Regional
digitalisation partners
The Shoestring mission is to increase digitalisation in small businesses around the world by working hand in hand with regional partners who know their local SME community and and understand the challenges they face. Our experience of working closely with the right partners has shown how combining Shoestring expertise with local knowledge can deliver beneficial business outcomes whilst developing digital skills.
We understand that a local Shoestring roll out needs to be tailored to meet local needs and to fit partner budgets. The top level aim is always to build a local self-sustaining Shoestring community, and our approach to this typically involves an initial pilot or scoping study, followed by local capability development with the right regional organisations such as businesss support or sector groups, FE colleges or universities.
Organisations, such as Cornwall County Council (via Oxford Innovation), the Western Australian government (through its Department for Primary Industries and Regional Development, DPIRD) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in Egypt, have included Shoestring programmes in their small business support activities. These programmes aim to help small manufacturers digitalise and improve their business performance in priority areas such as quality, productivity or sustainability.
Work with us to develop a Shoestring programme in your region
A regional programme enables organisations to scope out or create a local group of advisors and digital experts trained to support SMEs to get started with digitalisation using Shoestring, via a scoping study or rollout programme. A programme encourages participating companies to champion Shoestring’s low-cost approach with their peers, with some becoming Shoestring Ambassadors who showcase how the digital solutions help them automate processes, change the mindset of staff, save money and become more productive.
Scoping studies
Before jumping in with a phased rollout campaign across a region some organisations like to start with a scoping study. This enables them to see how they can:
Use Shoestring to bring your industry network together to help them tackle technology and leadership issues together.
Discover the business needs of their SMEs and how these can be addressed with low-cost digital solutions, by hosting a Digital Needs Assessment workshop for a group of companies.
Recruit one or two companies, via the workshop, to host an industry pilot in which one or two Shoestring demonstrator solutions would be installed and trialled.
Scoping studies reveal the potential impact that Shoestring would have in the region. The study also highlights how the local networks and organisations would help promote and support a local programme, and it can provide a pipeline of local businesses keen to deploy Shoestring solutions. In this way they enable a region to plan an effective rollout campaign that is tailored to meet their local setup and needs.
Scoping studies have been successfully completed in Scotland, funded by Scottish Enterprise, and in Egypt. In both regions local organisations are developing plans to run a regional rollout programme.
To book a regional scoping study contact us
Rollout programmes
Rollout programmes are typically conducted over one to several years and are designed to build the capability locally to support a programme. A group of local advisors and digital experts are trained by Shoestring to run workshops and support the deployment of low-cost digital solutions in companies. The companies that join their programmes access Shoestring’s mentored self-start training course. These courses use Shoestring’s online resources and participants attend live online workshops and weekly live drop-in sessions delivered by the locally trained team which is supported by Shoestring.
The Western Australian government’s rollout programme is in its second year and reaching the end of its second phase. The Cornwall Growth Programme, delivered by a local team from Oxford Innovation, began at the beginning of 2024.
Fund an activity
Organisations can organise funded Shoestring activities to help their SME audience to discover how low-cost technologies could address their business needs, helping to improve productivity and meet sustainability goals.
Workshops
Digital needs: participants identify their business needs and match these to digital solution areas, to see a quick affordable way to get started using low-cost technologies.
Requirements: helps groups define which digital solution areas address their top business needs in a sector or area, such as sustainability or supply chains.
In-company: an interactive session with 4-5 employees to identify real business needs and the digital solutions areas that solve them, user perspectives on the company outcomes required, and detailed specifications for required digital solutions.
Hackathons
Inspiring creative ‘away days’ which help a group of participants to explore ways to improve their working environment, whether that involves automating processes or collating information so that it is easier to find. Ideal to help uncover and develop people’s digital skills, they can stimulate new ideas as well as inspire company staff, apprentices and students.
Training courses
Digital skills bootcamps: intensive training sessions that can be held in person and live online which build participant confidence in understanding the value of low-cost technologies and how they can be combined to create digital solutions that, once deployed in a company, can help improve productivity and enable a company move towards their net zero goals.
Mentored self-start courses: an eight-week online training course in which participants learn how to build and trial on-site one of Shoestring’s starter solutions. Helps build confidence and skills in-house, whilst providing tangible productivity and sustainability improvements for the company.
Contact us if you’d like to set up, host and support activities with your audience
Promote the company-funded model
Regional and sector organisations can promote the company-funded mentored self-start training course with their audiences, where the companies fund themselves and learn how to deploy a low-cost starter solution of their choice. The organisation’s promotion activity can include hosting webinars and workshops run by Shoestring.
