A recent opinion poll revealed the breadth of concern amongst SMEs at the impact of the COVID crisis, including the ability for many, at the most fundamental level, to stay afloat. As government borrowing skyrockets, this matters to the country as a whole because these firms make such a significant contribution to the Treasury in taxes.
Growing and high-potential firms in particular, though, and especially those born out of innovation and invention, are also key vital enablers as we seek to #BuildBackBetter beyond COVID. It is precisely such companies who can help create the high-value, hi-productivity and sustainable future we aim for in the UK.
So it’s timely now to recall the lament of that same Industrial Strategy that, “many of our innovative businesses are nimble, flexible and imaginative but do not grow to be substantial, big or strong,” and work harder on ways to address that second challenge.
Over the last year, we’ve been developing plans for Smarter - a new online, matchmaking platform to provide businesses with faster, tailored access to the UK’s brightest university talents. We’ve always been motivated by the brilliance of the academic researchers who work in this country and we have a passionate belief in their potential to catalyse social and environmental as well as economic impacts in the UK and beyond.
More recently, we’ve had a number of conversations that have led us to centre our launch plans around a drive to support SMEs, including in the Bristol and West region. Here, we believe, is where we can make most difference for the UK at this time. OK, the region is on our doorstep. But it is clear, from talking to LEPs and the relevant Chambers of Commerce that there is both growing appetite by the region’s high-potential businesses for greater engagement with universities and also support from wider stakeholders in the local ecosystem. The shared drive to go beyond simply recovery to reinvention and fast growth is strong.
We’re trying to offer something different to other online services also working at the hinge between business and academia.
At its simplest, we ask an SME to tell us about the change it wants to make or the challenge it needs to overcome. We share it with our network of universities who identify the most suitable academics to help. We then send the SME the offers from the universities who can pick one, get in touch and crack on with the work.
We’re doing it this way because our research has told us that businesses, and SMEs in particular, can be turned off by complex online search tools, the need to trawl university websites looking for contacts, and making nugatory calls to academics who may not want to know. So, as we launch Smarter as a service, we’re offering to do the networking on behalf of SMEs.
We’ve flipped the traditional model (for university tech transfer and knowledge exchange) and put the SME at the centre. The SME is the customer, and Smarter facilitates an ITT.
We help bridge the gulf in language and culture that can exist between business and academics. We don't expect an SME to use academic jargon or know how universities work.
And, during the current pilot, at least, SMEs pay Smarter nothing.
The big USP here is that we work with the universities’ own intermediaries, the people who know their own academics, their specialisms and personalities. It means an SME has a greater chance of getting get the right match, and fast.
The Smarter service is operating and available now and can be accessed at www.smarterke.com.
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