.
Graduate – working to increase the number of companies taking on graduates, graduate placements and internships, and aiming to reduce the number of graduates leaving the region.
Current workforce – upskilling the current workforce to meet future demands for the sector.

Innovation and technology

The Innovation and Technology working group was launched in October 2015 and is centring its activity on three key themes: Process Innovation; New Technologies; and Innovation Pathway.

Already, the NEAA working groups and leadership team have more than 100 industrialists working together. In our first ten months, £146,000 of in-kind support has already been contributed by members in order to support the activities of the NEAA. This is extremely powerful and demonstrates how the NEAA has been able to make such an impact in a very short time.

In addition we have also successfully delivered an ERDF funded SME Supply Chain Development programme which ran over a five month period to 30th September 2015. Despite a very short time frame we were able to meet, and in most cases exceed, all contractual targets relating to numbers of jobs created or safeguarded, number of businesses assisted with improved performance and number of SMEs assisted with innovation.

We currently have a further funding bid submitted which would enable the NEAA to build upon this success and support SMEs over the next three years.

North East Enterprise Agency Ltd (NEEAL) is a unique collaboration of multi award-winning, locally embedded enterprise agencies, operating across the North East to provide SMEs with business support and strategic input.
NEEAL was established in 2008 to ensure there was regional coverage of enterprise and business support services in the North East.

Over the past three years, NEEAL has secured over £44 million from both the public and private sector to support North East businesses, as well as offering tailored business guidance and being the region’s largest supplier of incubation and office space in the region.

NEEAL puts its users’ needs at the centre of its services, building bespoke packages of support and offering independent, impartial business advice and guidance. The group works in partnership with local suppliers wherever possible and utilises its knowledge of European and government initiatives, networks and contacts for the benefit of service users

These are just some of the key achievements of NEEAL over the past three years:

• 10,854 businesses supported to develop and grow, leading to £272,302,336 into the regional economy
• 24,774 individuals prepared for enterprise
• 13,995 jobs created, leading to £15,159,537 into the regional economy
• 11,227 new businesses started

In terms of value for money, for every £1 invested into the NEEAL start-up service, £4 of economic benefit for the North East economy has been generated.

NEAAL supports people at every stage of business, from getting ready to start a business; getting started; making transitions between unemployed and employed, or employed and self-employed; and also supporting businesses to grow and expand.

An independent healthcare organisation, which has significantly reduced NHS waiting times, has taken on new premises at the North East Business and Innovation Centre (BIC) having already established a base in South Yorkshire, at the Barnsley BIC.

Rostra Healthcare Limited provides treatment of symptomatic varicose veins across the country and currently employs 13 staff.

The company which has contracted with City Hospitals Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust for the last eight years to help keep waiting times for the treatment of varicose veins below national target, director Ian Brown explains:

“Our philosophy which we offer the NHS is that we guarantee that we will work within the national target of 18 weeks. We are currently delivering treatment within 16 weeks, when we first started it was at three years.

“We moved to the BIC in Sunderland because I found the Barnsley BIC to be a fantastic facility. When I found out there was a BIC in Sunderland I knew it was where I wanted to be. It’s in an ideal location not far from the A19 and a short distance from our clinic at Monkwearmouth Hospital.

“We needed a secure, inexpensive office space and the additional facilities such as meeting rooms and an onsite café were an added bonus. It’s also reassuring to know that when we are out of the office there is someone to take our calls and collect our post”.

Donna Surtees, senior space adviser added:

“We welcome businesses from all sectors so it’s brilliant to welcome Ian and his team to the BIC. I am delighted that Ian’s experience of the BIC in Barnsley has lead him to ourselves in Sunderland”.

Across the world, customers are looking for your products and services. In a globalised, digitised world, the potential for North East companies to find new customers and lucrative markets beyond the UK has never been greater.

Companies that sell overseas are more productive, innovative, profitable and sustainable. So why not?

Making the move into a new market can feel like a leap into the unknown. Where do you even find these opportunities? UKTI North East is here to help.

From 1 – 4 February 2016, the Exporting is GREAT hub Truck will be touring the North East providing help and advice to businesses looking to export internationally. The following free workshops are available.

See below for details on the workshops:

Monday 1st February 2016
Newcastle Falcons Rugby Ground Kingston Park
Discover your Opportunities in Poland

Tuesday 2nd February 2016
Stadium of Light, Sunderland Football Club
Could your Business Access the World?

Wednesday 3rd February 2016
Xcel Centre, Newton Aycliffe
Could your Business Access the World?

Thursday 4th February 2016
Riverside Stadium, Middlesbrough Football Club
Could your Business Access the World?

Tweet about the events using #exporthub and #exportingisgreat

A record number of people in work and fewer people without a job are both confirmation of a strengthening regional economy, North East LEP economist Fiona Thom said today.

The LEP welcomed the latest North East labour market statistics which showed employment levels at a record high and unemployment falling both in the short and longer term.

The North East employment rate for September to November 2015 has increased from 68.2% to 69.8% in the short term, and continues to rise in the longer term.

The latest data shows that the region is closing the gap with the UK average employment rate of 74.0%, as employment levels have risen faster than the national average.

Fiona said: “It is important to be cautious when interpreting short term fluctuations in labour market data. Our focus at the LEP is continuing to help the increase in longer term employment by creating more and better jobs.

“Following last month’s short term increase in unemployment rates, we have seen a decrease over the period between September and November.

“This continues the longer term decrease in regional unemployment from 10.2% in the same period in 2013.

“Economic inactivity has also fallen in the last three months as more people move into employment, which is good news as this is a key focus of the strategic economic plan, through supporting people back into economic activity.

“Over the longer term, economic inactivity remains fairly constant but the reasons for the inactivity are changing, with an increasing proportion of people looking after family and or home and the proportion of those with ill health, which is a key challenge in the North East, slowly falling.

“This is good news for the region, with more people in work than ever before. We want to continue this and will be analysing the data closely over coming months to determine if we are beginning to see an upward longer term trend in the North East labour market.”

The University of Sunderland and FabLab Sunderland are launching the Leadership and Entrepreneurship Advancing Programme (LEAP) programme, in collaboration with the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES), which focuses on encouraging small businesses to pilot new and innovative ways to increase productivity and boost leadership.

By taking part in this programme, yourself and other local organisations will be able to collaborate in the design of a new bespoke leadership programme, establish a new innovative network and have access to the North East’s FabLab facility.

Benefits of Attending

• Free one-day innovation workshop
• Join a network of 48 regional businesses
• Collaborate in the design of a new leadership programme
• A bespoke course for you, designed by you
• Access to the University of Sunderland facilities; including the North East’s first FabLab
• Benefit from stronger leadership within your organisation
• 1 free place on the created programme for your organisation

Attendance

Please ensure you can attend one of the following dates below for the design day workshop:
• Wednesday 27th January 2016
• Thursday 28th January 2016

Find out more about the programme here

An entrepreneur who visited the North East Business and Innovation Centre (BIC) for help starting his business has taken an Open Space membership as his company grows.

David Johnson is on a mission to ensure physical education in schools is delivered to a high standard and after establishing his business PEAK – Physical Education and Active Kids, and he is already working with five schools across the region.

With nearly 20 years’ experience in the field David has also delivered National programmes on behalf of organisations such as Sport England and the Youth Support Trust and took the steps to self-employment following redundancy, he explains: “I became increasingly aware that the level of physical education in primary schools varied and I wanted to address this as well as helping schools raise the profile and quality of physical education.

“I am very passionate about physical education, the sole intention of starting PEAK was to drive up the standards of physical education in schools in the North East.

“Across the North East, primary schools are relying upon either secondary PE teachers or single-sport coaches to deliver PE. PEAK aim to address this by putting deliverers into schools who are trained and qualified in primary age physical education.”

PEAK also delivers an apprenticeship programme, David continues: “We identify young people who aspire to deliver physical education, we don’t just focus on one sport.”

David chose the Open Space membership at the BIC, which is ideal for businesses on the go and who don’t require a permanent office space, David adds: “I was impressed with the facilities and the support, like Pulse Creative Marketing. They have produced a variety of marketing materials for me which I was very impressed with.”

Donna Surtees, senior space adviser said:
“It is fantastic to welcome David to the BIC community. With access to meeting rooms, quiet spaces and high speed Wi-Fi I am confident that the facility will provide an environment for successful growth.”

For more information on PEAK please visit www.peak-sport.co.uk

Category: Business growth and finance

Brightest brains take on North East business problems

Lighting the fuse of economic growth

The North East Automotive Alliance’s key achievements so far

North East Enterprise Agency Ltd supporting North East business growth

Independent healthcare organisation takes on new premises at North East BIC

Exporting is GREAT hub returns to North East

North East economy strengthening with record numbers in work

Leadership and Entrepreneurship Advancing Programme (LEAP) programme

Entrepreneur creates next generation of outstanding PE teachers