Case study: Increasing new company

formations by understanding
Northwest RDA location decisions

Leading the economic development and regeneration of

England’s Northwest, the NWDA is aiming to improve
the formation, survival and growth rates of enterprises.
The region currently has 17% fewer businesses per 10,000
adults than the England average, and one of the key
measurable targets of the Regional Economic Strategy
is to raise this to the England average, in particular to
raise the level of company formations to 21,000 per year
(measured by VAT registrations).

Challenge Solution
In order to achieve its ambitious Experian’s Strategy & Research team
company formation target, the brought together insight from several
Northwest Regional Development bespoke sources to ensure the NWDA
Agency (NWDA) requires an is provided with comprehensive and
understanding of the current make-up useable findings.
of businesses in the region, and their
motivations for locating, such as: By providing insight and analysis of
the historical movements into and out
• The historical movements of of the region and identifying what the
businesses into and out of the key drivers of business location are,
region Experian’s research will directly inform
• The motivations behind businesses the NWDA’s policy response.
choosing to invest, expand, reduce
or move investment out of the region
• The motivations behind those
choosing to move within the region
• Why some firms choose not to
invest in the region
• Why some areas within the region
are more attractive than others
• How the Northwest’s attractiveness
compares with others
• Where pockets of new
entrepreneurs are based
 Cardinal Place Embankment House
80 Victoria Street Electric Avenue
London Nottingham
SW1E 5JL NG80 1EH
T 44 (0) 203 042 4000 T 44 (0) 115 941 0888
F 44 (0) 207 746 8277 F 44 (0) 115 968 5003
www.business-strategies.co.uk www.experian.co.uk
Implementation
A literature review evaluated sources
of information pertaining to business
location decisions.This allowed us to
gain a baseline insight into the range
of factors, as well as identifying wider
gaps in understanding.
To quantify movement and the types
Net movement of firms between the Northwest of movement of businesses within
and the rest of the UK (2003-2007) and outside the Northwest, we used
Experian’s pH Megafile – a data source
that holds details not only of the
primary location of a company, but also
all the sites that make it up, allowing us
to track over time the physical location
and size of all the sites of companies.
Beyond this, we identified the key
characteristics of these businesses in
order to benchmark them against other
regions, highlighting key attraction or
detraction factors.
A media review of national and local
press added additional up-to-date
information, by capturing recent news
stories concerning inward investment
to, or job losses from, the Northwest.
This supported our analysis of the pH
Megafile and addressed any lag in the
capture of this information.
For further information please
contact Sachin Dodhia:
T 44 (0) 207 746 8252
M 44 (0) 7969 126 516
sachin.dodhia@uk.experian .com
160 Dundee Street
Edinburgh
EH11 1DQ
T 44 (0) 131 228 8030
F 44 (0) 131 228 8040
For the NWDA to gain a broad
perspective on business investment, we
conducted stakeholder consultations
with the NWDA Inward Investment
team, UKTrade and Investment,
Business Link and inward investment
staff based in overseas offices.This
was in addition to conducting 2,000
quantitative interviews with businesses
based in the Northwest or those that
have previously been located in the
region.
This has allowed us to fill-in any gaps
identified from the literature research,
in particular to understand the full
range of influencers, test the hypothesis
evolving from the literature review and
database research, and delve deeper
into the ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors that
drive location decisions.
Results
A final report will be delivered to the
NWDA bringing together the insight
from the research stages. This will
allow the NWDA to fully understand
the region’s business baseline
and what the main drivers and
motivations are when establishing
a business location, ultimately
informing robust policy interventions.
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