Member Article

Midlands SMEs accelerating growth plans with training from Coventry University experts

Coventry University Business School is helping small and medium-sized businesses in the Midlands accelerate their growth plans through a £530 million national training scheme.

The university is delivering the Help to Grow: Management Course, backed by the Government and Small Business Charter, to help local business leaders with commercial insight and professional knowledge for sustained long-term growth.

Businesses are provided with 50 hours of in-depth training and one-to-one business mentoring over a 12-week period, delivered by Coventry University academic experts.

The national scheme is being run over three years by business schools across the country with the Government funding 90 per cent of the cost and businesses paying the rest.

Subjects covered include effective leadership, financial management, marketing, employee engagement strategies for growth and innovation, digital adoption, and responsible business practices.

Business leaders on the programme are supported to produce a tailored Business Growth Plan to share with their employees to increase productivity and grow revenues.

Coventry University’s Business School is running courses in Coventry, as well as in London and Scarborough, where it has campuses, and in Telford and Shrewsbury.

The first Help to Grow: Management Course ran from September to December, with leaders from Midlands based businesses that ranged from an art gallery, to a maternity sportwear brand in attendance.

Claire Gleave, from Broadway in Gloucestershire, who launched maternity activewear brand Natal Active in June, said: “The course is very intense, and you learn a lot, and for me the mentorship has been one of the most valuable aspects. It has enabled me to directly translate what I’ve learned into my own business and put a much firmer plan in place as to where I want the growth of the business to go over the next 12 to 18 months.”

Amrit Sandhar, Chief Executive and founder of Warwick-based The Engagement Coach, said: “The programme has taken me out of my business to focus on things I knew I needed to or wanted to address, but just didn’t get time to do. Knowing isn’t always enough, it’s about having some sort of structure of ‘how do I go about doing it’. This has been a facilitator to make those things happen and for me to explore different facets of my business and spend time working on them.”

Professor Yanguo Jing, Associate Dean of Coventry University Business School, said: “SMEs are the backbone of the economy and this scheme offers them a valuable opportunity to tap into our business expertise and experience that will give them the tools they need to turbocharge their growth.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Matt Joyce .