Skip to main content

Business Growth and Investment

Business Growth & Investment

Developing a coherent support offer to enable our businesses to become more enterprising, innovative and productive, excelling in global markets.

Increase firm-level productivity

  • Grow our capital investment programme to enable high-value business growth - commercial/ employment land and incubation centres/Enterprise Zones/Science Parks, continue to develop on the success of Oceansgate and deliver a Marine Business Technology Park;
  • Support innovation and knowledge-based growth; develop the market around Innovation in Healthy Ageing & Health Technologies;
  • Raise the proportion of businesses exporting;
  • Increase digital absorption and adoption of digital technologies within our existing businesses (Digital/Connected Plymouth; Digital Utilisation project), and connect our key sectors with digital markets to explore new uses and improve products and processes;
  • Increase investment in our competitive advantages and key sectors;
  • Stimulating a culture of management excellence across our businesses;
  • Develop clusters around our high-value, key sectors, with established status which businesses can identify with and can attract new business investment, and supply chains that local industries can support; continue to work in partnership with Maritime UK South West;
  • Sector deals with Government around our high-value, key sectors – such as tourism;
  • Support vulnerable sectors, such as our fishing industry, and enabling sectors such as construction through bespoke support.

Increase the number of start-ups and scale-ups, and extend survival rates

  • Work with partners to facilitate an integrated and accessible business support offer for SMEs and scale-up, not only to improve business survival rates, but to support them to thrive, building on our successful Growth Hub resource and existing business representatives and partnerships across the city
  • Work with partners to encourage entrepreneurship and provide start-up support, ensuring young businesses acquire the resilience to survive beyond the support programme that they receive
  • Work to maintain working relationships with our key business players, to enable conversations to take place in situations where their success in the city is threatened by outside factors
  • Work with partners to simplify access to finance: signposting and investor readiness
  • Connect businesses with existing research and innovation capabilities
  • Encourage business-to-business mentoring.

Attract and support new business investment and FDI

  • High-value inward investment and FDI
  • Develop clusters around our high-value, key sectors, with established status which businesses can identify with and can attract new business investment, and supply chains that local industries can support
  • Sector deals with Government around our high-value, key sectors

Support our social enterprises

  • Create an integrated and accessible business support offer tailored to the specific needs, e.g. around legal structures and social investment, of social enterprises
  • Support and promote business excellence
  • Co-ordinate innovative funding opportunities, targeted at local bottom up economic initiatives and social enterprises