• Skip to content
• Help using this website
• Contact us
• Feedback
• Disclaimer
• Privacy
• Legal Information

• About us
  • What we do
    • Business plan 2008-2011
      • Introduction

Introduction

Scotland has some real strengths that should give it competitive advantage in the global economy, including:

• Capability – through its people, with a relatively high employment rate (77 per cent) and a high proportion of our young people entering higher and further education (53 per cent) [1] and an expatriate community, many of whom would be tempted to return with the onset of higher growth;
• Creativity – securing 21 per cent of the research and development inward investment projects that come to the UK [2] and our higher education institutions responsible for 15 per cent of patents filed in the UK [3];
• Natural Resources – for example with its wind, tidal and sub-sea capacities and with its history, culture and natural beauty.

However, despite these valuable assets, the country still lags behind its competitors in some vital areas including:

• Low investment in business research and development which, at 0.6 per cent of GDP, is less than a quarter of the value invested by some competitor countries [4];
• Low levels of entrepreneurial activity with only 5 per cent of the population creating businesses [5];
• A small number of companies of scale with just 115 generating a turnover of more than £100 million a year [6];
• Low productivity, with output per hour around 15 per cent less than the top performing OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) economies [7].

These issues are highlighted in the Government Economic Strategy which, amongst other things, recognises the importance of having a supportive business environment, and in particular the need to deliver:

• Responsive and focused enterprise support to increase the number of highly successful, competitive businesses;
• Targeted support to business in pursuit of opportunities outside of Scotland and the development of internationally competitive firms;
• Broader approach to business innovation in Scotland that moves beyond viewing innovation as the domain of science and technology alone;
• Clear focus on strengthening the link between Scotland’s research base and business innovation and addressing low levels of business research and development ;
• Projects and programmes concentrated on a number of key sectors with high-growth potential and the capacity to boost productivity.

This Business Plan sets out how Scottish Enterprise will work collaboratively with industry and the rest of the public sector, to help address these challenges and thereby make a valuable contribution to increasing sustainable economic growth for Scotland.