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Leicestershire businesses invest in the future.
22/04/2008
Gloomy economic forecasts are failing to depress the thirst of local businesses for investment says Hilary Whaley of the East Midlands New Technology Initiative (NTI).
East Midlands NTI provides grants of up to £10,000 for firms to invest in new technology and links them with the region’s top universities and colleges for industry specific staff training all the way to degree level. It says the demand for grants and training is as strong as ever with increasing numbers of applications reaching the office each month.
Hilary said: “In the past year we have given match funded new technology grants of £625,000 to local businesses and we have a steady flow of enquiries and applications which shows no sign of slowing down. We awarded 50% more in grant funding in 2007/2008 than the previous year and expect to increase that even more in the financial year just started. We already have some 45 enquiries in the pipeline since the beginning of April.
“Each grant represents a true investment in the future of the local economy as firms take their business into new markets, employ more staff and challenge sector leaders for their contracts. A condition of the grant provision is that employees must be enrolled on suitable, NTI recognised training.
“The East Midlands NTI has helped 187 businesses in the last year alone, helping them to create 35 new jobs and safeguard many more.”
The East Midlands NTI is unique in its role in acting as a catalyst for so many colleges, universities and business sector organisations to work together – and jointly to collaborate with small and medium sized businesses. It has given over £300,000 match funded grants to its member education institutions in the last financial year to invest in new technology specifically to support businesses. Businesses can work with postgraduate students and the new technology for research, product development and new marketing skills.
The East Midlands NTI focuses on four industry sectors: Construction, Creative Industries, Food and Drink and High Performance Engineering.
Leicestershire’s Quartz TSL create highly sophisticated electronic printed circuit boards and bespoke electronic assemblies provide state of the art products for their clients while using increasingly outdated computer stock control and management software in their own offices.
So they turned to the East Midlands NTI for a match funded grant to help bring their software systems back up to date.
They invested in a new bespoke computer software package, and machinery to help run their systems leaner and to stay ahead of new European legislation on lead free soldering – an investment which Quartz project manager, Paul Mousley, says will pay for itself within a year: “As each of our products is bespoke electronic assembly we need to be able to trace parts and source new components quickly – by using the stock and management computer system we are saving time and are able to find the cheapest suppliers at the touch of a button. We are saving hours and hundreds of pounds on some transactions.”
But, like other NTI grant recipients, Quartz discovered the biggest benefits were working with NTI colleges and Universities. To qualify for an NTI match funded grant companies must enrol one or more employee on an appropriate training course. As well as sending staff on a Lean Manufacturing course Quartz attended an “energy and water efficiency in buildings” course at De Montfort University, as Paul explained: “Through the course we began working with academics at the university who offered to come and give our factory and offices an energy audit. As a result they have been able to recommend ways that we can save money, and have signposted us to other grants which could be available.
“The benefits of the NTI spread so much further than we expected. It has been an incredibly beneficial process and no way could we have imagined how useful it would be.
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