business premises: honey pots & hives- maximizing the potential of rural enterprise hubs - dr...
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Honey Pots & Hives: Maximising the potential of rural enterprise hubs
Dr Paul CowieRural Enterprise Support Workshop
Enterprise Research Centre27th February 2014
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The CRE/RGN partnershipOne of five UK Government pilot programs funded from 2012 -2015 to pilot new ways to overcome barriers to economic growth in rural areasNE RGN theme was ‘rural enterprise hubs’Part of the CRE research project was to establish what a rural enterprise hub was and what it should do.
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• Building on the rural economy knowledge base already out there:– Dominated by atomised microbusinesses – Significantly higher levels of home-based businesses– Difficulty in gaining access to extra-local markets and
networks– Overcoming dominant preconceptions of rural
businesses: lifestyle businesses, low-tech and no-growth.
• How do rural enterprise hubs fit into this picture?
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• Overview of hubs– There is a mix ownership: 50% private (most large estates); 33% not-
for-profit; 17% local authority – Smallest hub (Amble 4ways) 7 units– Largest (Berwick Incubator) 35 units– Range of units from 9m2 to 473m2
– Not as much physical flexibility as expected – only 2 were able to adjust the size of units and mainly by letting two adjacent units
– Not much flexibility in relation to tenure. Only 1 allowed subletting/sharing and 2 worked on ‘easy in, easy out terms’
– Fear of unknown and lack of legal capacity to accommodate flexible arrangements
– They are under financial pressure: higher overheads, more empty units and longer re-let times.
– Significant amounts of cross-subsidy within property portfolios
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• Hubs are spread thinly across the region
• Most are focused on accessible rural locations
• However this is not a complete picture
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• Building a typology:• Two dimensions to
differentiate hubs:– X–axis relates to the
provision of services and support – traditional incubator differentiation
– Y-axis relates to nature of hub: honeypot or hive – the rural dimension.
• Gives 4 broad typologies of hubs
A destination hub which is only lightly managed
A destination hub which
wide ranging / intensive support’
A hub with mainly B2B occupiers
which is only lightly
managed
A hub with mainly B2B
occupiers with wide ranging /
intensive support’
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• The stakeholder engagement with hub owners/managers revealed a number of issues:– Hubs are businesses in their own right.– They feel as isolated and disconnected as the businesses the
host.– Most have little or no experience of managing this type of
premises.– They needed to be networked as much as the businesses within
them.
• The NE Hub network has now been founded. – Links rural and urban hubs in the NE– Shares best practice– Helps business move to grow-on space. – Still finding its feet and developing
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• Hub Occupiers• General statistics
– Younger businesses in hubs than general pop.
– Average FT employees = 4.9 (4.5 in RBS)
– Average PT employees =1 (2 in RBS)
Rural Business
Survey (2009) Hub Occupier Survey (2013)
0 - 2 years 8% 41%
Over 2 - 5 years 16% 6%
Over 5 - 10 years 20% 29%
Over 10 - 20 years 20% 12%
Over 20 - 50 years 25% 12%
Over 50 years 11% 0%
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• Customers– More likely to be B2B
than B2C– More likely to serve a
market which is regional or national than general rural business pop.
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Rent
Flexib
ility
Communal sp
ace
Share
d promotional
materia
l
Networki
ng
Business
Support
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
120%
Factors influencing move to hub
Of no re-levence
Not relevant
No opinion
Relevent
Very rel-evant
Better
IT
Collaborati
on
Buss Dev
Prog
Priavte
Capita
l
Skills
Train
ing
Bussiness
Support
Agency
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
120%
Barriers to growth - Hub Oc-cupier Survey
Strongly disagree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Agree
Strongly Agree
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• This seems to suggest a two stage process. Possibly a transition.
• 58% of businesses in hubs had moved there from home.
• This suggested rent and flexible letting terms can be used to help ease the transition to a more commercial business outlook.
• Later support can be included to foster collaboration once they are settled in the hub.
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• The final chart shows the networking activity currently taking place in the hubs.
• Again in contrast to expressed wishes very little collaboration taking place.
• Lots of informal networking but not clear what added value this brings
Info
rmal
Form
al
Traini
ng
Collab
orat
e New
Bus
Collab
orat
e Pro
mo
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
120%
Networking Activity within hubs
Daily
Weekly
Monthly
Less than Once a month
Never
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• RGN has supported the development or improvement of 5 hubs in the first round and [ ] in the second round
• Strong demand for space in the new hubs, a number were filled by word of mouth.
• In one case the return of a home-based business started locally now international
• Still much to do in terms of networks and support
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• Conclusion• Need to take into account the differences between hubs i.e. the Hub
Typology and the nature of the hub occupiers. • Hubs seem to offer an affective bridge between early stage/home based
businesses and a more commercial mature enterprise:– This offers opportunities for the hub to create a wider network of home-based
businesses as a pool of potential occupiers– Offers opportunities to deliver targeted businesses support to these businesses.
This could be both hard (business skills) and soft (mentoring)– A two stage approach may be needed. Concentrate on the bottom line issues,
rent and tenure, and later develop the other elements, networking and collaboration
• Hubs are businesses themselves, they need to network and collaborate just as much as the businesses they support.
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• Thank you
• The full report can be found at:
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/cre/publish/researchreports/Honey%20Pots%20and%20HivesFINAL.pdf