Birmingham businesses from the property, shared services, media and manufacturing sectors have signalled their support for Marketing Birmingham's new business brief by signing up to become commercial partners to the organisation.

Eight new partners, including the Birmingham Office Market Forum, which represents 15 of the city's property agents, residential developer Willmott Dixon and commercial property agents King Sturge have joined the organisation within the past eight weeks as support for Business Birmingham, the partnership's recently launched inward investment programme, grows.

Following an extension of its remit in October, Marketing Birmingham, the city's public/private strategic marketing body, recently launched the city's inward investment programme, Business Birmingham, which it operates alongside promotion of the city's business and leisure tourism offer. The launch of Business Birmingham has attracted a number of new partners keen to align their sales and marketing activity with the city's overall plans to target national and international audiences.

Ian Taylor, Commercial Director at Marketing Birmingham, believes the key to raising Birmingham's business profile on the global stage is to align public and private sector activity in this way. 

"Birmingham has much to offer potential investors and by working closely with partners from across the city we are able to fully demonstrate the full range of opportunities available. Our commercial partners play a vital role in promoting the city and we have worked with them to tailor our 2011 programme to ensure it offers real, deliverable opportunities for Birmingham businesses as well as potential investors. 

"The opportunities open to our partners range from a presence at major events both here in the UK and internationally, access to joint marketing and media opportunities and a valuable network of business contacts.

Ian Taylor continued:

"We successfully worked with over 25 partners during this year's Conservative Party Conference where we positioned Birmingham as a city on the front-foot for business.  Looking ahead, we are already speaking to partners to plan Birmingham's presence at key events including MIPM, the world's biggest property conference, which takes place in Cannes next March and next Autumn's political conferences."

Andy Geldard, Group Head of Communications at Willmott Dixon, who recently joined Marketing Birmingham as a commercial partner was attracted by the opportunity membership offers to support the city's development.

"Willmott Dixon spends over £7 million a year with local businesses and employs nearly 1,000 people in the city, underlining our aim to play a big role in the economic growth of Birmingham. We were delighted to be the first company to publicly back the city's LEP plan and by working closely with Marketing Birmingham, we intend to play our part in the Big City plan that will unlock an exciting future for the city."

Leading companies in sectors identified as key targets for the Business Birmingham programme have also come on board including Robert Walters, the recruitment specialist, who works closely with clients in the shared services sector. Steve Randall, Managing Director, UK Regions at Robert Walters, said:

"We see this as an excellent opportunity to take an active role in the regions' business community and contribute to the endeavours of Business Birmingham to attract new and additional business to the city."

The partnership between Robert Walters and Business Birmingham is already bearing fruit, with the creation of a Midlands Shared Service network.  The inaugural meeting took place in November and hosted a visiting delegation from McDonald's US headquarters who were keen to understand the region's shared services proposition.

Other commercial partners that have signed up include Q-Base Media, Malmaison and Hotel du Vin, Schneider Electric and Global Radio.

The recently recruited commercial partners have signed up to a newly introduced membership structure at Marketing Birmingham, which is designed to reflect the broadened focus on the organisation. 

As a public/private partnership, there is a requirement to leverage public sector funding through the generation of financial support from the private sector.  This is a model for destination marketing partnerships that has been outlined by the new coalition government in the new Local Growth White Paper launched at the end of October 2010.

For more information on Marketing Birmingham, please visit their website here: www.marketingbirmingham.com