66 DEBATE
Euan Aitken
Steve Brennan
One most important things we need in
Mo Isap
Lancashire is a dynamic, vibrant, thriving digital ecosystem with a greater number of start-ups and scale-ups
Kerry Harrison
Victoria Knight
Kam Kothia
Coming back to skills and talent, I’d be interested to know the numbers with regards to digital confidence, because even now the data shows kids in our schools in Lancashire or the North West to be ten to 20 per cent less confident about their digital futures than their counterparts in the South East. So, there’s a lot of work there.
VK: Cyber and digital capability should run through every aspect of organisation. I have this discussion on a daily basis, where you see organisational charts with cyber and digital, and manufacturing and retail in parallel silos. Digital and cyber capability should sit as horizontal factors across layers of the organisation.
The NCF is a once in a generation opportunity and a huge opportunity for Lancashire. Are we poised and ready? I think there’s a lot of work that’s going in to ensuring that we execute on the Lancashire digital strategy but there’s still a lot to do.
The timing is right both politically and economically. The North West corridor has been identified as a strategic cyber growth area and the site for an innovation accelerator hub - Lancashire has a lot to benefit from a regional join-up.
If we’re going to let this ecosystem thrive, there is a need for an SME incubator with a complementary investor education programme. When businesses
Alison Schmid
start to mature, it’s well known that UK valuations can IPO in the US for four times the valuation that they can in the UK and we’re seeing that time and again A digital/cyber investor education program would be welcomed to retain UK IP.
There also still needs to be a large focus on investing in the infrastructure to enable faster digitalisation of businesses. The £86m broadband rollout by Openreach will enable the digital economy in Lancashire. That base line infrastructure needs to improve quickly, particularly in rural areas, to enable organisational digital transformation.
KK: Regarding Cyber Force and the multiplier effect. Overnight, Samlesbury has become a magnet for further significant investment. I’m confident Samlesbury will very quickly become a world class centre for innovation in cyber and digital.
If you’ve got a world class centre in the heart of Lancashire, then it’s a no brainer to put in a business support function. It’s not my decision but I’d build a world class innovation hub for business support in the heart of the Samlesbury technology hub.
It would then allow universities, businesses and corporates to invest and build those businesses that will build the economy in Lancashire.
Matt Wright
We’ve got this ‘perfect storm’ and it is a positive thing. We’ve got Cyber Force, levelling up and the movers and shakers of Lancashire all focused on growth. You put all that together and something has to happen.
MW: We do need to be clear about what Lancashire is really good at and where it’s moving to. I don’t think we’re being that clear about what we really are and what we’ve really got to offer.
Because Cyber Force is a gamechanger, we can be braver about explaining what we have.
There are organisations that will want to come alongside the NCF that are almost as big.
So, there is a huge opportunity to get across the fact that we can integrate technologies and we have tremendous experience in security and resilience.
That is something we can really offer now in Lancashire that is very distinctive that other areas don’t really have.
What opportunities do businesses see and how are they adapting to meet them?
AS: The pandemic has had a massive impact for us and that’s where we’ve seen that growth. We’ve gone from five to 20 plus employees since the start of the pandemic.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84
