September news

Flexible friends in challenging times

A local business is flourishing despite the challenging economic situation - with the help of a Portsmouth City Council enterprise centre and the flexibility it provides.

Portsmouth-based Elite Care Services (ECS) has just celebrated its seventh birthday by expanding into a larger office with a brand-new training suite. 

The company was founded in 2000 by Carol Morris with a small 168 sq ft office at the city council's Victory Business Centre in Fratton. Using the centre's range of offices to cater for the company's growth, the family business today supplies over 100 staff to care and rest homes in a 60-mile radius of the city.

As one of the few local agencies to provide qualified nurses as well as care assistants, domestic staff and cooks, the company continues to see a healthy demand for its services.

ECS's latest office move has allowed them to expand their training provision, and they now train other companies' staff as well as their own, and offer a Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check service.

Carol said: "This latest move is an exciting start to our eighth year, and although many companies are struggling in the current economic climate, we are finding that demand for our service is constantly increasing, and we are now better placed to meet that demand."

Carol did explore the possibility of investing in premises for this latest expansion. But she added: "With the current uncertainty in the property market, and having to manage weekly increasing fuel costs, we felt it was better to stay within the flexibility of the council's enterprise centre for the time being.  It means that we can really focus our energy on recruiting and training more staff, and doing what we do best."

The council has three enterprise centres with a range of rented units for industrial, office and storage use; great for testing new products and ideas.  They are flexible, especially for new businesses, because they offer:

• a range of office and workshop sizes
• low risk and no long-term commitment
• access 24 hours a day, seven days a week
• easy-in, easy-out terms

Office manager Kalvin Morris said the biggest challenge the company now faced was keeping up with demand, and managing to recruit enough staff.  "There is a shortage of care assistants out there, but with our new training facilities we offer the opportunity to get practical training with us, and people are shadow-trained on the job until they and we feel confident that they are providing an excellent service." 

Clare Seek, who manages the council's enterprise centres, said: "A number of our tenants use the flexibility of our centres to their best advantage, and expand within the premises, before moving out into more substantial commercial property.  In the current economic climate a large proportion of the enquiries that I receive say our flexibility is the main attraction for their business."

Date : 08 September 2008