Due to the success of our 2017 Chamber training our new 2018 training programme has 30 business training courses and 20 international trade training courses.
Chamber Training delivers an in depth approach to a range of key business skills, covering subjects that are directly relevant to today’s business needs including workshops on; social media, LinkedIn, email marketing, networking, Google Adwords and International Trade training.
Norfolk Chamber has utilised the skills of their expert members to deliver these workshops with presenters from 101, Yellow Brick Road, Business Writers Ltd, DKR Training and Support and Wolf Digital Marketing.
These workshops take place in the Chamber’s well appointed board room. Working in small groups’ attendees will be able to enjoy personalised and interactive training, aimed at helping to improve knowledge and efficiency. The training courses are available in both mornings and afternoons.
What a big event! With over three hundred and fifty people attending, this was one of the Norfolk Chamber of Commerce’s biggest conference so far to date. The morning was focused on the new guidelines, and changes for the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), which are due to come into force on Friday 25 May 2018. This event was fantastic for the Norfolk Chamber to support the business community, as well as welcome our members and non-members to the conference.
Chris Sargisson our Chief Executive opened the event and throughout the morning the delegates attending heard talks given by; Alex Saunders from Leathes Prior, Tom Parsley from Selesti, John Gostling, Breakwater IT and Daren Chapman from Cyber Scale. Each speaker shared their expert knowledge, business subject area, all of which helped to provide a real insight into GDPR.
Alex Saunders, from Leathes Prior Solicitors, was the first speaker to talk about GDPR. Part of Alex’s professional practice specializes in Data Protection. He gave a really interesting and insightful talk into the current regulations, and the new changes coming into force from the legal point of view. He also covered Lawful Processing, Consent, and the action points we need to consider within all our professional and personal handling of data.
Tom Parsley, Commercial Director at Selesti, talked about the perspective of GDPR and Marketing. He highlighted how the new changes of GDPR should be seen as a positive for all our marketing campaigns. He also discussed how this change can give us all the opportunity to be a more personalized, and humanly engaged with our clients. Like Alex Saunders, Tom also covered Consent, from the marketing viewpoint and how we can increase the trust within our brand image.
John Gosling, Managing Director at Breakwater, was the third speaker who provided a real insight into; what is a breach of personal data. He also gave the audience a range of good examples of how breaches had occurred, and how we need to ensure we can prevent this happening with our own businesses in the future.
Darren Chapman Director and Principal Security Consultant of Cyber Scale was the last speaker of the morning. Darren discussed the importance of why Cyber Security matters and how the GDPR regulations work in practice with cyber security. It was really useful to have some key action points to take away and potentially implement too.
The four speakers in a panel brought the morning to a close with questions and answers from the audience. This was an ideal opportunity to build a further awareness and answer the concerns we all had on GDPR.
It was great to hear such a diversity of speakers throughout the morning and many of our members commented on how the event had given them the confidence to implement the new regulations, as well as confirming their own knowledge on the topic.
However, the event did not stop there! There were two further optional workshops after the main conference. One with Holly Stibbon, Director of 101 ltd on a practical marketing approach to GDPR. This was a really useful workshop focused on clear and practical advice on how to ensure your marketing is answering all the GDPR requirements. Holly also answered questions from the audience with supportive, and sound advice too.
Robert Masson, Chief Executive Officer of the DPO Centre highlighted the importance of appointing a current member of your staff with the role as Data Protection Officer within your business. This was a really valuable workshop and everyone clearly benefited from Robert’s knowledge.
As a useful follow on from the conference we have produced three great podcasts with some of our speakers on GDPR. Please click here for our conference toolkit.
Commenting on the agreement of a ‘status quo’ transition period by UK and EU27 Brexit negotiators, Chris Sargisson, Chief Executive of Norfolk Chamber said:
“This is a milestone that many businesses across Norfolk and the UK have been waiting for. The agreement of a status quo transition period is great news for trading firms on both sides of the Channel, as it means that they will face little or no change in day-to-day business in the short term.
“While some companies would have liked to see copper-bottomed legal guarantees around the transition, the political agreement reached in Brussels is sufficient for most businesses to plan ahead with a greater degree of confidence. Many companies will now have the clarity they require to proceed with investment and hiring strategies that would otherwise have remained in question.
“In the interests of business across Europe, both sides must now do everything in their power to ensure that the transition does not become a political football later in the negotiation process.”
On citizens’ rights, Sargisson said:
“Businesses across the Norfolk will be particularly relieved that they will be able to hire and retain European nationals on similar terms over the next two years, given the significant skills gaps they continue to contend with.”
On trade agreements, he added:
“A priority for both the UK and the EU must now be to secure agreement from our shared trading partners to keeping the status quo on existing EU free trade agreements. Any loss of market access would hurt our exporters and European supply chains alike. It is excellent that the UK and the EU agree on the need for continuity in existing trade agreements; together, we must now seek confirmation from our trading partners.
“While Norfolk businesses are interested in the prospect of the UK being able to sign new trade agreements during the transition period, the top priority must be to retain market access on the same terms with existing trading partners.”
Also commenting on the future UK/EU trading relationship, Dr Adam Marshall, Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce, said:
“Over the next few days, securing assent from the European Council must be the top priority. Over the coming weeks and months, the UK government and the European Commission must adopt a laser-like focus on the future trading relationship – and swiftly conclude a deal that minimises further adjustment costs and that answers the many practical questions that trading businesses still face.
“A zero-tariff agreement is a no-brainer for both sides. However, businesses need to see more pragmatic positions from both sides on customs and cooperation in services.”
The South East was the UK’s biggest exporting region in 2011, with figures for that year hitting a record £42.8 billion, according to the latest Regional Trade Statistics from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).
A decline in export growth in the fourth quarter (Q4) meant however that the region recorded only 1.9% growth in 2011, enough to beat the 2010 record but the smallest increase of all the UK regions.
Lewis Scott, Regional Director for UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) South East, said that local firms need to rise to the exporting challenge if the region and the wider UK is to grow.
The latest figures show that the EU remains the most important export market for the South East, with a 12-month export value of £19.1 billion, followed by North America, Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.
Mr Scott said that UKTI could help firms to explore these markets by offering free one-to-one advice and support.
“We have just announced the winner of our Export for Growth prize, Crawley airport ground handling experts, Avtura Ltd,” he continued. “The high standard shown by the winner and the standard of entries in general demonstrates that there is a huge amount of creativity and innovation in the region.”
He called on other small and medium-sized firms to rise to the challenge to “Sell British” and to exploit the opportunities available to them.
Manufacturing output for May 2012 up 1.2% on the month, down 1.7% on the year
Commenting on the manufacturing output figures for May, published today by the ONS, Tracey Howard, International Trade Director at the Norfolk Chambers of Commerce, said:
“While most expected the latest manufacturing output figures to record stagnation or a decline, they show resilience from manufacturers despite a difficult economic climate and a crisis in the eurozone. Taken together with the latest trade statistics, they show that pessimism about the UK’s economic prospects is unwarranted.
“Longer-term trends in manufacturing are still disappointing, and the global economy shows signs of slowing. Manufacturers are adjusting to a new reality with weaker growth prospects while the government continues with measures to reduce the deficit. But British businesses have considerable potential to make progress, even in tough circumstances. It is down to the government to help them realise this.
“The economy can move from a vicious to a virtuous circle. The government must create confidence and growth through aggressive deregulation, infrastructure spending, and the creation of a state-backed business to increase lending to new and growing businesses.”
Business leaders gathered last night to hear Vicky Pryce, Chief Economic Advisor and Board Member at the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) outline her views on the future of the UK economy.
Norfolk Chamber and Norse Commercial Services hosted the gala dinner at Langley Abbey, which was attended by a wide range of businesses from traditional engineering companies, such as KLM Engineering to Rainbird, an innovative tech firm.
Ms Pryce presented her thoughts on how the UK economy had fared since the triggering of Article 50, through to how she thought it would progress after the post-Brexit transition period. She went on to note how interest rates and consumer spending could potentially impact on the economy and that the continued uncertainty of Brexit was impacting on business confidence.
Leaders in East Anglia are being invited to attend a major conference which will put wellbeing at the heart of leadership in the region. The ‘Leaders in Wellbeing’ event – taking place during Mental Health Awareness Week – is aimed at chief executives, senior managers and HR directors and will showcase the latest thinking from speakers who are leading the way in wellbeing in the region.
Taking place from 9.30am – 1.30pm on Tuesday 15th May at The Space in Norwich, the free event will focus on the role of leadership in wellbeing. It will include personal stories from leaders as well as ideas about practical ways to role model wellbeing, and how to embed it within organisational culture.
Stuart Rimmer, Chief Executive of East Coast College who will be charing the event explained: “Coming together to discuss wellbeing in leadership creates space to consider innovation and better ways to run our businesses for the twenty first century.”
Also speaking at the event will be Andy Wood, Chief Executive of Adnams. He said: “We take this issue extremely seriously at Adnams. It makes great business sense as the first line of serving our customers well is a happy and well-motivated workforce that knows if they need help in their lives the organisation is there for them”.
There will also be personal testimony from Nigel Cushion, Founder of Nelsonspirit, Ian Hacon, Founder of Yellow Brick Road, and Michelle Gant, Director of The Engaging People Company.
Aviva’s recent experience of delivering a widescale wellbeing programme will also be in the spotlight with Katherine Billingham-Mohamed and Gemma Sandwell on hand to share their knowledge and experience. Katherine said: “Wellbeing is quite a buzz word at the moment, but essentially healthy and happy employees generally result in happy customers! It’s about helping people to make small steps to change behaviour, be that in their mental, physical or any other aspect of wellbeing”.
The event has been co-organised by Tim Handley, an education consultant who heads up TEDxNorwichED. And, underlining the emerging importance of wellbeing as a leadership and workplace priority, both New Anglia LEP and Norfolk Chamber of Commerce have pledged their support. Charlotte Purves of New Anglia LEP said: “This is a really important issue to address if the East is going to stand out as the place to live and work. Wellbeing should be top of the agenda for every business and this event will provide business leaders with tools to embed this in their own organisations.”
Chris Sargisson, Chief Executive of Norfolk Chamber added: “Wellbeing and the culture of wellbeing starts at the top and should always, always include the valuable and influential people at the top. By doing so means organisations can genuinely lead by example in the building of brilliant, healthy, high performing places of work.”
At a breakfast meeting at Norwich City Football Club, Norfolk Chamber hosted John Holland-Kaye, the CEO of London Heathrow Airport, who came to talk to local businesses about the economic benefits and the opportunities available as a result of expansion at London Heathrow.
Mr Holland-Kaye outlined that Heathrow were looking to become the best connected airport in the world, with more flights and a new runway by 2025. The £14 billion privately funded project will open up supply chain opportunities across the UK – including here Norfolk. He also noted that the Heathrow expansion project was not governed OJEU (Official Journal of the European Union) and that their preferred option was for a predominantly UK based supply chain.
He also advised that Heathrow was looking to take the lead in a new way to deliver large scale infrastructure projects by building their key components away from the airport and assembling them locally. This is a method that is becoming more prevalent internationally, which the UK has not fully adopted yet. To achieve this, they will be creating four logistic hubs – for which Great Yarmouth is one of 65 bids from across the UK. Heathrow has already committed to one of the logistic hubs being located in Scotland, however the other three hub locations have yet to be decided.
To help develop their supply chain for the Heathrow expansion, they will be holding a series of Business Summits across the UK – the nearest one to our region is being held at Colchester on Tuesday 17 April 2018 and is free to attend.
There will be speed-networking sessions to improve networking opportunities and connectivity. Also in attendance will be Heathrow’s Commercial and Procurement teams, to answer questions about business opportunities available at the airport. To date, Heathrow have advised that an estimated £93.4 million of new deals have been won by businesses as a result of the partnerships formed at their Business Summits.
Why Attend?
The Heathrow Business Summits each provide a great platform for SMEs to get a foot in the door and capitalise on the business opportunities available at Heathrow
Promote your business to Heathrow’s supply chain through face-to-face appointments on the day
Meet and network with other businesses visiting the event.
Meet with the Department of International Trade to explore exporting opportunities
Meet and network with exhibitor partners including the Local Councils, Chambers of Commerce, Local Enterprise Partnerships, and the Department for International Trade.
Meet local colleges and universities to support your skills and recruitment needs.
All exhibitors actively support and guide businesses on how to connect and build trade relations into new supply chains at Heathrow
At the beginning of the week, Norfolk Chamber, the EDP and Norfolk County Council, together with MPs, political leaders and the business community hosted a visit by the Roads Minister, Jesse Norman MP in King’s Lynn and launched our ‘Just Dual It!’ campaign
The event, held at the Town Hall in King’s Lynn was to highlight to the Roads Minister that Norfolk is no longer prepared to wait for much needed improvements. It was a chance to garner the support of local MPs and for the business community to highlight the benefits that a dualled A47 could bring to our local economy.
Respondng to the calls for a47 improvements, Mr Norman said “I can only admire the steadfastness the energy and perseverance of everyone working together to make a collective case for action.”
The Just Dual It campaign is backed by the A47 Alliance and is looking for a commitment from Government to fund dualling the entire length of the A47 from Lowestoft in the East to Peterborough in the West by 2030. How well we make the case for dualling the entire length, is up to us as a business community. We need your support to join us to make the business case for the A47 improvements.
Commenting on the need for county-wide support, Nova Fairbank. Public Affairs Manager for Norfolk Chamber said: “To access further funding, we have to work within the Government’s frameworks and back that with the support of the business community and general public. We need to have a strong clear and consistent message and keep going until we achieve the full dualling of the A47.”
How can you help?
We need to hear from you about what benefits a fully dualled A47 will make to your business. Could it help create more jobs; enable your business expand; make it easier for your clients to visit you; or would you be able to move your goods more easily?
We need you to be specific in your responses, which will help build the overall business case. The more support we can garner and the more specific we are in the benefits; the more compelling our case will be.
Buy today’s EDP (Friday 23 March 2018) which includes with a Freepost postcard on which you can send your message to government
Pick up a postcard from the Chamber offices in Whiting Road, Norwich; the EDP’s offices, Rouen Road, Norwich; Norfolk County Council, Martineau Lane, Norwich; Great Yarmouth Town Hall; or West Norfolk Council offices in King’s Lynn
The British Chamber of Commerce’s energy survey goes live today.
The survey will help us better understand the impact of volatile energy costs, the measures businesses have taken to reduce their energy usage, and the relationship between businesses and their energy suppliers. It will also test the perception of recent government regulations. We can use this knowledge to put continued pressure on the government to support businesses in this area.
The survey only takes 10 minutes to complete. To take part in the survey click here.
“It is encouraging that two MPC members voted against the £50bn increase in QE”, says David Kern
Commenting on the MPC minutes published today by the Bank of England, David Kern, Chief Economist at the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), said:
“While most commentators expected the recent decision on an increase in QE to have been unanimous, we are encouraged that two members of the committee voted against this move. The argument for increasing QE was questionable in our view, although the impacts of the eurozone crisis on the financial system make it understandable. The new funding for lending scheme could potentially be more important for businesses as long as the banks pass on the lower cost of funds to their customers. However, we are convinced that a state-backed business bank is necessary to allow viable businesses with growth potential to obtain funds on reasonable terms.
“No further QE increases should be considered for the time being unless the UK financial system faces new major threats. QE is not risk free and the longer-term inflation dangers associated with it cannot be ignored. It should certainly not be used to try and prevent inflation from falling temporarily below target next year. After a long period when above target inflation has heightened the squeeze on businesses and consumers, lower inflation will now support domestic demand in the economy and this should be allowed to continue.”
Great Yarmouth Borough Council have extended their deadline for receiving comments on their Housing Strategy to 15 April 2015.
The purpose of the survey is to input into their Housing Strategy, to ascertain whether there is a need for a specific type of housing in the Borough to attract or retain people, or whether housing is a small part of a much larger issue.
They want to discover if the supply of housing has a direct impact on your business, and if so, what type of housing you feel would help address this issue.