A NEW YEAR’S MESSAGE
A few weeks from now, Nottingham will make its annual pilgrimage to MIPIM, the biggest property and development expo in Europe and the one any city worth its salt wants to be seen at.
Yet many of the towns and cities that turn up at MIPIM make a familiar mistake: they don’t sell themselves at all. They just sell sites.
There’s nothing wrong with telling the world you’ve got a great regeneration zone, which would be perfect for them. After all, if the chase for inward investment is about one thing, it’s generating additional jobs and economic growth.
But a suitable site is only one of the reasons why you would choose to locate your business in a particular city. And it may not even be the decisive one.
SELLING BENEFITS & BUYING PEOPLE
One of the oldest lessons in sales is that you shouldn’t so much sell the product or service as the benefits it brings. Another is that when a sale takes place it is the purchaser placing trust in the seller – people buying people, in other words.
This has clear implications for the way Nottingham markets itself. Yes, we have regeneration zones – and unlike some cities, we’ve even got an incentivised Enterprise Zone. But there are other, far more compelling reasons why businesses should ‘buy’ Nottingham and reap the benefits of being here.
They need to be front and centre of the city’s message.
GET WITH THE PROGRAM
If you talk to Experian’s UK & Ireland Managing Director Chris Clark, he’ll tell you Nottingham is a world centre of expertise in the analysis of Big Data. Indeed, in Experian’s Mosaic software program Nottingham actually has a modern-day industrial icon, which ought to be mentioned in the same breath as Ibuprofen, the MRI scanner and other Nottingham inventions.
Yet how many of us really understand what it means? Businesses globally are looking for much more evidence-based decision-making, and products and services related to analysing data are in growing demand. One of the biggest concentrations of that expertise is right here in this city.
The presence of data analytics skills was one of the reasons why Capital One brought its European headquarters to Nottingham. It has also fed the growth of businesses like Ikano and given birth to spin-outs like HD Decisions and Insurance Initiatives (both peopled by ex-Capital One and Experian talents).
It’s the reason, too, why Equifax handed over a cool £200 million a year ago to buy the biggest spin-out of all – TDX Group on Fletcher Gate. Launched only 10 years ago by an ex-Cap One team, it is now a national centre of expertise in software and services related to analysing debt portfolios. Government has just launched a JV with it.
So, thousands of people in Nottingham with global expertise in a forward-looking industry and a source of demand for skills in mathematics, engineering, programming, computational science, geography, economics and demographics.
But that’s not all, not by a long chalk.
BRAND NOTTINGHAM
Nottingham is also an international centre of expertise in product development, branding, marketing, retailing, production, logistics and distribution. Where? Alliance Boots, which remains by far the biggest private sector employer in the city. No one should under-estimate the scale of the talent at the Boots campus, and there are numerous retailing and marketing businesses in and around Nottingham run by people who cut their teeth there.
Like Experian, Alliance Boots is a classic example of what happens when you have a global corporate in your midst. Provided you nurture them, they will drive jobs, expertise, spin-offs, community benefit, a higher profile, higher wages, more tax revenue and better houses and facilities.
Then there is BioCity.
HERITAGE IN A PETRI DISH
BioCity is based on the site of one of Boots’ biggest success stories, Ibuprofen, which was discovered in the laboratories on Pennyfoot Street, Nottingham, in the late 1950s.
It is on that heritage of drug discovery activity that BioCity has been built. This is important: life science isn’t an industry invented by marketeers to make the city’s economy look clever or fashionable. It’s one that was already here, developed from the mutually beneficial activities of institutions like Boots, the University of Nottingham, and the QMC (which has its own biomedical research units).
What that has delivered is one of the biggest concentrations of life sciences-related activity in the country, with approaching 700 people now working there. This figure will head towards 1,000 when a new life sciences building is constructed alongside BioCity.
MAKING THE CONNECTION
A penetrating criticism of the current government is that it didn’t invest enough soon enough in infrastructure – an area where spending tends to deliver immediate economic benefits during construction and long-term payback through improved connectivity.
Nottingham is a startling exception, though. While everyone else was crying out for development we got the dualling of the A453 between the city and the airport, two more tram lines, and the transformation of Nottingham Railway Station into a multi-modal transport interchange.
Construction has lagged and been a pain in the neck for some people. But it means the city economy will be far better positioned to continue functioning efficiently and effectively in the future.
In an era of unprecedented global competition, this is massive.
THE LONDON SUBURB OF…
If you told someone you were just 90 minutes from the world’s top business city that would be something to shout about, right?
So why don’t we? By global standards, that makes Nottingham a suburb of London (still ranked by Forbes as the world’s most influential city). And a cheap suburb of London, too.
China would be thrilled to hear that. And they already know quite a bit about Nottingham.
Thanks to the University of Nottingham’s decision to open a fully-fledged campus in the port city of Ningbo (the fifth biggest container port in the world and only a couple of hours from Shanghai), we now have a potentially lucrative direct link with a vital entry-point to the world’s fastest-growing economy.
And Ningbo has said publicly that that it wants to talk business with us.
THE TALENT FACTORIES
The University of Nottingham isn’t alone in lifting the city’s horizons. We have not one, but TWO strong universities in this city.
While Russell Group Nottingham justifiably makes much of its research capability and its international reach, redbrick Nottingham Trent University also has plenty to shout about. Its fashion, textile and design courses have kept numerous retailers on trend, its Nottingham Business School has a blue chip client list and a Dean who used to be director of product development operations at Jaguar Land Rover.
Both universities have invested massively in the city, and they are national and international magnets for the one thing that ambitious businesses need more than anything else: talent.
GET A LIFE
Unlike some choking metropolises, you can do that here.
In Nottingham, you can go to a Michelin-starred restaurant, wander round an award-winning national gallery, shop at a Paul Smith boutique, watch international celebrities perform at an arena, spend a day at an international sporting stadium, enjoy a Creative Quarter, sit in a great public square, wander up to a castle.
Nottingham is a city that has some fascinating nooks and crannies, creative corners and affluent suburbs. If that’s not enough, you can drive for 15-20 minutes and find yourself in rural England. It isn’t hard to find very good schools and attractive places to live, either.
In other words, living here is a pleasant, stimulating and largely hassle-free experience.
THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE
All the noise at events like MIPIM is about cities and towns with grand plans and development zones; you wouldn’t be there if you didn’t have them. Yet it follows that a message based on grand plans and development zones does no more than get you to the start line.
And why would we do that when there’s a much more ambitious story to tell?
Big data, big brands, an addiction to drug discovery, global skills, corporate expertise, international links, great infrastructure, powerful connections, high-level talent factories, an attractive lifestyle. Every single one of those boxes can be ticked.
Few other locations at MIPIM are able to do that, most don’t have the vision to see it.
Why are we waiting?
AND ONE MORE THING…
All of this has a name. It’s Robin.