Help to Grow: Management

Explore factors that drive productivity and growth in SMEs and consider what this means in your own business context

• Build confidence at business modelling.
• Develop your value proposition.
• Identify activities that create the greatest value and returns.

Understand how to innovate your business model, and develop a strategic approach to successfully adopting and investing in new and digital technologies to drive competitive advantage

• Recognise how digital adoption can contribute to business success and growth.
• Develop an understanding of digitisation as a process of innovation and identify a Digital Adoption pathway to support your business model.
• Identify your priority areas for business development.
• Understand the role of digital leadership and recognise digital enablers relevant for your business.
• Consider the risks, and vulnerabilities of a digitised environment and countermeasures for mitigating risk​.
• Map out and evaluate Digital Adoption initiatives for your own organisation

Identify key domestic and export markets for your business.

• Identify Key motivations and drivers of market development. ​
• Explore strategy decision-making tools - choosing global regions​.
• Moving out of the comfort zone​ - breakthroughs to operate in new markets. 
• Apply relevant tools to help assess/develop new markets for your business.

Explore the strategic value of vision, purpose and brand, their link to the customer value proposition and their role in achieving competitive advantage​

• Understand relationships between vision, mission and purpose of an organisation.  ​
• Consider the nature and elements of your internal culture and explore why this is important and how it links to your customer value propositions. ​
• ​Map out and evaluate options for your own organisation.

Identify strategies for market segmentation, positioning and targeting in the context of your competitive environment

• Evaluate your current segmentation strategies for existing / potential customers.
• Look at ‘targeting’ and ‘positioning’ ​and map out your current market position. ​
• Explore the consumer decision-making process, and marketing ‘Ps’​
• Map out and evaluate options for your organisation. ​

Review the culture, values and decision-making in your business in relation to building your brand

• Understand how a business built a market-leading brand and continued to serve its clients and consumers' needs through fast-changing times.
• Reflect on challenges to overcome.
• Appreciate how to stay true to purpose and values.
• Consider strategic actions and tools to support the brand and marketing strategy for your own business.

Explore how to build capacity for growth in your business by looking at structures, skills and governance needed in the business now and as it grows.

• Recognise what growth is and what it takes to grow a business​
• Understand why it is necessary to evolve the shape of the organisation to implement growth
• Consider business agility and being an agile organisation​
• Being agile and growing – you will look at the dynamic capabilities of your business​

Developing your leadership and management skills to facilitate the introduction of management practices to enhance employee wellbeing and effective teams through employee engagement.

Understand the need and benefits of embedding equality, diversity and inclusion practices within your business.

• Know the concept of Relational Leadership and the importance of this for leading effective change.
• Explore the human side of change, how people experience it and how they react to it. 
• Recognise the impact of your own leadership approach as a key enabler for growth in your business.
• Explore strategies for successfully leading change in an inclusive and engaging way.
• Utilise tools and resources collaboratively within the business to lead your team towards strategic goals. 

Creating a High Performance Workplace

• Be aware of purpose and leadership style and its contribution to employee engagement and dealing with change. ​
• Review methods for developing employee engagement​.
• Consider structure and its contribution to employee engagement and agile working.​
• Reflect on Organisational Design (Module 7) and Employee Engagement and Leading Change (Module 8) in relation to your own business​.

Identify strategies to improve operational efficiency in your business.

• Understand the role of operations within your business and how to take a systemic approach to aligning operations with marketing strategy. ​
• Analyse the operations within your business. ​
• Consider an approach to key measurements and continuous improvement that engages teams and creates a culture of continuous improvement
• Recognise how your operations improvement strategy contributes towards your Growth Action Plan. ​

Be aware of key elements and principles of financial management and understand the value of data analytics and key metrics to monitor growth and support strategic decision making in your business.

• Use financial data to make informed decisions about future operations.
• Understand the importance of cash flow forecasting in managing crisis and recovery.
• Know how to put a cash flow forecast together.
• Consider options for financing growth and Identify external finance options available and where to source information and advice​.

Your Growth Action Plan – where next?

• Collaborate with others in the business to develop an action plan for growth and productivity
• Identification of key tools and metrics.