This section of our resource guide for preparing Local Economic Assessments contains links to information about business and enterprise.
Understanding local patterns of business and enterprise—including how these have developed, how they're predicted to develop, and which companies or sectors are (or have potential to be) particularly significant—will be essential in informing developing local economic partnerships and strategies.
The intelligence in a Local Economic Assessment can also highlight where resources can most productively be targeted to improve local economic development. Areas the LEA can usefully address include:
- Key drivers for private sector growth, and effects of historic patterns on future growth
- The factors underpinning differences in business start-up, growth and survival performance compared with other areas
- Key knowledge/innovation assets and how well they're embedded in the local economy
- What specialisms exist, where your local area has a comparative advantage and which sectors and companies make significant contributions to wider economic performance (for example, in terms of GVA, productivity, innovation)
- What local businesses see as key factors supporting or hindering business investment and economic growth in the area
To address these questions, these data sources can be used to carry out local and comparative analysis. There's also a wide range of analysis covering the West Midlands and local authorities or sub-regions. Some of this can be used as templates for other local research. We've also collated some guidance and examples of business surveys, as well as some other resources showing examples of detailed research.
Browse the resources using these links:
The Observatory's enterprise and innovation team works with a range of partners to provide ongoing analysis of business and enterprise across the West Midlands. Our skills team also have an ongoing work programme looking at recession issues and ongoing skills needs.
However, much local intelligence can only be gained through local business surveys – we have collected a few of these here as examples, but each local area will have different questions to ask of their business community. Using the data sources and wider regional and national analysis to home in on likely issues can help in designing locally-relevant surveys.
We hope you find this resource guide useful. You can be notified when new resources are added via this RSS feed or email alert.
If you have resources you think others would find useful, please submit them to our Resource Catalogue (requires login) or contact stephen.howarth@wmro.org.