Business

Steve Bowyer, Opportunity Peterborough: ‘People mean business…’

Steve Bowyer, Opportunity Peterborough: ‘People mean business…’ 1 2 3

[prev] …the likes of the Chamber of Commerce and, of course, part of Opportunity Peterborough’s remit is to create the right environment for business. It’s all about making sure that people can access the right advice. Enabling businesses to help themselves means creating the networks and clusters so that they can meet others. Sometimes they will do business together – brilliant! But sometimes it’s about hearing what other companies are doing: what’s best practice, what are the issues that other companies of the same size have experienced, or where can you go for specific advice? We’re very keen to foster those clusters and networks, whether it’s through Opportunity Peterborough’s Bondholder scheme or sector-specific clusters such as the Digital Cluster or the Eco Cluster.

THERE’S A HUGE VALUE TO NETWORKING FOR ANY BUSINESS.
Absolutely. Some people are sceptical about networking but our experience is that if you get businesses in a room together they will either do business together or learn from each other. I think that’s really vital. Underlining or feeding into any of these support components are the professional teams and companies that will help businesses directly, whether that’s the banks, the solicitors or accountants. Peterborough has a really solid, professional sector that is there to help.

YOU MENTIONED EARLIER THAT THE CITY IS GROWING FAST. HOW DOES THIS AFFECT EXISTING INFRASTRUCTURE?
The nice thing about Peterborough is that it’s a good-sized city. We’re big and growing but the connections you’d find in a smaller city are still here, which means people are far more engaged. We’re finding that in most of our networking events – you can see that positive engagement.

TELL US MORE ABOUT THE DIFFERENT CLUSTER GROUPS THAT OPPORTUNITY PETERBOROUGH HAS SET UP?
There are a number of these groups and we’ve had others in the past. The clusters need to come from the business community – it’s not about Opportunity Peterborough or anyone else saying ‘you should have a cluster in this particular sector’. We have key strengths in the city. So, for example, the Eco Cluster is building off the fact that we have one of the largest environmental goods and manufacturing sectors in the UK. If you’re a business in that community you could find out from others how you might, for instance, engage more or enter new markets, or our manufacturing club which builds off our more traditional strengths One expanding group is the Digital Cluster. There are already some informal networks and we want to help those grow because I think that is the future. There are some good opportunities out there, especially now the city has gigabit-speed internet connectivity. There are assets in this city that we need to explore even more; clusters help with that.

AND WHAT ABOUT THE BONDHOLDER NETWORK?
The Bondholder network is an opportunity for businesses of any size to come together, whether you’re one of the largest employers in the city such as BGL or Thomas Cook or a one-man band. It’s about opening up those new routes to business. With around 1,500 members, it’s the city’s largest free business network. One of the things we’ve been doing over the past 18 months is driving that innovation agenda by supporting businesses directly with funding through the Innovation Challenge Fund. More importantly we’ve been putting them in touch with other innovating companies. That’s the point here: there’s not a single silver bullet to business success, it’s about exploiting all of the opportunities that are out there, which is what Opportunity Peterborough aims to help with.

LET’S LOOK AT THE SPECIFIC SUPPORT THAT’S AVAILABLE ALONG DIFFERENT POINTS OF THE BUSINESS JOURNEY. WHERE WOULD A NERVOUS FIRST-TIME ENTREPRENEUR GO FOR ADVICE ON LAUNCHING THEIR OWN BUSINESS?
If you’re a young entrepreneur then your first port of call should be the Ignite Peterborough team, a joint initiative between Opportunity Peterborough and Peterborough Regional College. If not then NWES, who are also based in Peterborough. You will also find that most banks are very positive on business engagement. We hear mixed reports from the press, but really they are a good place to start. And, of course, just talk to people – get out there and start networking. Don’t commit too much resource until you know that there’s robustness to your business plan. Business plans are… [cont]

Steve Bowyer, Opportunity Peterborough: ‘People mean business…’ 1 2 3

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