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Sustaining Profitable Growth. Delivering benefits to SMEs Brian Morgan (Small Firms Research Unit). The Importance of SMEs. Indigenous firms or inward investors? FDI market is now very competitive New firms are important for job creation new industries, mostly in the service sector
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Sustaining Profitable Growth Delivering benefits to SMEs Brian Morgan (Small Firms Research Unit)
The Importance of SMEs • Indigenous firms or inward investors? • FDI market is now very competitive • New firms are important for job creation • new industries, mostly in the service sector • But only 20% of start ups grow to 5 employees • and only 2% grow to 50 employees • Therefore, the growth of existing firms is equally important for generating new jobs
Small Firms Survey:Identifying Growth Firms • Detailed research programme has identified the things that successful firms do better: • utilise information technology • focus on marketing • export oriented • keen to innovate • well networked • management and skills development • sound financial controls • willing to absorb equity finance
Top 300 firms v the Rest • Does your firm possess a • marketing or training plan ? • 2 Are you involved / becoming • involved in e-commerce?
Business Leadership • Successful business leaders create within the firm a capacity for: • flexibility and responsiveness • good performance management • good marketing and branding ….. • Hence SPG • a strategic leadership development programme focused on change management
Focus on managing change • managers are key agents of change in firms • good managers do “things better” but good leaders do “better things”, • they focus on new ideas • Place greater emphasis on team working and communication skills – hence the SPG leadership programme
Objectives of SPG • Enhanced People-Management Skills • Coaching skills • Motivation skills • Team-building • People centred management tools • Facet 5 (360° psychometric profiling tool)
Benefits • Coaching - each participant is allocated their own personal coach to reinforce the learning (Corporates willing to pay £1000+ per day for this) • Provides Work-place support for implementing new ideas - including Facet 5 • Access to Cardiff University’s extensive learning resources and the Cardiff MBA
SPG Events15 month leadership journey 1 – Vision and Values 3 days 2 – Leadership 2 days 3 - Change 2 days 4 – Entrepreneurship 2 days 5 – Coaching 2 days 6 – Innovation 2 days 7 – Strategic Challenge 2 days 8 - Coaching Support 6 days Cardiff MBA Module 1 Module 2 Module 3
Benefits • Improved Strategic Decision-Making - Make more informed decisions - Learn to ‘think outside the box’ • Make decisions for the whole organisation, not just the operations side - Manage change better
Who will benefit from this project? Companies/business leaders who are asking themselves : • Do we want to be around for the long term ? • What does success in the long term look like? • How do we achieve this? • Can we afford to ignore these questions & continue to survive/thrive?
A framework for sustainable success What should we do now and how can we continuously improve on it? Actions What should we evaluate, report and reward? The route often taken Performance management Purpose What are we trying to achieve and why? Success definition Values What does success look like for us and for our key relationships? Vision Key relationships Strategy Who is and who will be important to the achievement of the purpose?
Leadership development – reality not myth? • Leadership competencies can be gathered from experience • Experience is the most powerful teacher we have, usually it does not work effectively alone • Leadership development focuses on experience, knowledge sharing, thinking, coaching andlearning • This enables participants to act on their thinking in the workplace, with access to support and feedback through their coach
Development through action Business specific themes and inputs Action Learning Set (Non-Facilitated) Action Learning Set (facilitated) Workshop (with key speakers) Sponsored Personal and Business Development Leadership Coaching
The journey October 2003 7 Workshops 7 Action learning sets Strategic project 14 Master classes 6 Individual coaching meetings Business insights The MAD Challenge Business models Final review December 2004
Investment Costs • Your Time • Attend workshops and events over a 15 month period - usually one day per month • Additional academic coursework for those interested in the MBA • Approx. 80% of the cost is subsidised by ESF • £2000 per firm, spread over 2 or 3 tax years