Does your business growth strategy need a revamp? Future-proofing the UK AI skills base, high tech innovation funding, plus a shake up to procurement regulations
Growing your business? – Just keep going!
The Bank of England (BOE) recently held interest rates at 5.25% and warned that the restrictive policy will remain for an extended period, despite the bleak economic outlook. BOE forecasts suggest the UK will not get to the 2% inflation target until the end of 2025. They expect inflation to fall to around 5% by the end of this year. Their forecasts also predict that output will remain stagnant in 2024. The Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, remains more optimistic and was quoted as saying that the UK economy has remained far more resilient than many expected.
Clearly things are changing rapidly right now in this chaotic world, and it is difficult to maintain a sense of control, but the most successful people we meet “just keep going!”
Growing your business is all about enthusiasm and a mindset to power on with the goal of striving for success. Below are a few thoughts to help you think ahead and focus on your business growth.
A growth strategy starts with identifying and accessing opportunities within your market. The strategy addresses how your company is going to evolve to meet the challenges of today and in the future. A growth strategy gives your company purpose, and it answers questions about your long-term plans.
Having a growth strategy is important because it keeps your company working towards goals that go beyond what is happening in the market today. They keep both owners and employees focused and aligned, and they allow you to think long-term.
The first step is to look at five important areas that will help you develop a growth strategy:
- Think long term – invest time in understanding where the market is going and what this means for your customers. Short term decisions do not help grow a business.
- Having a good value proposition is essential – this states the relevance of your product or service, what it does, and why customers need it. What is yours?
- Expanding your reach – who is your target customer and what do you need to do to let them know you exist and that your product or service is relevant to them?
- Growth means new people, systems, and (maybe) different ways of doing things. Grow at a pace you can manage.
- How will your marketing get your value proposition to relevant customers?
Once you have taken some time to write out your growth strategy and where you want your business to be in (say) 2 years, the next step is to work out your marketing plan.
A marketing plan is a business document outlining your marketing strategy and tactics. It is often focused on a specific period of time (i.e., over the next 12 months) and covers a variety of marketing-related details, such as costs, goals, and action steps. But like your business plan, a marketing plan is not a static document. It should outline:
- How you are going to keep existing customers happy and returning to buy more often;
- What the goals are for getting new customers; and
- The marketing methods you are going to use to achieve 1 and 2.
Please talk to us about helping you formulate your expansion plans; we have considerable experience in helping our clients grow their businesses.
Future-proofing the UK’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) skills base
The UK government is attempting to future-proof the AI skills base with funding to foster skills, including postgraduate research centres and scholarships.
Because of the pace of change in AI development, it is considered important that the UK cultivates the top AI research talent to drive progress in crucial areas like AI safety, and to ensure the whole country can feel any gains that AI will unlock.
The UK government states, “This will ensure the country has the top global expertise and fosters the next generation of researchers needed to seize the transformational benefits of this technology.
This includes naming, for the first time, the further 12 Centres for Doctoral Training in AI that will benefit from £117 million in previously announced government backing through UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), while a new visa scheme will make it easier for the most innovative businesses to bring talented AI researchers in their early careers, to the UK.
This is on top of funding for 15 science and technology scholarships at some of the UK’s universities, a £1 million grants scheme to help top AI talent relocate to the UK, and the pilot of a new STEM Olympiad scholarship scheme ‘Backing Invisible Geniuses’. It builds on a further £8.1 million recently announced, for postgraduate course scholarships in AI and data science”.
See: Britain to be made AI match-fit with £118 million skills package – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Expert regional innovation hubs given £75 million boost to local research, businesses, and economies across UK
Regional clusters of innovation across the UK are being backed by a share of £75 million that will enhance local economies and pioneer game-changing solutions from healthcare to net zero.
Following pilots in Liverpool and Teesside, launched earlier this year, a further 8 Launchpads, facilitated by Innovate UK, will be rolled out across every nation of the UK. These initiatives will build on existing clusters of high-tech innovation in each region, such as renewable energy in Southwest Wales, Agri-tech in East Anglia, and digital health in Yorkshire.
Launchpads is a programme that supports emerging clusters of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by providing each Launchpad up to £7.5 million from Innovate UK to fund innovation projects led by local businesses.
The £7.5 million bespoke funding from each Launchpad will allow SMEs in each region to bid for support that is tailored to the unique needs of each business cluster, helping them drive innovation, expand operations, and boost their local economies.
Fairness Innovation Challenge
UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £400,000 for projects resulting in new solutions to address bias and discrimination in AI systems. This funding is from the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI).
The competition closes on Wednesday 13 December 2023.
Innovate UK will work with the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI), part of the Department for Science Innovation and Technology (DSIT), to invest up to £400,000 in innovation projects.
The aim of this competition is to drive the development of novel solutions to address bias and discrimination in artificial intelligence (AI) systems.
The objectives are to:
- encourage the development of socio-technical approaches to fairness;
- test how strategies to address bias and discrimination in AI systems can comply with relevant regulation including the Equality Act 2010, the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018; and
- provide greater clarity about how different assurance techniques can be applied in practice.
Your proposal must address bias and discrimination in one of the following use cases:
- provided healthcare use case, or
- open use case.
Your proposed solution must adopt a socio-technical approach to fairness, seeking to address not only statistical, but also human and structural biases associated with the AI system in question.
In applying to this competition, you are entering into a competitive process.
Shake up to procurement regulations
New procurement rules have become law, following the Royal Assent of the Procurement Act.
The new rules are one of the largest shake ups to procurement rules in this country’s history.
The Act establishes a new public procurement regime following the UK’s exit from the EU and aims to create a simpler and more transparent system that delivers better value for money, reducing costs for business and the public sector.
The new regime will deliver simpler, more effective public sector procurement, and help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) secure a greater share of approximately £300bn of expenditure per year.
The new rules will aim to protect against national security risks in public contracts.
Significant new powers will enable high-risk suppliers to be put on a public debarment list and be prevented from bidding for some categories of goods or services, such as areas related to defence and national security, while allowing them to continue to bid for contracts in non-sensitive areas.