Welcome to Evaluations Online

The Commercial Breakthrough Service aimed to address observed weakness in sales and marketing skills amongst technology-based firms and specialist service companies in Scotland. It was aimed at firms whose staff were recognised as having strong technical competencies but were lacking in their understanding and their ability to market and sell their products.

The CompeteFor (CFOR) free service consisted of three interventions: a web-based Electronic Brokerage System (EBS), to ensure that all members of the UK’s business community had access to, and could compete for, Olympics business opportunities; the Supplier Engagement Programme, which aimed to promote awareness of 2012 Olympic contract opportunities and maximise the number of businesses, particularly small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), registering and proceeding to publish their profile on CompeteFor; and the Buyer Engagement Programme, which, through the work of the Buyer Engagement Team, aimed to meet and encourage prospective buyers to post contract opportunities on CFOR and to operate a transparent procurement process for Olympic tenders.

The report aimed to explore whether there is a significant 'service gap' in business support between Scottish Enterprise (SE)/Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) and the Business Gateway. It responded to the view that ‘many’ businesses are missing out on business support, particularly in light of the economic downturn.