Fife Business Week 2016 Hailed a Great Success

SUPPORTING new and established was the theme of this year’s Fife Business Week attracting around 700 attendees to more than 30 events across Fife.  This was an increase of more than 160 visitors from last year.
Now in its seventh year, Fife Business Week again proved to be the highlight of Fife’s business calendar.  Running from 7 to11 November, the variety of sessions on offer to entrepreneurs, businesses and employers was wide-ranging with fresh insights into workforce development, finance and strategy and digital connectivity.

The week kicked off with a breakfast event in Kirkcaldy hosted by Developing Young Workforce in Fife (DYW) to showcase how businesses can benefit through engagement with DYW.  The major Scottish Towns Conference was held in Kirkcaldy’s Adam Smith Centre and one of its workshops provided a great forum to explore practical solutions to delivering digital infrastructure.  Polly Purvis, Chief Executive, Scotland IS commented:

“Scotland’s Towns Conference was a useful opportunity to engage a diverse audience on what we need to focus on to make town centre living work.  Key messages emerged around building value through services, spaces for community cohesion and imagining new town centre housing products.  At the heart of the discussion was differentiation and fairness:  different solutions for different places to provide more choices for more people.”

Other events included a business breakfast with Paul Wheelhouse MSP, Minister for Business, Innovation and Energy, who was guest speaker at the event organised by Fife Economy Partnership. 

Mabbett, a leading independent environmental, management systems, health and safety consultancy and engineering firm delivered a seminar on the Revised ISO14001:2015 Standard to explain the key differences and new additional requirements necessary to meet the Revised ISO14001:2015 Standard. 

Topics including food safety legislation, waste regulations and health & safety and how to manage absence in the workplace all featured in events across Fife while ManagedIT Experts Ltd ran a session at Dunfermline Business Centre called Get More Done featuring top tips to make the most out of IT.

Stephen Doran, Chair of Fife Economy Partnership said:

“The Fife Economy Partnership is ambitious to see the local economy flourish and thanks to the partners, we delivered a comprehensive line-up of events that enabled businesses to access the range of public and private sector support agencies, business experts and entrepreneurs to help move their business forward and secure future success.”

Fife Business Week 2016 was hosted by Fife Council’s Economic Development Team and Business Gateway Fife on behalf of the Fife Economy Partnership, with the aim of supporting businesses to success whilst making Fife the best place to do business.

Councillor Lesley Laird, Depute Leader of Fife Council and Spokesperson for Economy and Planning added:

“Fife is very much open for business and there is so much public and private sector support available to help a business invest, grow and thrive.  The region is already home to some of the UK’s highest performing small businesses, and we are proud that we can offer businesses high calibre, highly skilled staff, excellent infrastructure links and centres of excellence in many sectors.”