What is a “Supplier”? A business or organisation that provides a service(s) that can support the growth and development of other businesses. The details of the supplier are kept on the “Service Provider Register”. A supplier can be referred, signposted or brokered to a customer after the publicly-funded business support organisation has received an enquiry or undertaken a diagnostic with the customer.

What is the Business Champions programme? The East Midlands Business Champions programme is a unique pool of independent senior business volunteers, committed to shaping the region by sharing their knowledge and inspiring others. They do this by giving direction to not-for-profit organisations and educational establishments by identifying a need and helping them to progress through sound business expertise; inspiring students through workshops or master classes; offering strategic direction through forums and board positions; flying the flag for the East Midlands as regional ambassadors. To apply to become a Business Champion please click here or for further information please click here.

What is Coaching for High Growth? Coaching for High Growth is part of the Government’s “Solutions for Business” portfolio of business support products. Funded by emda and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) in the East Midlands, the objective of Coaching for High Growth is to increase the stock of strongly growing businesses in the region by providing an expert business coach to work alongside participating client businesses. To apply to become a growth coach on Coaching for High Growth click here or for further information about the programme click here.

What is “referral and signposting”? This is providing the customer with a number of suppliers that have the potential to meet their needs from the information held on the Service Provider Register.

What is “Brokerage”? This is a service that is being paid for wholly or in part through public funding, e.g. a grant. To be included in the list of suppliers that are put forward for brokerage activity the supplier must have been through the quality assurance process built in to the registration procedure.

Finding clients that can really benefit from the services your business provides is more that just conducting advertising and promotional work. And for your potential clients choosing the right supplier involves much more than scanning a series of supplier lists and prices.

To join the Register you will be asked to give details of the services you provide to business, where you are located, and how you may be contacted. This is the basic level of registration on the Service Provider Register and means that your details will be available to Business Advisors and Brokers looking for general support services for their clients.

To be eligible for publicly-funded business support projects, you will need to be “Quality Assured”. As well as the basic information about you mentioned above, you will need to provide details of Professional Indemnity Insurance (which is a mandatory requirement), list your professional qualifications (if appropriate) and supply the names and contact details of five clients for whom you have worked in the last twenty-four months. These references will be taken up and providing all is in order you will be awarded a “star” rating as a Quality Assured Supplier. If there is a question over any aspect of your registration details you will be contacted for clarification.

Details of your PII, qualifications and references will be maintained on the Brokerage System solely for audit purposes and to support your star rating. These data are not used for any other purposes and are not viewable by any third party including Business Advisors and Brokers, who may only see your “star” rating.

We regret that if a Service Provider is unwilling to provide details of PII and suitable references then they cannot progress to the Quality Assured level on the Register.

The Service Provider Register is not a replacement for your own marketing efforts but, by placing your company and its services on the Service Provider Register you will be raising awareness of your business amongst the region’s publicly-funded business support organisations such as Business Link, Learning and Skills Council, and UK Trade and Investment.

To register your interest, please complete the online registration form. You will then receive additional information on how to become a full, quality assured service provider and the potential benefits for your organisation.