Business Gateway is a publicly funded service contributing to the economic well being of Scotland by providing access to free business support services.
Business Gateway has strong partnerships with a wide variety of organisations to help deliver the best advice and support to Scottish businesses.
They offer a range of professional resources, support and tools to help you learn new skills, create new opportunities and develop sustainable strategies for growth.
Currently, as well as 1:1 local advice to help you through the coronavirus, Business Gateway offer support webinars, advice on funding and information about official guidance. This includes online resources, free market research and market reports.
The great news is, if they don’t have the answer to a specific question, they can connect you with someone who will.
Detailed below is a summary of Business Gateway delivery (including Digital Boost) across Tayside for April – November 2020.
Business Gateway Delivery – Tayside
| Annual Target | Contractor Profile | Actual October 2020 | Actual to Date | Flat Profile | |
| Business Start Ups | 500 | 378 | 48 | 689 | 333 |
| Early Stage Growth* | 50 | 30 | 5 | 40 | 33 |
| Start Up Workshops | 50 | 30 | 5 | 45 | 33 |
| Existing Bus Workshops | 12 | 8 | 0 | 18 | 8 |
| GAS Referrals | 42 | 24 | 0 | 42 | 28 |
| COVID 19 S&T | 210 | 158 | 15 | 159 | 140 |
| Digital Boost Events | 30 | 19 | 5 | 29 | 19 |
Business Gateway Delivery by LA area to November 2020
| Angus | Dundee | Perth & Kinross | Total | |
| Business Start Ups | 208 | 254 | 227 | 689 |
| Early Stage Growth* | 13 | 18 | 9 | 40 |
| Start Up Workshops | 16 | 19 | 10 | 45 |
| Existing Bus Workshops | 5 | 6 | 7 | 18 |
| GAS Referrals ** | 10 | 14 | 18 | 42 |
| COVID 19 S&T | 30 | 65 | 64 | 159 |
| Digital Boost Events | 8 | 12 | 9 | 29 |
- Business start-up target has been met/exceeded. The Contractor will continue to provide advice and support to those individuals looking to start a business and will report the outcomes generated. This level of delivery is partly due to carry over from 2019/20, however there has been significantly more interest in business start-up than anticipated, particularly for lifestyle businesses.
- Early stage growth is ahead of profile
- Start Up workshops are ahead of profile, with the target for Growth workshops now met/exceeded. Delivery is now all on-line via Zoom (Elevator have a professional licence for Zoom and therefore should have no issues with delivery through this method).
- Business Gateway National Unit have developed more on-line workshops via webinars and on-line tutorials for both Business Gateway mainstream workshops and Digital Boost. There has also been a focus on delivering topics that are relevant at this time covering business resilience, HR etc.
- The Covid 19 Survive and Thrive service is slightly on profile.
- Growth Advisory Service target has been met. There are some indications that a few businesses are finding new opportunities in the current situation and Business Gateway are supporting businesses to be in the best position to exploit these opportunities.
- In terms of Growth Pipeline, there is no Scottish Enterprise support in terms of products but businesses can still access the advice of SE Specialists. SE are currently developing their new Opportunity Management approach and will be delivering sessions to communicate this to BG and LA’s..
- Digital Boost funding was confirmed towards the end of April. On line workshop delivery commenced in May and is proving very popular with events fully booked and almost full attendance.
- The Digital Boost one to one service is now in place with referrals for the service now coming through. SG have recently allocated additional funds for Digital Boost, the Business Gateway National Unit are currently working the new DB grants.
*Early Stage Growth (ESG) clients are start-up clients or businesses which have been trading for less than eighteen months, and plan to create additional jobs in their local economy.
**Growth Advisory Service (GAS) businesses projecting increase in turnover of £200k+ over next three years