The programme covers key areas of leadership and is delivered in 4 parts, each with 3 modules.
Each part has two facilitated online 2-hour sessions followed by a face-to-face practical and interactive case study workshop.
Programme content
This focuses on what your business does and how you want it to develop in the future. We look at your business’s strengths and core capabilities, your opportunities, and your current and potential markets, and how innovation, digital adoption and new market penetration can be key drivers of productivity and growth.
Module 1: Strategy and Innovation
- Learning outcomes will include:
Understanding innovation and its relationship to growth, profitability and productivity.
Reviewing your business model and value proposition in relation to current and future market opportunities.
Understanding how business model innovation can help you respond to, and recover from, challenges.
Finding out about the UK’s innovation ecosystem
Module 2: Digital Transformation
Learning outcomes will include:
Understanding the benefits of digital adoption for SMEs in innovating business models and seizing opportunities.
Considering what stage your business has reached on the path to digital adoption from digitisation to digital transformation, and identifying priority development areas.
Understanding the role of digital leadership and considering digital enablers to achieve a transformational culture.
Being alert to the risks of a digitised environment and ways to mitigate that risk.
Module 3: Case Study: Winning New Markets
Learning outcomes will include taking an in-depth look at how a business has:
Innovated its model.
Developed markets overseas.
Explored models to address opportunities in different countries.
Adapted their business model and overcame challenges.
How the experience encouraged them to innovate.
We focus on why you do what you do, how you connect with your customers and how you effectively convey your values and purpose in your brand. We look at building demand, segmenting your markets, and achieving a targeted and strategic approach to marketing.
Module 4: Vision, Mission and Values
Learning outcomes will include:
Understanding the strategic value of vision, purpose and brand, their link to the customer value proposition and role in achieving competitive advantage.
Exploring vision, mission and values statements and planning an approach for reviewing these in your business.
Defining brand components and how they add value to your business and customers.
Understanding the role of your business’s vision, values and brand in organisational culture and employee engagement.
Module 5: Developing a Marketing Strategy
Learning outcomes will include:
Further developing your customer value proposition and your business’s approach to marketing.
Understanding market segmentation, targeting and positioning (STP) within your business’s competitive environment.
Considering the stages in the buyer decision-making processes.
Starting to consider the benefits of database marketing.
Module 6: Case Study: Building a Brand Case Study
Learning outcomes will include:
Exploring how a business built a market-leading brand and continued to serve its customers’ needs through changing times.
What challenges had to be overcome and how did the company stay true to its purpose and values.
This part focuses on creating a suitable organisational structure to deliver your goals, and adopting good practice in the leadership and management of teams. We look at leading people through change and supporting the wellbeing of staff, as well as developing your people and introducing agile ways of working.
Module 7: Organisational Design
Learning outcomes will include:
Identifying growth phases and when and how it will be necessary to evolve the shape of the organisation to implement growth.
Considering SME examples of different structures and ways of working and the implications for your workforce.
Jointly with others in your business, reviewing skills, roles and training to ensure the required expertise is available to deliver the growth plan.
Considering structures and processes to facilitate agile working.
Module 8: Employee Engagement and Leading Change
Learning outcomes will include:
Identifying appropriate strategies for leading change in an inclusive and engaging way.
Planning to implement approaches that enhance employee engagement.
Recognising the impact of your own leadership approach as a key enabler for growth.
Being able to utilise tools and resources collaboratively to lead your team towards strategic goals.
Module 9: Case Study: High Performance Workplace Case Study
Learning outcomes will include
Exploring an example of a company that has put employee engagement at the heart of their business and created an inclusive culture. The tools and ways of working are innovative and productive, and the business has achieved growth through the way it works as much as through what it does.
We focus on what happens in the business to create outputs, how you monitor progress and use information to inform decision-making. We look at a strategic approach to operations, financial management and options to finance growth, and how everything comes together in the implementation of your Growth Action Plan.
Module 10: Effective Operations
Learning outcomes will include:
Understanding the role of operations and how to take a systemic approach, aligning operations with marketing strategy.
Analysing operations using a value flow map.
Considering an approach to key metrics which engages teams and creates a culture of continuous improvement in value flow.
Recognising how your operations improvement strategy contributes towards your Growth Action Plan.
Module 11: Finance and Financial Management
Learning outcomes will include:
Using financial data to make informed decisions about future operations including identifying relevant financial metrics for monitoring growth and productivity.
Understanding the importance of cash flow forecasting in managing crisis and recovery.
Considering options for financing growth both internally and from external sources, and being aware of where to source information and advice.
Module 12: Case Study: Implementing Growth Plans Case Study
Learning outcomes will include
Developing priorities and a timeline for implementation, using your Growth Action Plan.
Identifying the resources required to achieve the objectives in your Growth Action Plan.
Embedding key management practices critical to growth and productivity in your business.