Knowledge is power

The East Midlands Development Agency’s (emda’s) Knowledge Bank enables Business Link East Midlands to capture, store, retrieve and distribute information on a range of business support topics so that it can answer customer enquiries.

For the first time, interaction with customers is properly recorded and tracked on a single customer contact system – the Regional Business Support Information System.

John O’Reilly, director of business support at emda, explains: “Business Link advisers can now search and retrieve the most appropriate information to meet an enquiring customer’s needs. The Knowledge Bank holds national, regional and local information in a variety of formats, but in a consistent way, enabling advisers to handle customer queries efficiently and effectively.

“Analysis of management information from the Knowledge Bank also enables us to see what topics are ‘hot’ with our region’s entrepreneurs and to adapt and improve the Knowledge Bank content accordingly.”

Improve and flourish

BHP stays close to the requirements of the region’s business support community through regular meetings at all levels. In this way, information gaps can be identified and filled and any documents that might be incorrect or out of date are removed and updated. It’s a process of continuous improvement.

The project has caught the attention of several other Business Link organisations and regional development agencies, each eager to find out what all the fuss is about.

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