Partner Article

Report reveals West Yorkshire businesses are missing out on a vital boost in productivity

SMEs in West Yorkshire are missing out on a boost in productivity thanks to a lack of knowledge in strategy development, training, financial management, data driven operations and digital transformation.

These were the findings of a new report by Oxford Innovation Advice, who support hundreds of companies in the region through the West Yorkshire Good Growth and Made Smarter Digital Adoption Programmes.

The organisation is now calling on the Government and policymakers to make sure that support - designed for growth-oriented firms - includes access to advice in these key areas by continuing and widening existing support initiatives.

More than 1900 senior managers were questioned across 674 companies as part of the research, with 87% of respondents feeling they are strong in focusing on customer satisfaction, leadership (78%) and performance management (76%).

On the flip side, just two thirds of management teams felt they had a robust formalised strategy, and less than three quarters believe they use a wide variety of measures and data to track performance.

The lowest scoring metric for companies was training and incentivisation. Just 64% of managers feel they are doing a great job in this area, with managing change and transformation particular areas of weakness.

“This is one of the most comprehensive reports we’ve ever produced into productivity in West Yorkshire and, whilst there are a lot of positives to take from it, there are some significant areas of improvement if we want the region to achieve its potential,” explained Jane Galsworthy, Managing Director of Oxford Innovation Advice.

“There are so many external pressures for management teams to consider in the modern-day business world, so we can’t expect them to make changes on their own or have the resources in-house.”

She continued: “This is where external support programmes come into play, giving firms access to expertise to build their internal capabilities and target key weaknesses in their businesses.

“Our message is simple. Firms improve their productivity through strong leadership and good management practices. We need more Government-based funding in strategy, training and, importantly, digital transformation and this is best achieved by widening existing support initiatives to support productivity.”

The report, which is released as part of National Productivity Week, gathered data and insight from growth-oriented SMEs in West Yorkshire, all of whom had completed a GROWTHmapper business diagnostic and had received support from Oxford Innovation Advice.

Companies were a representative sample across a wide range of sectors, and, within each firm, one to eight senior managers completed the diagnostic. Often there was not unanimous agreement in each business about its processes and approaches. 

Oxford Innovation Advice now plans to use the findings to lobby Government and policymakers to develop business support that meets the following five recommendations:

·       Ensure that every SME has access to advice and tools that will enable them to build a robust business strategy that clearly sets out priorities and critical activities

·       Provide support to identify key performance indicators and establish systems that provide management with relevant, accurate and timely management information 

·       Deliver specialist advice to identify areas where digitalisation can significantly improve performance, and design and implement digital transformation projects

·       Make sure that business advice around strategy, growth and productivity includes environmental considerations and provide access to specialist environmental assistance

·       Integrate financial advice and training to ensure that all growth-oriented SMEs have strong financial management skills and help to secure external finance.

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