Managing Director Peter Hawes looks at Norfolk’s improving business confidence
As I meet and talk with other Norfolk businesses I am greatly encouraged by their strength and resilience, with a significant number reporting increased confidence despite continuing economic pressures and cash flow pressures.
It is a credit to the innovative, flexible and determined nature of business people within our county that, across the diverse range of sectors that make up the commercial community, many are upbeat about sales levels, export opportunities, investment plans and employment creation.
Norfolk has never been a ‘boom and bust’ area and its stability is seen as a positive by the hubs of excellence that have chosen to locate here.
In the county there are now innovative hi-tech firms and highly successful service industries, cutting-edge research and state-of-the-art training and further education facilities, niche manufacturing and tourism operations that are competing on the national, and indeed international, scene. These organisations, along with the solid base of new and established smaller businesses, help keep Norfolk successful as a profitable commercial county.
We still lack some of the essential infrastructure in communications that will be necessary to guarantee sustainable, long-term competitiveness, but with the significant improvements to important parts of the transport network and the county’s push for better broadband coverage, we are addressing the issues. And, importantly for the wider perception of Norfolk as a brand, we are seen to be addressing them in a robust and resolute manner.
At Norse we have enjoyed considerable expansion over the last twelve months, both locally and across of the UK, and have seen first-hand the green shoots of recovery. Hopefully as these encouraging signs start to strengthen Norfolk businesses will be at the forefront of this renewed confidence.
Peter Hawes Managing Director Norse Commercial Services