Manchester Digital, the independent trade association for the North West’s digital sector, has announced that the city’s digital ecosystem will remain one of its priorities.
In its updated strategy, revealed today, the association said it would seek to support the city’s infrastructure, skills, leadership and profile and promotion as per research undertaken by Manchester Digital’s council last year.
Graham Benson, chair at Manchester Digital and CIO of Rentalcars.com, said: “Our analysis of the digital sector comes as a number of big companies start to move their digital and tech teams here, demonstrating the pull of the region – Sainsburys and Bet365 being just a couple of examples. It’s now up to organisations like us to ensure the sector fulfills its potential.
“The research we undertook last year has been refined and has resulted in us deciding to prioritise these five areas of focus where intervention is required – areas where we believe we can make the most impact. Now we must agree an action plan to ensure that we optimise the results of the intense interest currently being focused on our region and work collaboratively with businesses, education, and the public sector to ensure we’re getting it right,” Benson added.
The organisation has now set out a series of additional development priorities that it will focus on over the next two years, including:
- Collaboration between different parts of the industry to encourage knowledge-sharing
- A simplified procurement process and help for smaller companies to bid for larger projects
- Providing a narrative that provides a true reflection of the North’s status and capabilities
- Intervention to encourage retention of talent in the region, as well as in education to grow and develop the talent pipeline
- Create a sustainable multi level mentoring scheme
- Campaign to use the devolution opportunity to open up the infrastructure market