Business Support Professionals
Posted on 17 May 2011
By Emma Nugent, Business Development Director, Intelligence Matters Research Consultancy Limited
Having only been in business support for a short period of time I was shocked but of course delighted to have been recognised and awarded with the BES (Business Enterprise Support) Young Peoples Business Support Professional Award 2010 and more recently the Social Enterprise Business Support Professional Award 2011. I have worked hard to be a Gold SFEDI accredited adviser!
I am not the typical business adviser as I am under 25 and female for a start, and whilst this can sometimes be a challenge I hope that at the same time I can provide inspiration and be a role model to other young people who may not necessarily want to be an entrepreneur but do have the passion for enterprise and /or social enterprise. Whilst the older generation of business support professionals have a lot to offer I think that if we could encourage more young people to consider the career path of becoming a business support professional that when they are at the age of a ‘typical’ business adviser they would have even more experience and knowledge to pass onto their clients.
Due to a change in Government and therefore a big change in business support infrastructure it is an uneasy time for business support professionals. However, I do believe that there is a need and demand for quality business support professionals as we all know that whilst the internet may provide basic information it does not provide that critical friend who has the right level of knowledge that can be effectively communicated in a number of ways so people learn best practice and sometimes just have someone to bounce ideas off.
Therefore I believe that it is very important for current business support professionals to keep up to date with accreditations and carry out continuous professional development to ensure that when those in business or wishing to start a business need that ‘critical friend’ the quality is there and in order to encourage more young people to enter the world of business support the opportunities need to be presented to them and more business support agencies need to be open to taking a risk with an intern/apprentice who can be learn the ropes and follow a framework.
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