North West business briefs: Together; North West Cyber Resilience Centre; Scholes Gym; Electech Innovation Cluster; Scale to Sale
A Greater Manchester business is ramping up efforts to support the plight of refugees fleeing war-torn Ukraine by offering places on its mentor scheme. Together, a specialist lender based in Cheadle, Stockport, has committed to providing positions on its long running mentorship programme.
This scheme and others run by the finance company have helped kick-start the careers of hundreds of 16 to 18-year-olds by providing training and development. Kevin Fisher, HR director at Together, said: “We’ve all been affected by the daily TV news footage of Ukrainians being forced to give up their lives and flee their homeland because of the ongoing conflict.
“That’s why we’re keen to highlight our mentorship scheme as a potential way for young people arriving from the Ukraine to secure a future career path as they try to make a new life for themselves in the UK.”
Together, which provides specialist finance and has its headquarters at Cheadle Royal Business Park, has created opportunities for hundreds of young people since it was founded in 1974 through its graduate schemes, apprenticeship and mentorship programmes. The mentorship scheme allows the employer to match a young person’s interests and abilities with suitable roles, while experienced managers can offer insight and advice.
A dozen positions have been made available on the lender’s current mentorship programme cohort to young Ukrainians.
Mr Fisher said: “We understand there may be a language barrier with some applicants, but we are confident once we have a better understanding of language levels, we can overcome this and offer our full support as we would to all young people on our mentorship programme.”
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More than 150 SMEs from across Greater Manchester are now part of a free cyber resilience programme to help them combat the ever-increasing threat of cyber fraud and cyber attacks.
The North West Cyber Resilience Centre (NWCRC) launched the Business Resilience Programme last year with funding to support 300 SMEs across Greater Manchester to access training and resources aimed at protecting their businesses and educating business owners against cyber attacks. The NWCRC is a not-for-profit venture, bringing together academia, private sector, public sector and leading cyber organisations and is headed up by seconded police officers.
Det Supt Neil Jones, managing director of the NWCRC, said: “Any type of cyber attack can affect a business’s ability to run its operations, and can easily spell the end of a business. There are numerous ways that business owners can protect themselves from this attack and train their employees to be aware of the multiple ways criminals can target businesses. Every single company should run regular cyber health checks as a standard procedure – much like having an emergency plan for fire – and ensure their employees have proper training.”
Connor Gurney, CEO of the Gurse Collective, was one of the first businesses to complete the programme and said: “All of our staff received security awareness training delivered by the centre, providing them with the skills to identify, challenge and report security threats, complementing our own in-house training.”
The Business Resilience programme is the first of its kind from the NWCRC, and has now achieved 50% of its goal of helping 300 businesses within Greater Manchester, with 150 spots left up for grabs. The programme is scheduled to run till August 2023. The NWCRC was set up in Greater Manchester in 2019 as a pilot scheme to support businesses in the region with the growing threat of cyber crime and cyber fraud.
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Arron, Paul and Alicia Scholes
Manchester United football legend Paul Scholes has joined forces with children Arron and Alicia to launch a new state-of-the-art gym, Scholes Gym, in his hometown, Oldham. The 10,000 sq ft development, designed by Mark Mason, sees a £500,000 investment in the town, bringing new life to Lees Road, and creating seven jobs.
Run by siblings, 22-year-old Arron, a Level 3 qualified personal trainer, and 20-year-old sister Alicia, a part-time professional athlete playing netball for London Pulse and Level 3 qualified personal trainer, the gym includes cardio, strength and conditioning machines, and weights from Primal Strength.
Designed over two floors, including a functional fitness area with personalised track to the ground, the facility will also support members in realising their fitness goals through a team of experts. Arron said: ”After six months of hard work it’s amazing to open the doors and welcome guests to Scholes Gym. It’s something Alicia and I have long talked of, and so to make it a reality is fantastic.”
Sibling Alicia said: “Gyms can often feel quite cold and functional spaces, we wanted to challenge that head on and create the type of warm and welcoming environment in which we, as a family, like to train – we’ve all contributed to the design. It’s early days but we’re really pleased by the response to date.”
Emphasising the importance of investing in the local community, Paul said: “Oldham is where I grew up and got a first taste of sport. To open Scholes Gym here is really important to me – it’s the sort of venue I dreamed of having access to back then and, along with Arron and Alicia, I’m pleased to be able to create it for others.”
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Electech leadership team
A new businesses network has come together to resolve some of the biggest issues facing the electech sector – while ensuring they are well placed to take advantage of huge opportunities on the horizon.
The Electech Innovation Cluster Morecambe Bay and South Lakes held its first engagement event at Lancaster University recently and unveiled big plans to support member organisations. Electech is the name given to the industry which produces the electronics, electrical hardware and embedded software essential for the existence of technology, from the tiniest mobile phone chip to huge power stations.
During the meeting, cluster board member Chris Mayne, managing director of Forsberg Services, in Heysham, outlined the current focus areas the group would take forward, while asking for more people to get involved. Following the event, he said: “The event highlighted the benefits of the cluster and the huge range of opportunities that will be available for our members. Most importantly, our aims to tackle skills and training, facilities, representation and innovation took a major step forward. We really feel this is just the start of the exciting things to come for the region.”
Kate Houlden, managing director of Like Technologies, in Lancaster, said: “Just one of the many benefits we are going to bring to our members is to improve the provision of skills in our area. Many of our members, Like Technologies included, face a skills gap meaning recruitment and retention is often a challenge.
“The cluster aims to build strong relationships between small businesses within the electech industries and local education providers so we can help influence the training available to the local community, whether that be school starters, university students or those seeking a new career in Electech. We want to ensure we retain talent in the Bay area.”
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Martin Horton
A targeted Lancashire County Council-backed business support programme has begun in the county, which will help the owners of eight fast-growing Lancashire businesses to prepare their companies for investment or sale. And, due to high demand, the programme with a cohort of up to 10 further scaleup businesses, will run in Autumn 2022.
Scale to Sale is a first of its kind collaboration being led by Lancashire County Council’s scaleup support service Two Zero and delivered by Lancashire-based sales and business strategy consultancy Sales Geek. The eight scaleup companies on the six month programme have a combined revenue of about £16m and collectively employ around 180 staff. They include well known names in Lancashire’s economy such as Chorley-based Rivington Accountants and Scope Fire & Security in Blackburn.
Over a six month period the companies will work with Sales Geek’s experts to begin to grow their firm in a sustainable way and plan for their future. They will also learn what makes a company attractive to investors and investees and implement this knowledge.
Martin Horton, director, Rivington Accountants, said: “We will all leave our business one day so it’s important to make sure that it’s in the best shape possible when we do. As well as helping me better understand my own options for the company, taking part in the Scale to Sale programme will also help Rivington to better advise our clients so they can realise the best value for their businesses when they wish to sell.”
Amin Vepari, programme manager, Two Zero, said: “Since Lancashire County Council launched our Two Zero scaleup support service in January 2020, the subject of investment readiness has always been a key topic for fast growing business. For some, the priority is raising private equity or other sources of funding, while other business owners may be looking at their exit strategy and how they can introduce a new management team to take the business through its next phase. This unique programme will give these business owners the tools to consider the options available to them and begin to prepare their business so it can grow in a structured way which is attractive to investors.”
