The future of the economy may sound like an awfully big topic – and one you can’t influence. But by listening to and connecting to the right people – British and international senior politicians, public figures, and UK regional Chambers of Commerce members amongst them – in the right environment, you can at least ensure you’ve got a voice in a forum where the direction of travel is being discussed.
And yes, these conversations – and networking opportunities – are within your reach, at the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) Global Annual Conference 2024 on June 27.
Here’s a brief overview of the topics that will be tackled, and where your input will fuel debate to help build a better future for business, the economy, and people in this country.
What will be discussed?
The conference will be centred around five key breakout sessions, covering critical topics including:
- People and Work
- Global Britain
- Digital Revolution
- Green Innovation
- Local Economy of the Future
The event will also feature exhibition space, delivering a high-quality opportunity for businesses to showcase their products and services.
To give you a foretaste of the likely content of the sessions listed above, below is a brief exploration of some of the most pressing business and economic issues in each category.
People and Work: challenges afoot and ahead
The shortage of workers in the UK economy, and the skills gap, are two themes that have loomed large in BCC’s and our own conversations with businesses in the UK of late. The recent discovery that more than 20% of UK adults are either not in work or looking for it adds another dimension to the challenge, as the relaxation of work culture wrought by Covid now (seemingly) bites us in the back.
How do we bridge the skills gap? How do we ensure both young people and career restarters are equipped with the key skills employers need? And how do we organise work in ways that benefit from the productivity learnings of the pandemic, without losing worker engagement?
These are just a few of the themes that this session may well find itself exploring.
Global Britain: our place on the world stage
Ensuring the UK sells to the world, and ensuring the world sees our islands as a great place to do business, will be the dual themes of this session, which will focus on supporting exporters and making the UK one of the world’s most attractive investment propositions.
The challenges to the UK’s global standing have been many recently, the wranglings over Brexit perhaps foremost amongst them, yet some indicators show that export is, nonetheless, growing.
The Government’s latest figures show 1,000 more companies exporting goods compared to the previous year, and, equally, 1,000 more companies exporting – despite all the odds – to the EU. Putting Brexit challenges behind us and developing policy to help position the UK strongly in inward investment markets are likely to be key discussion points in this session.
Digital Revolution: ensuring SMEs benefit
The digital economy has moved up a gear recently, with artificial intelligence (AI), in particular, accelerating the potential for many business processes to become smarter, more efficient, and more cost effective.
However, despite incredible innovation taking place within some organisations, many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) may be missing out on the digital revolution, owing to poor infrastructure, a lack of skills, or limited guidance on which technologies are most appropriate. Reversing this shortfall will be a focus in this session.
Likewise, although broadband is now a vital utility and the foundation for all business tech adoption, coverage is still patchy in many parts of the UK, so a discussion of the need for connectivity infrastructure planning to up its game will also likely feature in this session.
Green Innovation: the colour of the new economy
Delivering on net zero is a goal that concerns us all, for the good of our people, our planet, and our business-critical resources, and so themes such as carbon reduction and sustainability will certainly figure strongly in this session.
But green innovation is also a huge commercial opportunity. There is fast-growing global demand for environmental products and services, and this is projected to deliver up to £170bn of export sales in goods and services for the UK by 2030.
Developing green innovation accelerators and supply chains, and providing training and support on net zero to drive our economy, are stated BCC objectives, and so the discussions in this session will be focused on driving progress and achievement in this area.
Local Economy of the Future: a home for business
And finally, the UK’s towns and cities are the cradle of business performance and economic growth, and home to the SMEs that account for 99.9% of the UK’s business population, three fifths of the employment, and around half of private sector turnover.
But often, local policies and planning processes stand in the way of these towns’ and cities’ development, which impacts on businesses’ ability to serve communities and evolve within them.
This session will explore which policies currently work well, which work less well and how our local economies must adapt now to create the thriving, business-friendly local communities of the future.
To become a Bedfordshire Chamber of Commerce member, just call our friendly team on 01582 522448.
Richardson
CEO
Bedfordshire
Chamber of
Commerce
