NEWS

When people think about business support, they often think about funding, events, formal programmes or structured advisory work. Those things are an important part of what we do on a daily basis, but they only form part of the picture.

Sometimes the most useful thing we can do is listen carefully to a company’s needs, understand that we are not the most suitable avenue of support for them right now and help find the right next step for them.

That might mean making an introduction elsewhere, suggesting a specialist, pointing someone towards a local programme, or simply helping them understand what support is available and what may or may not be right for them.

In a busy support landscape, with so many loud voices and different options, signposting like this really matters and can be the difference between making progress, and huge delays for companies.

Across the UK, SMEs make up 99.8% of the business population, but government evidence recognises that business support can feel fragmented and difficult to navigate. Uptake has also fallen, from 49% in 2010 to 26% in 2023, showing just how important it is that businesses are signposted to find the right support at the right time.

For businesses and early-stage innovators, the challenge is rarely a lack of ambition, but often knowing where to begin and how to access that crucial support early on.

There may be funding available, but it might not fit the stage of development. There may be a specialist who can help, but the founder does not yet know they exist. There may be programmes, networks and local partners doing excellent work, but without the right referral, the route through can be invisible to a founder who is already at capacity.

That is where the wider business support ecosystem comes in, and why referrals are so important. No single organisation can be the answer to every challenge, what matters is how well the ecosystem works together: local authorities, growth hubs, universities, specialist advisors, funders, industry bodies, private sector experts and organisations like RTC North.

When those relationships work well, and advisors like me are out there making important connections within the ecosystem, businesses are less likely to be passed from place to place without direction. Instead, they can be connected directly to the people and support that genuinely match their needs.

I saw this recently through a conversation with Kim Sharples, who was referred to me via the Boost team in Lancashire.

Kim had developed an innovative new product concept, the Forever Faux Memorial Topper, and was looking for advice on how to move it forward. Her concept and location did not currently fall within RTC North’s funded support remit, so this was not a case of simply bringing her into one of our programmes or introducing her to someone on our team.

We couldn’t bring her on as an RTC client, but that didn’t mean there was nothing useful we could do for her. Through referrals, I was able to point Kim towards three different prototype specialists, helping her explore the commercial options available and understand what kind of support might be needed to take the idea forward.

After speaking with each, Kim selected a small design and prototyping business to work with. That relationship is now helping her refine the design and develop the prototype into something practical, durable and suitable for manufacture.

Alongside that progress, Kim has also registered the Forever Faux trademark and submitted a patent application. Her next steps include market testing, gathering customer feedback and exploring production options, including tooling and mould manufacture.

Kim’s story is a useful reminder that early-stage innovation is rarely linear. Ideas move forward through conversations, introductions, testing, advice and persistence. A founder may need technical expertise at one stage, intellectual property advice at another, and funding guidance further down the line.

If we only think about support in terms of whether someone fits a specific programme on a specific day, we risk missing the bigger opportunity.

Signposting is not a second-best option. Done well, it is a critical part of helping ideas move forward and it’s crucial that we know, not only our own remit of support, but that of others within the ecosystem so that SMEs are supported, not turned away.

At RTC North, we are committed to supporting long-term regional growth. Sometimes that means providing direct support, sometimes it means connecting businesses to funding, expertise, partners or programmes elsewhere in the ecosystem.

The strength of a regional economy depends not only on the support available, but on whether businesses can actually access the right support at the right time.

That is why referrals, relationships and collaboration across the support ecosystem are so important. They help make a complex landscape easier to navigate and they give founders like Kim a better chance of turning ideas into progress.