Business Links boost small design company

I read “Laughable Links Hit” (DW 12 January) in reference to EDR’s letter on its experience with Business Links with a great deal of interest and astonishment.

I am a design consultant and I have to tell you that my experience of Business Links has been very different from EDR’s. My partnership with Business Link Birmingham has worked ex-tremely well and has generated business assisting me in designing for a number of companies.

One of these companies, Paraid, is a medium-sized manufacturer of casualty transport aids and building/emergency evacuation chairs for disabled people. I have helped redesign one of its products – a stainless steel patient transport trolley suitable for use in both hospitals and ambulances. This is now being manufactured and production costs have been reduced by more than 25 per cent, with profitability substantially increased as a result.

I have also worked on a new concept – a single-person loading incubator trolley reducing manual handling risk, which has been the subject of a patent application, and Paraid will be putting it into production in August.

There is no doubt in my mind that Business Links are helping to raise the profile of design and designers with small- and medium-sized businesses.

It’s early days yet, but my successful experience with Business Links bodes well for the design industry and for the future of our smaller businesses’ understanding of just how important design is when competing in an international market.

Chris Lloyd-Lucas

Design consultant

Lloyd-Lucas Associates

Worcs B97 5QL

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