By Holly Y, Network Manager at GM Business Growth Hub

Q: You’re a Network Manager… what does that mean in practice?

A: I manage a team of four Innovation Network Executives. During a typical week, we'll be at external events around Greater Manchester, meeting our network and making new connections. We wear two hats. One is being totally in the know about what’s going on in Greater Manchester’s innovation ecosystem – the programmes, the funding and the huge number of other resources to support businesses. 

There’s so much out there that it’s impossible for someone who’s trying to run a business to be fully up to speed with it all. We’re here to hunt out all the opportunities and make sure businesses don’t miss out on something that’s going to really help them.

Then, the other part of what we do, closely related, is digging down into where the specific opportunities for our individual clients are. Maybe someone needs independent testing for a product – in that case, we might connect them to a university or specialist facility. 

Q: Our organisation provides business services – what added value would we get from collaborating with you?

A: It’s important that our clients get the right support for them, either from the public or private sector. We're not looking to duplicate or challenge the expertise that's coming out of the private sector; on the contrary, we’re here to complement the support that they're giving to their clients.

For example, if a client needs support in R&D tax relief, we’ll refer them into the ecosystem. Likewise, if our network knows that their client could benefit from what we offer, they’re able to refer them to us. This creates a win-win situation: businesses get additional support, and those within our network are able to provide a better level of customer service for theirs client, which in turn helps them to strengthen their value proposition. 

Q: Aside from referrals, how else can we collaborate?

A: There’s our new Innovation Network, which is a constantly updated web resource that profiles all the current business support programmes, resources, and funding calls from across Greater Manchester and beyond.

There’s also the potential for us to collaborate on events. Across our team, we’ve got specialists in just about every area of innovation you could think of, and we’re happy to provide expert speakers and panellists, or run an innovation drop-in clinic, for example, where our priorities align.   

Q: Who else can partner with the Innovation Service?

A: We have great relationships with lots of sector networks, membership organisations, meet-up groups, accelerator programmes, business parks and so on, which we work with in a number of ways. The main takeaway is that we’re able to refer ‘our’ businesses into their programmes, groups etc., which obviously helps them to reach a larger pool of businesses in Greater Manchester.

Q: What are tangible benefits does a business get out of this innovation ecosystem?

A: Our Innovation Specialists talk with businesses every day that are benefitting from support on all manner of things, from progressing an idea through to commercialisation, to receiving funding to secure a Knowledge Transfer Partnership.

For companies operating within health innovation; clean growth; advanced materials and manufacturing; and digital, creative and media sectors, there’s the Innovation Navigator programme, which accelerates cutting-edge projects to commercialisation –  it’s been likened to a kind of GPS, providing businesses with the fastest and most efficient route to market.

Some companies we work with took a bit of convincing that they needed any help at all. I think a lot of people get stuck with this idea that they're in a specialist area and they can only sell their product or service to one type of market, or it's only got one use, and very often that’s not the case.

What we can do is support them to think about what other uses or customers there might be, and help them to think about their business in a different way, shifting that mindset. Access to state-of-the-art facilities and vast pools of knowledge across loads of disciplines opens the door to a new world of opportunities. And we make sure they’re not wasting time figuring out what support is out there – we shortcut that process.

Much of the support is part- or fully-funded, too, which is obviously a really important factor.

Q. What would you say to someone whose interested has been peaked but isn’t convinced?

A: Simple, “You don't know what you don't know.” Have a chat with us and see if you think we can help you. 

We’re always happy to have an initial conversation, and then you can go away and decide whether you think it's for you or not. There's no commitment or expectations on you upfront – we’ll answer your questions and tell you more about how we might be able to be of use.

Take a look at the online Innovation Network I mentioned too – that’ll give businesses some idea of the breadth of support out there.

Interested in collaborating with us on Innovation?  Contact us today.