1. Robbie Beak
Advantage West Midlands
• Partner of UK Trade & Investment
• Economic Development in the Heart of England
• Funded by UK Government to Provide Free Services
to International Businesses
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3. Company dilemma
Expanding to a new market poses RISK ….
to your TIME & MONEY
• Is there a market for my product?
• How do I create a business?
• How do I recruit people?
• Where do I base my office?
• Who will help with Legal / Accounting / Tax?
• Where do I start ?
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4. BRIDGE TO GROWTH
OFFER
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5. Partners
Who are our Network of Core Partners?
• Advantage West Midlands – Regional Support
• EBS – Company Establishment and Support
• Martineau - Legal
• Tenon – Auditing & Taxation
• Regional Science Parks – Research & Office Space
• JMB – Lead Generation
• Estrelas – Recruitment
• UK Trade & Investment – Wider UK Support
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6. Bridge to Growth
Offer
Services offered by our Partners:
• Set up of a UK Limited company - FREE
• Office premises in West Midlands - RENT FREE
• Professional services:
•Market Research - 10 days FREE
•Legal advice - unlimited general advice FREE
•Financial advice - unlimited general advice FREE
•Lead generation - market relevant database FREE
& heavily discounted lead generation
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7. Advantage West Midlands
BTG Specific Normal RDA Services
Free / Discounted Information on:
Partner Services • Salaries
• Company • Premises
Establishment • Skills availability
• Location + • Geography
• Marketing • Business Networks
• Legal • Industry Associations
• Financial • Access to Finance
• Discounted Lead • Introduction to
Generation professional services
• Economic profile
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9. What’s the UK’s position?
• 6th largest economy in the world
• It has one of the lowest rates of corporation tax (28%)
• Forecast to have the strongest business environment of all major
European economies for the period 2005-09
• Largest recipient of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the world after
the US
• Has one of the lowest barriers to FDI in the industrialised world
• Is a leading global trading nation
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10. The West Midlands Offer
Access
Skills
Cost
Support
Experience
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11. Access to markets
& customers
• 82% of the total UK population are within 150 miles
• The Region’s 9 motorways and central location have
made it the home of many distribution companies’ ‘hubs’
• Birmingham is a major railway centre with 170 daily
services to London
• Birmingham International Airport has direct flights to
the USA, Middle East & Asia as well as mainland
Europe; over 100 scheduled destinations by 12/08
• Major international conference facilities at the NEC
and the ICC
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12. Skills
• West Midlands population is 5,365,400 – 9% of the British total.
– We have a highly skilled and flexible work force of 3,300,000.
• At the heart of the region is Birmingham, which is the second largest city in the UK
and has a population of over 1 million people
• The West Midlands has some of the best performing educational institutions in the
country.
– 13 Universities, as well as several colleges of higher education, which between
them have 183,120 enrolled students. We also have two of the UK’s top 5
business schools (at Aston and Warwick Universities)
– Our universities produce 35,555 graduates and 14,780 postgraduates annually.
The region has particular strengths in computer science, medicine, business
administration, engineering and technology, and education.
– Several of the country’s best performing primary and secondary schools are also
to be found in the West Midlands.
• The West Midlands has a range of internationally recognised research institutions.
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13. Skills and Labour availability
• The West Midlands is one of the top 5 regions in the UK for technical IT Skills
• We have 239,000 persons with technical IT skills
– 159,000 with advanced programming skills
– 80,000 other technical IT professionals
• We also have a latent talent pool: 107,000 of those 239,000 are not currently
working in a technical IT role
• We have c.40,000 students studying computer science and/or business
studies in our 13 universities in any one year
• Those universities provide a talent pool of 4,000 skilled ICT graduates
every year.
• IBM rates Aston University’s IT graduates as the best in Europe.
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14. Skills and Labour
availability
Age Profile of Current IT Professionals in the West Midlands
55-64, 65+, 18-24,
8% 2% 14%
45-54,
22%
25-34,
30%
35-44,
24%
Source: Oxford Intelligence
• Birmingham is the youngest city in Europe, so the talent pool will continue
to expand.
• Birmingham has beaten London, Paris, Rome, Madrid and Berlin to be
named the best business environment in Europe.
Source: The European Cities Entrepreneurship Ranking
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15. Skills and Labour
availability
CBI/AXA absence and labour turnover survey 2008, showing % staff turnover rates
per region
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16. Cost – a good
value region
• Rates of pay for people working in every job category of ICT in The
West Midlands are lower than the national average
– Birmingham's prime office space is up to 40% cheaper than in
London
– Birmingham City Centre office spaces range in price from
• £90 per sq meter
• £300 per sq meter
– 9 Science Parks affiliated to UKSPA:
• Staffordshire Technology Park
• Coventry University Technology Park
• Longbridge Technology Park
• Aston Science Park
• Keele University Science and Business Park
• Malvern Hills Science Park
• University of Warwick Science Park
• Wolverhampton Science Park
• Birmingham Research Park, University of Birmingham
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17. Access to Suppliers
& Partners
• Not For Profit Organisations Funded by AWM
Up to £10,000 of assistance provided via consultancy and equipment hire
– Software testing centre - Icentrum
– Regional RFID centre - ITfutures
– UK centre for Open Source Software - Openadvantage
– UK Cluster for Photonics - Photonics Cluster
– UK’s IT Association - UKITA
– Wireless Telecoms Development Project - WMMW
– Computational Intelligence - Cercia
– Serious Games Development - Serious About Games
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18. In Good Company
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19. Testimonial AT&T
• A quarter of all of AT&T's European employees are based in the West Midlands
at the company's state of the art data hosting centre
• "Originally, AT&T came to the West Midlands as a result of the acquisition of Istel, a
company that provided IT services to, amongst others, the automotive manufacturing
sector. That was at the end of the 80s. Since then, we have strengthened our
presence in the region and now employ around 1,000 people here.
• The region's skilled workforce and quality of life have also contributed to AT&T's UK
success. "We have no problem recruiting and retaining people with language
skills and telecomms expertise," continues Phil. "The high standard of living in the
West Midlands means that people who come here tend to remain. I am one of them. I
came here 20 years ago from the South East and I have never returned. There I was
commuting for almost two hours. Here I can be home in 10 minutes and I have the
advantage of Stratford-on-Avon, Worcester and Evesham virtually on my doorstep.
Housing is more affordable, too."
• Interview given by Phil Coathup, International Public Relations Director.
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20. Testimonial Webropol
• As Webropol had no UK connections and no experience in making the necessary
arrangements for establishing a business in the UK – such as registering a company
and finding a suitable location – the help and support of AWM and BTG made the
West Midlands the obvious choice: though the company did investigate the
Region’s demographics and quality of life before making the final commitment. Once
the decision had been made, the other advantages of the Region became clear to
Henrik, including the central location, the proximity to Birmingham (providing big city
credibility), and the international airport.
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• On his first visit to the Region in May 2007, together with his Chairman, Henrik was
impressed by the countryside and towns such as Kenilworth, Leamington Spa and
• Stratford-upon-Avon, as well as finding Birmingham “much nicer than I’d expected!”
– Interview given by Henrik Romar, UK Manager
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21. In Conclusion
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22. Conclusion
The West Midlands is the best place to locate an IT business because of our
• Access
– Centre of the country – 82% of the population within 150 miles
• Cost
– Salary costs of all grades of IT position are below the national average
– Good value property options are available in city centre locations with grants
available
• Skills
– A pool of 107,000 skilled IT workers available with 4,000 new IT graduates every
year
• Experience
– Home to 8,600 IT companies, including IBM, Fujitsu, HP, Capgemini and Oracle
• Support
– Bridge to Growth
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23. BTG Conclusion
• De-risk Entry Into UK
– Comprehensive, integrated package of free and
relevant establishment services
– Ideal geographical location to access UK customers
and markets
• Open to companies with intent to set up a company
and physical presence in UK’s West Midlands
Region.
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