Press releases

West Midlands industry experts have provided intelligence and support to Birmingham’s inward investment plans through their participation in a series of research workshops during April.   Marketing Birmingham and Birmingham City Council hosted the workshops which have provided specialist sector intelligence during the planning phase to define target sectors and markets alongside Birmingham’s unique selling points for investors.

The sectors have been selected according to those in which Birmingham already has demonstrable strength or those that are emerging as lucrative areas for job creation in the next few years.  Key target sectors are likely to include: shared services and business process outsourcing, financial services; public sector relocation; transport technologies and emerging technologies such as digital, low carbon and medical technologies.   Further work is now being undertaken to finalise the target markets and sales channels for the strategy, which will be confirmed in the coming weeks.

An over-arching ‘Birmingham proposition’ will also be created, focusing on the city’s competitive advantages of connectivity, scale, diversity and youth,  research and development expertise and its track-record in ‘smarter working processes’, on which it has received praise from the public and private sectors.

A bespoke business development plan will also be produced to sit alongside a national and international public relations and marketing campaign to promote Birmingham as a place to do business over the next five years.

Neil Rami, Chief Executive of Marketing Birmingham, said:

“We have just undergone a vital part of the planning and research process to ensure that the final strategy positions Birmingham as a truly competitive international  business location.  The intelligence we have gleaned from the pool of regional industry experts has been invaluable and will allow us to better define the city's attractiveness for foreign direct investment.”

Dr. Jacob Dencik, IBM Global Business Services, who have led the development of the new strategy said:

“The workshops and interviews provided us with critical insight into the current state of the different sectors in Birmingham, highlighting strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges. The input from the different sector representatives and local stakeholders has been important for us to get a more in-depth understanding of the situation in Birmingham as well as an overview of how they perceive the current investment promotion and marketing efforts of Birmingham.”