The City Corporation is committed to supporting SMEs from our
neighbouring boroughs to access the supply chains of City firms,
and is therefore funding a range of projects to take forward the
recommendations of the research report
The City of London’s Supply Chain and its
Relationship with the City Fringes (778kb), to help local
SMEs become 'fit to supply'.
Following on from an evaluation of the initial phase of support,
which ran from January 2009 until March 2010, the City Corporation
has launched a second phase – Ready to Supply the City - to provide
targeted support in the following ways: Trade fairs and networking
events to facilitate relationship building; Help to receive
accreditation to ensure greater trust in product/service quality;
Training to help firms produce compliant bids; and Management
assistance to improve structure of SMEs and price/quality of
goods/services.
There are six projects which will work across the City fringe
boroughs under the banner of Ready to Supply the City to provide
the above support with the aim of helping around 550 SMEs,
assisting 300 of them to become ‘fit to supply’ the City and the
remaining 250 on their journey towards being ‘fit to supply’ the
City.
Ready to Supply the City will be delivered in Tower Hamlets by
the East London Small Business Centre, in Hackney
by Hackney Business Venture, in Lambeth and Southwark by
GLE
oneLondon, in Camden by Centa Business Services and in Islington
jointly by Hackney
Business Venture and Centa Business Services.
The programme will provide support in a number of ways:
- SMEs’ suitability for the programme will be determined in a
range of ways, including through a diagnostic process including
questionnaires and pre-procurement workshops.
- SMEs will learn how to produce compliant bids to become ‘fit to
supply’ City firms.
- One-to-one 'coaching' sessions and group workshops to help them
to become ‘fit to supply’ the City.
- Workshops will be organised on topics such as ‘preparing
compliant bids’, ‘pitching and presenting skills’ and
‘environmental awareness’.
- ‘Question & Answer’ sessions will be organised where SMEs
will have the opportunity to seek advice directly from City
procurement managers.
- A series of networking opportunities will be organized
including a Buyer - Supplier Dialogue Roundtable event and Business
Clubs, where businesses with common interests can meet and exchange
ideas.
- For those SMEs actually meeting City buyers, additional support
to prepare them for, and support them to follow up on, these
meetings will be provided.
The City Corporation also provides free support for City buyers,
supply chain managers and procurers to encourage and facilitate
local procurement and engagement in the support offered to local
SMEs through the Ready to Supply the City programme. Further
details are on our
local procurement pages.