Informing our future

Welcome to informing our future 2010.

As we emerge from recession there has never been a better time to plan business strategy. New focus and drive together with sound investment into new ideas, training and technologies is vital to combat what has been an unprecedented downturn in the south’s economy.

With this in mind ‘informing our future’ is an invaluable reference tool for directors and senior managers in their future business plans and strategy to further improve business agility, accelerate process and maximise customer value.

This is the ninth edition of ‘informing our future’ specifically examining Hampshire’s progress towards implementing the South East’s Regional Economic Strategy (RES).

Prepared by HEP Research and Intelligence Task Group and Portsmouth University, ‘informing our future’ is an independent assessment of Hampshire’s economy and the potential opportunities and challenges it faces.

Once again the voice of business has been strongly represented with a number of successful HEP events, notably the Sustainable Housing Conference attracting over 100 people. Speakers included Steve Clow, Chief Architect HCC and Rachel Mitchell of Brilliant Futures who reviewed the Code for Sustainable Homes. This event also included a visit to BRE.

One particular area of focus in this issue has been the impact of the recession on business in Hampshire and what actions firms have taken to mitigate the effects of the downturn with a number of interesting case studies.

The addition of the Business Summary to the Executive Summary in the last edition proved popular. As such we have taken the opportunity to once again add this relevant section to assist readers in identifying quickly the key issues and findings of the report and how they relate to Hampshire business. Equally the section putting what’s happening in the local economy of Hampshire within a national and international context is useful when comparing growth plans.

Due to the favourable response to the district economic fact sheet, we have again included a full suite of reports in line with the RES as they provide meaningful comparisons at the sub regional level.

The final section is perhaps the most interesting in that it examines the prospects for Hampshire business and questions is there light at the end of the recession tunnel? In asking the question the report considers key factors such as where the business will come from, plans for the future and current business confidence.

The overall impression is that the Hampshire business economy needs to be competitive to take full opportunity of the upturn and be sufficiently robust to withstand any external shocks in the global marketplace whenever they arise.

Section 1 - Introduction

Section 2 - The global economy context

Section 3 - The impact of the recession on business

Section 4 - The impact of recession on the labour market

Section 5 - The recession, Is there a light at the end of the tunnel

Appendix 1 - Recession impact questionnaire

Executive Summary

2010 Data Sheets

The data sheets and the "Explanation of Data" summary are available for download below. You will need Acrobat reader to access the files below - for a free download of the latest Acrobat Reader please click here.

Explanation of Data

Hampshire complete 2010