CEN Business & Training Services

CEN was established in 2000 and since then it has successfully delivered a number of projects which are either very similar in nature or its services benefited similar kind of businesses. In 2000-2001, CEN worked closely with 12 BAME-led SMEs and provided a long term training programme to support 201 beneficiaries. The programme was funded by ESF and London Borough of Tower Hamlets (LBTH). We have also run ERDF/SRB Programme for 2 years (2001- 2003) and successfully delivered a number of outputs of which most relevant to this project would be assisting and advising 53 SMEs who were primarily from the creative industry sector and local BAME community. The project involved a wide range of services including diagnostics, business plans, training assisting with action plans. The project strictly followed ERDF/SRB guidelines and used standard tools for both delivery and monitoring. During the past 3 years, we have worked closely with Business Link for London and successfully delivered following projects: SFI (Initial Diagnosis and Advices to 200 clients) and AddMore (TDP: 400). Skills for Life in partnerships with Reed in Partnership (output: 209). We have always used diagnostics and action plan tools devised by Business Link for London / LSC. CEN has mainly worked with the BAME community in all projects and within Creative Industries, Retail, Hospitality, and Manufacturing sectors. We have also conducted diagnostics of 19 clients for Workforce Development Consultancy and engaged against the quality standard Investor in People (West London). In addition, we have also run 24 workshops sessions where 240 businesses participated and received advices for achieving IiP in 2006. In addition, we have also run several training programmes specifically for businesses from creative industries. Our clients are mainly BAME-led SMEs (about 90 per cent), often from creative industry (about 40 per cent), and also businesses led by women (about 12 per cent). In all the cases CEN has successfully completed the projects in tandem with the specific requirements of the delivery agent whilst achieving a customer satisfaction rating over 90%.

CEN has previously worked in partnership with LBTH (London Borough of Tower Hamlets), CIDA (Cultural Industries Development Agency), LSC (London Skills Council), EMEP (Ethnic Minority Enterprise Project) and delivered several service brokerage programmes on behalf of Business Link, REED in Partnership and Exemplas. CEN is also an IiP achiever.