Support

Support – how we can help your digital media business

The partners of Interactive Tayside can offer a range of business support geared towards the development of the digital media industries in the area, from business advice through to company growth funding – tailored to your individual business’ needs.

  • Advice
  • Events
  • Funding
  • Skills
  • Internationalisation
  • PR & Promotion
  • Property

Advice

The first point of call for advice and support is through the Business Gateway which is a dedicated service for the business community – a single access point providing a range of integrated development support including business information, business start-up and business growth.

There are Business Gateway offices in Dundee and Scotland with dedicated Information Executives and Business Advisers who can help to identify your requirements and assist you to access the most appropriate sources of information and support.

To ensure the required level of resources are available to digital media businesses, the Business Advisers and other Business Gateway staff are supplemented by a team from Scottish Enterprise that can offer specialist support on a range of key business issues – funding, product development, exports, training and skills.

A digital media business in Tayside can have allocated its own adviser, to be the first point of contact for support, information and advice. Scottish Enterprise attempts to guarantee that every business has the opportunity to develop a long-term, in-depth relationship with an adviser who understands their business and can react quickly to its needs.

There is a raft of information, advice and business development support available to businesses within the digital media sector – regardless of size.

Events

Interactive Tayside offers an exciting events programme with regular events held in Dundee, Perthshire and Angus. These informal events cover a wide range of topics relevant to the growth of Tayside’s digital media industry. Our events are free of charge and offer an excellent opportunity for you to meet with like-minded individuals and network.  Or perhaps you’d like to be a speaker at one of our events?  If so, contact us to discuss.

Funding

Lack of appropriate funding for development and growth, continues to be a barrier for technology-based businesses with the financial community being wary of long-term development projects especially those involving start-up businesses with new ideas, concepts or new technologies.

Advisers are able to assist with start-up and existing businesses to investigate funding and financial issues and prepare for being ‘investor-ready’.

The public secor agencies in Tayside have recently participated, alongside other financial institutions (banks, business angels and venture capital groups) in some substantial funding packages to assist the development of digital media companies in Tayside.

The funding available includes funding for the development and introduction of new products, processes and services where the business has been able to demonstrate the proposals are well focussed and researched, targeted at markets with significant potential and where a strategy and route to market has been identified.

A range of funding support is potentially available to assist with the development of digital media businesses in Tayside.

If you are looking to start-up a digital media business in the area, or you are currently running a digital media business,  you’re first point of contact should be Business Gateway.

Skills

One of the key drivers for growth and development of the creative and digital media industries is clearly the availability of people with the key talents and skills in all aspects of creative and technical disciplines. Management development is sometimes a key issue, particularly within smaller companies.

Information and support is available to assist individual companies to identify skills needs and to develop appropriate actions with advice, coaching and financial support can be available through Human Resources specialists from Scottish Enterprise and other organisations.

Additionally, there is a wealth of talent and skills within the academic community in Tayside where all 5 academic establishments have particular strengths in the digital media sector.

Through Interactive Tayside, we may be able to assist with matching the right candidate with your job vacancy. Contact us for more information.

Job Vacancies

If you are a Tayside-based digital media business and currently have vacancies to fill, please either register on our site and post them yourself or forward details to jobs@interactivetayside.com and we will publish these to the Interactive Tayside website and include in our newsletter.  This service is free for local digital media businesses.

Internationalisation

A great deal of advice, information and resources are available to assist digital media businesses with research and development of commerical opportunities in overseas markets.

These services are provided by Scottish Development International (SDI) – a joint venture between the Scottish Gevernment and Scottish Enterprise.

PR & Promotion

One of the key elements of Interactive Tayside activity is to support digital media businesses to gain media exposure that properly reflects the outstanding technical capability and creative talent that exists within the interactive community of the area. By raising the profile of the digital media businesses and academia, real commercial opportunities are being created and the profile of the area is being enhanced and reinforced as a centre of excellence in digital media.

Interactive Tayside has a specialist PR person who will write your Press Release for you – free of charge!  We’ll not only publish it to the Interactive Tayside website, but also distribute it to local and national press, where appropriate.  If you would like us to feature a news story or press release about your business, contact us.  Our journalist will then make contact with you to obtain details of the story and produce the Press Release.

Please note, any one business can use this service no more than 3 times.  Interactive Tayside reserves the right to decide whether or not a story is ‘newsworthy’.

Property

The availability of the right kind of property, in the right location with the right facilities is a fundamental requirement for the growth of any business and through Interactive Tayside, we can offer access to properties that meet the needs of the digital media sector.

Seabraes Yards – Dundee’s Creative Media District

Scottish Enterprise is now leading the development of a project that aims to ensure businesses in the creative industries sectors have access to high quality property that will allow them to continue to flourish and enhance the area’s reputation as an international centre of excellence in digital media. Over the next ten years, £50 million will be invested in the new Seabraes Yards development to create Dundee’s Creative Media District, comprising 360,000 square feet of high quality office accommodation for start-ups, existing businesses and inward investors. A former railway goods yard, Seabraes Yards is located just five minutes walk from Dundee City Centre and located close to Dundee’s Cultural Quarter and the city’s 2 universites.

Seabraes House has opened!

The first new building on Dundee’s Creative Media District, Seabraes House, opened in late 2007, and the building has welcomed its first tenants.  In a great city centre location, close to the universities and with inspiring panoramic view of the River Tay from most offices, the building is an ideal location for digital media businesses.  There are a number of offices available in different sizes, if you’d like to discuss your requirements, please contact Alistair Todd at Graham & Sibbald on 01382 200064.

Software Centre

The Software Centre offers a fully serviced and ready-to-move-in facility situated in the pleasantly landscaped Dundee Technology Park. The Centre provides many benefits to tenants including a flexible range of well appointed office units together with extremely flexible leasing periods, full facility management and advanced telecommunications systems. Through Interactive Tayside and its partners, additional business development support services, incorporating links with Dundee’s two Universities, are available to tenants within the Centre.