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North East Businesses benefit from external expertise

Ambitious businesses in the North East are benefitting from financial support which is helping them to bring in the specialist expertise they need to drive their business forward.

NBSL, a North East Enterprise Agency, have helped over 1,000 businesses in the last year access funding to support their business improvement projects. Contrary to the pessimism prevalent over the last few years there are an increasing number of North East businesses that are choosing to invest in the development of their business.

For some this is the natural time for them to take advantage of competitor complacency whilst for others there is definitely a ‘stuff it’ factor where they are tired of waiting for market conditions to improve and are charging ahead anyway.

The North East Business Support Fund is providing easy to access support for these businesses by providing 40% funding, to a maximum of £1,400, for business improvement or growth projects.

Typical projects supported include the development of marketing strategies, process improvement, website development and management coaching. The funding is specifically aimed at small and medium sized enterprises and is part financed by the European Regional Development Fund Programme 2007-13.

John King, North East Business Support Manager for NBSL, gives further details: “We’re increasing opportunities for businesses by putting them in the position where they can compete more effectively locally, nationally and internationally. The projects we’ve supported to date have already helped a lot of businesses to win new contracts, increase efficiencies and access new markets. It is inspiring to see the large numbers of businesses in the region that are benefitting from bringing in high quality expertise.”

AS Training are a great example of an NBSL client that has invested in external expertise and are now seeing real impact as a result. Before NBSL’s assistance, staff at AS Training sourced new businesses to connect with through cold calling, which had a limited success rate.

However within two weeks of receiving Search Engine Optimisation support from John Allan at Altius they started to see an increase in the number of enquiries. One direct result for AS Training is a contract worth over £30,000 with a North East based Manufacturing company.

As a result in the increase in demand three new Associates have been appointed, and they are expanding their company by offering new courses for customers; Train the Trainer, and Media Management.

“Search Engine Optimisation is now a key factor in our marketing strategy” states Stephen Foster, Director of Learning and Development at AS Training. “We now know that our website has the potential to attract many new companies and customers, and that we can acquire new contacts through the efficiency of our S.E.O, and that our company can now offer so much more to the public, and private sectors. As a relatively new company we would not have had the finances to have funded this project without the support of NBSL.”

Companies wanting further information about the North East Business Support Fund should contact NBSL on 01670 813322, or email fundingsupport@nbsl.org.uk.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by NBSL .