SOME OF the most senior figures in Nottingham's business community have called on the city to raise its profile and raise its game against a background of skills challenges and international competition.
Alliance Boots UK managing director Ken Murphy and Experian founder Sir John Peace spoke out at The Great Nottingham Debate, which saw the release of a new report into the city's economy.
The report has been drawn up by a research team at Nottingham Trent University's Nottingham Business School and was commissioned by the Nottingham Post.
Its findings were revealed at Nottingham Conference Centre on Thursday in front of an audience of around 170 senior figures from city businesses and organisations.
The report says that while Nottingham is home to a number of world-class businesses and organisations, city residents have below-average skills which leave its economy languishing in the competitiveness rankings and at risk from recessions.
It says better education alone won't solve the skills challenge, and calls on the city to find ways of growing its major businesses and attracting new, high-skill jobs.
Mr Murphy, who runs a business employing more than 8,000 people locally, told the debate that Nottingham needed to sell itself harder.
"Nottingham needs to invest in marketing itself because perception is reality. You can't find out that Nottingham is a great place to do business by accident," he said.
"We can harness the amazing capability that I see in Nottingham; the research, the manufacturing capability, product development and the brand capability and take it to every consumer in the world.
"The real challenge for this city is to make sure that it wants to be a partner with a business like us, that it will work us to get to a place where Boots is synonymous with fantastic product, delivered at great value with expert care in every country in the world.
"We will continue to maintain the beating heart of the brand in the city but I am finding it increasingly difficult to get the right level of talent and the right number of skilled people to come to Nottingham, or to find them within the community.
"That is the real challenge for me in terms of fulfilling my mission."
Nottingham County Councillor Diana Meale said there was a need to ensure the right marketing message was being used to promote Nottingham.
"We are not getting out the message that this is a great place to be, grow and develop.
"I think there's a real challenge to us in local authority to make sure that we work together to make that happen."
Sir John Peace, who has also been working with the Local Government Association on a report about economic growth, said: "Unless we address the competitiveness issue there is a real danger of this country falling further down the scale of global economies.
"If we are going to accelerate growth in the economy it is very important we have the right skills for where we want to be in the world.
"It is good that Nottingham already has a Growth Plan, great we are having this debate, but so important that we see it in the context of the UK and globally. Don't think about Nottingham in isolation."
The Great Nottingham Debate research says that the city needs to join forces with other local councils if it is to make the most of the opportunities presented by plans for more power to be devolved to England's city regions.
Ian Curryer, the chief executive of Nottingham City Council, joined a panel discussion after the research was presented.
He said: "Leaders of the councils will come together to explore the opportunity of creating a combined authority for Nottinghamshire that will have key decision making power. That could be a massive step forward."
Mr Curryer said the global connections which might flow from East Midlands Airport were compromised by the fact that it was ultimately controlled by Manchester.
But he added: "We should consider trying to attract a world player [airline] not currently represented here – why can't we think bigger?"
The event was also addressed by Prof Chris Rudd, pro vice chancellor at the University of Nottingham.
He pointed out that the city's two universities had a combined income of £750m, while their 60,000 students spent £420m in the local economy every year.
"It's important to realise that we have some great institutions in this city – great science, great business skills and great engineering.
"It's an exciting time to be having this debate and we look forward to working with everyone involved in what comes out of it."
The Great Nottingham debate was supported by the local enterprise partnership, D2N2, law firm Geldards, business advisors Mazars and the construction company Willmott Dixon.
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