Well quite frankly I cannot wait to get to the end of the year, I don’t think I am alone in that much of the work of the BEC this year has been supporting businesses through very challenging times and situations. The pandemic seemed hard five years ago, but since then the cost-of-living crisis, and the struggle for small business survival has become very real for business owners.
It has not all been doom and gloom though and 2024 brought many highlights, we welcomed the start of Amplify which is our flag ship business support programme financed by UKSPF and the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. We have seen 30+ businesses on the programme to date food, care and other businesses have benefited from one-to-one mentoring and a range of training to support business sustainability at all levels and overarchingly achieve growth. We welcomed Julie Cleijne as part of our mentoring team on the programme and her expertise in food sustainability has been invaluable to all the businesses not just those food related.
We were delighted that this programme has enabled us to reconnect with Care City CIC, who started in our building with some support from us on getting going a few years ago, but it has been great to collaborate with them on innovation ideas for care businesses. They do great things in the borough so do take a look at them and their impact.
Early in 2024 we welcomed two new board members to our board, alongside the existing board members who have been with us from the start. Karthik and Geraud bring a fresh perspective to our work, and we look forward to further contributions from them next year.
After a long process, we were delighted to receive funding from City Bridge foundation to work with social sector businesses in the same we do with commercial businesses. We are seven months into a three-year programme and have already seen some great outcomes, we have supported four social enterprise start-ups, a conversion from a limited company to a CIC which has a huge opportunity to grow. Final Checks Academy CIC will move early next year to the film studios and will continue to deliver there film and media make up courses in the best location for them and more importantly continue to provide first class training and industry placements to young people 16+ who want this to be there chosen career.
Thinking about young people we committed to ten work placements for Year 10 and 11 pupils across the borough secondary schools. These young people always bring enthusiasm and ideas and keep our mature staff on their toes!
There are far too many businesses to mention individually but on reflection it has been a transformative year for us marked by some key trends and lessons.
Our biggest trend was the development of resilience we saw those businesses that prioritised resilience outperformed their competitors. This year highlighted the importance of adaptability and robust decision-making processes to navigate economic uncertainties.
We started to include AI Integration and there is no doubt that AI has become an essential tool for businesses, significantly improving operational efficiency. Companies that adopted AI solutions saw a notable increase in productivity and customer insights. I was with a colleague yesterday from the social sector who told me they had used Chat GPT to support the writing of a funding bid, wow that really is progress!
We also saw micro employers embrace employee wellbeing; undeniably this is not such an easy task for small businesses who do not have the finance and resources of big organisations. However, the focus on supporting mental health and flexible work arrangements has been significant amongst our small business community.
We noted a shift in customer centric businesses we have been ‘banging on’ about brand story for years, we are committed to our small business community and their niche in getting their customers to understand and embrace their brand. It worked this year, we saw businesses who valued their customer experience grow, and how personalisation became a key driver. Again, Care City have supported this work with the care businesses it has been great to see the growth in them.
Our work in the Voluntary and Community sector or social sector as we prefer to call it now has seen the BEC work alongside the BD Collective for the last five years and now BD giving to work together for the benefit of the community. The key message of collaboration over competition has seen new ventures and funding come into the borough and let’s face it Barking and Dagenham still is a community need help and support across many areas. We look forward to seeing how BD Giving bring a fresh perspective to forming the new Community Benefit Society which will lead on collaboration over competition and support a thriving social sector.
At the end of this year, we said goodbye to Paul Creavin one of our business mentors who has hung up his hat to retire, his reflections will be published soon but he will be missed. His ‘old fashioned’ bank manager style approach was very much appreciated by all the businesses we work with, and we wish him and his wife Patricia a very long and healthy retirement.
In the final weeks of this year, we added a new strand to Amplify in working with construction companies who want to develop their work and opportunities to the borough. We brought in an old friend to BEC in Glen Addis formerly of East London Business Place to support this, there will be more about this early next year.
Lastly from me is the final list of thank you’ s to the businesses we have supported who come back and say how helpful our support was, that means a lot. To our very small team who keep the show on the road in the buildings, and our fabulous mentors and trainers who are part of the BEC family. Our partner anchor institutions who see the value of what we do and how collaboration is key to all our success. To our contractors who support our work and in particular Innocom who manage our comms and marketing, you are a testament to our growth, if you had said four years ago lets work together but we are in South Africa and the Netherlands and we won’t meet often but we can do it, I would never have believed it but it does and we are grateful for your input and support, and lastly but by no means least to my work wife Donna Finley who will do almost anything she is asked unless it involves spiders 😊 thank you life would be less tolerable without you as part of our journey!
Wishing you all a peaceful and happy festive season and a Happy New Year and please do join us in mid-January or Hump time as we call it 😊 for lunch and to find out about what we are up to in 2025.
If you know me well you will always know I like the final word on every level I am moving into 2025 with the following motto in my mind same girl, same name, different mindset, new game!
