Hello and welcome to the Worcestershire Growth Hub December Newsletter. My name is Gwen Davies, I am the Strategic Account Manager in the team, and I am going to talk you through the December Newsletter.

Just to let you know what’s been happening in November, we’ve had quite a busy month. We’ve organised a recent trip to the Manufacturing Technology Centre in Coventry where we had 20 local manufacturers in attendance who all had a great tour around the facility, looking at their additive manufacturing facility, looking at their robotics, virtual reality and as a result we have had 5 of these businesses take up the direct support from the MTC, which is fantastic.

Also, to let you know it’s been a busy month around sustainability with COP26, a lot of businesses are now are focusing on their sustainability strategy. We’ve made several referrals into the clean tech business group who are funded by BEIS, to help business with their net zero target, carbon reporting and their net zero strategy so that’s gone really well. Excitingly we’ve had two new members in the team join us, Brad and James who have cracked on, on the phones, so you may get a call from them soon.

So, in terms of what’s coming up and into the new year, we still have the elevate consultancy and grants available. Just to let you know there are several themes with the elevate of consultancy. There is the supply chain management consultancy and we’ve got the ex Tata Steal manager who is actually supporting manufacturers with this consultancy, so we are really lucky to have him. We’ve also got the Business Growth consultancy which is for any type of business. Also, the Digital Technologies and Auto Manufacturing which is again for the manufacturing sector and lastly there is the Technology Elevate consultancy. With all of these we have experts on hand to help deliver the consultancy and on the back of that form the recommendations and the findings we’ve got a grant to help you implement them, so well worth having a look at the links on the newsletter ad get in touch and we can talk you through in more detail.

From our internal programmes, we’ve still got our advisor support we have several areas of experts on hand from Accountancy who specialise in R&D tax credits if its something you’re looking at. We’ve got the IT support which covers IT and Cyber. We also have sustainability support covering net zero strategy and carbon reporting. The last two we have is marketing which is fantastic the marketing strategy support, they can help with product launches, marketing audits they can help with SEO searched. Lastly, we have the generic advisor support so do get involved as these end at the end of March.

Lastly, we have the Peer Network cohorts coming up. We are still recruiting for those, and they will be happening in the new year and when it’s gone, it’s gone.

One of the key messages from the Growth Hub team is that there is currently lots of support available for business, to help you grow, please get in contact with us and we can run through the best options for your business.

We wish you a safe and merry Christmas!