A free online calendar of business events and networking opportunities has been launched by the West of England Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), the organisation tasked with creating 95,000 jobs by 2030.
Business Navigator is the first LEP-backed service of its type to go live anywhere in the UK. It provides business p
eople in and around Bristol with comprehensive information about local events as well as details of business support organisations that can help them.
The service can be found at www.businessnavigator.org.uk For November it shows that more than 100 events are taking place across the 50-plus listed local organisations. Over time the service will add more and more functionality and content to drive commercial activity and develop business relationships across the West of England.
West of England LEP chair Colin Skellett said: “Business Navigator is exactly the kind of free resource that businesses need to develop and grow and so create the new jobs that the Enterprise Partnership was set up to deliver.
“This is just the start of the process and I am confident that as the site develops and more businesses make use of it we will see the benefits in the months ahead.”
The LEP originally created a simpler version of Business Navigator in 2011 as a hub to signpost business support for Bristol, Bath and beyond. This improved version is still supported by the LEP but is now owned and funded by CareTechnica, working out of the University of Bristol’s SETsquared incubator.
Martin Coulthard is part of the team developing Business Navigator, having previously spent two years running BEN, the Bath & Bristol Enterprise Network. He said: “Companies and social enterprises often find it hard to locate the support they need. Our hope is that Business Navigator can really help local enterprises to find the partners and make the relationships that will see them thrive. We want to hear from users of the service about how they would like to see it develop, and we’ll do our best to implement improvements as quickly as possible.”
Individuals at any level in any sort of local business or social enterprise can visit www.businessnavigator.org.uk as a first step. They can start using this free service immediately and can also register to keep up-to-date as the site develops.
