A shared journey towards business growth

By Matt Hutchinson, p rogramme manager, Lancashire Forum

Many SME business leaders, particularly owner-managers, have no one with whom they can safely share their hopes and fears. Nor, typically, have they the time and space to work on the business and its future, rather than in the midst of it.

What we offer them, through the Lancashire Forum, is the opportunity to step back, look forward, and do so in the company of like-minded business leaders who are all on the same journey from their original, often haphazard, organic growth to a more structured and managed growth strategy.

It is this peer support network that our participating businesses value so highly. “It’s like getting free consultancy from each other,” one has put it, while another said the experience handed her back her decision-making confidence.

If it’s easy to see why this peer learning experience is so welcome, what makes it effective is that it works hand-in-hand with structured interactive learning - with the entire programme representing a longer-term intervention than most.

We run a different workshop every month for six months – on themes like innovation, business finance or employee engagement – at which our twenty or so delegates benefit from expert content, which blends cutting-edge academic research with industry practice. They get to explore the latest tools and strategies and help each other relate what they are learning to their own plans or problems.

Throughout, they focus on specific issues facing their business and its growth, with the aim of leaving the programme in possession of a tangible plan of actions they can take, backed up by specific tools to support these actions.

Along the way, we also provide access to Masterclasses from leading practitioners – a recent example being Joe McEwan, Head of Brand for innocent  – as well as inspirational company visits, which have included VEKA, Graham & Brown, SMD textiles and Seatruck Ferries. It all adds up to help our businesses identify their goals and “join the dots” to see how to get there.

The businesses that benefit most from the Lancashire Forum are undoubtedly those with a real appetite for growth – businesses that want to get to the next level.

In practice, that tends to mean a real diversity of individuals and businesses. What you can expect is twenty different advisors, twenty different sounding boards, twenty different critical friends, all on a shared journey.

The Lancashire Forum is part of Boost, Lancashire’s business growth hub, and delivered by Lancaster University Management School (LUMS). The Lancashire Forum is fully-funded and available to eligible European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) companies in Lancashire. LUMS offers a range of additional business support including programmes addressing specific themes such as low carbon, productivity and innovation, standalone events, workshops and student projects.