BQ2 Special Report

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In association with

BUSINESS QUARTER SOUTH EAST: Special Report - Let’s talk growth

Relationships with respect Kathy Slack, director of Enterprise M3 LEP talks to BQ

Where opportunity knocks BQ live debate on innovation and growth in the Enterprise M3 area

5G - whiz

Surrey at the technology cutting edge

Dr iv ing a data revolution Synoptica is developing a platform to source and sort data for businesses

ENTREPRENEUR

INTERVIEWS

ENTERPRISE M3 UPDATES

COUNCIL VIEWS

INSIGHT

Where can businesses find FREE comprehensive information about local business support, news, and connect with expert advisers?

Check out the Enterprise M3 Growth Hub, a FREE expert advice and resource network which helps businesses achieve results quickly through a personal, tailored service focused on growth. Businesses can find:

Comprehensive resource network to help facilitate connections, collaboration and access to support via a range of resources

Helpline - telephone advice on any business opportunity or question facing a business

Business advice and expert tips

Web chat - interactive discussion with online advisers

‘My Profile’ feature – allowing businesses to personalise interests and receive alerts tailored to their needs.

News and Events

Go to www.enterprisem3growthhub.co.uk to keep up to date with the latest local and national business support. Register on our portal now.

Find us on Twitter @EM3GrowthHub Main office 01483 685226 Business Support Helpline number 0300 456 3565

BUSINESS UPDATE bqlive.co.uk

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EDITOR’S VIEW 16

L E T ’ S TA L K G R O W T H

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INNOVATION TES TBED

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SUPPORTING THE VISION

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BQ LIVE DEBATE

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VITAL CONNECTION

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SAFET Y FIRST The importance of cyber security

The need to attract, develop, grow and sustain industries across the UK’s regional economies is as important as ever.

Key to these economic powerhouses are the remarkable entrepreneurs and innovators that BQ – Business Quarter – covers online and in its flagship magazines.

We have worked around the country highlighting their work at so many events and awards evenings, helping support the country’s newest and most exciting businesses. And that is exactly what has brought us to the South East - an area that is already hugely successful as a centre of excellence for some of the world’s most cutting-edge sectors and with a reputation as one of our most innovative regions.

We have found some amazing businesses who are rewriting the rules in a vast range of sectors to create waves of innovation spreading around the globe. These are our sort of people, innovative, fearless and driven by a passion to make their mark in a region that has nurtured them from their first few days – and we will do everything we can to help them.

The highly-efficient infrastructure that already supports these entrepreneurs and makes sure their work feeds back into the many global companies based here has been built by the Local Enterprise Partnership, Enterprise M3 and we have worked alongside them and BE Group to compile this magazine as our first publication in the area. Their Growth Hub has broken the mould as far as business support is concerned and is helping build a long and prosperous future for the region.

Here at BQ, we know this will be the start of an exciting and long-term collaboration with businesses in the South East and we look forward to playing our part in its continued success.

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ROCKET SCIENCE

Mike Hughes, BQ editor

CONTENTS 10

ENTERPRISE M3 UPDATE

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REL ATIONSHIPS AND RESPECT

News from the LEP

Kathy Slack on the future for Enterprise M3

Surrey leads the world in 5G

How councils help the economy grow

Experts discuss opportunities in the Enterprise M3 area

Focus on Business South

Satellite technology in the Enterprise M3 region

CONTACT S BUSINESS QUARTER Bryan Hoare Managing director e: bryan@bqlive.co.uk @BQBryanH

EDITORIAL Mike Hughes Editor e: mikehughes@bqlive.co.uk @mikehughes

DESIGN & PRODUCTION Steve Jessop Production manager e: steve@bqlive.co.uk Sarah MacNeil Head of design e: sarah@bqlive.co.uk Jake Charlton Designer e: jake@bqlive.co.uk

DIGITAL Leanne Elliott Head of digital e: leanne@bqlive.co.uk Beth Hewitt Business engagement manager e: beth@bqlive.co.uk @bqbethh Bryce Wilcock, Suzy Jackson Senior online business journalists e: press@bqlive.co.uk Aimee Robinson, Ellen McGann Online business journalists e: press@bqlive.co.uk or call 0191 389 8468

PHOTOGRAPHY Chris Auld e: chris@chrisauldphotography.com KG Photography e: info@kgphotography.co.uk

In association with

ENTERPRISE M3 GROWTH HUB

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Business Quarter is part of BE Group, the UK’s market leading business improvement specialists. www.be-group.co.uk

Roya Croudace e: roya.croudace@enterprisem3growthhub.co.uk or call 0300 456 3565

BE GROUP Suzanne McCreedy e: Suzanne.McCreedy@be-group.co.uk or call 0191 389 8512

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WELCOME Let’s talk growth

Breaking the mould Roya Croudace, director of the Enterprise M3 Growth Hub, outlines the Hub’s work and offers a warm welcome to this first BQ in the region I am delighted to be welcoming you to the first edition of BQ focusing on the Surrey and Hampshire area surrounding the M3 corridor covered by the Enterprise M3 Local Enterprise Partnership and Growth Hub. We live in one of the most economically buoyant regions in the UK, developing globally significant innovations while still retaining first ranking in the ‘quality of life’ category.

It’s no surprise that we have the second largest economy in the South East and the fifth in the UK. Major industry sectors for us include Digital & Technology, Aerospace & Defence, Pharmaceutical and Professional Services while globally significant innovations are also happening in the counties which provide new opportunities for businesses. These include developments in niche sectors such as cyber security, computer gaming, creative media, digital health, space and space applications and 5G development.

The 5G Innovation Centre at the University of Surrey is now the largest UK academic research centre dedicated to the development of the next generation of mobile and wireless communications and the world’s leading independent testbed for trialling emerging 5G ideas, proving concepts, validating standards and vendor interoperability testing.

There is a phenomenal amount of activity and innovation happening in our region and as it is important for our businesses to be able to leverage this growth, innovation, talent and entrepreneurship to support their business growth.

The Growth Hub based at the Surrey Technology Centre in Guildford has been launched to provide support and advice for our high growth businesses while enabling collaboration and connectivity. I hope the supplement will give you a flavour of the exciting entrepreneurial activities, case studies from the Growth Hub, opportunities and challenges of businesses and how we are looking to support the continued innovation and growth going forward.

Our multi channel service provides the opportunity

for businesses to access support at a time and place that suits them. Our portal provides access to a comprehensive resource network to help facilitate connections, collaboration and access to the support businesses need, via a range of resources including our Market Place of service providers and our Specialist Support Network of specialist high growth and innovation advisors and mentors. We are investing heavily in a second phase to our portal which will include the functionality of a community to facilitate collaboration, discussion and engagement along with a ‘my Portal’ section which will enable us to tailor content and information for users.

Businesses have access to our live webchat and telephone support Monday – Friday 9.00am – 6.00pm and those businesses who are high growth/high innovation or in one of the LEP’s priority sectors can access our intensive High Growth Service. Our Growth Champions are truly exceptional, their experience is invaluable and businesses can access this for free.

The Growth Champion will work with the business to understand its specific needs, issues and often most important its opportunities, and work with the business to develop a growth plan to ensure these are addressed to enable the business to realise its growth and innovation potential.

There really are no catches, we’d encourage any business in the Enterprise M3 area to get in touch to see how best the service can support them. n

“The Growth Hub based at the Surrey Technology Centre in Guildford has been launched to provide support and advice for our high growth businesses while enabling collaboration and connectivity”

WELCOME Let’s talk growth

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GROWTH CHAMPIONS Let’sJtalk E growth

ANN IE SA TCH ELL

EM PR

I AN GY

BY SEL RK A M

YER O’DW MIKE ING REDD MEL

GROWTH CHAMPIONS Let’s talk growth

As part of Enterprise M3’s extensive work, its Growth Hub puts into place the LEP’s vision of connecting businesses with quality support. A key part of that is its use of Growth Champions – highly agile, high calibre business leaders who have been described as “a team of John Harvey Joneses...exploring the art of the possible.”

Mike Hughes profiles the Growth Champions making a difference across all sectors MARK SELBY Mark Selby is Visiting Professor at the University of Surrey, home of the 5G Innovation Centre.

He is a member of the Duke CE faculty, the British Screen Advisory Council, London School of Economics’ Network Economy Forum and a BBC Worldwide Labs mentor. His current focus includes: the Internet of Things, Smart Cities, Connected Cars and retail. Mark has worked at the epicenter of many technology and business innovations. He held senior roles in the Technology, Media and Telecoms sectors at Nokia, IMG, Digital Equipment and Xerox. Other roles include: CEO of the Mobile Channel Network, co-founder the Health on the Net Foundation, president of Solid Information Technology, president of the Internet Society, Geneva and board member of Linux International.

MEL REDDING Mel’s company, JuMelia Ltd, provides strategic sales and business development assistance to blue chip organisations and coaching and mentoring to small and medium-size businesses.

Before setting up JuMelia Ltd, Mel was heading up strategy, sales and business development for Serco, a major private sector outsourcer, focusing on the defence, space, national security and cyber sector, leading sales/commercial support teams with a £172m business. She has wide sector experience including defence, space, national security, central and local government, and has led business development activity and sales strategies in the UK and overseas.

Skilled at networking with key UK Government senior stakeholders and partners, she was responsible for representing Serco at presentations to UKTI, government and the

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“I understand how to get the best from people, building high performing teams, commanding respect and I am absolutely fair and ethical in business and I believe that I achieve that fine balance between hard and soft skills.”

private sector. Mel is a qualified senior coach and mentor, holding certificates both at an ILM Level 5 (coaching and mentoring) and within the Institute of Sales & Marketing Management.

MIKE O’DWYER Mike has a wealth of commercial and operational experience on the High Street, having worked with Grand Metropolitan, Whitbread, Laurel Pub Company and P&O Ferries as a main board director. He has particular experience in business operations, structure, transformational leadership, man management and business strategy.

“Business is great fun and I enjoy working with business owners, their staff and customers,” said Mike. “That way I get firsthand experience in terms of how things actually work and where there are opportunities for improvement. I am someone who puts the interests of the organisation at the centre of everything that I do and I am positive, energetic, organised and utterly reliable in doing what I say I am going to do. I understand how to get the best from people, building high performing teams, commanding respect and I am absolutely fair and ethical in business and I believe that I achieve that fine balance between hard and soft skills.”

PREM GYANI Prem provides experienced based business strategy, sales and marketing support for fast growth companies with an ambition, ability, passion and energetic enough culture to solve a problem. He has assisted many high growth SMEs, from start-ups to established SMEs, to identify and understand realistic opportunities, help put the operational framework into place to ready a company for growth funding and review business plans and models to create more collaborative ones. Prem has extensive executive and operational management experience, with

a 32-year career in IT and predominately focuses on IT/ digital media and professional services.

He has been fascinated by the science of social and mobile engagement and mobile location based services for a decade or more and is closely following developments in 3D printing, synthetic biology gene therapy and the rise of programmatic advertising.

JEANNIE SATCHELL Jeannie is a highly experienced and qualified business coach, with a successful track record in business development as well as in leadership and management programme development.

She has been a national trainer in trustee board development for 14 years and has a proven ability to understand the bigger picture and devise effective strategies to move businesses from where they are to where they want to be.

She’s worked with FTSE companies specialising in defence, engineering, communications, technology, service provision and medicine alongside entrepreneurs working in PR, marketing and recruitment. Jeannie brings to the Growth Hub extensive experience in management and the management of teams, business planning from concept to delivery, organisational merger and the management of change. She has business experience as a sole trader and director of a limited company and is also a qualified teacher, trainer, assessor, internal quality assurer and project manager and has held positions reviewing the quality of programme provision. n Check out the Enterprise M3 Growth Hub, a FREE expert advice and resource network which helps businesses achieve results quickly through a personal, tailored service focused on growth. www.enterprisem3growthhub.co.uk

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GROWTH HUB CASE STUDIES Let’s talk growth

Growth champions

The Enterprise M3 Growth Hub has touched over 5,000 unique businesses, of which 86 have benefitted from working with one of our growth champions. Some great results are already being achieved including:

CHILLISTICK Chillistick provide a complete dry ice solution and design and manufacture innovative products.

Supplying dry ice at the UK’s best prices, securely packaged to your door. www.chillistick.com How we helped: Mike helped them review and refine the business processes and identify potential markets for their product. Enterprise M3 Growth Hub’s growth champion, Mike O’Dwyer, helped evaluate and re-write their business plans and was able to signposte Chillistick to other sources of assistance where appropriate. Mike’s assistance has also included advice on cashflow management, financial forecasting and how to promote the product to potential customers.

Results: “Mike’s help has been invaluable as we’ve moved towards a position where we can take the FogJug to production. He has challenged us to think about how we would commercialise the product. Our focus has predominantly been on research and development, on how to finetune the product to maximise the shelf-life of the fog effect, but Mike has taught us that we need to be thinking ahead to the next stage now.”

Mike O’Dwyer will continue to work with Chillistick to guide the company through the transition from product manufacture to commercialisation. He has also put Chillistick and Mike in touch with a technical advisor from Growth Hub partner SETsquared, which supports business incubation through a collaboration between Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Surrey universities.“One of the best advantages of working with the Growth Hub is that the Champions can signpost you to an extensive number of people with a range of different specialisms. We’d definitely recommend them to other science and tech-based companies seeking to grow their business.”

IGEOLISE iGeolise make location searchable by minutes rather than miles. Boost conversions using TravelTime. Make data more human with MinuteMapr. www.igeolise.com How we helped: “We were introduced to Mark Selby, an Enterprise M3 growth champion,

by Mark Pearson of Surrey County Council. He thought Mark would not only be interested in what we were doing but would have lots of contacts and experience to offer – he was right.”

Mark Selby brings to the venture a wealth of experience after spending many years working in the technology, media and telecoms sectors. A visiting professor at the University of Surrey, home of the 5G Innovation Centre (Europe’s largest academic communications research institute), he has held senior roles at Nokia, IMG, DEC and Xerox, influencing and shaping many technology and business innovations.

Results: “We’ve created solutions that address genuine business and consumer needs. iGeolise brings rapid value, convenience and relevance to search, marketing and analysis. It’s no wonder that major retail, property, media and hospitality companies are racing to use this technology. The results are outstanding.”

After working with iGeolise, reviewing and prioritising the company’s strategy, Mark has helped them make several useful connections to potential clients, which has resulted in new projects coming on board. iGeolise added: “Mark has been great at opening specific doors for us. He has a good network of contacts which differs from my own, and he’s been very generous in opening this book of contacts for us to tap into. Our experience of the Growth Hub has been very professional and useful.”

MYORB myOrb are the next generation web application for work, study and leisure that simplifies the digital world. www.myorb.com How we helped: Prem’s key work with myOrb covered three main areas where he has particular experience – sales, marketing and finance. “An overarching sales strategy will help the company get to its goals of winning higher education, creative industry and corporate accounts,” he said. “And that will dovetail with a marketing strategy that will enable myOrb to deliver end user growth and platform visibility. Then we can support that with a longer-term financing strategy.” Prem has spent his whole career gathering experience and knowledge and is now keen to pass that one to new businesses.

Results: myOrb is a big supporter of the Growth Hub model and said Prem’s input had been “massively useful”. They said: “We have only just launched, so it is still early days for us, but it is always so good for younger firms to have that sort of support. To be able to bounce ideas around with someone like Prem, with his level of experience, has been very important for us.”

NEWNHAM & SON Accounts in Petersfield: Accountancy and Taxation Services from Newnham & Son LLP. www.newnhamandson.com How we helped: Mel, who has led business development activity and sales strategy in the UK and overseas for more than 25 years, helped Newnham & Son evaluate the company’s business plan and provided a strategic review.

Her assistance has also included advice on fee structuring remuneration, growth targeting and how to promote the product to potential customers. Newnham & Son said: “As a business

GROWTH HUB CASE STUDIES Let’s talk growth

that has been trading for more than 30 years, we were confident we knew what was needed to run a successful business but with ambitious growth plans for the future, we really needed external guidance to review our business strategy. “We were fortunate enough to be put in touch with Mel and Prem who very much follow an ‘every client is different’ approach. They took the time to understand what success meant for us as a business and worked side by side with us in this process. Their advice, skills and encouragement were extremely valued and they helped to reaffirm the fact that we had the right business strategy in place to take us to the next level.”

Mel said: “We worked with Newnham & Son to undergo a client-based analysis which would in turn provide us with enough information to determine the core client demographic, highlight the key targets for growth and explore the different models of marketing and social media.

Prem was instrumental in providing social media strategy advice for the company.

He was able to introduce Newnham & Son to apps including Cashflow and Zero to help the company reach a younger client base and step up its marketing drive.

Results: Newnham & Son added: “Prem’s social media expertise has been effective in helping to generate a more visible social media presence and I’m looking forward to exploring the new marketing avenues he presented.”

PYTERRA PyTerra is an investment and development platform which brings together new opportunities for developing smart water networks with investors and development teams. www.pyterra.co.uk How we helped: Mel Redding, who is widely networked with key government senior stakeholders and external partners signposted PyTerra to the help of key industry contacts and funding partnerships and helped to identify and maximise available equity finance and grant schemes. Mel was instrumental in providing consultancy support for PyTerra and introduced the business to the Satellite Applications Catapult (SAC) at Harwell, a Government supported

innovation cluster created to foster growth across the economy through the exploitation of satellite data. Her assistance also included identifying key contacts within the Defence Infrastructure Organisation as well as across waste and food supply chains.

Results: “The support from Mel was very useful, with all leads and networking opportunities followed up. This has resulted in a partnership arrangement with a satellite data company at the SAC, forming part of a team under me which is bidding for an EU Horizon 2020 grant.

“Mel also helped to reinforce our next steps in financial aid by facilitating a peer review of the business plan with another growth champion who is an engineer by background but a specialist with finance applications.

REENERGISE Specialists in energy management who’s aim is to make it easy to learn about buying energy efficiency solutions and generating your own renewable heat or electricity. www.reenergisegroup.com How we helped: Prem said “They have good potential and have realised that in a very busy renewable energy marketplace they need to do something different. Their new entry into community energy supply is particularly exciting.

They already have their first client in the pipeline and what the Growth Hub has been able to do is put them in touch with people who can help with this project’s funding. “Theirs is a great idea that has been very well put together and the company has demonstrated its ability to deliver a future strategy by choosing to move its focus from domestic to commercial, which is a very strong indication of the long term sustainability and success of their newest adventure. Prem continued: “The well-thought out addition of fund management to their portfolio in 2013 has meant that they now have accrued and ensured future revenue streams which they can lever to cover the operational costs, staffing for growth and development of new ideas. “ Prem and Reenergise Group have been working closely together and have already identified the key drivers to take the company to the next level.

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“Short-term funding for operational costs is important, and the company is approaching a number of sources to look at the best way to do this,” explained Prem. “They will also be entering new markets with their consulting services and are trying to extend their market presence in the state education market to talk about energy efficiency.”

Results: Reenergise Group said the help from the Growth Hub was vital to their early success. “Prem has been very helpful for us and has certainly opened doors. He has so much experience in these areas and has been giving us plenty of ideas. “We appreciate the high level of support and mentoring provided by the Growth Hub and recognise its value to newer firms.”

DAWES HIGHWAY SAFETY Dawes Highway Safety find engineering solutions to push the boundaries of road safety for industry and vulnerable road users alike. www.daweshighway.com How we helped: Our growth champion, Mike O’Dwyer, helped Dawes Highway Safety evaluate and re-write their business plans and gave advice on cashflow management, financial forecasting and how to promote the product to potential customers. They have now recruited a PR specialist and social media expert to help him step up his marketing drive. Mike also signposted Dawes Highway to other sources of assistance where appropriate.

Results: “I don’t think we’d be where we are today without the Enterprise M3 Growth Hub. Mike’s assistance has been invaluable in helping us to fine-tune our business proposition and promote the DawesGuard more widely. We’ve received some fantastic coverage in the media, as well as expressions of interest from several parties.

“Mike has been a great sounding board to bounce ideas off. He has also used his extensive network of contacts to recommend consultants and specialists who can advise me in areas of their expertise. “The best thing about the Growth Hub is that it doesn’t take a one-size-fits-all approach. It tailors advice and guidance to the needs of specific individuals and their business proposition. n

Out of this world: the 10 largest digital clusters are in the M3 area

ENTERPRISE M3 UPDATES In galaxies far, far away...

The biggest video game of all, featuring over 18 quintillion planets in what is called an infinite procedurally generated galaxy, was produced in the heart of one of the most productive and fastest growing digital economies in the UK, Guildford.

‘No Man’s Sky’ was forged by Hello Games, led by MD Sean Murray, in the Enterprise M3 area which is home to powerful clusters of games, cyber security, aerospace and defence, automotive, digital media and telecommunications companies.

A detailed Digital Technologies Report commissioned by Enterprise M3, and conducted

by Regeneris, revealed the scale and impact of the digital economy in the region. The key findings showed that the ten largest digital clusters in the UK are either in the Enterprise M3 area or in close proximity to it.

The Enterprise M3 economy ranks as one of the UK’s leading digital economies. It is home to 8,500 digital businesses, employing 50,270 individuals and accounting for 7.4% of all Enterprise M3 employment.

Simon Hooton, Director at Regeneris, the study authors, said: “This study illustrates the importance of the Enterprise M3 area to the growth and development of the South East and UK’s digital economy. The Enterprise M3 area has distinct specialisms in 5G technologies, cyber security and gaming on which the area

can build and gain competitiveness in global markets.”

Talking about his breakthrough game, Sean Murray said: “Since we founded Hello Games we had an idea of a massive game, something incredible. Now we have had the chance of making it. We announced No Man’s Sky at the VGX in December 2013, and we were amazed by the response. It’s the biggest thing we’ve ever attempted with our little team.”

Under surveillance A business specialising in the design and manufacture of pioneering surveillance equipment is the latest company to secure investment from the Enterprise M3 Growth Fund. Winchester based Observant Innovations has created a camera that successfully records 360° panoramic imagery at a quality high enough to be used for evidential purposes. Its mobile ‘Patrol’ camera, which can be mounted to a vehicle roof, is already being used by a number of police forces worldwide and the company is now seeking to fully establish itself as a preferred supplier to this market on a global basis. In order to take advantage of this unique position and scale the business in line with the market opportunity, Observant Innovations raised equity funding in a round led by the Enterprise M3 Growth Fund alongside private investors. This will allow accelerated sales and marketing activity together with additional

research and development work.

John Scholes, Observant’s executive chairman and co-founder, said: “Up until now 360° recording has only been possible either by stitching multiple images together or with the use of a fish eye lens, both of which produce imagery of an inferior quality. Our ability to capture 360° HD visual documentation during patrols, pursuits and incidents that can then be used in evidence gathering is ground breaking.”

Julie Silvester, head of equity funds at The FSE Group, which manages the Enterprise M3 Growth Fund on behalf of Enterprise M3 LEP, adds: “This is a compelling opportunity with potential for high growth in markets across the globe, having already secured clients in Europe, the Middle East and South East Asia. Furthermore, there is a good product development pipeline for new verticals including leisure, retail, military and maritime markets. We look forward to working with John and the team to help Observant reach their growth plans.”

The Enterprise M3 Growth Fund is part of the Enterprise M3 Funding Escalator, a £5.5m initiative funded by Enterprise M3 Local Enterprise Partnership. The escalator, which also includes an expansion loan scheme, provides eligible companies with loans and equity funding between £50,000 and £200,000 for activities that will deliver high-growth and employment opportunities.

ENTERPRISE M3 UPDATES Let’s talk growth

The listening LEP A Woking based company that provides products to assist people with hearing impairments is looking to expand its range with the help of an Enterprise M3 Expansion Loan.

Conversor, which was established in Surrey

by Jeremy Brassington in 2003, designs and manufactures Assistive Listening Devices (ALDs), which are used by hearing aid wearers to amplify sound and reduce background noise.

With approximately one in seven people worldwide having some form of hearing impairment, many of whom could benefit from using an ALD, this is an already significant market, which is increasing with an ageing global population. The ALD market is also experiencing growth as the devices are increasingly used to assist individuals with dyslexia, specifically in education settings where note taking is required.

Conversor has already produced a range of note taking programmes and apps to be used with its ALDs and is now looking to develop these further to fully provide for this market. To help attain this planned growth, Conversor has successfully secured a £125,000 Enterprise M3 Expansion loan, part of the Enterprise M3 Funding Escalator.

Derek Ellis, fund manager for The FSE Group, which is managing the Enterprise M3 Funding Escalator on behalf of Enterprise M3 Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), says: “Conversor is a great example of a company looking to maximise its potential in the markets available.

They have strong sales to date with this set to increase significantly and we are delighted to be supporting them in the ongoing development of their products and overall business expansion, whilst creating new jobs for the Enterprise M3 area.”

Enterprise boosts enterprise Enterprise M3 has awarded £155,000 towards a plan to help nurture new businesses and create new jobs in Aldershot. Leading business support provider WSX Enterprise will use the money to further develop the Aldershot Enterprise Centre, which aims to support the ongoing economic growth of the local community and give new entrepreneurs a base for their business.

The funding will speed up development of the centre, refurbishing additional office and meeting space and updating the communications infrastructure, including superfast internet and a modern telephony system. Peter Grant, chief executive of WSX Enterprise said: ‘’We have already seen there is a strong market in Aldershot for cost-effective premises to start a new business venture, and with space starting at £35 a week, demand has been consistent from both the military community and other local communities.”

“It is not just the price which is attractive. The building is a unique historic setting and tenants can also benefit from extensive, freely-available training and support for their businesses.”

Geoff French, Enterprise M3’s chairman, said Aldershot was a LEP priority: “Aldershot is one of the five step-up towns we have identified within our LEP area and it is growing fast. It is important to ensure that budding entrepreneurs have access to affordable office space when starting their business - Aldershot Enterprise Centre supports this aim.”

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On the right road A company making waves in driverless car technology is setting its sights on global success with the help of an investment from the Enterprise M3 Growth Fund.

Bedford born company, iAbra, are expanding in a move that will see Guildford become their sales and marketing base, creating a number of new jobs in the process. The iAbra technology uses deep learning algorithms that enable computers to learn in a human like way. When applied to Machine Vision (MV), machines can process images from internal cameras and sensors to ‘see’ and interpret the world around them. For driverless car technology this means identifying objects in the traffic environment and responding appropriately e.g. the car ‘learns’ that a pedestrian at a zebra crossing means the car must stop. Already working with some of the industry’s key players in the automotive industry, iAbra’s Machine Vision (MV) technology is fast gaining traction as a platform to be reckoned with in this field.

Ian Taylor, iAbra CEO and co-founder, says: “Over the past year we have spent time really focusing on the application of our technology.

Although there are a number of target markets, including surveillance and defence, the automotive industry is an exciting place to be right now with the race to driverless cars in full throttle. We have established strong relationships with some global companies who are equally excited by how our technology can help them be at the front of this race.”

This latest funding round, which will include further funding from the Bedford EIS Fund and angel investors, will facilitate the rapid expansion that the business is currently facing.

The investment will be used to grow the infrastructure and increase headcount in both Bedford and Guildford.

“We have established strong relationships with some global companies who are equally excited by how our technology can help them be at the front of this race”

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ENTERPRISE M3 UPDATES Let’s talk growth

Lots of energy - and funding

Chip off the old block In March 2016, the LEP launched the first round of the Enterprise M3 Wood Processing Grant Programme for SMEs in the wood processing industry. This is a £2m initiative over two years, providing grants to small and medium sized businesses to part-fund the creation and expansion of a network of wood-fuel and timber processing hubs in the area. This programme covers the whole of the Enterprise M3 area and is run by Surrey County Council and the Forestry Commission.

Early workshops held in Summer 2015 indicated a wide mix of potential investors from across Hampshire and Surrey. Applicants for the first round of funding have demonstrated a strong grasp of the needs and opportunities that this funding offers, and look forward to seeing the hub network develop over the next two years.

In support of Growth Deal investors and the wider biomass heat sector, Enterprise M3 have also secured an ERDF funding option to stimulate the sustainable heating sector, especially district heating networks, by promoting opportunities, facilitating supply chain development and encouraging knowledge transfer between users, suppliers and exemplars of best practice.

This three year project, led by Surrey County Council, includes other local authorities, the Forestry Commission and private sector partners who all have an interest in establishing a strategic biomass heat network for the Enterprise M3 area. Members of the Enterprise M3 Rural Action Group have been keen supporters of the project, and will be working with project partners to develop its impact.

A Hampshire business looking to create new jobs while having a positive impact on the environment has successfully secured £400,000 of funding to help realise these goals.

MeasureMyEnergy, which is relocating to the Winchester area, has developed proprietary technology which enables companies to measure the amount of energy they are using.

Their technology includes both hardware and software, which combine to give a detailed and sophisticated account of utility consumption.

The FSE Group, which manages a series of funds to support businesses during different stages of their growth, is now supporting MeasureMyEnergy with a £200,000 Enterprise M3 Expansion Loan, together with a further £200,000 South East Sustainability Loan, which is available to companies developing or selling a product or service that looks to reduce carbon emissions.

These funds will enable the company to achieve the planned growth through various activities including further product development, sales and marketing, office relocation and hiring of new staff. Around 30 new jobs will be created initially, with an intention to make this around 100 overall in 2017.

The company, which has just entered its fourth year of trading, has gained a stream of high profile clients in the UK including Hilton Hotel Group, Royal Opera House, some well-known retailers and a high street bank and is now seeking to replicate this success internationally.

CEO, Ben Murphy, said: “MeasureMyEnergy was born out of my frustration at unaccountably large energy bills. I wanted to be able to answer the basic question of what, exactly, was consuming the energy that I was using. After a period of research and development I had a system that was capable of answering this. It is clearly a question that many businesses wish Enterprise M3 to resolve and we have already experienced high demand for our technology.

We are now ready to grow the business to meet this demand worldwide, and are excited to have gained the finance we need to accomplish this.”

“I wanted to be able to answer the basic question of what, exactly, was consuming the energy that I was using’’

ENTERPRISE M3 UPDATES Let’s talk growth

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Multi-zone strategy

Greener roads The LEP has secured a total of £24.4m through the Local Growth Deal to deliver a programme of sustainable transport schemes and measures. Funding for this first year 2015/16 has been awarded to a package of £4.35m for the development of Sustainable Transport Schemes across Surrey and Hampshire.

The schemes were specifically selected because they met essential criteria with regard to the economic benefits they would bring to the region, along with significant environmental benefits. The investment in 11 sustainable transport schemes by Enterprise M3 unlocks a further £9.04m of matched funding to ensure the successful execution of these projects.

The projects include initiatives to improve connectivity with employment centres, improving accessibility to Growth Towns and expanding Wi-Fi provision on buses to facilitate mobile working for the business community.

Enterprise M3, in partnership with Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council, East Hampshire District Council and Runnymede Borough Council, secured ‘multi-site Enterprise Zone’ status, paving the way for millions of pounds of private investment and thousands of new jobs at Basing View, in Basingstoke, Longcross Park, in Chertsey, and Whitehill & Bordon.

Businesses taking up occupancy in an Enterprise Zone before 31 March 2022 will receive 100% business rate discount for five years, up to the maximum state aid threshold of £275,000.

Business rates generated, estimated to be in the region of £178 million (over 25 years), in the Enterprise Zone will also be retained in the area by the Enterprise Zone Partnership Group providing an investment fund over the next 25 years that will support future economic growth across the Enterprise Zone and the wider LEP area. The zone links three key centres within the ‘Sci:Tech Corridor’, an economic asset of national importance and home to thousands of innovative, high-tech companies capable of leading the world in areas including digital media, 5G communications and cyber security.

“Business rates generated, estimated to be in the region of £178m in the Enterprise Zone will also be retained in the area’’

Bridging the skills gap During the past year Enterprise M3 has been working on three significant initiatives to help people and businesses access the right skills. The Apprenticeship Ambassador Network grew out of a recognition that the business case for employing apprentices could be made stronger if communication was intrinsically employer speaking to employer. It is chaired by a leading local employer and involves 17 businesses. They come from different sectors, including aerospace, ICT solutions, data services, manufacturing, infrastructure and professional/business services. One of the businesses invited to join and drive it was Be Wiser Insurance, which was recognised in this year’s National Apprenticeship Awards as one of the country’s leading employers of apprentices.

In the Enterprise Advisor Network, led nationally by the Careers and Enterprise Company, the aim is to help schools connect with local employers to deliver inspiring and informative careers advice. Enterprise M3 appointed Basingstoke Consortium and SATRO to recruit and manage a volunteer network of Enterprise Advisers from local private, public and voluntary organisations, to advise school leaders on how to make better connections with local businesses.

And in Supporting Excellence in Our Colleges of Further Education, Enterprise M3 is helping colleges align their plans with the needs of business, industry and the economy by arranging a series of employer engagement workshops and a forum for businesses to discuss their workforce needs and skills gaps.

Driving a data revolution Guildford start-up Synoptica is developing a platform which could transform the way businesses across the globe source and sort data. Bryce Wilcock reports…

Data is big business. According to the latest research by SAS and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr), big data analytics is estimated to contribute an average of £40bn per year to the UK economy (a cumulative value of £241bn between 2015 and 2020).

The industry expected to accrue the greatest economic benefit from big data is manufacturing. The £57bn boost to this industry over the period 2015-2020 is expected to be driven by the diversity of firms in the industry and the variety of areas in which efficiency gains can be achieved through the use of big data analytics. For example, it could lead to improvements in supply chain management and

enhancements in customer intelligence.

One company set to benefit in particular is Guildford start-up Synoptica, a software company automating the way analysts create profiles of companies that they would tend to target. It helps organisations find, engage and manage innovative technology providers from across the globe – revolutionising the way companies source and sort data.

“Synoptica is a software company which helps organisations identify companies and then rank and continuously track the way they develop and grow,” said founder and CEO Stephen Mooney. “We help companies identify the right companies to work with using word associations

ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

and natural language processing from data found on the web; we also go beyond traditional software solutions helping create rich profiles of those companies. We track how those companies are changing over time based on metrics that are relevant to the customer.

“For example, we can help governments profile what types of businesses are operating within their constituency, for investors it helps identify SMEs that fit their investment criteria and are on the move, without using traditional vanity metrics such as revenue or the number of employees, that type of thing. For sales people, it can help them find tailored leads. If you have a list of 1,000 leads there’s no point calling a company that doesn’t have a chief science officer, if you’re only targeting companies with a chief science officer. What we do is make lead lists smarter by using information that we automatically mine and filter from the web.”

Serial entrepreneur Stephen launched Synoptica in May last year having previously co-founded a very successful software as a service (SaaS) company at home in the US. Carbonetworks was one of the first SaaS technology companies helping businesses understand their energy and carbon position. After raising funding through a Venture Capitalist firm in California, he helped the company expand into the UK before selling it off in 2010. From here, Stephen decided to stay in the UK and held a number of business advisory and mentoring roles before finally settling in Guildford. Working alongside SETSquared and The University of Surrey, he got involved in the Surrey 100 investment club which helps early-stage technology businesses in the South West to grow and succeed.

It was during his time at the University when he launched Synoptica. “The business has two sides to it,” Stephen said. “One is big data/ natural language processing and the second is the engagement arm which is a means of acquiring richer data. Those two components were previously being managed by two different companies, Technotomy, which had spun out of the University of Surrey and iVeridis, a start-up I had founded.

“I discovered Technotomy whilst I was mentoring for SETsquared, it was a spin-out from the University founded by a former academic, Dr Bogdan L. Vrusias. Despite securing funding from InnovateUK, Technotomy hadn’t really found its place in the market. I saw the potential it had and approached him to work with me at iVeridis.

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“We’re doing something nobody else is doing by using metro-language processing and word associations and linking that back to an object, in this case the object is the company name. This allows us to take lists of 1,000s of companies and word associations and basically use machine learning to get smarter and smarter as to how we’re identifying a company and how we profile and shape that company” I recognised that the two merged together could create a much more valuable outcome and Synoptica was born.”

The decision to merge the two companies proved a shrewd one and Synoptica really started to kick on. Securing contracts with the likes of Asda, The Crown Estate, UKTI and Imperial College London among others, Stephen realised the potential the business had to capitalise on the big data boom which was taking the world by storm.

“We’re doing something nobody else is doing by using natural-language processing and word associations and linking that back to an object, in this case the object is the company name. This allows us to take lists of 1,000s of companies and word associations and basically use machine learning to get smarter and smarter as to how we’re identifying a company and how we profile and shape that company.

“From a sales perspective its unlike anything I’ve ever been involved with in my career. We’re in the process of doing something so unique in such a growing market. We spent almost nine months building the application to get it where it is and a lot of it is still 12 months from where we want it to be. We’ve secured an InnovateUK grant which is also driving a lot of the development which isn’t fully developed yet. With regards to sales growth it has been exponential. We’ve moved from four people a year ago to the 15 or so we have now. Revenue has also doubled since our launch.”

Growing from its small team of four tucked away at The University of Surrey just under a year ago, Synoptica now employs 12 full time members of staff at its office at Surrey Research Park and three contractors in Poland. Although their Surrey office has the capacity to house 20 members of staff at any given time, Stephen is already eyeing future expansion and is looking to capitalise on Surrey’s talented work pool.

“We can fit around 20 people in the office but we’re expecting to reach capacity fairly soon.

We’re recruiting a couple of sales guys and a

project manager over the coming months. We’re always looking for data scientists and data sales people as well as project managers. We have a great association with the University of Surrey and the talent coming out of there really fills a gap. People tend to be loyal, our employee turnover is pretty much nil and we have so many talented members of staff.

“The region has such a talented work pool which is a huge benefit. The entire region, the entire Enterprise M3, has some really interesting tech companies with talented people that don’t want to stay working with large corporates, they seem to like working for smaller companies where their decisions have a bit more of an impact. We can gain access to that, it’s fantastic.”

As well as support from SETsquared and The University of Surrey, Synoptica has also benefited from the Enterprise M3 Growth Hub, an expert advice and resource network that fuels the growth of local businesses. Synoptica has been working with Enterprise M3 growth champion Prem Gyani, who has spent more than 30 years developing cutting-edge companies in the IT sector. Stephen said the Growth Hub had offered an extra dimension to Synoptica’s work. “We have had a great relationship with the Enterprise M3 Growth Hub and with Prem in particular. We have been able to tap into his huge experience and have benefited from the fact that he understood us very quickly.

“He has been able to open doors for us and put us in touch with people who have made a real difference to our business. It is both reassuring and essential that this support is there for aspirational and growing firms like us.

“Going forward, and with the Growth Hub’s support, I see the business becoming significantly bigger. I believe we’re on target to potentially becoming the largest database of SME company data in the world. I can see us being a real player in big data analytics and machine learning.

We’re expecting to reach £1m turnover by the close of this financial year in May 17, it’s a really exciting time for us.” n

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INTERVIEW Let’s talk growth

Kathy Slack has a calming role at the centre of the South East’s business whirlwind. As businesses are created and expanded at a dizzying rate, she unites this cluster of clusters into a powerful force as director of the Enterprise M3 LEP. Through years of experience, first in policy development with the Government Office for the South East, then with the South East England Development Agency and now at Enterprise M3, Kathy knows the area and its economy better than most and places business relationships at the core of her strategies.

She sums up her work now as: “Translating and signposting opportunities for business and other partners, and bringing people, business, public and not-for-profit sectors together to share our insights and data and make Enterprise M3 the place for them to do business”.

“It is about creating the environment in which businesses can flourish,” Kathy told me.

“We are working with a series of elements, whether they are businesses or organisations, to get that mix just right and then be able to tackle a number of issues, from transport to schools, enterprise or innovation.

“When we came here we knew we were building on what was already here, some really strong partnership and business groups, but we needed to line everybody up and point them in the same direction, which can sometimes be difficult when there is not a big crisis that needs fixing.

“But that just means you have to work even harder to make sure that we are always about generating growth. I think the impetus we all still have is for continuous improvement, because businesses here know it is quite dangerous to say ‘it’s alright here - let’s go and fix other places’ because we can’t be complacent and have to continually work hard improving what is on offer here.”

‘Why do you need to bother?’ is a question you will hear a lot about this region – but never from the people who live and work in it. It is only when you are here that you realise how important it is that this mighty regional economy keeps growing and being the lure it is for investor and new

A future built on relationships and respect Mike Hughes meets Kathy Slack, director of the Enterprise M3 LEP and hears about her hopes for the region and a vision of long-term success companies. It is the engine of a powerhouse with impact far beyond its geographical boundaries.

“We certainly can’t sit back on our successes,” agreed Kathy.

“The danger is that companies can always up and go or decide they don’t want their next expansion to be here. We have set the bar really high already and we have to continually push that because we deliver a lot for the rest of the country, whether that is money back into the Exchequer or the fact that our key sectors down here then develop opportunities that go right across the rest of the country.

“We are also experienced enough to know that we need to look at housing and infrastructure congestion at the same time because we need homes for our local workforce and that means

“The danger is that companies can always up and go or decide they don’t want their next expansion to be here’’

we need to look at how we can support some of our smaller housebuilders. The other thing we have to do is make sure our talent pool is getting the best possible jobs with the best possible salaries which then allow them to buy the housing they want.”

With such a vast brief - in terms of geography, demographics and responsibilities - relationships are key to the Enterprise M3 team’s philosophy.

They don’t need to actually set up every industry group or cluster network themselves, but are always aware of what is already working on the ground, encouraging and supporting it, adding their own input and then knitting the whole region together.

This is where the strategic masterplan is important. Drawn up in 2014 and guiding the region through to 2020. It takes in the whole Enterprise M3 region, approximately 4,400 km2 and stretching 75 miles from the hinterland of London, along the lines of the M3 motorway to the New Forest and south coast.

INTERVIEW bqlive.co.uk/breakfast

“The other thing we have to do is make sure our talent pool is getting the best possible jobs with the best possible salaries which then allow them to buy the housing they want’’

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INTERVIEW Let’s talk growth

“There has been a really good response to the idea of partnership and collaboration as the way forward.’’

To the north and neighbouring London and the M25, the economy has strong links to London and the Thames Valley and includes a large number of international headquarters and technology-based businesses. The breathtaking landscapes of the New Forest and South Downs national parks cover another quarter of the LEP’s area. “The masterplan developed only a couple of years ago involved a lot of work with partners to identify the priorities and know what the next steps should be,” said Kathy.

“Some of that is about being really clear about who your deliverers are. We are largely a facilities body which comes together to identify what the strategic priorities are and then looks for others to help develop them. We will then work with our board and our partners to pinpoint those particular areas where we can put funding in to make things happen.

“The funding we get through the Local Growth Fund or the Growing Places Fund is for capital investment like buildings and equipment, and you need to constantly assess where that injection of money will make the most difference.

“There has been a really good response to the idea of partnership and collaboration as the way forward. We have to have that support for a common cause from a lot of organisations and businesses and I know that, for us, the collaborative way of working has been our great strength because you cannot go off and decide

these things on your own, you have to work with others and earn their respect.”

Kathy has been described as a “persuasive influencer” and that seems to suit her very well. Such relationships with busy and focused businesses, local authorities, educators and network groups can be the first stumbling block for a LEP if they are not handled with confidence and empathy. But Kathy has built her team carefully and knows she can get precisely the right person in place to deal with each project.

“At the end of the day, this LEP has to deliver and have an eye constantly on the future and what needs to happen to get us there. From the start, the response from within the Enterprise M3 region has been outstanding, and our board has certainly matched that. We have a team from the private and public sectors which is there because its members are really committed to their particular area and know that we are dependent on the people we work alongside.

“Those people can come from any sections. It is about getting that mix right and then forming a view on what they each need. Often there will be bodies already in place to take those things forward, so we don’t want to duplicate that good work, but look at how they are organised and how they work together and how we can help.

“To that end, we work very closely with the universities and FE colleges because they are very important to us and we have built a strong

link to those on our patch and in neighbouring areas. This not only respects the research they do, but also the talent that is coming through from them and the crucial experience they have in the commercialisation of ideas.

“This relationship will be more critical as we move forwards because one thing businesses are telling us is that they need to have that access to talent in order for them to grow.

“Our 5G technology is a good example of what we can do here. When we started a lot of people did not understand what it was and saw it very much as a research exercise. But what we are now funding is about how we can take the message out to businesses and how we can highlight the opportunities for their own sector.

“The interesting thing that we found is that as we have been communicating out the information, those businesses have been attracted in very rapidly, rather than us having to go out and identify them. That is very rewarding and very good news for the Enterprise M3 region. “So we are having success, and we need to continue that agenda alongside our work on other long-term programmes, particularly transport, which will take a long time to deliver because of its sheer scale. I think we are about sustaining the things that we have already started and making sure they have an impact and that everything dovetails together – that is really critical for us.”

INTERVIEW Let’s talk growth

“Now we can all sense this coming together, along with an acceptance that this is not a quick fix and you can’t just throw money at the issue, this is about lots of people working really hard together to gain a much better understanding of business requirements.

“Things move so quickly around here that we have to get those messages across quickly and efficiently so that we can bring young people through the system and into work. Through the Careers and Enterprise Company that we run, we are also looking at the other side of that picture and making sure that young people are aware of the marvellous opportunities here and what career paths there are, should they be taking up apprenticeships or heading to university, and then how we keep them and their skills in this economy. “We hope that some of them will be our next entrepreneurs because they will be an essential part of that Enterprise M3 mix we are always striving for. We need the diversity in terms of sectors and clusters, but we also balance the large corporates and the smaller supply chain enterprises they are dependent on.

“It is really important that you get that entrepreneurial spirit running all the way through, from deep within the corporate as well as the start-up companies where we are seeing so much growth and innovation across the South East.

“The gaming group is a particularly entrepreneurial one here. They have had some knocks, but they get themselves up and it is such a supportive community that helps each other out and really pulls people together.

“The predictions for growth are huge and the links into other sectors are important because visualisation techniques are being used across the board, so it is not just about gaming, it could also be areas like defence. It is really exciting when you come across these groups because we are always thinking about how we can tell aspirational people where they can get the help they need now as start-ups and then where to go when they start growing and take on staff.”

Her long experience in the region means Kathy has seen it grow at a phenomenal rate, absorbing new technologies and changing its shape to accommodate previously unheard-of breakthroughs that have the world’s leading companies beating a path to its doors.

“I think the changes I have seen have also been in attitudes, which is very reassuring,” she tells me.

“Everyone now has to be a lot more fleet of foot, a lot more active and a lot more aware of the economy, with a greater understanding of the importance of business and the growth that then sustains an economy in the longer term. I certainly don’t see places and industries standing still around here, I see businesses that don’t need any great monoliths to help them succeed, but which can be helped enormously by organisations like the LEPs where you can achieve a lot as part of a network of support and advice.”

Kathy sees an exciting future for her organisation and for the region as whole because as she rightly says: “Change is constant. There will always be work to do here, attracting, stabilising, supporting and growing some of the most ground-breaking firms in the country.

“You have to keep on your toes – and it will be challenging.”

“But it is exciting and I am certainly in no way despondent about the amount of work to be done here because I am a very pragmatic person and although businesses are quite wary about what the future might bring, I also sense a mood that people just want to get stuck in. We have to work hard to make sure that view is maintained, but certainly we are urging people to keep moving ahead and we are keeping an ‘eyes and ears’ role working with the Growth Hub, the Chambers and the IoD testing what is happening on the ground so that we can pick up any particular concerns and address them as early as possible so businesses can get on with their work.

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“These issues will include how companies can get moving back into exporting again after the Brexit vote and how they can continually access the talent they need, because we are very dependent on EU nationals throughout this area.

It is something we need to keep looking at as we keep developing our own workforce into some of those skills pools.

“This is all going to mean change, and we have to keep our businesses constantly informed about the situation and not have people sitting on their hands and waiting for something to be sorted – that is dangerous.

“One way we can keep that forward momentum is with our Growth Hub Champions, which is one of our greatest strengths. They are a very impressive group with loads of character, talent and experience they can pass on and we are getting great feedback from the companies they have been working with.

“I can see that approach growing all the time and having an expanding impact because of a real desire to help those companies make a difference and grow the economy. They are a real part of the Enterprise M3 family now, and we reinforce each other’s messages for the good of the firms we want to help.”

The message from Kathy Slack, the Enterprise M3 LEP and its Growth Hub couldn’t be clearer – that this is the natural home for innovative firms who want to invest, expand and make a positive contribution to the region and its economy. n

Growth Hub The Growth Hub which has been set up is central to that dovetailing element of the LEP strategy and will be a particular focus for a new agenda of activity in the wake of the Brexit vote.

Kathy and her team will also be doing a lot of work around sector development and recently submitted a proposal for a large ‘science and innovation audit’ which will highlight those crucial business needs inside the area and across the country where many South East companies have a huge impact.

“The Hub was set up because businesses needed help finding the wealth of help out there for them. We knew then that we needed a portal where they could go to find the help for themselves through the website and through the helpline, which has been really effective, and that this could change how things were done.

“There was also this group of emerging scale-ups that were innovative and wanted to grow and they needed more support, which is why we developed the Hub as a place where they could find support quickly, but with a particular focus on high-growth and innovation. That has been a really successful agenda for us and has helped us profile the strengths of the area to a national and international market.

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OVERVIEW Let’s talk growth

Growth Hub sectors

OVERVIEW Let’s talk growth

PRIORITY SECTORS There is a high concentration of knowledgebased industries in the Enterprise M3 area, such as computing, digital media, aerospace, defence, pharmaceuticals, advanced engineering and professional services. Our four priority sectors are aerospace and defence, ICT and digital media, pharmaceuticals and professional and business services.

AEROSPACE AND DEFENCE These are highly important sectors for the local economy with supply chains embracing a wide range of other sectors and are vital to generating business for knowledge-based, high value added industries as well as traditional sectors and services locally. The aerospace sector has some of the best research and development facilities globally and has a concentration of employment that is double the national average.

ICT & DIGITAL MEDIA The Enterprise M3 region has been highly successful in creating and nurturing computer, gaming, digital and creative technology businesses with 10,000 creative media technology businesses in the region. Employment in this sector, at around 8% of the labour market, is well above the national and regional average.

PHARMACEUTICALS With 250 pharmaceutical businesses the region is home to some of the world’s leading companies in pharmaceuticals, life sciences and health care. There are several centres of excellence in the region that give potential for high growth and innovative companies to gain competitive advantage from. Pharmaceuticals and healthcare combined employ around 84,000 people locally making this the area’s most significant sector in terms of employment.

PROFESSIONAL AND BUSINESS SERVICES Many of the UK’s major financial and professional services firms have a base in the Enterprise M3 area. In 2014 there were 13,500 professional services businesses and some 1,900 financial services firms in the region. The value of the sector is estimated at around £6b to the local economy and employs over 60,000 people.

NICHE SECTORS Investment into our niche sectors will provide

Enterprise M3 the potential to lead the world and we have designed a number of EU funded interventions around this. These interventions focus around encouraging world-class research, commercialisation of this research, encouraging international trade and inward investment into the area’s high value sectors and the scaling up of successful existing innovation models to support a wider number of SMEs. 5G TELECOMMUNICATIONS The 5G Innovation Centre based in Surrey is the world’s first dedicated research centre for 5G telecommunications technology. As the technology is developed it will play a vital role in developing future technologies for the internet, ‘smart’ cities, intelligent transportation and other applications bringing significant benefits to business innovation and productivity. The centre positions the UK as a global market leader in this technology.

CYBER SECURITY The Information Security Group and the Institute for Cyber Security Innovation are based at Royal Holloway University, an internationally recognised centre of excellence in cyber security research. With cyber security becoming increasingly important to businesses, individuals and government, the research and technology being driven by this centre is delivering innovative solutions to global businesses data security needs.

ADVANCED MATERIALS AND NANOTECHNOLOGY Nano technology is the study and application of extremely small things and is being used across other science fields to improve and develop new solutions in advanced manufacturing. Within the Enterprise M3 area, there is a wide cluster of businesses around Farnborough exploring the application of nano technology in the design of improved aerospace systems and applications for other manufacturing systems.

SATELLITE TECHNOLOGIES Guildford is the base of a strong space cluster, including Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (part of the Airbus Group), the world’s most

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successful producer of small satellites. The Surrey Space Centre (University of Surrey, Guildford), is a world-leading research centre for small, low cost space missions, offering access to a ready made talent pool. The Space Centre is linked to the Surrey Space Incubator on Surrey Research Park.

ADVANCED AEROSPACE AND AUTOMOTIVE MANUFACTURING Enterprise M3 has a growing reputation as a British centre of design, engineering and technology and embraces a collection of niche, hi-tech companies from OEM and supply chain to testing and development of EV. Aerospace and defence is a high growth sector in the region, home to approximately one in five of all aerospace businesses in the South East.

Farnborough in particular has an outstanding cluster of world class companies, Enterprise M3 hosts Europe’s largest aviation trade show, the Farnborough International Airshow which takes place biannually and resulted in US$205 billion of business in 2014.

ANIMAL HEALTH This is a rapidly emerging sector in the region which is home to The Pirbright Institute, a world leading centre of excellence in research and surveillance of virus diseases of farm animals and viruses that spread from animals to humans. Coupled with the life science and biotech companies in the region, the technical advantages present business opportunities for growth companies to collaborate and innovate in bringing advanced health products and solutions to market.

PHOTONICS For Enterprise M3, photonics is associated with the development of optical communications systems. Alongside our core strength in ICT and digital media, a photonics specialism exists centred around the Sci:Tech corridor of Basingstoke, Farnborough, Guildford and Woking.

COMPUTER GAMES AND ENTERTAINMENT TECHNOLOGIES The Enterprise M3 region has been highly successful in creating and nurturing computer, gaming, digital and creative technology businesses with 10,000 creative media technology businesses in the region. n

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INTERVIEW Let’s talk growth

The future of the UK’s technology sector is intrinsically linked to 5G – from the day-to-day equipment in our homes to the most cutting-edge developments. Keith Robson explains to Mike Hughes why Surrey is the world-leader

INTERVIEW Let’s talk growth

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A testbed for innovation You might be reading this article on a 4G phone or tablet, which you will know is light-years ahead of the old 3G one you used to have where you were walking down the street colliding with lampposts waiting for a connection.

Well, get ready for hyperspace. 5G is here and the world is beating a path to the doors of the 5G Innovation Centre at the University of Surrey, where Keith Robson is leading the team which literally has no boundaries.

The centre is now the largest UK academic research centre dedicated to the development of the next generation of mobile and wireless communications. Bringing together leading academic expertise and key industry partners, it is defining and developing the infrastructure that will underpin the way we communicate, work and live our lives.

Its members represent all aspects of the wireless communications and future internet domains, and include the major telecom service providers, infrastructure vendors, device and car manufacturers and include EE, Vodafone, the BBC, Samsung, BT and Fujitsu. So all the right people are paying close attention to what is

happening at Surrey, Situated on the university’s Guildford campus, the 5GIC houses 170 researchers in a purposebuilt building. At its heart is the world’s leading independent testbed for trialling emerging 5G 2 ideas, covering an area of 4km comprising indoor and outdoor environments.

The investment is huge, but the return for the region is almost incalculable.

“5G is not just another standard step – this is going to be a mould-breaker and a completely different architecture,” Keith told me.

“It is a complete change in how the telephone networks are going to operate, like mobile wifi with very much smaller radio cells delivering very high speeds and, crucially, very much lower latency – or time delay – across the network.

“This is critical because it allows you to start working in real time across the network. The

gaming community is already heavily into that, but increasingly the idea is that the network is going to be used to monitor and control things in real time. So this could be the temperature in your home or a car or drone or a robot doing dangerous work inside a mine.

“The idea will be that this network is not just about speed, but a latency of perhaps as little as a thousandth of a second for the signal to go there and back.”

This will sound like science fiction for those thousands of businesses watching the little wheel whirling around on their devices in one of the many ‘NotSpots’ for signal coverage around the UK, but in Surrey it is already fact.

“There will be much more reliability in the signal – people are talking about ‘five nines’ reliability which means it is 99.999% reliable,” said Keith, “which is the sort of figure you would get if

“4G is still very new and is very good if you can get it, but it is still based around the old voice network whereas with 5G you are tearing up the design for something that will be in place for many, many years’’

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INTERVIEW Let’s talk growth

you were using the emergency radio services and this is important if you are going to be using it in increasingly critical situations.

“It is a concept that was just raising its head when we launched the centre. 4G is still very new and is very good if you can get it, but it is still based around the old voice network whereas with 5G you are tearing up the design for something that will be in place for many, many years.”

The testbed that is making such a difference to the 5GIC and its researchers equips them with a fully-functioning advanced 4G network which, over time, will be upgraded to a fully-fledged 5G system, enabling the development and testing of 5G prototype technologies in a real world situation.

It was the brainchild of Prof Rahim Tafazolli, the hugely influential professor of mobile and satellite communications at the University since April 2000 and director of the Innovation Centre since 2012. Prof Tafazolli has decades of experience, has authored and co-authored more than 500 research publications and is co-inventor of more than 30 granted patents in digital communications.

“The testbed was the unique feature that really encouraged the industry because it was the only one in the world in an academic centre, with the largest group of industrial partners,” explains Keith.

“It brought the world’s experts to Surrey to work alongside our academics when we were building it - and believe me it was an incredibly challenging project. We took top of the range 4G kit and put it in this configuration around the campus with 66 individual little radio cells.

“What we have done now is develop the software and hardware for around 250mb of capacity, which we will build to half a gigabyte and then a full gigabyte standard by the end of 2018. The possibilities are endless, with IoT the Internet of Things being one of the biggest applications. This is the principle of controlling any device via the Internet and linking those devices to each other, from kettles and cookers to aircraft engines, emergency equipment and transportation systems. There are expected to be tens of billions of connected devices within the next few years.

But the industry around IoT is only just getting started and the university is already part of IoTUK, an integrated £40m, three-year,

Government programme to advance the UK’s global leadership in the sector.

Keith put it all into context by saying: “We have two machine rooms here – one controls the whole testbed, with around £20m of investment from industry partners, and the other on the same floor is entirely dedicated to the Internet of Things. So one room is the brain for the network and one is all the stuff that will be running across that network, whether that is automotive, communications or health, where our partner is the NHS.

“The health work includes a flat we have simulated which is connected to about 30 different sensors to potentially be used for people with dementia and which could be a monitor for day-to-day activity and flag any erratic behaviour.”

The 5GIC’s work is already exploding out of these rooms and making headlines and revenue around the world – yet another major industry that has an unbreakable link with the Enterprise M3 region.

“The benefits it could bring to the region as a

INTERVIEW Let’s talk growth

whole are almost limitless because a huge part of the remit of the centre is to make connections out into the community,” says Keith.

“The phone is already ubiquitous in all of our lives, but we accept it is an incomplete service where the signal will drop out quite regularly.

What we are seeing now are fundamental changes to how we work as a society and clearly the network is going to be another seismic shift.

“First, we had the canals bringing major change, and then the railways and then the internet and now there is this ubiquitous network fit for computers.

“Regionally, the Enterprise M3 partnership has set aside some of their Growth Fund capital and we have been looking at creating Step-out Centres with a high-speed fibre optic connection back here, to see how 5G services can fit into sectors like FinTech. We are also setting one up into the Guildford and Aldershot gaming community to provide facilities there to allow gamers to access 5G technologies.

“The thing to understand with all this progress is that we only set up the centre at the end of last year and I had imagined that we would spend the first 18 months fiddling about with the central technology. Actually, hard on the heels of opening people wanted to get straight down to the applications which were already using 3G and 4G and which needed to be made 5G-ready well in advance of a full rollout.”

This is a key point, because commercially full networks aren’t going to be available until after 2020, but companies need to be making huge bets now on what their products are going to be looking like and capable of by then. So the centre is drawing in all sizes of businesses from all sectors, each keen to be the first to harness this remarkable new technology.

“There weren’t many places in the UK that the centre could have been built, and it was actually more likely it would have gone to Germany, Korea or Japan. But the reason it came here was that Prof Tafazolli is an extraordinary guy who has been working in this field for more than 30 years and has been running the largest academic research group in mobile internet for many years.

“But that still wouldn’t have been enough to attract the centre here if there wasn’t this vision of a testbed, which was answering the ‘so what’ question and was something other universities did not pick up.

“We also had Surrey Satellite Technology as a

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“We talked about the UK ‘valley of death’ where a small company couldn’t get funding from a bank and was too small for venture capitalists’’ spinout from the university, so there was a track record in disruptive technologies and people were looking over here and seeing projects happening with a global impact which gave us additional credibility.”

The long-term nature of the work is good news for the region, with endless links in the supply chain as the tech itself develops and its uses increase exponentially. The Enterprise M3 LEP is fast becoming an expert body in pinpointing and directing growth patterns so that exactly the right sectors receive exactly the right support in exactly the right geographical areas, so the 5G revolution coming out of Keith Robson’s 5G Innovation Centre is in good hands.

But his influence around the Surrey region is even deeper than that, as the founder of the Surrey 100 club.

This University of Surrey network of investors (started to one day grow into 100 ‘angels’) holds an event perhaps five times a year where it listens to pitches and facilitates high-end networking. With its close ties to the Surrey Research Park, SETsquared Surrey and the Surrey Space Incubation Centre, the club provides support and training to businesses raising finance. Uniquely, it doesn’t charge any fees or take a share of any investment its companies achieve.

Over the last ten years it has either directly funded or leveraged £50m of funding into more than 100 companies.

“The logic was very simple – if you take areas like Oxford and Cambridge and London, they have a magnetic draw for investors,” said Keith.

“But when I came to Surrey ten years ago we were introducing companies to American investors and taking them over there to get funding. We talked about the UK ‘valley of death’ where a small company couldn’t get funding from a bank and was too small for venture capitalists, so it was stuck in this valley of death where the idea either died or you had to go abroad. We don’t do that now.

“The idea of angel investment is a good one because it is something you can nurture, so we worked with the London Business School 100 over a couple of years and found some local

angels as our first six investors with the aim of getting over the valley of death and ensuring companies in Guildford and the surrounding region have a means of getting funding.

“We built up from six to ten and then 20 and now have 47 investors who have taken us to that £50m figure. We work with local companies - but have had firms from Scotland travelling down to see us – and as a university we look to nurture tech companies.

“But we need a mix because angels want successful investments, so we have had fashion and new foods as well as cutting-edge software and MedTech. If they are exciting and innovative, we will take a look at them regardless of the sector and that seems to work well.”

So Keith Robson’s opinion of how the region is faring is well-informed and illuminating. He says: “We are going through an exciting phase, well away from the valley of death we had ten years ago. For the first time, we really don’t have that problem now and instead have much more of a ‘can do’ atmosphere.

“The issue we have is that we need to realise where we are and ‘big ourselves up’. Our American brethren have selling running through their blood but here we still shirk from putting success on a pedestal where companies and entrepreneurs should be. Let’s do it in a British way, but let’s get the word out on the street.

“There is nothing like having a bunch of successful entrepreneurs – like our Surrey 100 angels - in the room to inspire others to come here. We have the system in place, but we need to shout about it and take another big step by scaling up in the manner of the big centres in the UK like Oxford and Cambridge.

“At their best, the university model can be a really good way of bringing people together to collaborate and invest. We are trusted and have a genuinely ethical mission involving people who certainly want to make money, but also want to do good as well, with integrity and enthusiasm.”

Keith has summed up some key qualities you will find across the region he is championing. Here you will find success, trust, expertise, integrity, experience and enthusiasm. Not a bad checklist for any interested investors..... n

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INTERVIEW Let’s talk growth

SETsquared supports an explosion of innovation

INTERVIEW Let’s talk growth

SETsquared is a partnership of five researchintensive universities established in 2003.

Those universities - in Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Surrey - are quite unique in the UK in that they collaborate to provide specialised business incubation resources to entrepreneurs among their students, researchers and the private sector in their South of England region.

Over the last 13 years, I am proud to say that SETsquared has steadily built its reputation as one of the leading providers of deal flow to investors looking to invest in high-tech, high-growth startup businesses in the UK. The reputation of SETsquared was acknowledged last year when an international league table of more than 1,200 university business incubators positioned us as the global number one of its type. What we do is world-leading.

The development of a next generation mobile telecommunications research centre at the University of Surrey in Guildford, for example, has provided the opportunity for us to reach out into the region, into new pools of entrepreneurial talent among technologists and innovators looking to exploit the next generation standard of mobile telecoms called 5G. By working with the UK Space Agency, SETsquared’s Space Accelerator Hub offers bespoke business support services for innovative start-ups, developing downstream space technology solutions, including those using satellite data, and comms, GPS, navigation and timing services. In response to its steady success at the five universities, SETsquared worked in partnership with Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council to expand our incubator services to a hub in Basingstoke. Basing View, in the heart of the town, is a vibrant business development area which has attracted many major technology companies. The 65-acre business park is currently home to more than 100 businesses including major companies such as Sony, Thales and Axa. Basingstoke was a natural choice for us to establish the first incubator which was outside the university towns, cities or campuses.

SETsquared launched in Basingstoke with a series of networking events in the winter of 2014 to build an eco-system of entrepreneurs, professional service advisors and investors, connecting them together around the incubator.

We also ran a series of bootcamps – the award-winning SETsquared’s Entrepreneurship Programme which attracted entrepreneurs who

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“SETsquared’s Space Accelerator Hub offers bespoke business support services for innovative start-ups, developing downstream space technology solutions, including those using satellite data, and comms, GPS, navigation and timing service” believed they had an idea that was ripe for a new tech innovation business. We helped them to articulate that idea as a potentially investable proposition. Some of the best entrepreneurs from these programmes were selected to join the SETsquared hub as members and then, under the careful guidance of our entrepreneurin-residence, Adrian Braine, they were helped to develop their own business plans that were attractive to investors. Currently, the Basingstoke hub has 14 member start-up companies (of SETsquared’s total of 263 member companies).

They’re all working towards growing their businesses and raising investment that will allow them to do this quickly and to start to sell their technology solutions nationally and internationally. These start-ups are working in sectors ranging from cyber security to digitallyassisted transport, and SETsquared provides them with the on-going support, expert mentoring and access to programmes that will help to develop their business plans and find valuable funding strategies.

SETsquared’s various programmes puts the entrepreneurs in front of real investors in a pitching environment and provides them with the opportunity to exhibit their businesses to corporates looking to adopt new technologies.

We are very pleased that the first success story in terms of investment has been made by a Basingstoke company, RazorSecure, which has created a real-time cyber security monitor designed for small-scale networks.

After taking part in SETsquared’s entrepreneurship training programme, RazorSecure participated in SETsquared’s Open Innovation and Investment Showcase events, which sees start-ups exhibiting and pitching to both corporates looking for technology to adopt as well as investors.

It recently raised a significant six-figure sum to help grow its business from Breed Reply, an incubator that invests in solutions involving the Internet of Things, with £150k of funding contributed by the Enterprise M3 LEP. We’re delighted for RazorSecure, but not at all surprised that the potential for this company and its technology have been recognised by investors.

We’re confident that Alex Cowan, CEO at RazorSecure, will continue to do well and that others will follow in his footsteps.

This is the first example of the economic impact a small intervention has had – and we’re looking forward to seeing many more success stories like this as we continue to run entrepreneurship training programmes in the region.

Another company supported by the innovation hub in Basingstoke is EV Nav, which started life as a sat nav app and changed business model thanks to advice and guidance from SETsquared.

EV Nav now operates as a data broker for electric vehicle data and attended an Open Innovation event with Ford, organised by SETsquared, earlier this year. What we have seen in our incubators and what is going on in the global market for connected digital products services, for example driverless cars, telemedicine and smart energy meters, indicates to us an explosion of innovation in this sector. SETsquared is preparing to rise to this challenge and we are looking for opportunities to further expand our incubators in the region. This would allow us to continue and to emulate the success of the Basingstoke hub, to make the support of our entrepreneurin-residence and access to investors available to more digital entrepreneurs.

The Basingstoke innovation hub has gone from strength-to-strength, and SETsquared is at the forefront in helping to build the next generation of technology companies with the talent pool in the area. This will generate new jobs and ultimately deliver economic growth for the region and the UK. Independent research carried out

by Warwick Economics estimates the economic impact of SETsquared member companies to be £3.8bn over the last decade, with the creation of 9,000 jobs, and that these companies will go on to deliver a further £8.6bn of impact to the UK economy in the decade ahead. n Simon Bond, innovation director at SETsquared People wanting to apply to SETsquared’s Entrepreneurship Training Programme can do so at: www.setsquared.co.uk/enterprise

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THE COUNCIL VIEW Let’s talk growth

Councils with the vision to support our region Local authorities are always aware of the changing needs of their regions and the crucial part they can play in attracting investment and jobs. Here, we look at the work of two of the most influential.

First, David Fletcher, assistant director of Economic Development at Hampshire County Council sets out his vision of continuing success, in conversation with Mike Hughes

David Fletcher was a key driver and facilitator of economic growth in Sheffield for a decade before he was brought to Hampshire in 2012, where he found a diverse £35bn economy with a high proportion of knowledge-based activity, many global corporate HQs, and of course, a very high quality of life in one of the most beautiful parts of the country.

Hampshire certainly has plenty to shout about, with four universities, several centres of academic excellence, and more than 20 colleges each with access to world-class research facilities and knowledge.

“I have the perspective of a Northerner and when you come down to a place like this it is quite a different world because effectively the geography means it is an extension of the London economy,” he explains.

“It is one of the most successful areas of the UK, with an awful lot of significant big name European and UK headquarters in that M4 and M3 corridors, so the landscape is very different.

What that means is that the challenge of supporting business success and prosperity is quite different – it is not just a case of throwing support at any business that might have any prospects of growth.

“What we decided was that we had to have something tailored for that particular economy and that we had to break the mould and couldn’t just be more of what we had in the past.

We decided the Growth Hub would offer support

THE COUNCIL VIEW Let’s talk growth

“There is evidence that shows how investing in the South East gives you a bigger return than in other parts’’ and advice to any business that wanted to grow, but that we would specifically target the more indepth interventions towards the businesses with high growth potential.

“The LEP has quite a few sectors that it focuses on, but I think we were more keen on the characteristics of the individual businesses.

There is research showing that around 6% of businesses create more than 50% of the new jobs and we wanted to target that part of the market.” That is easier said than done, but when you look at the stats, they are not always in high growth sectors, and are very rarely start-ups, more likely to have a pedigree of five or six years in terms of track record. But the thing that binds them all together is that they are all innovative and constantly looking at changing their products and services to keep pace with the market.

The area needs and deserves a unique service and David and his team are learning all the time about the diverse requirements of different sectors and what they can bring to the region.

“At the Growth Hub we have tried to offer a service relevant to that particular cohort and what we have found is that they need a peer level quality of support from mentors or individuals who have already been running successful businesses, which is why we went down the route of acquiring our Growth Champions,” he says.

“We wanted a team of John Harvey Joneses that we could deploy in the marketplace and send them out to businesses without a fixed agenda, but to explore what is the art of the possible.

There is a risk if you design a service around particular issues that they might be relevant to each operation.

“We have very much approached things in this different way and it is hard work, because Government always wants to know how many businesses you have supported and of course we are trying to focus on quality outcomes rather than just the big numbers.

“For us, it is about augmenting what is already successful rather than trying to fill some gaps. A lot of the sectors like digital tend to have a higher concentration in those corridors that lead you into London, but how do you capitalise on that because it is just a geographical benefit.

“So when we were thinking about who we might partner with to deliver the Growth Hub, we already had a very positive relationship with BE Group and continued that because we wanted a partner that could bring best practice from elsewhere. Our regional players in that area are absolutely critical, but we didn’t want to design something that would replicate or duplicate something that was already there.”

There is an argument that much of the available funding should be pushed North to help the economies that are really struggling, but what happens in areas like Enterprise M3 is that the technical innovation going on has a hugely positive knock-on effect to the rest of the UK economy. It’s a challenging case, but one that the councils know they need to keep pushing by standing their ground and underpinning their case with hard facts.

“There is a supply chain of SMEs working with some of the big financial sector companies, so you are almost positioning the region as one of the key regions that influences the competitiveness of the UK,” said David.

“There is evidence that shows how investing in the South East gives you a bigger return than in other parts, but you actually have to invest in both for very different reasons.

“We are thriving, but can never afford to stand still because a lot of other parts of the world are thriving as well. If you look at the M4 corridor in Thames Valley, that has been phenomenally successful over the last 20 or 30 years, particularly around IT and technology and I would argue that the challenge for the Enterprise M3 area is that this neighbour is one of our strongest competitors. One of the reasons why our job is so important is that we need to compete nationally and internationally, but also much more locally.

“We know there will be lots of companies wanting to come to this area, and my advice to them would be to work through the criteria that business would apply to any location.

“We have a pool of talent and skills here, for instance, but then it is a more expensive location for salaries compared to some other areas, so there is definitely a trade-off. But then there is more access to decision makers here

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because the bigger corporates tend to be based down here. “We also know that one of the challenges here is the road and rail infrastructure which is under more pressure because it is a more prosperous and thriving place with a wonderful quality of life, but that bring these challenges.”

That quality of life is important for the next generation of workers as well, with the University of Southampton, Southampton Solent University, University of Winchester and University of Portsmouth responsible for more than 65,000 students. Then there are the 21 major colleges of further education, 70 state secondary schools and 19 independent schools. Looking a bit further afield, within an hour’s drive you can find another 90 universities.

“But there is no way we can be complacent, however successful we are,” says David. “We must work really hard to make sure we have an ongoing dialogue with the big corporate players already based here.“It is certainly much more exciting than daunting here in the Enterprise M3 region. The future is bright, particularly with so many of those big players not doing their innovation in-house any more. In many cases it is now the supply chain that is doing the innovating and driving value back into the area, so we have to support the large businesses with the huge impact and the smaller guys who are feeding into that.” To have richly-skilled and innovative companies wanting to come to your area is the first part of the battle. Now Hampshire is securing them, keeping the established businesses here as well and distilling from all that interest the perfect mix for the region as it continues to thrive. n

David Fletcher, on the Growth Hub David Fletcher, Assistant Director of Economic Development at Hampshire County Council said the way firms were supported needed to change, and the Growth Hub was the way forward: “It would have been easy to follow the well worn path of traditional, volume orientated business support. But we were determined to break the mould and respond to evidence that a relatively small proportion of businesses create most new jobs.”

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THE COUNCIL VIEW Let’s talk growth

Striving to stay ahead As part of our look at the role of the local authorities Kevin Lloyd, head of economic growth at Surrey County Council talks about his work to bring more long-term investment to the region Attracting investment has always been a key part of the council’s strategy in Surrey – there would rightly be questions asked if it wasn’t – but Kevin Lloyd has helped lead a profound change in the way it is done, which is paying huge dividends for the region.

The Invest in Surrey initiative is forward-thinking and powerful, looking for innovative newcomers to join and strengthen a range of niche sectors and knowledgedriven industries including 5G, automotive, media, cyber security and satellite technology. Those new investors know they are in good company, with some of the UK’s largest corporations – including BP, McLaren, Novartis, Proctor & Gamble, Siemens and Samsung – already choosing the region for their headquarters and helping grow a £37.5b economy – bigger than Birmingham, Liverpool or Leeds. “In the last 12 to 18 months we have considerably enhanced what we do and made it far more specific,” says Kevin.

“Our key taglines now are that we are intelligent, networked and innovative, which are characteristics that some people who should know better might not associate with Surrey. It has an enormous economy with some huge organisations choosing to be in that ‘fringe’ around London because of the proximity to the airport and London, but also because they have access to a highly-skilled workforce in Surrey. So some of those locational advantages are very powerful, but the networked element and the degree to which the connectivity is fundamentally important is unmatched.

The broadband here is also probably at the top end of what is available outside the major cities.”

So the location is undeniably key, but the years of hard work that have gone into building the scaffolding for growth around that location is what is making the difference and persuading firms lured by a one-hour trip to the capital. Top of the list of achievements during those years is the establishing of a world-leading reputation for R&D. One of the growing areas, where the world is looking to Surrey for leadership and innovation, is satellite technology.

“Clearly the space and satellite sector is important to us,” says Keith.

Surrey Satellite Technology, the world’s leading commercial small satellite company, has been in this business for a long time and is operating some significant programmes for a wide range of clients. It is no surprise that the Surrey Space Centre is so close by for development and engineering work. “The level of connectivity we have here is also helping build an ecosystem. If an area is going to look attractive than it needs the links to the research and knowledge and a cluster or concentration of firms already active in the sector commercialising that knowledge.

“We have Government institutions working in the area with the universities in some of the leading technologies, which is really strong, enabling work like 5G which is going to be so fundamentally important for our future.

“That combination of a long history of innovation, with universities often working on linked activities, and a very positive connectivity situation is a story that hadn’t really been told before. We can now tell people what is being done here and then add at the end ‘oh - and it’s a really nice place to live’.

“In the past the level of effort required to bring investment here compared to regions that have a real regeneration problem would, frankly, have been much lower. The issues throughout the vast majority of Surrey are not about us having places that need to be turned around, although a lot of the chief executives of the districts would tell you that the town centres are looking tired, which means there are opportunities there that are not being taken forward.”

So Kevin is not letting Surrey’s success go to their heads and won’t want his region to waste the advantage of such a huge head start and still lose the race for investment. He is well aware of the danger of standing still in a fast-changing economy, particularly with the uncertainty of the Brexit vote. So the drive for more continues.

“The pattern of development is not going to

change that much because of the constraints of the green belt and the general political pressure on the planning system. So large-scale campus developments will be quite unusual, but what we will continue to do is use the already developed places, particularly town centres, as areas where there are opportunities for commercial development alongside housing development.

“Those housing developers are understandably very keen to be here, but left to their own devices I think the market would provide a large number of houses, many of which would be for people who work in London – because they are the people who can afford them. So it is really important that in the development that does take place, it is mixed and a balance between commercial and residential. If we do the two together then we get to the position where we are not just a dormitory for London.

“There is an issue here that is reaching a tipping point where the economy might not be as successful in the future and so in order to maintain success we need to put in more effort in retaining firms that we have and encourage them to invest more, alongside a balanced pattern of new development.”

The balance also needs to be struck in assessing the potential GVA of each firm looking to set up in Surrey and not just hand the keys over to everyone who sounds as if they are committed to building the region’s future.

“Some of the firms that are quite small in terms of staffing and their physical footprint are incredibly high value. The reason why we have emphasised the ‘intelligent and innovative’ aspect of what is available in Surrey is that this is an areas that is going to survive and flourish on the basis of a knowledge economy. This work from the smaller firms is then applied elsewhere, so we need to make sure we have an offering that encourages those people to either stay here or move here.

THE COUNCIL VIEW Let’s talk growth

“It also has to be a rounded offer. The night-time economy in Surrey is never going to be the same as London – and a lot of the existing residents would not want it to be. But the town centres have to offer something that feels good enough for people who might be thinking of moving from London to live and work here.

“We are looking after a hugely broad picture here, and we know that if you don’t have an opportunity for people working in our businesses to come and live here as well, then either firms aren’t going to locate here or if they do then their staff are going to commute, putting even more pressure on what is already a heavily-loaded road and rail system. “One of the important parts of any skills strategy is having houses workers can afford to live in – which is a really uphill struggle in places across the South East.

“The opportunities for the economy are very clear. The important thing is that the broader infrastructure can support that and that the transport system can provide what we need and that the housing and schools are in place and that there is a wider service economy.”

There is no doubt there has been a wake-up call for the local authorities around the M3 corridor.

Success could have been kept bubbling along at a rate that would still be impressive in many areas of the UK, but Surrey has huge pride in what it has done over the decades and has no intention of sitting back and congratulating itself.

There is a newly refreshed commitment to make sure that for its future generations it continues be a beacon of business success and investment opportunities and the UK’s hotspot for innovative technologies. n

Kevin Lloyd on the Growth Hub Kevin Lloyd, Head of Economic Growth at Surrey County Council, said the new Growth Hub model was a break from the past: “The Enterprise M3 Growth Hub is a new type of collaboration developed specifically for the Enterprise M3 area. It moves away from the old model of selling a specific service to providing a gateway to tailored support with a bespoke service for high growth potential firms provided by experienced practitioners with a particular focus on the sectors that are priorities for the LEP and for councils.”

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INTERVIEW bqlive.co.uk Let’s talk growth

THAMES VALLEY BERKSHIRE LOCAL ENTERPRISE PARTNERSHIP AREA

The Enterprise M3 Local Enterprise Partnership is at the heart of successful collaborative economic growth along the M3 corridor.

Board member Andrew Lambert spoke to Mike Hughes to map out its work and its goals As the board member on the LEP’s Enterprise and Innovation group, Andrew Lambert seems the ideal person to sum up why there is so much going on in the region – and he has been the owner of his own SME for more than 20 years.

He has certainly been a busy man in a very busy year for Enterprise M3, which has seen it delivering an array of projects funded by the £148m Local Growth Fund, £20m Growing Enterprise Fund and £50m European Structural and Investment Funding pot.

It has a set mission to encourage enterprising businesses to come here and grow, and from the beginning has committed itself to support the creation of 200 new high growth companies, 8,000 additional jobs and £2bn of new export markets from businesses in the Enterprise M3 area, with skills, infrastructure, housing and transport to keep pace.

The Enterprise and Innovation Group makes its strategy clear and deliverable, saying: “Our approach is to support targeted and integrated investments that capitalise on the area’s strengths, particularly within our priority and niche sectors.

“We are developing a smart specialisation approach, focused on bringing together research excellence with emerging business innovation strengths as well as new technologies to drive up productivity and high-value growth.

“An adequate supply of incubation space and sustainable business support services, is essential for high growth and innovative companies to succeed. We encourage businesses to shift towards a low carbon economy as part of our

innovation led investment.”

Andrew says the work can be rewarding and certainly influential in how the strategy is rolled out across such a diverse area.

“The group is tasked with looking at how the LEP can support businesses in that space and where it is necessary to make an intervention,” he explains.

“We look at the projects being proposed, such as the 5G Innovation Centre, and give our opinions on why it is a good project to invest in.

“The fundamental challenge is to support businesses that are already successful at the same time as businesses that have clear potential and could do with some help. We don’t sit there and identify specific sectors, but we try to spot trends and see if they are in a sector where with a bit of help we could help move things along.

“A good example of that would be in the animal health sector, with the potential for this region to be a leading cluster, so we now have the new Veterinary Health Innovation Engine, or vHive, at the University of Surrey. This is a vet school in a new building and a collaboration with Pirbright and Defra has a big establishment in Wisley, so with a bit of support these organisations could become a worldwide centre of excellence. In addition, the Government are making a lot of datasets available on animal health and movements and they are looking for SMEs to pick that data up and generate new insights into how it can be analysed and what predictions could come out of it.

SWINDON AND WILTSHIRE LOCAL ENTERPRISE PARTNERSHIP AREA

DORSET LOCAL ENTERPRISE PARTNERSHIP AREA

SOLENT LOCAL ENTERPRISE PARTNERSHIP

“We talked to Zoetis, who also sponsor the vHive, and they said the support from Enterprise M3 was key to them investing, proving that the advantage of this LEP is that a little bit of money can unlock a large amount of private investment. We are looking for those businesses that can grow rapidly, generate a lot of jobs and improve the environment in which we all live.”

Mapping out a

INTERVIEW Let’s talk growth

COAST TO CAPITAL LOCAL ENTERPRISE PARTNERSHIP AREA

Another challenge facing LEPs like Enterprise M3 who have taken on the leading role in regenerating their areas is to tie together the many different strands of their work so that they become a coherent matrix that prospective newcomers will want to become a part of.

“When I got on to the board I was astounded at the breadth of activity in this region. As a business, you tend to get very focused on your own sector – I am in IT and telecoms so I think I have a good grasp of what is going on here - but I didn’t know there was a games cluster around Guildford and Aldershot, or animal health in Guildford or alternative energy down on the south coast. I knew we were strong on marine, but no more.

“The Satellite Catapult is down in Oxford, so

everyone thinks of that region, but the Surrey Satellite Centre started their Low Earth Orbit satellite in the late 1970s.”

Andrew is perfectly placed to see both sides of the equation along, the M3 corridor with his place on the LEP board as well as his role as CEO at IT consultancy Electronic Media Services, where he has been since September 1995 and which provides a full suite of IT services, including planning, application development, implementation, infrastructure and hosting.

Just to broaden the picture even more, he is also a non-exec at the China Britain Business Council. So what has been his personal experience of working in the Enterprise M3 region?

At Enterprise M3 we have found it is such a good environment to live in, with lots of green space and places to go walking although I travel to London two or three times a week, and we certainly have our challenges along the A3.

“There have also been issues with affordable housing, but we now have three quite significant developments - part of a three-site enterprise zone - at Longcross with 3,000 houses, and 3,000 more at Whitehill & Bordon, where our offices are, and then a big site down in Basingstoke. This is all to make sure there is social inclusion to keep young people in this area.”

What links that enterprise zone together is a digital theme focused on its location near to the Royal Holloway university, one of the leading cyber security centres in the country. There is incubator space with good broadband and

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lower business rates to attract smaller firms who will then move here with their staff and families, encouraged by the new housing plans.

“You have to keep growing and moving,” says Andrew, “because there is an element of the population that is nearer retirement age than even me!

“There is resistance to new housing, but we have to grow and keep attracting inward investment. Certainly my experience tells me the digital space of telecoms, electronics, computers and creativity is absolutely thriving.

“There is a very encouraging focus on SMEs, with three board members of the LEP who are SMEs themselves working alongside a representative from the FSB. One thing we are always looking for is good office space, and we believe that the developments around Whitehill & Bordon will help alleviate that issue.

“The LEP is a wonderful team of people which I joined because you are better off working inside an organisation where you can influence policy rather than outside complaining about it.

It is the same with my role at the China Britain Business Council, which helps companies trade into China and Chinese companies coming here.

“Any organisation or club a business might join is only going to be as good as the effort you put in.”

The Enterprise M3 rallying call to ‘get involved’ is crucial to the region’s future success. A sense of collaboration is growing all the time, and not only because of the commonsense need to work inside and alongside a supply chain.

There is also a growing community that recognises the vast potential here and wants to be a part of its development rather than just sitting on the sidelines. That sense of unity and purpose could be just as powerful as the investment heading for the Enterprise M3 region. n

future for SMEs

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LIVE DEBATE bqlive.co.uk

LIVE DEBATE

THE VOICE FOR BUSINESS DEBATE

The issue: What and where are the opportunities for businesses in the Enterprise M3 area to innovate and grow?

The guests, invited from many of the key sectors which have made the region such an investment hotspot, set out their own strategies as well as uniting behind the challenge of building a longlasting future for the next generation of investors and industries. The growth hub was created by a partnership of Business South, Surrey County Council, Hampshire County Council, BE Group and Set Squared, an enterprise collaboration between the universities of Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Surrey. Set Squared board member Keith Robson opened the debate by setting out the benefits of a united strategy.

He said: “We run a high-class business incubation network across the universities after originally importing some ideas from San Diego’s Connect programme. There is an annual review of incubators around the world and Set Squared has now broken through and is the Number One academic incubator worldwide. In the last ten years we have supported more than 1,000 companies who between them have raised £1bn of investment.

“The real thing now for the UK is how we

engage with the regional economic agenda. We are very keen to be a proactive partner in the Enterprise M3 growth hub – it is a really great opportunity for the UK and for our region to work in partnership.”

Keith is also chief operating officer for the University of Surrey’s 5G Innovation centre, which is a £75m programme involving 25 corporates, and he pointed out: “What got us through the bidding process for that was the weight of industry support here and the belief they had in this rather radical proposal that we would format Guildford into the world’s leading centre for research, with a unique 4km-wide live testbed for products. I share a passion for the opportunities here to break the mould, so why don’t we promote ourselves – sometimes we do a terrible job at connecting and communicating.”

Philip Davies of Deimos Space UK said he had been working in the space sector for more than 30 years and had lived and worked in the region for more than 25 years including at Surrey Satellites, which is still the university’s most valuable spin-out.

He told his fellow guests: “Just over two years ago I was asked to be the MD for Deimos, which was quite big in Spain, but effectively a new startup for the UK. The reason they came here was because they saw it as a massive growth area, partly because of the Innovation and Growth Strategy, supported by industry and Government.

The UK’s aim is to have a £40bn slice of the global sector, which requires a lot of actions which is what really interests me. The UK is also looking at creating the regulatory framework for a space port which would allow satellite and horizontal take-offs for space tourism, which would be a big step to improving the space economy in the UK. Prem Gyani is one of the Growth Hub Champions helping mentor firms in the region and he said after being thrown out of Imperial College and out of Surrey University as a young man he had spent 32 years “in corporate servitude” around the world.

“In 2006 I started my own company which was hugely successful and was sold for a tidy sum, which I then very promptly lost because I thought

LIVE DEBATE

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Let’s talk growth

I was going to be ‘Zuckerberg II’. But in 2013 I reset my life and started a social enterprise helping disadvantaged kids get into high-paid jobs in the digital sector.

“Two years later I reset it again and am now working for a number of companies, which has helped me to realise that the world of the hierarchal glass and steel corporations is dead – and long may it rest. In its place is an environment where young people will be making decisions on what value exchanges they want.

“What frustrates me is that our schools, colleges and universities and our workplaces absolutely do not encourage that type of environment. I would like to see that we have the balls to break the system and encourage innovation and inspire creative aspiration. We need to acknowledge success and encourage risk rather than killing productivity because of a lack of engagement.”

For the local government view on the debate, Mark Pearson, director of business growth at Surrey County Council, first said he was a not a typical public sector employee.

“For the last six years I have championed, both inside and outside the county, a smart economic growth strategy about growing an economy and the part played by the public sector in making sure there are the right skills and the right infrastructure is in place.

“This strategy centred on four categories: Social, human, environmental and physical, and now we have added financial, relationship, intellectual and then split the physical category into infrastructure and manufactured.

“The way they all interact with each other has led to the strategy moving way beyond Surrey.

Here, we have put Surrey back on the map as a place to do business and have been shouting about that success.

“Also, we are the most wooded county in England and a lot of people talk about the environmental side of it, but it is not the primary reason people come here to live – they come here to do business and provide that vital sustainable prosperity and then discover the rest later. And that sustainable prosperity is not only for the owners and shareholders, but also for the staff and the wider social value they have.”

For the Surrey Chamber of Commerce, Louise Punter told of her background in large corporates and her move to the two aspects of her new job where she represented businesses but also needed to run the chamber as an SME. She said: “We have ten staff and run around 200 events, so I can appreciate how difficult it is to run a small business. We are the glue because initiatives come and go, but the one thing that carries on regardless is the chambers of commerce – we look outwards to our membership and see the expertise and innovation we have here.

“Among all this, we must try to make sure enough businesses think about exporting because we have fantastic support for them, but we seem to be the only ones on the ground dragging them there kicking and screaming.

We have to persuade them it is a good thing to do, despite what happened on 23 June.”

Looking at the cyber-crime sector Rob Carolina, executive director of the Institute for Cyber Security Innovation, said he started his working life with a tech start-up doing software for the Apple Macs.

“I learned about small businesses the hard way by becoming part-owner of one without really knowing what I was supposed to do,” he said.

“I then went from small to large and was headhunted by PWC and then back to small

“initiatives come and go, but the one thing that carries on regardless is the chambers of commerce ’’

TAKING PART Roya Croudace, director of the Enterprise M3 Growth Hub Prem Gyani, Enterprise M3 Growth Champion Louise Punter, Surrey Chamber of Commerce Philip Davies, Deimos Space UK Ltd Mark Pearson, Surrey County Council Patrick O’Luanaigh, Ndreams Keith Robson, University of Surrey, 5G Innovation Centre and member of the Set Squared board Tom Higgins, Gold-i Maureen Frost, Hampshire Chamber of Commerce Stephen Mooney, Surrey 100 Club Robert Carolina, executive director of the Institute for Cyber Security Innovation Bryan Hoare, managing director, BQ Chair: Caroline Theobald, Taking notes: BQ editor Mike Hughes, Photography: Kevin Gibson, Venue: Guildford Harbour hotel

BQ is highly regarded as a leading independent commentator on business issues, many of which have a bearing on the current and future success of the region’s business economy. BQ Live is a series of informative debates designed to further contribute to the success and prosperity of our regional economy through the debate, discussion and feedback of a range of key business topics and issues.

#bqlivedebate Join in the debate online and have your say on the issues raised. If you would like us to organise a BQ round table dinner debate email info@bqlive.co.uk

Join in the debate at #bqlivedebat e bqlive.co.uk

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LIVE DEBATE Let’s talk growth

niche practice. The relationship with the university began in the 1990s when I was asked to talk to security specialists about regulation and issues to do with cryptography.

“More recently I was asked by the Royal Holloway to head up this role where my job, to put it bluntly, is to take in money from people outside and give them something that is useable in exchange, looking either at what causes something to be not secure, or what can be done to think what security will look like in five to ten years.

“But....the internet doesn’t work. By that I very specifically mean the authentication problem where we can’t determine who we are dealing with at the other end of a communication.

We keep coming back again and again to this problem and if we are looking for opportunity, the most immediate is IoT - the Internet of Things.

“As we keep connecting more things to the internet, we discover how insecure they are. Here in the M3 Corridor there is a huge concentration of know-how, experience, development and talent that can be harnessed to solve that.”

Maureen Frost, deputy chief executive at Hampshire Chamber of Commerce, said the dominant sectors for her role were marine and aerospace, with a mix of high-tech businesses alongside a lot of rural spaces, with a lot of grants given out to support the low-carbon agenda.

“I have found so much potential in international trade and exporting, but a lot of businesses are afraid of experimenting, so we try to take away

“As we keep connecting more things to the internet, we discover how insecure they are’’ some of that pain. One of the other issues to be addressed is blocking at the top of the age group in certain companies, where a lot of people who would previously have been retired have no intention of doing that now and are blocking youngsters with more innovative skills.

Bryan Hoare, MD of the BQ, said people needed to be made more aware of the enterprise and innovation in the area. He said: “BQ has been campaigning for our entrepreneurs for many years, certainly in support of more international trade and what we can do to help our next generation be successful. Innovative practice in education is something we would champion as one way the private sector can really get to the heart of things and make a difference.”

In the ever-evolving gaming sector, Patrick O’Luanaigh leads Ndreams, the largest UK software developer to be solely focused on online virtual reality games. He told the other guests: “VR is great for games but it will also revolutionise a lot of industries in the next few years with the likes of staff training and architecture. We are currently raising a round of investments, much of which looks as if it will come from China which is a shame, but then it is still quite a risky area with headsets still to be launched.

“Guildford is the biggest gaming hub in the UK, with around 40 developers making some of the biggest games in the world, but just wonder if

there is a way of getting some of these amazing high-tech industries like aerospace and medical as well as VR to work together a bit more.”

Tom Higgins runs Gold-i, a world leader in the development of intelligent plug-ins and services for foreign exchange dealing. He said he had developed his company without any outside funding ‘because that is how I thought you did it’.

“Having expert advice externally certainly helped me, with Vistage (a global network of private advisory groups) being particularly helpful for two hours every month,” he said.

“One thing I have realised is that as far as funding for SMEs is concerned, the banking model just isn’t working. The Funding Circle model where they help you through the process and charge lower interest rates was just a million times easier.

“Another thing that is broken is the board and corporate governance structure, with so many disconnects between people doing the work and the managers. Some of the decisions I have seen have been really wrong and scary.”

Canadian Stephen Mooney came to the UK in 2007 with his company offering software to help organisations understand their energy and carbon positions through web-based systems.

“We had about 40 staff and some interesting clients when we exited in 2010 and I came to a crossroads and truly recognised the value of

LIVE DEBATE Let’s talk growth

innovation,” he said.

“I found an inherent fear of dealing with SMEs and I started to see that as my challenge, so I met with Set Squared and better understood the SMEs’ problems. I then got involved with the Surrey 100, a group of angel investors that does an even more horrific job than Guildford does at promoting itself, despite a lot of talent and some really cool investments.

Stephen, who is also one of only 21 business leaders worldwide working with UKTI’s Global Entrepreneur Programme, now runs Guildfordbased Synoptica which uses data analysis to help define business needs and match them to the best solutions from a global network.

He added: “The UK as a whole is very good at ideas and innovating, but I question whether we have the risk tolerance and infrastructure to lead on that innovation.”

Roya Croudace, Director of the Enterprise M3 Growth Hub, agreed that what was going on in the region was ‘absolutely incredible’ and she recalled thinking this was the UK’s best-kept secret.

“The key agenda of the Growth Hub is about supporting innovation and high growth in the most dynamic LEP outside London. I still sit there thinking there is so much more we can do, getting our younger generation excited about what they can do. A lot of businesses across the region don’t know what is happening and what support is out there, so I will make sure they know where they can get simplified help and let them know what else is going on in the region and how we can connect and collaborate.”

Mark Pearson challenged the situation, saying: “That’s all good stuff, but it was good stuff when I came to the county eight years ago. Why do we keep trying these things if it isn’t working? Is it because we already have 65,000 companies, including in excess of 300 large companies, and £37.5bn GVA, and the place is just too successful and people are getting too comfortable and complacent?”

Prem Gyani went further, saying the captains of industry at the event might not be the right people to debate it. “We have all made it to some extent and we are now rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic because we all have our experiences which are forming our opinions, but those opinions don’t work anymore,” he said.

The challenges were clear and there was agreement around the table that while there was huge success in the region, and that everyone should be rightly proud of that, there still needed to be a focused and united drive to make sure the achievements and profile of the region was sustainable for decades to come.

Speaking about the ways different industries could be brought together, Philip Davies said: “One of the things Innovate UK has done in recent years is to set up Catapult centres, which looked at how some countries were better at commercialising some of the innovations that came out of universities.

“They decided the programme should be industry-led, with the aim of industrial growth.

There is now a network of them like offshore, digital and, for us, the Satellite Applications Catapult Centre, where companies can go if

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they want to work with anything to do with space. They know the universities and the other companies and have all the connections.”

There were also plans to expand the Set Squared operation to support future growth, and Keith Robson told the group: “We work with five universities, each of which has a significant footprint, but even combined that is small compared to the breadth of the region we are talking about.

“So there is now a significant plan to spread out a number of other incubation centres across the region, which had been working towards a multiplication of three or four times - but unfortunately that involved ERDF funding, which has been awarded by Europe but, perversely, is being held by our Government.”

The debate moved closer to home by looking at what could be done for the very small businesses that may might not have access to on-site support at an incubation centre.

Maureen Frost at the Hampshire Chamber replied: “To be honest, there is great difficulty in us finding them and them finding us. It is quite scary talking to local authorities who don’t even have a database of businesses in their boroughs.

If they are VAT-registered you have half a chance and if they are limited companies you can go through Companies House, but those setting up as sole traders or partnerships and working from home are very difficult to find.”

She also urged more companies to put in for innovation and enterprise awards, which tended to be poorly supported, perhaps because companies might think there would be too

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LIVE DEBATE Let’s talk growth

“Networking for me happens without leaving your office – it is about knowing who is out there to talk to’’

much competition, while the reverse was the case. Reflecting on media coverage, she also said it was important that ‘good news’ stories were regularly pushed out, and there was a scheme at Basingstoke College of Technology where marketing students were being paired with SMEs and were helping draw up their business plans.

Over at Surrey Chamber, Louise Punter said: “We have had postcards out in various coffee bars and sports centres offering start-up advice in Elmbridge, just one very small area, but they are starting to come through and who knows how far they could go. But it is very time-consuming and there is a gap because you have to go through so many different channels.

“I would choose the word apathy rather than complacency – and even then it is not because

businesses are just sitting on their backsides. But there is apathy and concerns about networking, which has this big picture about talking to ‘cliquey’ people who are all accountants or solicitors. Networking for me happens without leaving your office – it is about knowing who is out there to talk to.

“After 16 years at Surrey and sitting round so many tables like this, I can tell you that one little group is never going to make it happen – what we have to do is join the dots and not feel that t here is an overlap, but that we are all promoting what is out there.”

Prem Gyani added that he saw this network of support as an infrastructure for innovation: “That infrastructure should include networks, peer groups, educators and all the things

necessary for innovation. If we start talking about an infrastructure, I think we could change the conversation. It won’t happen tomorrow, but by 2025 we could say that Enterprise M3 would have the UK’s first such structure.”

That would need a lot of advance planning, but he went on to challenge the value of STEM teaching as a tool, saying that it discouraged innovation and produced ‘robots’.

Back to business and relationships, Stephen Mooney said: “The first thing we need to do is understand our clients better. There is nobody here who represents the people we are talking about and if we are to have these debates we have to start bringing them to the table. If we are not speaking a different language to the younger people it is certainly a different dialect.

LIVE DEBATE Let’s talk growth

“What I do with the Surrey 100 is visit these companies and help them shape their pitch and carve out their business model and then the business angels give them guidance and money to get them to the next level. That is all tried and trusted and we don’t need to change it, just promote it more.

“If you just took the Surrey Research Park and took the CEOs of all those companies and then maybe BAe and then some satellite people and connect that with some of the smaller guys, that is just one small eco-system that would help solve this problem.”

Rob Carolina returned to the potential of IoT and said: “In the nineties this part of the world saw the confluence of a lot of unusual skillsets, which still give the region a huge opportunity.

Things like the early adoption of cellphones led to a lot of work here.

“This led to more and more expertise in dealing with very small computer programmes and the current breakthroughs with IoT, which mostly subsists on the idea that computing platforms are getting smaller and you need that skillset.

Another thread that comes into the discussion from the side is cyber security expertise. If you are looking for that the two bigget markets in the world are Washington DC and the South-East of the UK. The Washington market is driven entirely by the defence industry and some incredible amounts of money that have gone into R&D and procurement.

“But here it is a lot to do with the financial services industry - and fintech is a further thread to explore. You have talent and interesting companies and some paths to market – all of which create the elements of opportunity if you can draw those threads together.”

Following the fintech theme, Tom Higgins said his company set up here because this was where he was brought up and he knew the area. He added: “Our average length of service here is about four years because people like working here and there aren’t other people trying to poach them all the time and it is a life choice.

“Fintech could do an awful lot more in Surrey and I don’t really know why it doesn’t. The area we are thinking about is blockchain technology (building a database of Bitcoin transactions on the web) which has relevance in so many areas.”

Rob Carolina agreed that this was a sector where Britain could be a world-leader and said: “It has been said that this country is very good

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Guildford Harbour Hotel Thanks to Guildford Harbour Hotel for hosting our Live Debate. If you’re visiting Guildford, there’s no better place to stay than the Harbour Hotel, a short walk from the cobbled High Street in the centre of the town. Formerly a Radisson Blu venue, the rooms at this modern, glassfronted property are large, smart and comfortable, with velvet-like décor and furnishings.

Guildford Harbour Hotel, 3 Alexandra Terrace, High Street, Guildford GU1 3DA. To book, visit www.guildford-harbour-hotel.co.uk, or email guildford.reservations@harbourhotels.co.uk for rooms, or guildford.events@harbourhotels.co.uk for meetings and events.

at innovating, but very unsuccessful at being successful. I have certainly seen a lot of people in finance, law and accounting who are unnaturally unwilling to engage with anything technical, it seems to be a mark of pride to say they have other people to understand that sort of thing.

Patrick O’Luanaigh said the lack of management and business skills was a factor in the equation. “I have worked with UK and American games developers and there is a massive difference between the two because the creativity and ideas coming from the UK was stronger than from America, but the Americans had a layer of management and our companies were all led by creatives, artists and coders who were very technical but didn’t have a clue about how to grow a business. Starting up on my own was scary – I tried to research as much as I can but there isn’t as much available over here. I wish I knew more about these great organisations earlier on rather than progressing through trial and error.” Growing a business means exporting, and Maureen Frost said there wasn’t enough of this: “A lot of the problem is perception that it is going to be more difficult than it is and realising

that exporting is services as well as goods. We also need to raise awareness about protection against currency risk and look at the languages that we are teaching our children.”

Keith Robson also highly recommended the British embassies around the world, who were very helpful in hosting events to boost profiles, and Louise Punter said she was working on a pilot project to develop better trade links with twinned town and cities.

Roya Croudace talked about the strong relationships in the region, saying: “One of the things about Enterprise M3 as a LEP is that it is one of the best partnerships in the country, with all the right people around the table. The bar is set very high here, so how do you get better and let more people know?”

Closing the debate, Roya said: “There are so many exciting thing’s happening in the region and there are common themes around sustainability and communication.

“We will be looking at connecting, collaborating and communicating across as many disciplines as possible in as many areas of this region as we can.” n

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INTERVIEW Let’s talk growth

A new way of offering business support Suzanne McCreedy, National Services Director for BE Group, discusses the company’s work with the Enterprise M3 Local Enterprise Partnership

BE Group is a market leading business services specialist working across the UK and internationally, focused on business information, events and commercial development programmes. Our range of products and services is designed to help businesses succeed and grow. As a leading business services group with a proven track record of successfully delivering both national and regional business support programmes, such as the Government’s National Business Support Helpline and the Growth Vouchers Programme, we were ideally placed to lead delivery of the Enterprise M3 Growth Hub along with a range of local partners.

We have an exceptional team and being employee owned means we have a real passion for helping businesses succeed and grow.

We were really pleased when BE Group were recognised as one of the Sunday Times top 100 Best small companies to work for, gaining a 3 star ‘extraordinary’ status.

We have worked with hundreds of businesses nationally to help them develop their capability through the provision of business advice and skills programmes, including helping SMEs improve their competitiveness through understanding and embedding the business potential of adopting super fast broadband.

We have the privilege of running exceptional events, including MADE The Entrepreneur Festival, the UK’s premier business event for entrepreneurship, ranked by Entrepreneur Magazine as one of world’s top ten conferences for entrepreneurs.

BE Group have a strong track record in exploiting new technology to full effect and have revolutionised the way we work with customers enabling them to have access to real time intelligence on demand via cloud based solutions.

It’s an exciting time for the group as we continue to grow and invest in new services. One of our core specialisms is the ability to effectively manage a range of grant programmes, but what differentiates us from other organisations is our exceptional track record in developing and delivering programmes to over 120,000 businesses nationally, and a trusted track record in distributing over £80m of grants to over 30,000 businesses. We were recently appointed to the Crown Commercial Grant Management Framework in addition to a Sport England framework earlier in the year.

BE Group have worked in London and the South East for a number of years having previously

“BE Group have a strong track record in exploiting new technology to full effect and have revolutionised the way we work with customers enabling them to have access to real time intelligence on demand via cloud based solution” delivered services including Meet the Buyer events for Stanstead, Gatwick and Farnborough International Airshow, along with a range of commercial development programmes such as The Supply Nine Elms initiative. This offers businesses the chance to meet the major buyers involved in the regeneration of Nine Elms on South Bank, London’s biggest development programme and the CITB programme Building for Growth, which helps ensure that construction employers in South London have access to upto-date skills as the construction industry returns to growth along with delivering a graduate placement scheme to help SMEs access new skills.

We have invested heavily in the South with offices in Islington and Guildford, as a number of our key clients are from London and the South including the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Power to Change and Start up Loans Company.

Our unique combination of capabilities and experience has created a Growth Hub for the Enterprise M3 area which delivers the solutionsbased business support that businesses in the region need in order to grow and prosper.

The Enterprise M3 Growth Hub partnership that the BE Group leads includes Business South, Hampshire and Surrey County Councils, SETsquared, a collaboration of Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Surrey Universities.

It breaks the mould of business support, focusing on delivering growth and innovation support through a team of high calibre growth champions. The Hub has been designed to help all businesses succeed and grow by offering them advice and support. Our universal offer for all includes support via multichannel (telephone, webchat, email, website portal and social media) with a particular emphasis on helping businesses with significant growth potential on a face to face basis via a Growth Champion. n

INTERVIEW Let’s talk growth

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Turning the spotlight on entrepreneurs

Working with Enterprise M3 is just the start of the next phase of expansion for BQ. Here Bryan Hoare, BQ’s MD, talks about the national importance of the region and how BQ can help its rising business stars

We always knew we wanted BQ to become a part of the remarkable business scene here in the South East – such a vibrant part of the UK economy, with so much innovation from entrepreneurs who are becoming a global focus of their sectors.

With groundbreaking new businesses setting up all the time and such an established reputation for collaboration across key sectors like 5G, satellite technology, gaming, cyber security and animal health, even we were amazed as we turned the BQ spotlight on the levels of success – and potential – in this part of the country.

BQ has grown into a nationally recognised brand that celebrates and inspires entrepreneurship through its range of business publications and special reports – including the flagship quarterly BQ magazines in Yorkshire, West Midlands, the North East & Cumbria and Scotland – online BQLive now reaches hundreds of thousands of businesses across six daily digital alerts, and through a series of high-profile national business events and campaigns.

Like so many passionate and committed businesses we have worked with over the years, BQ itself has a plan in place for rapid growth and has recently launched daily online coverage of the entrepreneurial business community in the North West and here in the South East with our London and the South edition of the BQ Breakfast service.

That portfolio means we are now a brand that has credibility across the UK for helping businesses to grow, and being a part of BE Group, a delivery partner of the Enterprise M3 Growth Hub service, means we have unrivalled experience of dealing with entrepreneurs and providing them with all the support they need.

It became very clear, as we were putting that growth plan into practice, that the South East was going to be a natural and progressive next step for BQ. Our work with Enterprise M3 only strengthened our ambitions here and helped confirm our plan for a fifth BQ magazine, this time covering the South East and becoming a facilitator of good news for an eager new audience in such a highly innovative part of the world.

There are so many entrepreneurial businesses here, and so much potential for us to work

together to make a tangible difference to the regional economy and help put down the foundations for the next generation of businesses.

It is a powerful economy in its own right, with Surrey alone generating £37.5b – more than Birmingham, Liverpool or Leeds – and its proximity to London means it is a valuable driver for the capital, where we hope a range of BQ publications will be a strong and influential voice for the regions.

We know from years of covering Yorkshire, the West Midlands, the North East & Cumbria and Scotland that each MD, each investor and each innovator will have an inspiring story to tell about how they set up and grew their business and there will be plenty of lessons our readers can learn as they plan their own futures.

The South East will become part of a community BQ has built up, of like-minded entrepreneurs and the people who have helped them, as well as potential investors. We know how important teamwork is to a community – having brought together the regional strengths of our publishing portfolio into a national brand – and we want to pass on that experience to help ideas become businesses.

We’re ready to start work now and would welcome hearing from any new businesses who want to turn a national spotlight on their regional ventures, or any of the many support organisations helping realise those dreams. Tell us your stories and help inspire others across the South East business community, just as BQ is doing around the UK. n

“The South East will become part of a community BQ has built up, of likeminded entrepreneurs and the people who have helped them’’

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INTERVIEW Let’s talk growth

Making the vital connections The Enterprise M3 Growth Hub sets an example to the whole region with its own high levels of collaboration.

One of its lead partners is Business South, which connects business leaders and champions the area.

Chief executive Sally Thompson talks about the organisation and its role

The ‘patch’ for Business South is certainly impressive. Based in Southampton, the regional business centre of the South coast, it operates in Hampshire, Dorset, Isle of Wight, Surrey and Sussex, working with four Local Enterprise Partnerships including Enterprise M3, dozens of local authorities, ten Universities and many of the top business brands in the UK. Covering sectors from aerospace and marine to digital and construction, it is a connecter of businesses as well as providing a unique brokering service between the public and private sectors. Chief executive Sally Thompson knows that the bottom line is where the focus has to be, so the organisation’s events and activities are all selected to earn revenue for the region and its companies.

“We are an engagement organisation

connecting business leaders to drive economic prosperity in the region and support social wellbeing,” said Sally.

“We were established as a not-for-profit group called Business Southampton ten years ago, and have developed a mechanism called the Champion Programme which connects the private and public and the third sector to influence positive change, overcome challenges and realise opportunities.

“As partners with the Enterprise M3 Growth Hub we are able to support high growth through innovation working with growing companies and being able to support them through our vast network through mentoring and specialist services. Working in collaboration makes the whole model stronger to the benefit of the region.”

INTERVIEW Let’s talk growth

Making its members and partners Champions reveals a key theme of how Business South operates. This is not a static networking group, but rather an interacting team of business leaders who sign up to champion the region and make a specific difference in their own sectors.

“We work in collaboration and want to collectively influence change for the region. It is not a membership organisation, but works as partners to champion the region which helps shape and influence the future of the whole economy around here,” explained Sally.

“I think that once people understand the benefits of being a Champion then they work with us for many years and we end up being part of their team and their resource, as well as being a catalyst for their growth and the region’s growth. Collectively those Champions employ more than 100,000 staff and turn over more than £4 billion, which makes them a highly influential and growing team.

“Our three priorities are around people, place and prosperity so if we have the right talent in the area then we can promote the region for its sector strengths. Similarly, if the area is prosperous then it is a place people will want to invest in, trade in, live in and work in. Everything is like a big jigsaw that we are putting together and it is all about working with employers who are responsible leaders who want to make a difference.

“Increasingly young people want to work with those forward-thinking companies that have shown corporate responsibility and care about how they treat their employees. We realise it is about the bottom line as well, so it is about championing the region for the greater good as well as for the business’s own benefit.

“Being a Champion helps to raise their profile, their reputation and the recognition of what they are doing, and facilitates great connections through working with us. A recent Business South survey revealed 85% of Champions did business with other Champions or made valuable connections, as a result of being a Champion. It is a win-win for all of us.”

The Champions themselves obviously agree.

Drawn from every sector and every geographical area, they have been quick to back Business South and what impact it can have in their region with Mel Rankine, commercial director at University Hospital Southampton saying the pride the Champions have is important:

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“Our three priorities are around people, place and prosperity so if we have the right talent in the area then we can promote the region for its sector strengths” “University Hospital Southampton is proud to be a member of Business South. As one of the largest organisations in Southampton it is important that we maintain close contact with the local business community and Business South provides that vital link. The Trust has formed some excellent relationships with local companies.”

Working with so many local authorities is also paying off with Chris Shephard, head of economic development & sustainability at Bournemouth Borough Council saying: “Business South creates an ideal coming together of leading businesses, education and the public sector that encourages proactive and positive activity to happen which drives economic growth across the region.”

And over at Surrey, Mark Pearson, director of business growth at the county council added: “Developing new ways of having conversations with business is important, the Business Champion programme in Surrey widens those opportunities.”

Sally added: “We are constantly connecting people at peer level, making introductions between the region’s business leaders at our events. It is a model that worked in Southampton, which is why we were able to scale it across the South.

“As a pro-active organisation that is businessdemand led and market-driven, we will give them business intelligence and news about what is going on in the area as well as access to commercial opportunities and into the supply chain.

“We also work with more than 40 local authorities to make sure we are constantly evolving the model and developing collaborations. We have a very positive relationship with the LAs, working with many of them in partnership with different events, initiatives and projects. For them, it is a route to business engagement and a bridge between the public and private sector where Business South is a neutral broker to facilitate those relationships.

“We typically have more than 50 events each

year, all of them purposeful for businesses around the region, and there are things like Thought Leadership debates and round-tables and we celebrate the success of our Champions.

“The region generally is a fantastic place to live and work, with a lifestyle that is second to none, with the mix of coast, city and countryside. There is so much going on and lots of opportunities for career development in innovative and dynamic companies.

“But we also recognise there are areas of deprivation around the coasts, and that is why the Champions programme is designed to engage employers in their own environment so that we can drive productivity and a stronger economic outcome and help raise aspirations and attainment levels.” A region like this will always be changing, and businesses are the key driver of that change. In all her years working for the region, Sally has seen it grow and mature, along with her own organisation.

“We have recently merged with Enterprise First, which specialises in start-ups and SME growth through their enterprise centres, and together we have an offer that covers the whole of the market which is perfect for supply chain development and collaboration.

“The cities of Portsmouth and Southampton have seen quite considerable regeneration and investment and there has been change around technology and sectors like digital, so the future talent agenda is particularly important.

“So we work closely with all the universities and most of the FE colleges and next February we have a big convention called Opportunity Meets Talent where we will be bringing together the universities colleges and businesses, who will, have actual jobs to offer on the day for more than 1,000 FE students who will be there.”

There is that bottom line again - networking that has to lead to action to put actual jobs on the table and find recordable success and future prosperity. n For more information, go to www.businessouth.org or contact info@businesssouth.org

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INTERVIEW bqlive.co.uk

Building a safer base for your business The concerns posed by cyber security go far deeper than whether the password on your Twitter account has been hacked. Mike Hughes talks to Rob Carolina, executive director of The Institute for Cyber Security Innovation at Royal Holloway University in Surrey Look around you. Pretty much every aspect of our lives revolves around the Internet, with more and more devices connected and performing functions. Global connectivity has been demanded by businesses and governments for years – and now it is here, and we still don’t know how to manage it.

A briefing last year for MPs warned them: “The perils of connectivity seem only to be growing as the Internet of Things brings more devices online. Already, it has been shown that hackers can assume control of car steering wheels, insulin pumps, baby monitors, toilets and central heating systems, raising the prospect of all sorts of cyber malfeasance.

“The Cyber Security Strategy acknowledges that

it is not possible to eliminate cyber crime. But just as car thefts have been dramatically cut by preventative technologies such as immobilisers and alarms, cyber crime may be reduced by eliminating some of the opportunities available to prospective cyber criminals.”

Which means that cyber security has become a critical component of the web and new and radical approaches are needed to mend it, which is the point where Rob Carolina and The Institute for Cyber Security Innovation start their work, as a trusted, persistent presence that can bring together government, academia, industry, business, trade bodies and users, on an international scale.

The Institute needed to have a very different

strategy if it was to be substantially more effective than what had gone before, so it turned the traditional model of research on its head, by listening first to end users and policy makers to develop projects that meet their short and medium term needs.

“The institute is here to help address the unmet cyber security needs faced by government and industry in the ‘here and now’,” explained Rob. “Our brief focuses on security in whatever form it might take and means we may be doing research and delivering solutions by working with sociology and psychology experts as well as business organisations. We are project driven, so whatever work we engage in has a specific beginning, middle and end, with a client,

INTERVIEW Let’s talk growth

timetable and deliverables for which we can assemble the right team.

“That delivery team might come from any of our academic departments, but if we need to supplement that with different skillsets we will look off campus and into our network of trusted advisers and experts, or perhaps academics in other institutions.

“And the solutions we come up with may not be tangible like a piece of code or a product, it may rather be a cutting-edge report that assists an organisation to make a decision or some targeted research to assist the market generally.”

Rob and his team have built a formidable and global organisation, helped by the university’s own reputation as a centre of excellence. Royal Holloway is also home to the Information Security Group, a pioneering interdisciplinary group founded in 1990 to pioneer cyber security education, research and industry engagement.

ISG is recognised by GCHQ as an Academic Centre of Excellence and Royal Holloway has been awarded a Cyber Security Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) - one of only two in the UK. So the setting was perfect for the cyber security mould to be broken and for the Institute to commission and disseminate white papers, facilitate technical and policy briefings, organise workshops and networking and briefing events, and carry out product reviews and assessments.

Crucially in this highly entrepreneurial part of the UK, the Institute also plans to provide a fund and facilities for incubating promising startup companies and tenant facilities for cyber security initiatives.

“One of the advantages the Institute brings is this idea of pushing engagement across multiple departments. Where members of an academic department at any university are focused on their need to pursue and deliver research, the Institute is not focused on that, but on engagement with industry and government to try to assess needs in the short and medium term.

“Royal Holloway is very privileged to be in the position of having a significant profile working in information security, and there is also a lot of internalised expertise on campus. Put that together with a large alumni base and it all

“Royal Holloway is very privileged to be in the position of having a significant profile working in information security’’ informs our ability to do what we do.

“The university is acknowledging that delivering cyber security is a strategically important priority, so it would be harder to do this somewhere random and just putting a sign on a door.”

Like any high-tech sector cyber security is changing all the time, but the difference here is the pace of change, with challenges just a click away from threatening companies and destabilising economies.

“The puzzle certainly has a lot of moving pieces,” says Rob. “I have been working with people in this space for nearly 25 years now and I have seen this paradox where never before in human history have we had more expertise and knowledge, products and services. At the same time we have never had more complaints about the lack of cyber security, which is in part just a function of the pace of innovation in technology and the uptake of engagement.

“When I started the Internet was only just starting to be a phenomenon, but now it has been rolled out to pretty much any part of society you can imagine. So having become ubiquitous, we are now seeing an increase in connecting devices and people are talking about everything you own being connected in some fashion.

“This produces a whole set of challenges, and some of them are to with old technology as well, because some of the things being remotely addressed have been around for decades when it was assumed that there would just be a single operator on a local network. Now we live in a world where anything on a local network can now be connected to the Internet and guess what – these gizmos were not built with security in mind. That was nowhere in the design brief for these ICSs, or Industrial Control Systems.

“So there are some serious challenges ahead.”

This pace of change is frightening and leads to

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many short-sighted businesses accepting they will always be at risk, and losing interest in the steps they can take. It’s a scenario Rob is familiar with.

“The simplest response is that safety is not a binary, in that you can’t just say’ I am safe or I am not safe’, that’s not how life works.

I challenge you to find any other area of life where that is true, because when we talk about safety in cars, we know they are more safe than they used to be, but driving one is not risk-free.

“To businesses who say you can’t secure a device so why even try I would ask if they have locks on their front doors. If they have, then why – if it is possible for a clever burglar to pick the lock?

“We don’t expect a standard of perfection from safety devices, we expect them to deter the casual character or slow down the professional.

How much effort you put into them depends entirely on the risks you are facing.”

For businesses in the South East those risks can be fatal. There needs to be awareness of the problem first, and Rob says the best way to tackle that is good old-fashioned face-to-face networking, and the South East is a vibrant and connected place to find those contacts and share best practice.

“It is an exciting part of the world to be in at the moment and I have seen a lot of exciting developments. It is a large region with a lot of room so that whatever kind of experience you want, you can find it here – urban, suburban or rural.

“And the closely aligned presence of so many technology businesses creates a great pool of talent for people with business goals. The confluence of expertise in mobile, computing, software, cyber security and gaming is remarkable and as long as product and service people are innovating on connected devices, there will always need to be innovation on cyber security.”

In that way, another cluster of ground-breaking sectors is created. The Enterprise M3 strategy of tailored support for the right businesses is attracting some of the UK’s most valuable innovators and its expertise in collaboration and teamwork is producing a feeling of shared responsibility that is one of the region’s hallmarks. n

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AS I SEE IT Let’s talk growth

Rocket man on a long voyage Ben Ward, co-founder of Rocketdesk – a new co-working space for digital creative businesses – discusses the challenges and rewards of being an entrepreneur Launching a startup is incredibly daunting, stressful and time consuming, with (roughly) 10 million things to figure out before your new business can be born.

Not only do you need to know your product inside and out, but your route to market must be solid, your scheduling and production planned intricately, your financing and cash flow stable.

Anybody who has gone through the process will know just how much work this can all be.

Oh, and these problems are exaggerated when you’re performing high-cost activities like hiring

staff or opening a physical office space. You, as the founder, are risking it all, both financially and emotionally, for the fleeting chance that it may all come together in the end... how you might, somehow, be able to turn this ragged start-up into a sustainable, successful business!

Financially, it’s tough too. If you’re begging and borrowing to kickstart your idea, the last thing you want to do is sign a long contract on an expensive office, with the spectre of huge debt should it not work out.

Unfortunately, all that describes exactly the

situation I found myself in at the end of 2015...

My background is in video game development - I’m a programmer/ designer, and have been a gamer my entire life. I’ve worked across several disciplines in the video game industry but I got my start in the high tech, high stakes world of AAA console development. Triple-A usually refers to the super high-fidelity boxed product experiences that are created for platforms like the Playstation 4, Xbox One or high-end PCs. I’ve worked with some of the biggest tech companies in the world - from Microsoft

AS I SEE IT Let’s talk growth

“Co-working allows like-minded individuals to work in a comfortable environment that encourages collaboration and boosts productivity’’ to Electronic Arts to Activision - shipping top-quality games to millions of people across the globe.

The global games industry generates more revenue than movies, music, and almost any other comparable medium. One of the more recent AAA success stories, Grand Theft Auto V, was made in the UK. It sold more than US$1b in its first three days on sale, making it the fastest entertainment product ever to do so. GTA5 reportedly sold more in its first month than the entire global music industry combined. Video games engage, educate and entertain in a way that few other technologies can hope to match.

My newest start-up games studio, Supergonk, hopes to play in this competitive and exciting world. We’re under no illusions - we are very small, and it takes hundreds of millions of dollars to create something like Grand Theft Auto.

However, the rise of digital distribution and better digital tools has opened the door for “indies”: small, fast-moving teams who pride themselves on innovation and daring.

So that brings us back to the terror of signing long-term contracts. Supergonk was hiring, so I knew I needed a studio for us to all work in.

However, all the local office space was cripplingly expensive, and required at least a one-year commitment (and a gargantuan deposit). In the fast-paced world of indie game development that seemed like an eternity.

It turns out that I wasn’t alone. After asking around some friends and colleagues I discovered that this is a common problem for creative digital start-ups and freelancers. Many had resorted to working from their local Starbucks. The solution seemed obvious. This problem must be fixed for my new business to grow sustainably. Luckily for me one of my good friends, Neil Johnston, was in the exact same boat. His music tech education business Freshnotes, was (and still is) growing at a meteoric pace. He needed to find permanent premises, but his business was also not suited to restrictive contracts and expensive deposits. We put our heads together, and formed a solution...

Our answer? Rocketdesk. We formed an exciting new co-working space for digital creative startups. We invited people just like us to share the workspace with us, working together in a friendly

open-plan environment. We all shoulder some of the cost, and gain the benefits of cross-discipline collaboration and friendship.

Co-working is enjoying a worldwide surge in popularity thanks to advanced technology easing the process of starting businesses.

Young business leaders started this trend in California and it has now spread to all major cities throughout the world. Co-working allows like-minded individuals to work in a comfortable environment that encourages collaboration and boosts productivity. Rocketdesk is located in Guildford, Surrey. We’re extremely lucky to be located in a successful tech hub and have found great support for our plan here. Guildford is known across the world as a great place for video game development (The Guardian recently called it the “Hollywood of video games”), but it’s also home to other really interesting creative tech-focused businesses too. We’re based on the Surrey Research Park, home to space pioneers Surrey Satellite Technology, gaming firm 22Cans and many other really cool companies. Our co-working space was born out of frustration at the lack of affordable offices on offer to start-up businesses, but it has gone on to flourish for this very same reason. Since its inception Rocketdesk has grown extremely quickly, expanding from its first studio premises to a purpose built 2,500 sq ft facility in just six months. We now have space for up to 45 co-workers, and we house various freelancers and start-ups in all sorts of creative digital industries.

Rocketdesk is fundamentally different to a normal office rental. Our contracts can be cancelled with just 30 days notice. If the worst should happen and your new business doesn’t succeed, then at least you aren’t in huge debt.

As we have lots of desks available, we also allow our member companies to scale up and down as they see fit (again with just 30 days notice).

This gives start-ups room to grow or downscale organically depending on their level of success.

We are also flexible with times of access. If you’re just trying out co-working for the first time you can visit for a single day, paying just a small fee.

If you’re ready to make more of a commitment, why not come to Rocketdesk for one day per week? Or two, or three? You can choose your

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level of access right up to a 24/7 dedicated desk, which is actually our most popular membership option by far.

If you’re working with a colleague or freelancer on a temporary basis, then we welcome them to stop by Rocketdesk too. Members can temporarily add another desk to their membership for a small daily cost.

All of this works because we have a mutual understanding between our members. We are very focused on creative technology professionals.

That means video game developers, graphic designers, video editors, web developers, composers, writers, etc. We’re all more-or-less in the same boat to begin with, so that helps with collaboration. Also, all our members sign a mutual NDA at the door, allowing complete freedom of communication once you’re inside the studio. We’ve worked very hard to make the space comfortable and visually attractive to creative tech pros. We don’t have a dedicated marketing budget; just a couple of hard-working founders meeting lots of people face-to-face.

Our members are very happy and have become our biggest evangelists; 100% reported top marks in a recent satisfaction survey and would recommend Rocketdesk to their friends!

While I like to think this level of member satisfaction is based purely on the charisma of Neil and myself, in reality we have engineered Rocketdesk to be a great place to work. We focus heavily on community; hosting movie nights, developer events, game jams, pub lunches, etc. We actively encourage cross-discipline collaboration between members, and the culture in our office is one where everyone helps each other out. Put enough interesting people in a room and they do amazing things together!

The future for Rocketdesk is sustainable growth.

We take our responsibility to the local creative tech community very seriously; as we grow we’re also helping numerous other businesses grow around us. It’s imperative that Rocketdesk remains a long-term fixture of the Guildford startup scene, as we are providing a valuable platform for future entrepreneurs to find their feet. I’m incredibly proud of the early success of Rocketdesk, but our best days are yet to come. n @benjamesward. Co-Founder, Rocketdesk, www.rocketdesk.co.uk Founder, Supergonk, www.supergonk.co.uk

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INTERVIEW Let’s talk growth

One giant leap for Surrey Mike Hughes looks at one of the most remarkable success stories in the Enterprise M3 region – satellite technology

INTERVIEW Let’s talk growth

The Surrey space race really began in 1985, when Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd was formed as a spinout company from University of Surrey.

The date is important because it means SSTL has been delivering small satellite missions for 30 years - longer than anyone else in the world and making it our planet’s leading provider of operational and commercial satellite programmes.

It was the giant leap after many years of space being considered such a different environment to Earth that anything sent into the atmosphere needed to be specially designed and tested for the harsh conditions of space. Naturally, this made building satellites expensive and timeintensive.

In the late 1970s, a group of highly-skilled aerospace researchers working at the University of Surrey started to experiment by creating a satellite using COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) components and the results were surprising.

That first satellite, UoSat-1, was launched in 1981 with the help of NASA and the mission went on to outlive its planned three year life by more than five years. Most importantly, the team showed that relatively small and inexpensive satellites could be built rapidly to perform successful and sophisticated missions.

In 1985 the University of Surrey formed Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd as a spin-out company to transfer the results of its research into a commercial enterprise.

The company, based at the Surrey Research Park in Guildford, provides complete in-house design, manufacture, launch and operation of small satellites. It also delivers complete mission solutions for earth observation, remote sensing, science, navigation and telecommunications as well as space training and development programmes.

The experts here can also design and build remote sensing, navigation and communications payloads, build and install ground infrastructure and act as consultants on a huge variety of projects.

It basically develops satellites throughout their life cycle – from design and build through to launch and in-orbit monitoring and maintenance – or any stage of that cycle, designing, building, assembling and testing satellites and almost all their components in-house for tailor-made satellites.

Today SSTL employs 500 staff across two sites

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“We look forward to working with key industry partners, using our expertise in Space mission analysis to take forward the case for launch from the UK’’ and has launched 48 satellites. In 2008 the company set up a US subsidiary, Surrey Satellite Technology LLC with offices in Denver, Colorado, and in 2009 the EADS (European Aeronautic Defence and Space) company Astrium BV bought a 99% shareholding in SSTL from the University of Surrey, allowing the company to fulfil its growth potential. Two years ago the EADS restructured and SSTL is now an independent company within the Airbus Defence and Space Group.

Another key player in the sector is Deimos, whose MD Philip Davies was responsible for all SSTL’s business development activities in Europe until he left to run Deimos, which has extensive experience and knowledge in launch trajectory analysis, safety and termination systems, architectures and approaches.

Philip told our BQ Live Debate in Guildford that the UK was aiming for a £40bn slice of the global sector and that the focus was on the South East “because Deimos saw it as a massive growth area, partly because of the Innovation and Growth Strategy, supported by industry and Government.”

One of the most eye-catching projects both companies are working on is a UK-based launch operation for their satellite technology.

Deimos Space UK, together with SSTL, Firefly Space Systems and Scotland’s Highlands and Islands Enterprise, have been awarded a grant by the UK Space Agency to carry out an industrial research project to investigate the challenges associated with the introduction and operation of commercially viable small-satellite launch services from the UK. Philip said: “Deimos Space is excited to lead this project to build the case for a UK vertical launch site in a way which will stand up to a detailed and thorough examination. We look forward to working with key industry partners, using our expertise in Space mission analysis to take forward the case for launch from the UK. “Deimos Space UK and its project partners are analysing and quantifying the value of using an imported launch vehicle for a UK-based launch operation. We are identifying cost drivers and key launch site infrastructure, logistics and

operational factors that could be used to shape a commercially optimised UK launch service.

“The project is establishing which orbits can be accessed, considering all performance and safety aspects, and is analysing and quantifying the costs of all launch-related activities, including those associated with infrastructure and support, transportation, export and customs.

“Another valuable output will be a set of recommendations, underpinned by robust analysis, for how a UK launch offering should be shaped in order to make it the most competitive and commercially viable offering possible. This should enable the UK to establish Europe’s first, and possibly only, orbital launch site.”

Katherine Courtney, interim chief executive of the UK Space Agency added: “Low cost access to space is key to unlocking growth. We look forward to the technology and market insights these projects will deliver later this year - helping us get the policy right in this area. The government’s aim is to support industry to open new markets by establishing a spaceport in the UK and to enable the UK space sector, valued at £11.8b in 2014, to grow to £40b by 2030.“ The support for Deimos and SST has been highprofile, with the Space Innovation and Growth Strategy (IGS) setting out ambitious targets for the growth of the UK space sector, with ‘Access to Space’ being a key IGS theme.

The UK has already said it wants to become a launching site with the long-term goal of being able to support suborbital operations and orbital delivery of small satellites with the IGS goals and objectives being mainly commercial and economic.

The stellar growth of the sector is expected to come from commercial launches rather than institutional or military contracts, so any resulting work from Deimos, SSTL and their partners must be commercially viable, offering a clear commercial advantage to customers who currently have to launch their payloads from overseas.

This part of the UK has always had sky-high ambitions. Now it seems not even that is high enough for the home of one of the UK’s fastestgrowing sectors. n

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INSIGHT Let’s talk growth

Meet the beekeepers of business Surrey Business School’s new Business Insights Lab brings academic research together with business and industry to put the latest ideas into practice. Here, Lakshmi Mohindra, of the university’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences sets out its strategy At Surrey Business School, we’re at the forefront of technology and innovation, creating business models fit for a digital economy. Our newly launched Business Insights Lab on campus is further cementing us as the gateway for business innovation, opening new channels of communication across sectors.

Designed to teach business skills for the Digital Age, the Business Insights Lab draws together research, teaching, brokering and problem solving, to foster new business innovation strategies.

In the Lab we shape and develop new practice through collaboration and experimentation. Our lab participants problem-solve creatively, with unexpected partners, whilst learning interactive skills and methods around innovation and entrepreneurship.

We are the ‘Beekeepers of Business’. There is a direct parallel between our work in the Lab, and the nature of bees both collectively and individually.

By drawing together expertise from across disciplines, we are able to transfer and share knowledge between sectors, in effect crosspollinating and brokering ideas that would not be fertilised in isolation.

We are then able to foster a ‘swarm intelligence’

“I see a demand by businesses today, for a solid foundation around decision making” when experts in one area are able to let go of what they think they know as individuals, and pool their knowledge into an understanding much greater than the sum of its parts.

Communicating the location of fertile sources of knowledge and information in a way that renders them usable by all, is expressed in the bee ‘dance’, whereby the individual bee conveys what they have discovered to the hive as a whole. In this way, we are educating across business and society, for maximum impact in both.

We are investigating emerging trends, drawing conclusions, assessing activity, and spotting patterns whilst remaining ‘bee-centric’. By this we mean that we are acting for the wider health of the community and economy.

In exploring the challenges for people and businesses when it comes to understanding and utilising the digital landscape, Prof Alan Brown, director of the Centre for Digital Economy, said: ‘‘Ultimately technology and business innovation are intimately linked.

“Businesses today are dealing with a fast speed of change and an uncertain digital landscape,

so I focus not just on the theoretical features of business, but work directly with businesses and organisations, trialling new practises to cope with technological advancements.

“Areas I’m looking at are the future of mobile technology and its impact on business innovation, personal data management and privacy.

“Having spent a number of years in industry, I see a demand by businesses today, for a solid foundation around decision making processes.

The Surrey Business School and wider University setting gives a chance for important business directions to be substantiated with academic theory, driven by problem solving and research.

“Every business facing rapid and unpredictable change will benefit from a set of techniques to cope with that change. Our modules question the fundamentals of business, building skills for the next generation of business leaders.’’

Prof Brown has recently led our Executive Education Course, delivered in the Business Insights Lab: Strategy, Management and Service Delivery in a Digital Economy, which addressed the changing landscape, equipping delegates to adapt their ways of working and develop practical solutions to effectively lead their organisations in the digital age. n

The Enterprise M3 Growth Hub If you want your business to succeed in the Enterprise M3 area, the Enterprise M3 Growth Hub is an expert advice and resource network which helps you achieve results quickly through a personal, tailored service focused on growth.

The business impact We will work with you on the areas of your business which will produce the business results you are looking for.

Who’s it for?

All businesses in the area will be able to use the Enterprise M3 Growth Hub’s Resource Network, plus there is specialist growth advice specifically targeted at the key sectors which will underpin long-term sustainable growth. The main key sectors are:

AEROSPACE & DEFENCE

ICT & DIGITAL MEDIA

PHARMACEUTICALS

PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

What’s on offer:

The Growth Service

The Resource Network There’s a host of general and sector-specific advice information and news available through our portal and over the phone. This means that whether you’re behind a desk or on the go, you have instant access to: • Resource network - a place to find key business advice, expert tips • My portal - tailored content and information • Helpline - telephone advice on any business opportunity or question facing your business • Community - facilitate, collaberate, discuss and engage • Webchat and social channels - interactive discussion with online advisers

@EM3GrowthHub

www.

www.enterprisem3growthhub.co.uk

For businesses looking to innovate and grow there’s a personal service connecting you with experts to help your growth plans. This includes: • Growth champion – a growth specialist whose focus is your plans • Bespoke growth plans – a plan developed with you that is based on your unique business and circumstances • Specialist support – the introduction of experts with a proven track record of delivering growth results with clients • Market place – amongst many other areas businesses will access expertise on: Developing new markets, Finding finance, Innovation, Product development and Developing staff • Impact assessment – the growth results really matter and we will be with you every step of the way to track progress

letstalk@enterprisem3growthhub.co.uk

0300 456 3565

“The Enterprise M3 Growth Hub is a new type of collaboration developed specifically for the Enterprise M3 area. It moves away from the old model of selling a specific service to providing a gateway to tailored support with a bespoke service for high growth potential firms provided by experienced practitioners with a particular focus on the sectors that are priorities for the LEP and for councils.�

Kevin Lloyd, Head of Economic Growth at Surrey County Council

2 In association with