The region as a workplace and your company is at the center of it

Spring has begun. With sunshine in your face and daffodils on the roadside, it creates space to look ahead. What do I want to accomplish this year?

For entrepreneurs, this is not always easy. Daily work swallows you up, leaving little time for reflection and looking to the future. At such times it is nice to have someone to spar with. But with whom?

The answer is closer than you think: in our own workshop, the region. And your company is at the center of it.

That workshop has everything you need: knowledge, talent, space to experiment, companies willing to collaborate and a network that gets stronger the more often we meet. Such a network only really works when we use it. Then new ideas arise, professionals come together and projects grow.

Does the region already work this way? Sometimes yes, but not everywhere yet. At the same time, we are in good shape: a strong economy, committed entrepreneurs, developing business parks, education at all levels and municipalities that facilitate. All signals are green.

What is still needed? That we actually start doing it.

Too often we wait for each other, while municipalities, entrepreneurs and educational institutions often have the same questions. It is precisely in the joint workshop that the solutions emerge. There are the heads and hands needed to move forward. And your company is one of them!

My call: take advantage of that workshop, in a way that suits you. Join a network, project or collaboration. Visit a meeting, listen, share, ask, contribute. From the local business association to Key Region Leiden or VNO-NCW: there is always a place to start.

Not because they have to, but because it works. Because like the daffodils in the spring berm, enterprises bloom best when they are firmly rooted in the region.

This column is the first in a series and will appear in the Into Business issue over the next two years.