Business East Sussex launches Collaboration Site for Businesses to work together

Welcome to a special edition of the BES Newsletter, to celebrate the launch of our new Business East Sussex Collaboration Zone.

At Business East Sussex, we believe that businesses are more likely to survive and thrive by working together and collaborating in these challenging times.
 
Today, we are launching our new Collaboration Zone; a place for businesses to work together, connect and collaborate, and network to find solutions.
 
In this newsletter we take you through the new site, how to use it, and how you and your businesses can benefit from engaging with the site. There are two main parts to the site, the main page where businesses can post offers of help and immediate needs, and the Slack chat function.
 
Like all Business East Sussex services, this is entirely publicly funded and free for businesses to access.
 

The first part of the site is the posting area, where you can see offers of help or immediate needs of other businesses who have posted on the site already.

For example, Leading Edge Design are an events company based in Eastbourne, and they have repurposed to provide protective screens to help businesses continue to operate and open as we emerge from lockdown. They have posted that they can help other businesses with social distancing and segregation solutions. 
 

To engage with a post, click on it and more details will pop up. This will include photos, further details of offers/needs, contact details and other information relevant to the post.

In our example Leading Edge Design have provided photo examples of different protective screens they have developed complete with measurements, what they can be used for, and how they can be customised to customer's needs. If you scroll down from here, a description of the services they can provide and contact details can be found below.
 

To add an offer of how you can help other businesses, or post needs your business is facing, scroll down the bottom of the page and complete the form. Once approved your details will appear in the posting area above.

You cannot edit the post once it has been submitted, but if you would like to make changes please email us at info@businesseastsussex.org.uk and we will make the changes for you.
 

The second part of the site is the Slack chat function, which provides a platform for businesses to network and have discussions. A link to Slack can be found in the preview on the Collaboration Zone.
 

After a quick registration process, you will be able to access the Business East Sussex Slack page.

Businesses can introduce themselves, ask questions, and discuss common challenges. A good first step is to pop onto our 'introduce-yourself' channel, say hello and tell others a bit about you and your business. As you will see from the picture above, posts from this channel are previewed on the Collaboration Zone. 

On the Business Support channel, we are regularly posting helpful links to guidance, tools and resources. If you have a question, you can post it on here and one of the Business East Sussex Navigators will get back to you.
 

Thank you for taking the time to look through how our new BES Collaboration Zone works, please take some time to visit the site, post an offer of help or a need, and maybe introduce yourself on Slack.

Please also remember that Business East Sussex is here to help, if you are trying to navigate and understand the different types of Covid-19 support available, you want to speak with someone about how to open your business again, or you have a question please contact Business East Sussex on 01273 335878 or email us at info@businesseastsussex.org.uk.