Mairi Henderson, Project Manager, Scottish Enterprise
Regional Workshop: Kilmarnock, Ayrshire
Date: Wednesday 7th May 2014
Regional Seminar Agenda
• Welcome
• Superfast Broadband Rollout – Scottish
Government
• Business Gateway – What we do?
• Introduction to CREATE – Scottish Enterprise
• Networking Session
• Meet the CREATE Advisor
• Mak-Lab
What is CREATE?
• Developing approaches to encourage the take
up & optimal use of Broadband & ICT by SMEs
in rural areas
• Working in partnership with organisations
across different regions in North West Europe
to share skills & ideas and to test approaches
in different environments
• SMEs will benefit from intensive support and
business advice on how to exploit ICT
• The project is funded from the INTERREG IVB Programme
which targets EU funding to encourage regional
collaboration to develop new approaches to common
problems
€2.6m EU Funded project
(€1.3m of which is ERDF)
• The funding will provide support for
• SMEs to receive 1-1 advice
• Materials to be developed that encourage ICT & broadband take-up
• Help SMEs to collaborate with other small rural businesses from across
North West Europe.
Story so far ..
• September 2013 - Launched project with Conference in
Hereford
• December 2013 - Appointed Leadership Panel of industry
experts
• January 2014 - Transnational Seminar in Dumfries,
Scotland
• February 2014 - Recruitment process for CREATE Advisors
• March / April / May 2014 – Regional Workshops being
delivered across all Partner regions
Aims to overcome
• Structural Deficits of the Rural Economy
– Isolation from markets & skills
– Lack of infrastructure
– Lack of scale
– Poor clustering opportunities
– Lack of ICT expertise
– Reliance on traditional sectors
Collection exercise
HSB Rollout/Demand
stimulation
• Specific marketing campaigns
attached to a rollout in an area to get
uptake from businesses
• Bespoke seminars presenting specific
advantages to the different target
groups
www.scottish-enterprise.com
Role of NGA Broadband
• Digitally Mature SMEs grow at least 2 times faster
• At the height of the recession digitally mature SMEs were 29%
more likely to grow than those with only basic use of IT
• More sophisticated IT
– improves labour productivity - 10% in services; 5% in manufacturing
– drives 20% of all productivity growth across sectors
• The annual total turnover of U.K. SMEs could be boosted by
£18.8bn if all of these firms sold and marketed online
Persisting Issues
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•
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High awareness of speed issue
Low awareness of potential
Poor exploitation will continue
Without action, economic effects will not be
realised
• Latent economic potential must be unlocked
Snapshot of Pan Partner Survey
Don’t allow online customers to customise products
Don’t offer order tracking on-line
Don’t use an ERP package
Don’t use automated e-invoices
Don’t access tender docs from eProcurement systems
Don’t use video conferencing including Skype
Haven't received orders for goods/services via a website
Websites don’t host product catalogues or price lists
Employees don't have business portable devices
Haven't received foreign orders for goods/services
Employees don’t have remote access to company email
Don’t use any form of Social Media
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
Why do this transnationally?
•
•
•
•
•
Technical capacity & skills
Gain scale
Technical & economic specialisms
Test approaches
Demonstrate how rural SMEs can benefit from
the global economy
Leadership Panel
• Recruit a Leadership Panel
comprised of business & ICT
experts from each partner region
to the transfer of knowledge &
skills across the partner regions
Collection exercise
What will CREATE offer SMEs?
• 1:1 CREATE Advisor support (expert
advice)
• Business Directory
• Business Review, identifying Action Plan
specific to your SME
• E-Guides – Best Practice guides
• Digi-Labs - access to lab which
showcases new IT Technologies
• Clusters - Access to online knowledge
platforms
www.scottish-enterprise.com
Business Review Diagnostic
• Develop dynamic & tailored tool for delivery to a range of
SMEs with different levels of digital maturity
• The tool will focus on ways that new technologies can be
incorporated into the business processes of rural SMEs to
– encourage resilience,
– increase efficiency, &
– boost competitiveness.
• Delivered on the ground by local advisors until June 2015
Digi-Labs
Develop physical & virtual Digi-Labs as demonstrators and to
facilitate transnational communication & collaboration
E-GUIDES
Virtual Clusters
Virtual clustering of rural SMEs across NWE
To overcome barriers to market caused by
remoteness & the lack of critical mass
The Cloud Clusters will provide SMEs with
•
•
•
•
•
•
Significant exposure to other regions and countries
Opportunity to gain scale
Friendly environment to foster open innovation
New suppliers
New partners
Transfer of new processes that can cut costs & increase sales
Keeping in Touch with
#createNWE
facebook.com/createNWE
www.create-nwe.eu
twitter.com/createNWE
linkedin.com/groups/
youtube.com/user/createNWE
flickr.com/photos/createNWE
Search LinkedIn for:
CREATE – Connecting Rural
Enterprise for a Transnational
Economy
Book Time with CREATE Adviser
Contact
Dan Annison, Scottish Enterprise
dan.annison@scotent.co.uk
Tel: 01387 245204
Mairi Henderson, Scottish Enterprise
mairi.henderson@scotent.co.uk
Tel: 01387 245223