Business Triage: Three entrepreneurs with a mission to boost the North East's SMEs market

Borne out of a chance meeting at an RTC seminar in Newcastle, Business Triage is a brand new startup that aims to help local businesses scale up and expand.

Andrew Biggs met both Simon Taylor and Kevin Maddison separately through a spot of networking.

After discussing plans with the two businessmen, Andrew had a lightbulb moment and the three entrepreneurs were soon working closely together after introductions.

All three decided they should combine their various skills - from business strategy to team building - and create an entirely new company to help the North East’s business community thrive.

On August 20 this year, Business Triage was officially incorporated and the team have worked closely with local entrepreneurs and SMEs ever since.

If you happen to come across Business Triage’s website, you’ll see the company’s sole objective is to “connect new and existing local businesses to support from a collection of local companies”. Such support also derives from the team’s vast experience.

Take Kevin for instance; he has worked in the likes of Texas, Hong Kong and Europe, for companies mainly in the financial services sector and has operated his own businesses in the marine, oil and property sectors.

Meanwhile, Simon has built up experience in managing organisations in the environment and utilities sectors worldwide. After his time at Northumbrian Water, he moved to a government company in Abu Dhabi, before returning to his native North East some years later.

And lastly, there’s Andrew. He started his professional career working for a chain of newsagents as a stock auditor, which was followed by him setting up his own business in stocktaking. With a drive to stimulate businesses in this region, he’s also established two new local consultancies.

Business Triage focuses on the North East’s talent; all three entrepreneurs see a lot of potential in this region. According to ONS 2018 & Beis 2018, 99.9 per cent of local companies are designated as SME with a £78.9bn turnover.

As the regional market is so saturated with these companies then, Business Triage wanted to turn a hand to helping them flourish and, thus, growing the North East’s economy.

Simon added: “The three of us are all North East born and bred, and intent to give something back to the region and to see it grow and thrive.

“The three of us get great satisfaction from other North East successes and are all focused on working and living [here].”

So far, the entire venture has been organically funded and by 2020, Business Triage aims to build up a huge community of like-minded companies aiming to scale and expand.

“[We want to] achieve brand awareness and establish a complementary group of individuals to bring a solid proposition to start up… [Also] growing SMEs to help with simple practical solutions to concerns or issues they may have.”

You can find Business Triage online here.

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