2019 saw The Colchester Business Enterprise Agency (Colbea) win the Enterprise Engagement Award at the National Enterprise Network Annual Awards. Colbea’s Operations and Partnerships Manager, Craig Baston, explains the story behind that award and the role that local businesses are playing in it.
For over 35 years, Colbea has been successfully providing business advice to local entrepreneurs and people with great business ideas who need help to make them into business reality.
Building on its strong foundations, from 2018 Colbea has supporting entrepreneurialism in Colchester with a revitalised business support programme, improved marketing and a more active engagement programme as well as providing four, fully-funded business advice days locally, each month. It has been a real success.
Colbea’s new website saw traffic triple in three months, and not just from Colchester. Demand for business advice has been consistently increasing. With a new mission and five year strategy Colbea are actively supporting this increase in demand for business support at all stages: from pre-start, start-up through to developing and mature businesses. It is clear that there is demand across the county. Colbea has forged a series of new partnerships with Chelmsford City, Braintree and Rochford District Councils to help more people than ever before realise their business ambitions. All this activity is making Colbea more visible to the business and entrepreneurial community locally, and throughout Essex.
With specialists in business support working in Colchester and far beyond, the Colbea team is well aware that this experience is reflective of many businesses and are aiming to balance supply with changes in demand.
Due to this increase in demand, Colbea has been working to improve the business advice service delivery by taking steps such as pre-calling businesses in advance of their appointments. We are also hopeful that we can also add another day per month for business advice in the North of Colchester to provide greater access for businesses based outside of Colchester town centre. Similarly, Colbea is delivering more training courses for businesses at all stages of their life to target business needs before they become more serious issues. For the first time, Colbea has a training programme of over 20 for courses each year of varying breadth and depth in 2020. This is proving to be even more attractive to busy entrepreneurs and established business alike.
With many Colchester businesses having clients and supply chains across Essex, Colbea is now able to add real value by connecting those businesses and facilitating those relationships which often deliver fruitful – and profitable – partnerships.
It is clear that Colchester is being recognised as an important place for business. With its very diverse business base and our very experienced advisors within Colbea we feel we are very well placed to help and support businesses locally and beyond whatever the future holds.
Whether you are a new or an established business, Colbea offers a range of business advice, training and office space options, such as virtual offices and great value meeting/training room hire. If you would like to find out more about how Colbea can help you on your journey towards business success, call today on 01206 548 833 or email enquiries@colbea.co.uk.
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