Specialist Fields

• Tourism and leisure
• Economic Development
• Performance Management and Balanced Scorecard
• Clusters
• City regions
• Project Management
• Marketing and PR
• European collaboration 

Experience in these specialist fields is summarised below.

Tourism and leisure

14 years' experience of working on national and regional tourism strategies, development projects, market research studies and marketing initiatives across Scotland. 

Assessment of the economic impact of tourism projects, and application of scenario planning to tourism.

Extensive engagement with large and small tourism businesses, advising on business development and marketing activity as well as new projects.

Strong emphasis on the links to rural development and diversification, countryside access, recreation and conservation.  This has included: 

• innovative projects to develop and promote walking and cycling in Aberdeenshire, Perthshire and Dumfries & Galloway
• a national pilot project to develop rural tourism in Ayrshire
• a collaborative approach to activity holidays development with regions in Scotland, Greece and Denmark
• detailed research surveys into visitor activities in rural areas
• current work with hoteliers to raise the profile of walking for their guests.

This specialist field is now being further extended through the website http://www.walkingstories.com/

Investigation of tourism case studies as part of an investigation into "sustainable economic growth" for Scottish Enterprise.

Recent preparation of a detailed tourism impact assessment to accompany a planning application for the development of wind turbines in North Devon, involving site investigation, extensive interviewing and analysis of research data.

Economic Development

Moving into the wider field of Economic Development with the Scottish Enterprise Network, the main focus has been in the areas of strategy, performance management and project management.  This has been underpinned by continuing attention to sustainable development and knowledge management.

This has included a leading role in a fundamental review of the Network approach to performance measurement and management, and a key role working with senior management in the introduction of the Balanced Scorecard.

The clusters approach has helped to shape Scottish Enterprise's strategy for the past decade. This has been a recurring area of attention, including communicating the approach to Board members and staff and applying it successfully to gain additional support for the Life Science and Tourism sectors.

City regions has been another area of focus, making a major contribution to the Scottish Executive's review of policy towards the cities and looking at the related issues of sustainability.

Sustainable Economic Growth is the objective of the Scottish Government, and IDEAction was subcontracted to work on a project for Scottish Enterprise to gather and analyse case studies in sustainable economic growth for the Priority Industries Team.

Project Management

A comprehensive review and reshaping of the Network's approach to Project Management was undertaken from 2004-6, combining the requirements of the OGC Gateway Review process with the management techniques derived from Prince 2.  It involved extensive consultation with colleagues and partner organisations, many of which have shown interest in adopting the approach themselves.  See this summary of the initiative from the IED Scotland Newsletter. 

The resulting understanding of the importance of project management and the flexible application of project management techniques is a key element in the IDEAction toolkit.

A recent consultancy project was carried out to design a Project Approval Process and guidance for the newly-formed agency, Skills Development Scotland.

Currently preparing materials for training in project management for local authority planners.

Marketing and Public Relations

Drawing on the experience of national and local tourism marketing, a wide range of market research intiatives, and responsibility for marketing and communications at Scottish Enterprise Tayside, this is another core competence which is applicable to a wide range of projects.

A recent project included development of a marketing communications plan for a not-for-profit organisation, with detailed market segmentation, aligned to a revised corporate strategy and business plan.

European collaboration

The potential for collaboration with our European partners is often not fully realised.  We can work with them and learn from them, as they can from us, although we have to recognise the important cultural and institutional differences that can limit how we transfer approaches from one country to another.

Considerable experience has been built up in this area, first as Secretary to the Conference Europe of Regions in Copenhagen during the 1980s, followed by an initiative to share experience of tourism development with regions in Greece and Denmark. 

The pilot project to share approaches to sustainable development through the Structural Funds, in which the Eastern Scotland European Partnership took part, was an influential and long-running initiative.  A further bilateral exercise took place to share approaches to the development of the environmental industries between Scotland and Nordrhein Westfalen in Germany. 

A recent successful consultancy project enabled the North Sea Commission to get a clearer picture of the benefits which it provides to its members as a basis for further promoting membership and developing the organisation.