Education and training services

Tender description

The Council is inviting tenders for the delivery of a second e-Business Support Programme. The programme will offer a package of flexible and responsive support aimed at improving the knowledge, skills and application of digital business tools by businesses based in the Royal Borough. The contract will run for a period of three years, starting from January 2018. It is anticipated that the programme will run from January 2018 and support a minimum of 400 Royal Greenwich based businesses over three years. The programme is intended to benefit trading SMEs and is not a start-up programme. It is aimed at SMEs who have a trading history or have already started trading from all areas of the Borough. The emphasis is on business support; this is not intended to be solely a training programme although training will clearly feature. There will need to be a balance of one to one and group activities that ensures the service is responsive to the needs of individual businesses drawn from a diverse base in terms of sector, size, experience and technical knowledge. The programme should deliver a package of flexible and responsive support that will help businesses identify and build or expand their on-line presence and increase use of digital media and tools. This should include provision of one to one business support including help to develop bespoke digital business plans and follow up support to ensure implementation and application of knowledge/ skills gained. The programme will need to offer a menu of support to develop skills and knowledge of digital technology and applications in the following key areas: — E-Commerce; digital business tools (CRM systems, accounting etc) — On line marketing and trading (taking orders and payment on-line and stock control) — International trading on line — Social media for business (individual businesses and groups of businesses where this supports supply chain development) — Establishing a strong on line presence (website design/creation) — E-tendering and crowd funding — Cyber security and data protection NB This list is not exhaustive; other areas will be added in response to business needs and changing technology.