Swindon start-ups get award-winning Outset business support
Swindon Borough Council has commissioned leading business and economic development company YTKO to deliver its award-winning Outset business start-up support in the town.
The new service has been made possible thanks to a successful bid by YTKO, supported by Swindon Borough Council and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), to support the creation of new businesses and new jobs in Swindon over the next two years.
Outset was chosen, says Cllr Garry Perkins, Swindon Borough Council’s Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Culture, to help drive positive change and transformation for Swindon, which has continued to expand over the last decade, despite a prevailing downward trend in employment.
“Swindon’s private and public sector partners, like the rest of the UK, are facing up to the challenges of recession and constraints on funding,” he said, “Creating new jobs, developing the skills of our residents and ensuring that many more young people are working in Swindon is an absolute priority.
“Outset Swindon is part of a collaborative strategy for growth and a more prosperous outlook for people who are unemployed but want to live and work here.”
Outset Swindon will provide a flexible, community-based range of services for anyone interested in exploring enterprise to start their own business. Starting in mid-March, Outset Swindon will include workshops, one-to-one sessions, mentoring, events and learning that unravels the crucial aspects of starting and growing a business, from developing a business idea and starting to trade, to marketing for and managing growth, and how to make a business investment-ready, to secure finance for further product and business development.
After winning the UK’s BIS Enterprising Britain Award for Promoting Enterprise last year, YTKO’s Outset business start-up support programme beat nominations from 30 countries to win the European Commission’s European Enterprise Promotion Awards’ highest accolade for promoting sustainable enterprise in Europe.