Help to Grow: Management course

Aimed at senior leaders in small and medium businesses from any sector that have been operating for more than 1 year, with between 5 to 249 employees are eligible. If your business employs more than 10 people, you can send up to two people on the course.

The programme is 90% funded by the government – which means you pay only £750 per person.

• Enhance your management and strategic capabilities
• Produce a growth plan for your business
• Build resilience to future shocks
• Learn how to innovate in your business
• Adopt digital technologies to boost productivity and operational agility
• Develop your value proposition and reach into growth markets
• Improve employee engagement and responsible business practices
• A blended programme that combines interactive, online sessions with face-to-face learning to suit you
• Future-proof your business

The programme takes 12 weeks to complete and consists of one sessions per week delivered through a mixture of half-day in-person sessions and 2-hour online webinars (7 online and 5 in-person).

Participants are assigned a coach who will offer up to 8 hours of 1:1 business coaching, plus the opportunity to attend peer learning sessions following each webinar (7 one hour sessions across 12 weeks).

Help To Grow Bursary

Leeds University Business School is committed to supporting the social enterprise network across the Yorkshire region and will be offering one fully funded bursary place on each cohort of the Help to Grow Management Programme to a local social enterprise. 

If you are interested in making an application for a bursary place on this programme please complete this form and a member of the team will be in touch soon. Read one of our Case Studies here from Dawn O’Keefe at SHINE

There are a very limited number of bursary places available and we will not be able to accommodate all eligible applications. The final decision whether or not to grant a bursary will be made by representatives of the Executive Education Team.

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, as well as how innovation, digital adoption and new market penetration can be key drivers of productivity and growth.

Module 1 - Strategy and Innovation

Content covered 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

Content covered 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 - Winning New Markets

Content covered 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.

This part focuses 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

Content covered 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

Content covered 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 - Building a Brand

Content covered 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

Content covered 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

Content covered 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 - High Performance Workplace

Content covered 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.

This part focuses 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

Content covered will include:

• Recognising the role of operations in the value chain.
• Understanding the type of operations in your business.
• Identifying opportunities to improve operations management.
• Reflecting on the impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Module 11 - Finance and Financial Management

Content covered 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 - Implementing Growth Plans

Content covered 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.