Businesses who take advice from Business Link have an advantage in setting up, surviving and growing through tough economic times, according to a new review.
Those businesses that had received intensive support, advice and assistance from the offline Business Link service had employment growth 2.4 per cent higher than those businesses that had not used the service. These additional jobs resulted in an estimated value added to the national economy of between £690 million and £750m.
A review of the achievements of Business Link in 2007-08 highlights the benefits of Business Link, used by 52,000 start-up companies within their first 12 months of trading.
The Business Link national service was set up to offer entrepreneurs the opportunity to tap into the experience of professional business people around the country. Under the leadership and management of the Regional Development
Agencies (RDAs), the service has helped nearly 800,000 customers throughout nine English regions to take advantage of a range of services - from starting their own business to trading internationally.
With a shift in emphasis from mass-market 'light-touch' services towards more in- depth and intensive support, customer satisfaction is now running at 90 per cent. Fully committed to equality and diversity, a total of 300,000 businesses which took advice from Business Link were owned by women - a third of all users - and 110,000 were ethnic minority-owned businesses.
"Business Link does what it says: it puts together," said John Bird, social enterprise entrepreneur and founder of the 'Big Issue'.
Peter Jones, UK entrepreneur and Dragon's Den star concludes: "Mentoring new businesses is a vital part of nurturing entrepreneurship, especially amongst young people. Business Link offers new businesses a vast knowledge base of people who've been there and done it. They know the highs and lows of starting up on your own."
Highlights include Sharon Goodyer of The Cake Bake Company, who together with partner Martin Major, was responsible for baking the 400 cakes that made the Skoda in the television advert. She said: "I was delighted that the Business Link website contained the information I was looking for,"
"We've now taken on Mr Kipling directly by developing a new product with serious body and soul. Times are very tough at the moment, but we are very well-positioned - September, with a £30,000 turnover, is our best month to date."
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