A COUNTY business support provier has doubled its client base during the coronavirus crisis, helping hundreds of regional businesses get through the pandemic.

Kevin Brent, who founded BizSmart in 2012, has developed a series of support initiatives with a key focus on bringing like-minded business leaders together via peer-to-peer learning and engagement.

During the crisis, Mr Brent and his team have doubled the number of attendees to their ScaleUp Club, Smart90 Club and SmartBoards withing six months.

He said: "I founded BizSmart 8 years ago with a clear vision to transform the support available to professionals, by creating and delivering a series of cost-effective initiatives that would add real value for business owners; enabling them to tackle challenges and learn from like-minded individuals, whilst helping them to achieve their objectives and scale growth.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has proved incredibly challenging for business owners across the region and in quickly recognising this, the BizSmart team worked hard to ‘pivot’ and move more of our monthly services online, so we could deliver the same standard of support to those working remotely.

"Not only have our activities like ScaleUp Club proved valuable in connecting and creating a community of like-minded and even struggling business owners, but the use of technology has enabled us to welcome and support a large number of new business leaders, ensuring we can deliver vital support during this challenging time, whilst enabling us to drive our own growth."

ScaleUp Club, an online monthly meeting that allows business leaders to discuss and resolve current challenges with groups of like-minded peers, sees more than 40 local business owners regularly, a figure replicated for the BizSmart® Business Future resilience webinars.

The business support provider’s most recent Smart90® day planning workshop supported over 70 delegates in 19 breakout rooms, enabling them to outline strategic objectives to navigate through the final, challenging quarter of 2020.

Appointed by Worcestershire County Council in early 2020 to deliver the ‘Elevate’ programme, designed to help regional SMEs identify challenges and scale growth, BizSmart has become the region’s business support provider of choice, with its Scaleup Radio podcast now having reached an audience in excess of 7,000.

Mr Brent added: "With a clear goal to reach and support as many business owners as possible during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 is set to BizSmart®’s most successful year to date."