York Business Festival 2022

The University of York partnered with the City of York Council to deliver York Business Festival 2022. Now in its 12th year, the festival was a month-long programme of free events from 1st to 30th November that focused on ‘Growing the Economy for Today and Tomorrow’.

The programme covered a series of sessions on FIVE major themes:-

An economy driven by good business
Thriving businesses - The right conditions for Sustainable Growth
Reducing Carbon - A greener economy
Developing our People - A thriving workforce
York as a global city

The University delivered the theme Developing our People - A thriving workforce.

Programme

Introduction to Virtual Reality - 22nd and 24th November 2022

This was an introductory workshop for SMEs to showcase some of the possibilities of Virtual Reality, with a chance to see some ideas for simple virtual environments where they could showcase a project or concept that may be otherwise be harder to visualise. It included a look at some existing virtual environments with VR headsets and an overview of easy-to-setup tools.

Organised by University of York, Screen Industries Growth Network

Building a Resilient & Agile Workforce - 23rd November 2022

York businesses are finding it increasingly hard to both recruit and retain talent in a competitive skills market. Through a range of speakers, panel sessions and masterclasses, this event was aimed at businesses of any size or sector who wanted to find out about innovative recruitment and retention practices. We heard from businesses who have great stories to tell, and providers who can offer valuable support, in topics such as future skills, training and recruiting from the wider workforce.

Organised by University of York, CPD Unit

Developing a Winning Go-To-Market Strategy for your bio-based business - 23rd November 2022

A go to market strategy is a step by step plan that outlines how you will successfully launch your product or service to market, or launch an existing product/service in a new market. In this workshop we explored the key components of a go to market strategy and how bio-based startups and scaleups can leverage marketing to influence complex B2B buying cycles. We explored:

How to approach positioning and messaging and how to speak about sustainable/ESG credentials in a compelling way
How to identify and segment your target audience to focus your efforts on best-fit customers
How to identify and decide upon marketing activities that will influence each stage of the buying cycle
How to develop KPIs that align sales and marketing efforts.

Organised by University of York in conjunction with BioVale

An Inclusive Recruitment Workshop for the Creative Industries - 24th November 2022

This was a workshop for SMEs to explore and evaluate how SMEs currently try to recruit a diverse workforce. The session focused on identifying best practices and developing stronger recruitment, planning and interview skills including developing inclusive adverts, application processes etc. This supported the development of the workforce through understanding how to recruit using inclusive practice. We used this workshop to demonstrate our newly developed Recruitment Toolkit.