THE Delivery Partner for
Transformational Economic Development
Designing and delivering support programmes to help small businesses to start, grow or thrive
ALP Synergy’s Economic Development services provide expert knowledge, understanding and delivery to help small businesses to start grow or thrive. Our support programmes can transform local and regional economic development, providing excellent value for money.
SME Businesses account for about 50% of all jobs in the UK, and they are constantly facing changing local and national circumstances, causing significant pressure on local economies and communities.
SME businesses need to get all of the basics right, to plan for growth and resilience, and to perform better on Net Zero. However, in our experience less than 10% of SMEs are aware of the support they are eligible for, and even less are engaging with it.
County Council, Local Authority and Economic Development clients are grappling with this challenge.
We take that pain away for our clients through our proven processes and experience, which are adapted to local needs.
Economic Development Directors in councils and growth hubs, who have funding for economic recovery, commission us to engage and support their local start-ups, small and medium sized businesses. We have a successful track record in supporting councils and growth hubs since 2014 and have achieved outstanding and award-winning results for our clients.
Our client’s see us as a trusted partner who can co-create and deliver their business support programmes
Start-Up Programmes
Our signature ‘Business Spark’ is a package of enhanced and accelerated start-up support for entrepreneur’s and early-stage businesses.
This package has been designed based on our experience of supporting over 550 pre-start entrepreneurs in the last 4 years, across Oxfordshire, Berkshire, and Worcestershire.
Start-up businesses are the lifeblood of a thriving local economy, so we design our support to help residents to get started right, to secure their first customers and to grow. Our ‘Business Spark’ package includes:
- Welcoming on-boarding processes
- Five workshops covering the key business management activities
- Expert One to One support
- Peer to Peer Support
- Business Pitching and Celebration Event
We have also delivered one day start-up workshops on behalf of clients including the Business & Intellectual Property Centre, and in 2023 we were proud to deliver a successful bilingual Start-Up programme for Ukrainian nationals to help them start-up businesses in the UK.
Business Growth Programmes
ALP Synergy Ltd has been delivering the enhanced Growth Hub offer for SMEs through Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership since 2020. ALP’s leadership and business growth programmes have helped thousands of Oxfordshire businesses to start, thrive, innovate or grow:
- increasing the reach (over 5000 ‘new businesses to OxLEP’ supported),
- identifying the key needs of over 3000 businesses through our innovative triage,
- increasing the quality of support by providing a broader range of programmes and increased access to expertise; and,
- contributing to safeguarding or creating over 1200 jobs.
Our High Growth business support programme, which has been delivered through Berkshire Growth Hub provides a range of ‘Masterclasses’ including:
- Business Planning for Growth
- Mastering your small business finances
- Sales and Marketing
- Digital Sales
- AI Tools to Grow Your Business
Our Business Accelerator programmes are currently being delivered for West Oxfordshire and Cherwell District Councils as part of their SPF (Strategic Priorities Fund) programmes.
Business Carbon Reduction
Our Net Zero Plug and Play package ‘Zero to Carbon Reduction Hero’ would help your existing SME client base to learn, create their own Carbon Reduction Plans and take action. This tried and tested package, which is used across Oxfordshire and Berkshire, generating 100s of tonnes of carbon reduction commitments will:
- Promote the reasons why SMEs should have a carbon reduction plan,
- Provide a workshop to guide SME businesses in scoping their carbon baseline emissions and completing their carbon footprint calculation,
- Provide 1 to 1 support to businesses to produce their carbon reduction plan,
- Connect businesses with relevant online guidance that they can access to inform their resourcing and financing of actions to reduce carbon.
- Collate carbon reduction data which can be shared to promote the Net Zero mission.
- Provide 1 to 1 support on adopting new to the firm processes or technologies.
Business Grant Schemes
ALP Synergy Ltd has delivered over £6million of grants to small businesses and charities in Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire and UK wide over the last 5 years across 7 different schemes.
These grant schemes have been funded through ERDF, the Containing Outbreak Management Fund, The Additional Restrictions Grant, BEIS, The Foundation for Water Research and Defra (REPF).
The grant schemes have aimed to support businesses to adapt or innovate following COVID-19, to build resilience, to grow or to take carbon reduction or environmental actions.
Hundreds of businesses have benefitted from these grants.
The Visitor Economy Grant scheme we delivered across Oxfordshire between 2022 and 2024 is celebrated in the Grant Scheme Showcase publication, produced with the grant recipients
Go to Resources
We are experts at designing and rapidly implementing new business support programmes to meet client’s needs. Our programmes are underpinned through the broad range of services we offer which include:
Looking for a trusted Delivery Partner?
If you have local economic development ambitions (e.g. businesses started, supported or growing, engaging with Net Zero), then get in touch for a virtual coffee.