Business Basics Programme: overview and objectives
The Business Basics Programme tests ways to encourage small and medium sized businesses to adopt productivity-boosting technologies and management practices.
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The Business Basics Programme is designed to test innovative ways of encouraging small and medium sized enterprises to adopt existing technologies and management practices to improve their productivity.
The 4 year programme runs from 2018 to 2022. It has a £9.2 million budget, and grant funding is allocated to a range of projects through the Business Basics Fund. The Programme is delivered in partnership with Innovate UK and the Innovation Growth Lab at Nesta.
Programme objectives
The objectives of the Business Basics Programme are to:
1. Raise the productivity of small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by:
- identifying and testing the most effective, scalable interventions which encourage SMEs to adopt productivity boosting existing technology and modern business practices
- testing which interventions have the most impact on SME productivity
2. Drive innovation by:
- sourcing new ideas from traditional and non-traditional sources
- taking a dynamic, experimental approach in order to learn and develop as the project develops
- supporting new initiatives and leaving a legacy of quality data and evaluation to inform future research
3. Enable better investment decisions at a local and national level by:
- providing a new, robust evidence base for those interventions which are the most effective in raising productivity
- taking an inclusive approach such as by involving SMEs from different areas and different sectors, and focusing on the transferability and scalability of interventions