Two preview events for the Growth Advantage Programme, run by the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship, took place on March 4 and 5, in Edinburgh and Glasgow respectively, with SMEs attending to hear from two guest speakers.
In Edinburgh, the audience heard from Nathan Pike of Pike & Bambridge and Young Entrepreneur of the Year at the WeDo Scotland awards, who told of how he started his business and his journey in building a successful business.
William Mitchell, Design Director and Owner, 4c Design, took a slightly different tack in Glasgow using examples from some of the amazing businesses that his company had helped grow, sharing some of their challenges and pitfalls along the way.
Both events were the perfect platform to raise awareness of the new 10 month Growth Advantage Programme, which has been designed to enable entrepreneurs and growth-focused business owners to realise their organisation’s full potential. As well as business-focused and research-based ‘useful learning’ delivered by leading academics at Strathclyde Business School, participants will gain valuable insights from influential entrepreneurs including Sir Tom Hunter and Chris van der Kuyl who will talk through their growth strategies and how they overcame the challenges to growth that they faced.
Just 15 places are available for the first intake of the course, which begins in May, and applications are now open.
Programme fees for the Growth Advantage Programme have been subsidised by Breakthrough, Santander’s SME support programme, which reduces the usual cost of £7,500 to £2,000. Breakthrough is aimed at businesses with an annual turnover of between £500,000 and £50million and aims to help these companies fulfil their growth potential in order to create jobs and stimulate supply-chain demand.
The programme consists of five workshop sessions encompassing key business activities such as resources, marketing and operations, which will be run on Fridays and Saturdays to minimise time out of the office. Each workshop will include a networking dinner featuring an inspiring story from a high-growth entrepreneur and will also give cohorts the opportunity to build relationships and expand contacts.
To find out more and to apply, contact entrepreneur@strath.ac.uk, call 0141 548 3482 or visit www.strath.ac.uk/huntercentre/gap