Strategic economic development consultancy

Our approach to economic development can be characterised as:

Analytically driven: we visualise strategy development and implementation as a structure - a wall. A wall is as strong as its foundations - which in the case of strategy is the evidence base. If the numbers are wrong or the interpretation of them is suspect, then the strategy wall will tumble.

Business friendly: we consider that the strengthening of the industrial structure is fundamental. Strong businesses create wealth from greater productivity and employment when they grow. In addition, and because businesses are fundamental, it follows that engaging with them is not only desirable but necessary to achieve any kind of strengthening of the economy.

Transparent: data and analyses have to be clear to all those involved. They have to be jargon free and paint a picture of the industrial landscape that is recognisable. It follows from our focus on business, that a particularly important consituency for all that is created is the average business man and woman. As a result, we tend not to create indices from data.

The way we work seamlessly integrates an approachable, business friendly consultancy culture, geared to solving business problems, alongside outstandingly designed presentation of data and analysis that encourages engagement with the solutions we develop.

INSIGHT and ACCESS are about (a) deriving intelligence from the data AND (b) ensuring that all the right people can acquire it, understand it and recognise it as a realistic representation of the place they know. This is what G-View and G-Sight are intimately associated with.

Establishing a VISION is the process of taking the intelligence derived from numbers, thinking about what they suggest in terms of how a place or situation looks now, and how it might look in say 10 years time. This process is interactive, requires skilled facilitation and the active participation of key people.

The STRATEGY is the translation of the vision into a broad statement or statements of how change is going to happen.

Finally, the ACTIONS are all those activities that will implement the strategy. They need not be grand - indeed they should largely be small! The small things are easier to achieve and deliver tangible satisfactions. The grand gestures often fail, with demotivating results.