Growth Canvas platform helps with business support

The Coventry and Warwickshire Growth Hub has licenced Growth Canvas, an innovative new digital platform powered by artificial intelligence to help assist with all business support enquiries.

Following a successful trial, the technology has been rolled out throughout the account management team when dealing with enquiries from micro businesses through to global giants.

Growth Canvas is the brainchild of Jaspal Sohal, a tech entrepreneur and former director of the Black Country Growth Hub.

He has returned to his software roots having previously developed software solutions which were adopted by clients all over the world including Bank of America and Nestle.

Jaspal has now developed Growth Canvas, a software platform that uses a variety of AI systems to build structured business diagnostics in real-time, including competitor evaluation, financial health and strategic analysis.

He said: “I know from experience the frustrations and challenges that Growth Hubs and Local Authorities can have when trying to deliver consistent business support across a wide range of enquiries.

“With my software development background, I knew there was a technology solution to support advisors more efficiently, especially with the advent of AI and Large Language Models.

“Growth Canvas has been developed using the very latest in complimentary AI systems. The premise behind it is not to replace human advisors but to maximise their productivity. The platform conducts all of the company research, collates background information and analyses the results, all in real-time, allowing the Growth Hub's team to focus on leveraging their experience to support businesses.

“The system is capable of doing this process in a matter of minutes compared to the several hours it would normally take a human advisor to collect all the information needed.

“CW Growth Hub have been incredibly forward thinking and understand the importance that AI will play in the future of business support delivery. They also agree that it should be used as a way of supporting existing structures and not to replace people.

“I’m genuinely excited about the future roadmap for Growth Canvas. There are some incredibly exciting new features which we’re working on at the moment and the platform will only continue to get better over time. Having experience of Growth Hubs and the business support landscape at large, I know it will help to make CW Growth Hub more agile with their support delivery which ultimately benefits the enquiring business.”

Craig Humphrey, chief executive at the Coventry and Warwickshire Growth Hub, said the move into AI would revolutionise the way they deal with businesses.

He said: “AI is augmenting our ability to give businesses the very best quality service and Coventry and Warwickshire is at the forefront of the digital revolution because it will mean our team can provide the most comprehensive service available.

“Growth Canvas is the first AI-powered platform of its kind, delivering powerful analytics, competitive intelligence and useful report generation, all in real-time.

“During the pilot stage, we involved a few businesses and they were impressed not only with the level of detail contained in the reports but how quickly they were produced.

“We are dealing with hundreds and hundreds of business support enquiries every month at the Growth Hub and this will not only speed up the production of the reports but this will mean we can pass the information on to businesses to react to tenders or other opportunities at the earliest opportunity.”