Early warning financial risk system to help Midlands-based manufacturing SMEs navigate economic turmoil

由于缺乏信息、数字化和获得正确的财务规划/银行解决方案，英国中小企业每年损失了160亿英镑的人工财务管理和支付过高的银行费用（ACCA,2022；麦肯锡，2021）。现在，中小企业比以往任何时候都更加缺乏制定有效财务计划的工具（PWC2023），并且由于全球经济事件的不断变化影响其业务的各个方面，中小企业以前所未有的速度关闭商店。25%的公司预计无法在今年存活，造成5000亿英镑的营业额和280万个工作岗位的经济损失（ACCA，2022年）。英国制造业的销售额为4008亿英镑，占英国出口总额的51%，占英国研发支出的64% (MAKE2023)，由于依赖全球供应链采购对其生产力至关重要的原材料，经济不确定性的影响甚至更不成比例。作为一个早期预警系统，当宏观经济或地缘政治变化对中小企业的财务计划构成风险时，elemental的价格合理、即插即用的sherloc平台会通知中小企业的财务主管，以减轻风险，减少因直接或间接依赖全球经济、供应、气候和政治事件而造成的财务损失。Sherloc利用人工智能和数据标准来帮助中小企业制定计划，并实时监控影响其环境的全球活动。当检测到变化时，sherloc使用自然语言处理和图形用户友好界面为中小企业提供所需的情报，数据和专业知识，以主动采取行动，提高英国中小企业的盈利能力和生存能力。Elementaryb正在为一项工业研究项目寻求资助，该项目将在西米德兰兹郡的20家中小企业中实施sherloc，并推动行业垂直（制造业）和次垂直（500万至1000万英镑/营业额/食品和饮料子行业）内的创新，通过TRL9，可以扩展到英国和英联邦更广泛的制造业和加工中心，因为共享数据标准和敏感性。米德兰兹被选中是因为它占英格兰制造业劳动力的25%以上（MEP2021），并且由于宏观经济条件困难以及对气候变化、供应链和不断变化的客户需求的依赖（LSE2022），它无法在大流行后恢复。

A lack of information, digitisation and access to the right financial planning/banking solutions costs UK SMEs £16B/year in lost manual financial management and overpaying banking fees (ACCA,2022; McKinsey,2021). Now more than ever, SMEs are affected by a lack of tools for making effective financial plans (PWC2023) and closing shop at unprecedented rates due to the constant flux of global economic events impacting every aspect of their businesses. 25% are not expected to survive the year, creating economic losses of £500B in turnover and 2.8M jobs (ACCA,2022). For UK manufacturing, responsible for £400.8bn/sales, 51%/UK's-total-exports and 64%/UK R&D spend (MAKE2023), economic uncertainty is even more disproportionately impacting due to dependencies on global supply chains for the sourcing of raw materials fundamental to their productivity.Acting as an early warning system, Elementaryb's affordable, plug & play sherloc platform notifies SME finance directors when a macroeconomic or geopolitical shift poses a risk to their financial plans in order to mitigate risk and reduce financial loss arising out of direct and indirect dependencies to global economic, supply, climate and political events. Sherloc uses artificial intelligence and leverages data standards to help SMEs plan, and monitors global activity impacting their landscape in real-time. When changes are detected, sherloc provides the intelligence, data and expertise needed using natural language processing and a graphical user-friendly interface for SMEs to proactively action, increasing profitability and survival of UK SMEs.Elementaryb are seeking grant funding for an industrial research project to implement sherloc in 20 West Midlands-based SMEs and drive the innovation within an industry vertical (manufacturing) and sub-vertical (£5m-10m/turnover/food & beverage sub-sector) through to TRL9 that can be scaled across wider manufacturing and processing hubs in the UK and Commonwealth due to shared data standards and sensitives. The Midlands was chosen as it accounts for over 25% of England's manufacturing workforce (MEP2021) and has been unable to recover post pandemic due to the difficult macro-economic conditions and dependencies on climate change, supply chains and changing customer demands (LSE2022).