What’s in it for West Midlands technology firms and public sector organisations?
Up until now there has been no comprehensive directory of ICT businesses in the region, broken down by sub-regional or council locality, which councils or other regional purchasers use to advertise opportunities. Whilst EU regulations may prevent councils from limiting opportunities to businesses from their own locality, they can now at least ensure regional businesses are advised when such opportunities are presented.
What is the purpose of aWMist?
The challenge facing the region is that many of its innovative and entrepreneurial businesses are small and below the radar to many large businesses and organisations. In the region’s ICT sector, seventy-four percent of businesses employ fewer than eleven members of staff. In addition, because few large ICT businesses of the ilk of Microsoft, Oracle, and Cisco have their headquarters in the region, the perspective of many outside of the region is that there is little substance to offer in the way of innovative businesses.
In parallel with this, the ICT Cluster research also shows that despite high-profile publicity, many businesses are still not aware of the full range of support and services that are available within the region. For example, whilst the government stresses the importance of innovation and R&D for business and the role universities can play in supporting businesses, less than 2% of ICT SMEs use university facilities. Now companies will be fully aware of these, to enable specific targeting for their requirements.
how does it work?
AWMist (pronounced A W Mist) is a fully searchable online directory of technology businesses, support organisations and funding agencies based in the West Midlands, with the aim of facilitating commercial opportunities, collaboration, innovation and partnerships.
Company profiles have been initially created using data derived from the ICT Cluster’s mapping and research project, undertaken over the last four years. The search process on AWMist uses company descriptions, free text keywords and predefined keywords to assist both businesses and other organisations to search for and identify potential partners. Each business and organisation has full editing control of its own record and can add to or amend the information. AWMist provides the unique facility of searching an area limited to the map displayed on the screen. This, together with drop down menus listing sub-regions and local councils, enables searches to be made within strict geographical limits.
Who will use aWMist?
Whilst anyone can search AWMist in the standard search facility using keywords, the extended search facilities and detailed information of each organisation is only available to registered users. All businesses and organisations contained in the website have registered user facilities. The registered user facility will be granted only to others pre-vetted by the administrators. These will include commercial attachés at Embassies, local, regional and national procurement bodies, overseas UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) representatives, commercial organisations seeking strategic partners and European organisations seeking partners for EU funded programmes, to name but a few.
how can technology sMes in the region ensure that their details are included?
In addition to the existing company information on AWMist, the ICT Cluster is in the process of contacting businesses over the next few weeks to confirm information about their companies. The ICT Cluster is also encouraging businesses to contact them using the register facility on www.AWMist.org and to state in the comment section that they would like to be included on AWMist.
how can users get access to the information on aWMist?
All organisations and businesses listed on AWMist can access the information. In addition, other users can be registered who are not included on the online directory. These include overseas organisations wishing to partner with businesses in the region, either in research or as strategic partners in commercial activities. Once the website goes live, information on how to access AWMist’s extended search facilities will be distributed to appropriate organisations. In addition, the ICT Cluster is contacting other bodies that can bring benefit to businesses to either include their organisation on AWMist or to add them as a registered user.
What sort of information can a user find on aWMist?
For businesses there are three main benefits of using AWMist. The first is that they can use it to find resources in the region, ranging from the different public sector bodies providing funding and support to businesses, to Research Groups at universities which can help to develop new products and services.
The second benefit is that public sector organisations will be able to use AWMist to reach out to businesses that they can support. An example being that through AWMist UKTI can contact businesses specialising in Mobile & Wireless to participate in a funded visit to Canada, as happened recently where over £1 million of business was secured. AWMist allows all organisations that export or would like to export to be visible to UKTI
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companies within the region. We know that there is a talented pool of innovative ICT businesses in the West Midlands and through AWMist we can help to bring them to the attention of public and private sector organisations who are looking for suppliers and partners.
Mike Musson, aWM’s ict cluster Manager
A third benefit is that businesses can be more easily identified for collaboration. local Councils will be able to ensure that businesses within their local area are aware of appropriate procurement opportunities by identifying businesses on a geographical basis and emailing them. AWMist is really about ensuring that businesses are visible so that they can at the very least be invited to participate.
how will potential abuse of the system be prevented?
The system includes an audit trail and there is a ceiling on the number of searches that can be undertaken. Together with the facility for instantly withdrawing a registered user’s access to the extended search facility, this should ensure any potential abuse is practically non-existent.
The audit trail identifies who is using the facility and which organisations are attracting the most interest. In addition, it allows AWMist’s administrators to see records that have been edited and by whom. AWMist is a free service funded by Advantage West Midlands and under no circumstances will the information be made available for re-use by any inappropriate third party.
Who will update the information?
Each organisation displayed on AWMist has at least one owner who would normally be an employee. Each has full editing rights to their record and they can therefore add or amend the information whenever they wish. The changes are instantly published. The AWMist administrators are notified of changes so they can audit the changes – this is a protection facility for organisations in the unlikely event of an employee attempting to put damaging information for the company on the website.
how much information should a technology firm include in aWMist?
The keywords and the tick boxes are used to capture specific sectors of business expertise and research and will be used by searchers to filter opportunities. The second phase of AWMist is currently being commissioned for Spring 2010. This will provide organisations (both from within the region and beyond) with a template, allowing them to categorise their opportunity using keywords which will feed through to each business or organisation via the keywords they have created. Not completing any of the fields therefore reduces the possibilities of securing such business opportunities.
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