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Business Growth Strategy The Strategy

The Strategy has been established following engagement with businesses and stakeholders. It aligns with the latest policy position and responds to the key socio-economic issues and opportunities. 

Driving business growth directly contributes to the Walsall 2040 Prosperous and Innovative ambition but also drives greater economic activity that can help to alleviate wider social, health and economic outcomes. The Strategy forms part of the wider Economic Framework that reflects the connections between and importance of a coherent approach encompassing Work and Wellbeing and Place and Infrastructure.

The Strategy has two overarching objectives:

  1. To Grow the Business Base: address the relative fall in the business numbers and the low business density which exists in Walsall by: 
    1. Retaining and nurturing larger employers, as these create a significant amount of local employment and investment. 
    2. Support start-ups to be ambitious to ensure the local business base is refreshed with new enterprise in growing markets. 
    3. Ensure land and people are in place to maximise our ability to compete with other locations for investment.
  2. To Secure More Competitive Economic Activity: ensure growth in more higher value business functions in Walsall by: 
    1. Increasing the number of businesses that innovate to embed higher productivity processes among existing businesses. 
    2. Targeting business support services at the businesses with the greatest growth potential. 
    3. Better connecting businesses to national and international supply chain opportunities that are growing to accelerate local growth.

To deliver these objectives, the Strategy outlines three priority areas: 

  1. Investor Engagement: to ensure our sites and businesses are effectively promoted to potential investors and make sure support is in place to help potential investors realise their plans. 
  2. Business Engagement: to ensure Walsall businesses understand the support available to them and is easy to access, and to maintain appropriate contact with major businesses operating locally. 
  3. Business Growth Support: to ensure Walsall businesses have access to a menu of support that they can draw from to accelerate their journey to growth.

Each Objective requires a series of actions to be in place, as illustrated in the framework below.

Investor Engagement

1. Promoting Walsall

2. Investor Liaison

Business Engagement

3. Targeted Support

4. Key Account Manangement

Business Support

5. Representation and Networking

6. Information and Co-ordination

7. Support and Take-Up

  • Innovation
  • Supply chains
  • Digital adoption
  • Enterprise
  • Social enterprise and alternative models
  • Energy efficiency
  • International trade

8. Skills Alignment

10. Sites and Premises

9. Local Enterprise Support

11. Joining up Council Services

The subsequent sections provide more detail on the specific actions under each priority area. Actions have been developed with consideration of the Cross Cutting Themes in the Walsall Council Plan 2025-2029: 

  1. Focusing on Prevention: in business growth terms this means maintaining relationships with businesses from early in their life and being able to maintain a regular dialogue that allows us to understand the emerging challenges (and opportunities) that growth-oriented businesses might be facing, and to establish what support can be offered to address them. 
  2. Ensuring Equity: a more targeted approach to supporting Walsall businesses should mean that business support is better allocated based on need and potential, and to move away from a first come, first served approach that may mean harder to reach and less-obvious businesses struggle to get the help they need. 
  3. Working in Partnership: national services and regional schemes will provide a lot of the growth support to Walsall-based businesses, and the West Midlands region will be the level at which strategy and commissioning for business growth increasingly occurs under the devolution model. 
  4. Being Insight-Led: the Business Growth strategy has been shaped around data and evidence on the scale, profile and trends in our business base. The proposal for a more targeted approach has been designed around this evidence and should be put into practice using live data feeds that can accurately identify priority clients for support. 
  5. Acting Sustainably: the menu of support available to Walsall businesses should consider the long-term sustainability of changes implemented by supported businesses, ensuring that changes are embedded, support wider resilience objectives and environmental sustainability (aligned to the Council’s Net Zero Strategy and Action Plan).