It’s that time of year, when Business Link Magazine invites the region’s business leaders to offer up their predictions for the year ahead.
It has become something of a tradition, given that we’ve been doing this now for over 30 years.
Here we speak to Martin Austin MBE, Managing Director of Derby-based Nimbus Disability, one of the country’s leading providers of disability-related advice and support to professional organisations, and the UK’s lead authority on accessible ticketing, which earned Nimbus The Queen’s Award for Innovation in 2022.
Businesses who not only meet but exceed their legal obligations to disabled people have the opportunity to boost their ethical credentials and tap into the lucrative ‘purple pound’ which could be the difference in not just surviving but thriving in 2023.
There is a growing understanding amongst businesses that disability, simply put, is good for business. Disabled People themselves have spending power in the UK of circa £80 billion and their households have a spending power of c.£249bn after housing costs.
This spending power is heavily influenced by their perception of a business’s ability and willingness to work with disabled customers and employees.
Then there is the opportunity to embrace wider influence on disabled people’s social circles and also on how a business is perceived locally and in the wider community.
Working with disabled people is therefore no longer just a case of meeting legal obligations it’s an opportunity no one can afford to miss and my heartfelt hope is that businesses take the opportunity during these challenging times to assess how they can make a difference both to other people’s lives and the credibility of their own operations.
