It’s that time of year, when Business Link Magazine invites the region’s business leaders to offer up their predictions for the year ahead.
It has become something of a tradition, given that we’ve been doing this now for over 30 years.
Here we speak to Alex Hudson, Market Senior Partner at PwC East Midlands.
It’s fair to say that 2023 was a challenging year for businesses, from economic uncertainty to geopolitical events which impacted the market. That said, there were also many opportunities created, and as we look forward to 2024, we should consider how we can take advantage of these.
Productivity was a hot topic for 2023 and this is set to continue. The PwC Productivity Tracker, which takes a human-led and tech-powered approach to analysing the various components that make up productivity, focused on the regional differences in terms of productive growth. Out of the 12 regions, when comparing rates of productivity growth, the East Midlands achieved fourth place, highlighting the opportunity we have to increase our regional output.
The Tracker indicated that the regions who perform the best prioritised change and innovation, be it through development, regeneration or investment to name a few. It also underlined the close relationship between strong productivity growth, talent availability and high skills levels, all of which we have here in the East Midlands.
With the recent announcement that the East Midlands investment zone is to be extended, as well as the free port we have at East Midlands and the Combined County Authority devolution deal set to be realised in summer, 2024 should present a lot of opportunities for growth for East Midlands businesses.
