Business is GREAT with Virgin Trains

Virgin Trains pledges its commitment to UK SMEs through:

• Partnerships with UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) and Funding Circle
• Working with Business is GREAT
• Making The Access Pledge developed by Business in the Community (BITC)

Vince Cable greets “Virgin Ambassador” train at London Euston

Today Virgin Trains welcomed more than 30 representatives of small and medium-sized businesses from across the UK on board one of its trains for a complimentary journey from Birmingham International to London Euston to highlight the company’s commitment to supporting SMEs.

On the train, participants took part in expert advisory sessions covering a range of topics including access to finance and international growth, whilst having the opportunity to meet many other business owners.

Business Secretary Vince Cable welcomed the train which was decked out in Business is GREAT livery for the occasion, at London Euston where he chatted with the guests and commented:

“The UK is recognised as Europe’s leading entrepreneurial nation and the Government is backing small firms as part of our industrial strategy to create jobs and grow the economy. Large companies also have a vital role to play in offering support and sharing their experiences with smaller companies wanting to grow. Over 2 million new businesses have launched since 2010 and I want to encourage all would-be entrepreneurs to visit the GREAT Business website and benefit from the wealth of advice and support that’s out there. I look forward to seeing more inspirational small businesses develop their dreams into a reality.”

The event marked the beginning of Virgin Trains’ partnership with Business is GREAT, a campaign that aims to celebrate and inspire small businesses, and provides relevant advice and information for those looking to grow, hire, export and access finance.

Making travel accessible to the SME community

Acknowledging that many SMEs face challenges getting ahead in business, Virgin Trains is pledging to support them both as suppliers and as customers.To this end, Virgin Trains today announced partnerships with UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) and Funding Circle, an online marketplace which can help businesses access fast and simple finance.

James Meekings, co-founder of Funding Circle said: “Small businesses are the lifeblood of the economy so it’s fantastic to partner with Virgin Trains who also passionately believe in helping business owners get ahead. Investors have now lent over £530 million to 8,000 businesses through our marketplace, helping to create an estimated 24,000 jobs across the country.”

Further to this, Virgin Trains announced that it is the first train operator to make The Access Pledge, developed by Business in the Community (BITC). Through the pledge, organisations like Virgin Trains are working to level the playing field for SMEs to act as our supply chain.

Jane Pritchard, Business in the Community’s Director for Enterprise and Culture, said: “We’re delighted to welcome Virgin Trains on-board our Access Programme, led by their pledge to make supply-chain opportunities fair, open and transparent to small businesses. SMEs are the backbone of the UK’s economy and we look forward to working with Virgin Trains on our national programme of events bringing together small businesses and large corporates in the same room to explore business opportunities.”

Phil Cavender, Route Director, Virgin Trains, commented: “Virgin Trains puts local communities and passengers at the heart of what we do. We are fully committed to supporting small businesses in the UK by creating bespoke offers designed to enable their travel across the Virgin Trains Network, facilitating face to face meetings which are vital in securing deals and maintaining business relationships. In addition to this initiative, Virgin Trains supports other projects, including pop up shops at our stations, to help showcase businesses in the communities we serve and the importance of SMEs to the UK economy”.

The Virgin Ambassador train benefits from the upgraded WiFi that will be rolled out across the whole Virgin Trains fleet by Summer 2015. The new service will be more reliable, perfect for SMEs who want to work on their way to a meeting or on their daily commute.

ENDS

Editors Notes

Virgin Trains and SMEs - Achievements to date

Ticketing

Acknowledging that many SMEs face challenges getting ahead in business, Virgin Trains is pledging to support them both as suppliers and as customers by working to better understand their travel needs.We are fully committed to supporting small businesses in the UK by creating bespoke offers designed to enable their travel across the Virgin Trains Network, enabling face to face meetings that are vital in securing deals and maintaining business relationships.

We understand how face to face contact is essential in securing businesses deals and maintaining relationships, andthat is why we are fully committed to supporting small business in the UK by creating bespoke ticketing offers designed to help small companies with their travel across the West Coast network.

Communities

We manage 17 stations on our route and try to be creative as possible with these spaces. In October 2014, Nicola Griffiths won the prestigious "Rail Person of the Year" award at the Rail Staff Awards; an annual event which recognises the amazing work that people do across the rail industry. Thanks to Nicola, small businesses and community groups in Crewe were given the opportunity to run pop-up shops on the station's platforms through her "Community Platform" initiative. The scheme has been so successful that Nicola has been released from her position as customer service assistant at the booking office in Crewe to develop her idea across other stations on the West Coast Mainline. In December, Nicola held a pop-up shop day across all 17 Virgin Trains' stations in conjunction with Small Business Saturday, Network Rail and Virgin Startup. She is now planning pop up events across all 17 stations over the course of 2015 and beyond.

In addition to providing small businesses with space at our stations, Virgin Trains also provide the following to help them cut down on costs:

• -duty passes to allow them complimentary travel to attend other networking and pop-up events across the West Coast route;
• -help with posters so that the small businesses can insert their promotional material;
• -advertise their displays in our first class lounges; recently a painting from a pop-up shop sold for 10 times more than their normal price;
• -invitation to internal training courses such as marketing, social media etc at our Training Academy in Crewe; and
• -Use of our Training Academy to hold networking events.

• Mentoring

We are working in partnership with Virgin Startup, a not-for-profit organisation that helps entrepreneurs aged 18 and over in England with the small business funding, resources and advice they will need to make their business idea a reality. We have so far provided 7 mentors from within Virgin Trains to be available to mentor Startup companies. Such mentors provide professional business advice to VSU companies ranging from advice about Sales and Marketing, IT and website design, to general business knowledge or advice about franchises etc. Where possible, mentors are paired with companies that are local to them and which they can provide advice, support and guidance that best suit the Startup company based on their skills and background.

We have also partnered with DWF which is a large legal firm (which Virgin Trains uses for Commercial litigation purposes), which also provide in the region of 60 mentors to VSU. In addition to this, we are exploring opportunities with Wolverhampton and Manchester Metropolitan Universities who already support and coach students to build ideas to help them in the world of business – only now we plan to provide a link to help those students apply for loans and get expert support through VSU to get their business ideas off the ground.

• Supply Chain

We are committed to ensuring that at least 10% of our tier one supply base goes to SME contractors by the end of 2015.

About Business is GREAT

The ‘Business is GREAT Britain’ campaign aims to build confidence amongst small businesses by showcasing inspirational examples of similar-sized businesses. It encourages businesses to plan, hire and export as drivers to future business success.

The ‘Business is GREAT Britain’ campaign has three key strands:

INSPIRE – encouraging small businesses to take a step back from the day-to-day and consider the full potential of their businesses, and plan for long term growth

HIRE – encouraging businesses to take on new talent and fresh ideas to drive business growth

EXPORT – encouraging businesses to consider new, foreign markets for their goods and services

The Business is GREAT campaign is run by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and UK Trade & Investment (UKTI).

There is a single place for all businesses to go for advice and support: www.greatbusiness.gov.uk

About UK Trade & Investment (UKTI)

UKTI is the Government department that helps UK-based companies succeed in the global economy. We also help overseas companies bring their high quality investment to the UK’s economy – acknowledged as Europe’s best place from which to succeed in global business. UKTI offers expertise and contacts through its extensive network of specialists in the UK, and in British embassies and other diplomatic offices around the world. We provide companies with the tools they require to be competitive on the world stage. For more information on UKTI, visit www.gov.uk/ukti or visit the online newsroom here.

About The Access Pledge

Business in the Community has developed the Access Pledge, asking large businesses to publicly show their commitment to open up their supply chains to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) through a fair, transparent and open procurement process. This forms part of Business in the Community’s Access Programme, which aims to create a level playing field for SMEs so they can grow, win business and create new jobs through the Access Pledge and a national programme of events bringing together SMEs and procurement professionals from large corporates. Business in the Community is one of The Prince’s Charities supporting businesses to create a fairer society and a more sustainable future.