BELFAST City Council has developed a new free programme of support for businesses to encourage growth, sustainability and resilience, enhance high growth potential and develop tendering and digital skills as part of its 'Belfast: Our Recovery' plan.
The project is part-funded by Invest NI and the European Regional Development Fund, and businesses can benefit from free mentoring in the following areas:
· Business planning, improvement and efficiency
· Digital transformation including website development, e-commerce, customer relationship management, online marketing and cyber security
· Export development
· Improving tendering and procurement skills so you can win more contracts
· Marketing and social media
· People and human resource management
· Product or process development and commercialisation
· Sales development
· Securing finance and financial planning
There will also be a series of online workshops to complement the mentoring (details will be published later at www.belfastcity.gov.uk/events)
The council’s city growth and regeneration committee chair David Brooks said: “We’ve listened carefully to businesses to make sure we understand their main challenges and we’ve developed a range of support in response to those.
“We’re offering flexible, one-to-one specialist mentoring with experienced business advisers who will evaluate your business, listen to your needs, recommend and deliver the most valuable support for you. It’s all free, and due to current restrictions, all sessions are delivered online, in real time, when it’s convenient for you.”
Alan McKeown, regional business director at Invest NI added: “The programme aims to help local businesses recover from the economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, and sustain and grow employment in more than 400 local firms. It will also help them to strategically upskill, diversify and plan for future market opportunities.
“We’re committed to working in partnership with our local councils to support existing and new businesses. By offering them access to the most relevant, high quality support at each stage of their business journey, we can help them to thrive and enhance their potential during these challenging times.”
