Driving SME Innovation in the West Midlands

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The project focuses on supporting businesses to innovate in the areas of digital and green technologies, enabling the transition to net zero through the introduction of new products, services and processes, predominantly targeting the Engineering, Construction, Transport and Logistics and Digital sectors.Each College will establish an Innovation Centre to become the main interface for businesses wishing to discover how FE can support them with innovation. Innovation Centres may have a dedicated physical location at some or all of the college locations described above but importantly will:* Be focused on each College's sector specialist knowledge, expertise and facilities* Be established using the Innovation Centre name, alongside shared FE and Skills branding* Promote distinct points of access to the service within each college* Deliver a programme of collaborative events and activities to maximise engagement and avoid duplication* Focus on innovation diffusion and knowledge transfer, supporting innovation adoption within local businesses* Provide a Key Account Manager for each client business who will follow their journey through the available support, ensuring consistency of serviceWe will deliver a programme of support targeted at businesses wishing to transition to new technologies, incorporate new services into their business and change their business processes to become more efficient.Our Innovation Practitioners will focus on innovation diffusion and knowledge transfer, supporting innovation adoption within local businesses. Businesses will be taken on a consistent 'customer journey', with the aim of creating a structured response to their innovation aspirations. Our Innovation Centres will deliver support based on a 7-Step Customer Journey to create consistency of service for each business regardless of which College becomes their primary connection. See Annex 4.1 for further details of the Customer Journey.The Customer Journey centres around three core elements of:* Organisational Needs Analysis - to determine innovation aspirations and support needs* Innovation Plan - to propose and document appropriate innovation support needs, co-created with an Innovation Practitioner within the Innovation Centre* Knowledge Transfer and Innovation Management Programme - facilitated participation by the business in support offered across the Innovation Centres including innovation awareness sessions, sector specific upskilling, technology demonstrations, practical sessions in college facilities and extensive signposting to onward support such as Knowledge Transfer Partnerships and University servicesCollaboration is an important element of our Innovation Centres project. Our primary collaboration will be between the 4 colleges, building on our pre-existing partnership delivery of other projects and initiatives in recent years.