Business services: law, marketing, consulting, recruitment, printing and security

Tender description

The Sheffield City Region (SCR) Growth Hub was set up in response to the economic challenges set out in the Sheffield City Region strategic economic plan and subsequent SCR ESIF strategy. The Growth Hub aims to provide a service to SME's providing quality assured business growth specialists and sector advisors with a single point of access so that businesses in the Sheffield City Region can access the support it needs to thrive. We are looking to appoint a supplier of these specialist professional services for a 4-year term based on a contract initially of 2 years with a 2 year option to extend based on confirmation of budgets and appropriateness of service. The Sheffield City Region (SCR) Growth Hub was set up in response to the economic challenges set out in the Sheffield City Region strategic economic plan and subsequent SCR ESIF strategy. Both documents argue that a latent demand for high quality business support and advice is a barrier to growth in many of our ~44,000 SMEs and therefore set out the SCR’s ambition to put in place a ‘world-class’ support offer structured around the principles of a ‘Growth Hub’ i.e. a business support offer that: — offers a consistent service across the SCR; is a partnership between public and private sectors to maximise quantum and quality of business support available, — prioritises publicly funded interventions on the basis of economic impact, and — complements and does not displace the private sector. SCR’s Growth Hub aims to provide a better deal for SCR businesses – both SME’s and Large Enterprises,offering a uniformed quality assured service, with a single point of access and a near total removal of internal boundaries, so that every business in the Sheffield City Region can access the support it needs to thrive. The Growth Hub operates under a Hub and spoke model and offers business support across 6 themed (spoke) areas: — access to finance, — skills bank, — export, — innovation, — new business, — growth demand. The ‘spokes’ of the Growth Hub offer a range of services to support business growth. This can involve individual 1-2-1 information, diagnostic, guidance and support from a team of business growth specialists and spoke specific advisory support individuals; facilitation of application to SCR and Growth Hub funded initiatives; signposting and facilitation to local, regional and national offers of service that cover the areas mentioned. The central Gateway service (the Hub) that performs an initial triage function to all queries posed to the Growth Hub, whether this be by telephone, email or face to face and aims to connect the business to the most appropriate source of support required within the shortest timeframe. In addition, a number of centrally managed services exist enabling businesses to effectively self-support and diagnose their requirements. All accessible from the Growth Hub website www.scrgrowthhub.co.uk these include an interactive regional and national business event calendar; a self-assessment tool and productivity calculator focussing specifically on the challenges and opportunities presented by Brexit; a support ‘Portal’detailing all known business support initiatives; and a filterable directory of third party training and support providers. Launched in April 2016, the Growth Hub has just celebrated its third birthday and with it, the significant milestone of engaging support to 6 000 businesses in the SCR. In 2018, a comprehensive review of the Growth Hub activity to date was produced, reviewing its original brief, achievements reached and suggestions for future operation and direction. At the time of this request to participate being issued, an evaluation of the impact of Growth Hub is currently underway to identify and understand the specific impacts that its’ activity has contributed to, both directly and indirectly and how these can be measured, evidenced and demonstrated.