Economic Recovery in Post COVID London
Small Businesses are the backbone of a local economy. Yet, during and post COVID-19, small businesses in London were collapsing. Sowen partnered with the Greater London Authority (GLA) to better understand who needs what help, and how it can best be delivered to drive optimal and sustainable economic recovery.
INCREASE IN REACH TO SMALL BUSINESSES
4X increase
CITY GROSS VALUE ADDED (GVA)
16% increase
NEW PROJECT COLLABORATIONS IDENTIFIED AND LAUNCHED
22 projects
Small businesses often account for over 80% of a city’s employment and overall revenue structures. The City of London sought to leverage existing infrastructure, data, and insight to support small businesses. However, the city’s existing support providers, data sets, and activities were disparate and siloed. No one knew what percentage of small businesses were impacted and how these businesses tangibly benefited from the support provided. Additionally, business owners were unaware of available support and found it difficult to navigate the landscape, much less leverage available resources.
OA new technology-driven approach was required to map the support landscape, align propositions to audience needs, assess the effectiveness of various activities, and better connect between business owners and value propositions driven by the city. Sowen engaged with multiple city and private sector agencies to better understand entrepreneurs, start-ups, and small-business owners' needs and wants. We also set out to grasp the city’s complex regulatory processes. We identified and leveraged open-source code to design and launch a new small business support portal which, for the first time, aligned support to the needs of a business life cycle and was made available to relevant audiences through relevant online and offline channels.
Moreover, we created a safe harbor environment where various agencies and organizations could share protected, relevant data to enrich collaboration across functions and gain a deeper level of understanding and impact measurement. This platform also served as the starting point for enterprise partnerships with private sector organizations. This led to a virtuous cycle of re-investment in the ecosystem.