Business Support Assistance Increases Chance of Survival for New Businesses

Enterprise North East Trust (Enterprise) believes that improved survival rates for new businesses are a direct result of the assistance that business support organisations, such as Enterprise, provide to new businesses. 98% of businesses which receive assistance from Enterprise survive their first year of trading, 88% are still trading after year 2 and 80% continue into year three and beyond. Where businesses do not receive support from organisations such as Enterprise only 65% survive past year three.

Steve Cook, Chairman of Enterprise North East Trust, comments, "The services provided by Enterprise, as part of the Business Gateway contract help our clients to successfully face the wide variety of challenges that they come across whilst setting up and running their business. Enterprise is able to give free professional advice and counselling as well as providing access to a wealth of information for those thinking of starting their own business. For someone who has not run their own business before or who has little business experience, access to this information can make the difference between success and failure. In order to maximise the possibility for a new business to not only survive but to flourish Enterprise aim to be the first port of call for anyone considering starting their own business."

It is an important part of Enterprise’s own strategic planning in terms of providing the best business support services available that the assistance and advice does not disappear once the business has been set up; psychologically this can be very important to the new business owner; simply knowing that there is someone available to offer advice or to act as a sounding board can be invaluable.

"Pre start training, post start aftercare and support are vital to a new business if they are to improve their chances of surviving in the competitive world of business. We firmly believe that it is this support which ensures that more and more new businesses are surviving past what has always been viewed as the watershed of year three," Steve continues, "Enterprise has an extremely high survival rate across the full range of businesses that we help to get off the ground from companies specialising in down hole drilling to those carrying out navigation engineering or logistics and everything in between."

Enterprise provides business support to new and growing businesses in the North East. This can take the form of business advice as well as consultancy services including assisting businesses with their strategic development and business planning. Enterprise is able to provide assistance at all stages of business development and can provide professional objective advice. Business advisors work with businesses on an ongoing basis to ensure that they approach things in the most appropriate manner in order to obtain the best possible results.