By Richard Asquith of Business Link

With success comes growth and the skills within your business will inevitably need to grow too. As a business owner or director it is important to recognise when new skills are needed and know which steps to take to address skills gaps in order to maintain a successful business.

You may be a first-class engineer, but unless you can sell your product, your business could fail. Likewise, you could be an excellent financier, but unless the people you employ are well managed, your business could collapse. As your business grows it is inevitable that your skills base may need to be enhanced in a number of areas.

Your finances will become more complex so you will need staff to manage company accounts and find and manage outside investment. Marketing is another area where you may need to become more sophisticated, which may mean broadening your understanding of advertising and the media or bringing in experts.

If the number of employees increases significantly you may also need to look at hiring HR professionals and if your business is involved in a sector where health and safety is particularly important, e.g. construction or manufacturing, you may need to hire health and safety professionals. Likewise, technical specialists may be needed if you introduce new equipment and/or processes in your business and if your IT system becomes more complex you may need to consider recruiting in-house IT experts.

Page 2/2 It is unlikely that you will be able to find the time or have the ability to meet most of these skills yourself so you might want to consider other options. Building a management team, delegating responsibility to other staff, recruiting to fill a skills gap, outsourcing the work to a specialist contractor or training existing staff to meet your skills needs can all be good ways to bridge a skills gap.

Business Link has a number of helpful online guides available at www.businesslink.gov.uk/northeast, where businesses can go to find help and training solutions to ensure that all of the skills needs are met in their company.

Business Link also has a team of expert skills advisers who offer advice, help and information to individuals and companies across the region, giving them access to the ‘business brains’ who will help to grow their company and enhance their skills. For further information about Business Link visit www.businesslink.gov.uk/northeast or call 0845 600 9 006.