“Inward investment to the region is good for all sorts of reasons, and even Cambridge could slide into relative obscurity in a few years without it. Companies setting up business here bring more income and employment to the region, which therefore continues to attract the best people because of the wealth of jobs for all members of the family.
"We need to keep and refresh the region’s value in the world as the UK has many hungrier competitors. Trade increases and our intellectual property gets used, we can undertake more interesting research and build new capabilities if we are part of the growth. Even more immediate, we gain access to markets further afield than we generally achieve by ourselves.
"So Cambridge Network is working with our members and with Cambridgeshire County Council, UKTI and the Local Enterprise Partnership to build a consistent story for the region, so that we have a way for people from outside to find us and a better process for welcoming enquiries and encouraging potential investors.
"We can easily set up an entry point on the Cambridge Network site as a start - so that businesses searching options for new locations find Cambridge at the top of their list and see what a vibrant community we are for business. We get a huge amount of traffic and last month 60% of the traffic to our website was from new visitors rather than existing members, so word can spread quite quickly if we find the right routes.
"We are getting over the fears of over-expansion and into the new world of trading as actively as we need to," she added.
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