How to succeed in business

Who: RBS Inspiring Enterprise

Objective: With the British economy teeming with small and medium enterprises (SMEs) one of RBS’ main roles is to support business owners and sole traders through its traditional products and services. Of a comprised client-base of 24% SMEs, RBS provided 36% of UK loans to SMEs last year. This, in addition to an existing focus on supporting SMEs through its corporate responsibility efforts, encouraged RBS to realign its work in this area. Inspiring Enterprise was thus borne of 10-plus years of work with SMEs and of existing partnerships with NGOs and charities across the country.

Strategy: Inspiring Enterprises reaches out to women, young people and social entrepreneurs, through national, local or regional and specialist third-party organisations. It provides funding, training and support for aspiring business owners. In one case in Telford a charity called Small Woods works to protect coppicing – or the harvesting and regrowing of hazel trees. Its 25-person youth engagement programme, sponsored by RBS, both shows aspiring entrepreneurs how to run a coppicing business and seeks to keep the aging, yet longstanding industry of coppicing alive. The three groups – youth, women and social – were chosen because they have, through research, been shown to face significant barriers to business success for which RBS and its partners often have a solution.

Rationale: “This is about trying to drive a more entrepreneurial culture in the UK, to make people realise that enterprise is not this scary thing. It’s about the tagline ‘From the classroom to the boardroom’ and we’re encouraging more people to consider enterprise. If we can do that, then that will drive a more successful UK economy and that will in turn, be good for the bank and we will be able to continue to support SMEs,” Thom Kenrick, head of sustainability programmes at RBS, says.