Surveys can be a way to get our voices heard in the business world. Right now, the focus is on scale-ups working in the West of England – Engine Shed’s very own Scale-up Business Enabler Briony Phillips (pictured right) wants to know exactly what kind of needs you have to grow your business and the challenges you face.
“Our goal is to make sure the region is brilliantly well equipped to support fast growing businesses”
Last year, a similar survey only received data from 10 contributors, so Briony is determined to get a more representative snapshot this time around by encouraging more scale-ups to take part – and you can help change the future of being a scale-up in the South West by answering the Scale-Up Institute survey here.
Building blocks
Briony tells us the data will produce an accurate picture of life as a South West scale-up: “Locally, it helps us to see what is unique about the scale-up community in the West of England and what particular needs businesses have in the region.”
There will be both a national and regional analysis of the data that is collected with a report announced in November. The team then want to establish a system that aims to tackle any consistent challenges of scaling up your fast growing business.
“There are lots of organisations across the region that want to support fast growing businesses”
Briony says they are going to, “use the insights to help design, support and influence activities and programs that support scale-up businesses. Our goal is to make sure the region is brilliantly well equipped to support fast growing businesses. We plan to share the results at a regional event so we can kick start a conversation about what support is missing.”
It’s crucial that as many scale-ups as possible take part in the survey to make the results and subsequent actions as relevant as possible. And that’s where you come in!
Briony tells us, “There are lots of organisations across the region that want to support fast-growing businesses and this is a great opportunity to help them create services that truly reflect the needs of the community. In the bigger picture, we hope that if we can put the spotlight on the scale-up community, we might see greater financial investment and in terms of commercial premises – two challenges that our scale-ups frequently mention.”
Briony wants to continue the conversation outside of the survey too – you can book an appointment to share all your scale-up stories over a call, or a coffee at the Engine Shed, with Briony today.
Thanks to Briony for taking the time to talk to us. Don’t forget to take the Scale-up Institue survey here and follow Briony on Twitter for more of her news here: @BrionyPhi1.
