{"id":1592,"date":"2015-11-10T09:51:29","date_gmt":"2015-11-10T09:51:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/?p=1592"},"modified":"2017-07-20T09:39:07","modified_gmt":"2017-07-20T09:39:07","slug":"sme-discovery-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/2015\/11\/10\/sme-discovery-day\/","title":{"rendered":"SME Discovery Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a post by Kate Saunderson<\/a>, one of our\u00a0user researchers, and Denise Lamond<\/a>, one of our user experience designers<\/em>.<\/p>\n

What do Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), business advisors and funders think about the challenges faced by SMEs when they seek advice and funding to grow their business?\u00a0That is the question that\u00a0the Business Development Bank team, the user research and engagement team, and the mygov.scot team collaborated on to understand.<\/p>\n

Together we designed and organised an SME Discovery day workshop to explore who SMEs\u00a0are, the challenges they\u00a0face and the changes we can make.\u00a0Each team had a different role and agenda, but the core focus of the day was the user; the approach was with<\/em>, not for<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Room capture from the afternoon session<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

The October workshop had 56 attendees, split over 8 tables. Each table grouped\u00a07 attendees with 1 facilitator, whose role was to support the discussions and act as a scribe. The morning was devoted to understanding the background of each attendee\u00a0and the challenges they faced. The afternoon was all about identifying changes and solutions that would help better\u00a0meet their needs. The workshop day was just the first step – we plan to continue the conversation with the attendees\u00a0by developing\u00a0and sharing a workshop report. The next step after that will be to tackle some of the biggest challenges.<\/p>\n

Thoughts on the day:<\/p>\n

“I learnt\u00a0more (about looking for finance) in the first hour than the last three weeks” \u2013 Discovery Day participant Rachel Gwyon, Head of Business Development Bank Division at The Scottish Government<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I found the day highly useful in that it reconfirmed my belief that there are a wealth of funding options available today for companies in Scotland. The challenge is in accessing this funding… but through information sharing, mentoring and access to networks a solution is at hand. I would be very supportive of future such events which bring together all stake holders in an open, collaborative environment. Thank you.” – Russell Dalgleish, Managing Partner, Exolta Capital Partners – Delegate<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

“During lunch\u00a0I fell into a conversation with an attendee who told me that he had been attending events like this for over thirty years. “This one has a lot more dynamism… but what do you plan to do next? Usually\u00a0nothing happens after.” The hard part, a surprise to many, is not undertaking research with your end-user, it’s continuing the dialogue about what you are\u00a0or are not<\/em>\u00a0doing next, and how they can continue to engage with you. Feedback fatigue is rife – so how do we handle that?” – Kate Saunderson, Workshop facilitator and user researcher<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

“It was great to see so many attendees at the SME discovery session. The attendees at my table all had the same view – events like this are held but it’s the next steps that matter the most. One attendee voiced his frustrations with the gap in the availability of funding between seed and A-round funding and is keen to be kept up to date with future developments.” – Angela Macfie, Workshop facilitator and Transformation Manager<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

“The Discovery Day gave us a great insight into the issues faced by SMEs; we\u2019ll use that and involve them further as work progresses.” – Russell Bain, Business Development Bank team<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I facilitated the group of funders, so it was interesting to hear their frustrations. I came away with three strong messages from their perspective:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. They all wanted to see businesses earlier in the process, and not at the point of critical need. They felt they could help to avert possible catastrophes by working over a longer period of consultation.<\/li>\n
  2. There\u2019s a consensus among fund providers that a wealth of funding opportunities are being missed by businesses with growth potential. Businesses are being put off by lengthy application processes and less transparent eligibility criteria.<\/li>\n
  3. Directors are almost always wildly optimistic about the length of time it takes and the value of the return on investment.”<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    – Cath Hoult, Workshop Facilitator and Content Designer for mygov.scot.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Key finding #1: Terminology<\/h3>\n

    The term innovation<\/em>\u00a0is an economically and politically topical term for business right now. Through discussions on the day it was noted that the term is being interpreted differently by different groups and organisations.\u00a0One SME owner said he didn\u2019t think he could apply for innovation funding as he didn’t see his business as innovative.\u00a0His own interpretation of where his business fitted into the funding framework prevented him accessing funding opportunities. To give some background, the business in question is a recycling business (mainly focussing on hardware) which is a fashionable field for business investors right now – due to this there is a more proactive approach from funders.<\/p>\n

    Hanging a tranche of funding listed under an ambiguous term is potentially causing problems for accessing funding. We have encountered similar challenges to labelling in our engagement with other sectors. For example, if someone is defined by the system as a young carer but doesn\u2019t identify themselves as a ‘carer’ we reduce access to that information. Another term SMEs had an issue with was the term\u00a0creative\u00a0\u2013 Government agencies saw a particular SME as a creative firm, but the company\u00a0did not have the same view. Adopting a different label can affect how you pitch to investors and how investors see you. Asking\u00a0\u2018who are we as a business?\u2019 could have wider implications in the context of the business plan. For the mygov.scot site we are having a discussion around how we can make funding\u00a0more transparent by defining industry terms (such as\u00a0innovation\u00a0or\u00a0creative).<\/p>\n

    Key finding #2: Categorisation<\/h3>\n

    During discussions it became clear that across business organisations the classification of businesses is different. Sometimes\u00a0the sector that a business thinks they are in does not conform with what business organisations and banks think that business should be in. New businesses often begin their business registration journey on\u00a0GOV.UK’s \u2018registering a company\u2019 page (which gets over 1.98K page views a day). The business sector categorisation\u00a0terminology used on the GOV.UK page is highly likely to influence\u00a0the business\u2019s own sector definition and so it makes sense for banks and business organisations to follow this same\u00a0Companies House classification.<\/p>\n

    Key finding #3: Funding tool<\/h3>\n

    At a\u00a0couple of tables nobody had heard of the business funding search tool either on mygov.scot or, more worryingly, it’s predecessor on\u00a0the Business Portal (business.scotland.gov.uk, which recently moved to be a part of mygov.scot).\u00a0This raises alarm bells that our own government internal processes are failing to alert users to tools that may help them, and reminds us all in the mygov team that we still have a lot to do to get the word out about some of the great content on our site. From a user’s point of view, having\u00a0a single point of information goes a long way to improving informed decision making.\u00a0The more people who use the funding tool, the more traction we\u2019ll have to drive evidence-based design. One participant had never heard of the funding tool yet when the feed\u00a0updates\u00a0with their \u201ccompetition\u201d it\u00a0will display details of their fund \u2013 to not know is to miss out. It’s\u00a0a fundamental flaw if\u00a0such a powerful tool to aid advisors, let alone businesses, is not being used. And if there are\u00a0problems we want to hear about them – the\u00a0more users who interact with (and feed back about) the funding tool, the\u00a0more data and feedback is analysed, and we can make tactical designs based on something better than opinion.<\/p>\n

    We talk about user journeys a lot in the mygov.scot team and in some ways this workshop was just one step in our own journey – work that began way back when when we started taking on the responsibility of the Business Portal site continues as we interact more with business users. Over the next few months our work on our business content will continue and we’re glad to have made a bunch more SME connections – our goal is to make business content (especially funding) simple to find and easy to use… and we’re glad to be well on that journey.<\/p>\n

    Follow the team via @mygovscot<\/a> on Twitter for more updates. Want to comment? Let us know below!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This is a post by Kate Saunderson, one of our\u00a0user researchers, and Denise Lamond, one of our user experience designers. 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