Business Centre's inaugural event

Newly-opened Park View Business Centre, near Combermere, hosted its inaugural event on Thursday 30th June, an evening seminar held specifically for local business professionals entitled "Improving Rural Business".

There were four guest speakers, Andy Wooles of WSI International Internet Marketing; Dr Charles Trotman, Country Landowners (CLA) Head of Rural Business Development; Will Weston of Galaxy Computers and Peter Beckett of Askari Marketing.

The venue itself demonstrated really well how a redundant farm barn can be brought back to life by hosting business activities in the countryside. The new business centre is a collection of 9 letting units housed in a converted Cheshire barn on the Combermere estate.

Owner of Park View Business Centre, Managing Director of Askari Marketing and event organiser, Peter Beckett said:

"We were delighted with the turn-out for our event at the newly opened Park View Business Centre. With over 40 business professionals from the banking, accountancy, lawyer and insurance sectors attending, the seminars were insightful for what the future of communications holds."

Each of the three speakers gave some clear foresight on how social media and upcoming 'Cloud technology' will enable rural businesses to do a better job at a lower cost, if they are prepared to embrace change.

Will Weston, Owner of Galaxy Computers, predicted that:

"Cloud technology is something that everyone will understand and be comfortable with within 5 years. The opportunity for SMEs to reduce their cost base and have 99.9% Service Level Agreements is available now. It is a matter of gaining people's trust in what is out there, to allow this evolution to happen".

Dr Charles Trotman, Head of Rural Business Development at The CLA (Country Landowners' Association) provided some interesting anecdotes on both subjects, ranging from the Pope's Facebook intentions, through to the trials of poor broadband speeds in many rural areas. On this subject he noted that:

"The responsibility to receive good broadband connectivity rests with each individual not gaining the benefit of this 4th service. By bringing pressure to bear with MPs, Councils and any other influential policy player, the collective voice of communities is the best way to get this point across to the Government".

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