Oxfordshire businesses urged to 'wrap-up business to-do list' this Christmas by OxLEP

It comes as OxLEP Business – operating as the Growth Hub for businesses in the county – launches 2025 business support offer.

With many often using this time of year to assess their performancethe Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership’s Business team (OxLEP Business) are urging the county’s businesses to ‘get ahead’ and understand the support on offer that may be available in 2025.

OxLEP Business – whose role it is to back the county’s businesses helping them to thrive via its own support programmes and through appropriate signposting – are directing organisations to its own online business support too. A freediagnostic tool created to help businesses and individuals to understand the most appropriate help available to them.

OxLEP Business are keen to work with even more of Oxfordshire’s business community in 2025in particular following a year of continued support and access to experts.

The organisation’s latest impact report – ‘Driving Investment and Sustainable Growth for Oxfordshire (DISGO)’ – showcased the role played by OxLEP over the period between April 2023 to March this year.

In total1790 businesses were supported by OxLEPwith over 2800 hours of expert business support provided by the organisation.

Moving into 2025 some of the fully-funded support is set to include ongoing workshops such as a start-up club LinkedIn masterclasses and leadership development courses as well as networking opportunities plus investment planning and managing finance support.

In addition tailored programmes of activity for both the West of the county and the Cherwell district through ‘Spark’ and ‘Accelerator’ programmes are also in place.

The Spark and Accelerator programmes – being delivered by OxLEP Business on behalf of West Oxfordshire District Council and Cherwell District Council with the projects funded by the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund – respectively supports entrepreneurs with a new idea as well as established businesses ready to take on a new challenge or opportunity.

On top of this OxLEP Business will be continuing to urge Oxfordshire businesses to take the time to review their business resilience and sustainability practices with considerable business continuity guidance and net-zero support both available too.

Helen Brind – Growth Hub Manager at OxLEPsaid: “As we look ahead to 2025 we are delighted to announce that we will continue to support the county’s wide array of businesses through a whole host of business support offerings.

“In our most recent impact reportwe announced that 691 businesses completed our online business support toolwith 321 of these start-ups178 scale-ups122 pre-start businesses51 growing businesses and 19 established businesses.

“This really highlights not only how OxLEP Business supports organisations around the county of all sizes but alsothat our business support tool really acts as that ‘front door’ into our business support programmes and is being used frequently.

“We would really encourage the county’s businesses to ‘beat the festive rush’ and get in touch with us today to ensure 2025 truly kicks off on the right note.”

So – if this festive period you would like the gift of unrivalled business supportgo to the OxLEP Business website to find out more.

OxLEP are now an Oxfordshire County Council-owned company with the completion of a new governance and operational arrangement to be in-place for 1 April next year.

Complete the business support tool