Businesses told to join Team Birmingham
Birmingham’s support organisations should merge into Team Birmingham to eliminate mixed messages and confusion, a group of the region’s business leaders were told last night. President Paul Bassi was speaking to nearly 750 guests at the annual awards of Birmingham Chamber of Commerce Group (BCCG).
At the event, held at the international convention centre, Bassi said: “We need to get much better at coming together as Team Birmingham.
“Frankly, we have too many individual organisations seeking to speak for a particular part of our city. The Birmingham Chamber Group, Marketing Birmingham, Birmingham Forward and Birmingham City Council are just a few of the local bodies I could mention.
“Add to this the regional business bodies like the CBI, EEF, FSB and the IoD and you get a recipe for mixed messages and, potentially, confusion in what we are saying as a city.”
Mr Bassi, the chief executive of Real Estate Investors, said a good example was the work underway to design a number of Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) to replace the work of AWM.
He added: “The multiple number of bodies interested in how LEPs develop and the tension between what should happen at a regional level versus what should be delivered locally has seen us deliver mixed messages to government at a time when we should be demonstrating our ability to work together.
“If Birmingham was one business, we would not allow multiple marketing departments to compete with each other, using a variety of different logos and brands.”
The awards were held following yesterday’s announcement that Birmingham Chamber of Commerce would merge and rebrand with South Staffordshire Chamber, Burton and District, Chase; Lichfield and Tamworth and Solihull. The Institute of Asian Businesses, the Chamber Executive Club and the British American Business Council have also merged with the new group.
Amongst the award winners at last night’s ceremony was the chief executive of Advantage West Midlands, Mick Laverty, who was honoured with the President’s Award.
