Course overview and introduction
At a time when businesses and their customers should be pursuing daily life with anticipated optimism, the world finds itself in the midst of a health crisis of unprecedented proportions with large swathes of the population in various stages of lock down and unlock as national governments attempt to eradicate the invisible enemy, the Covid-19 pandemic.
Whilst the ultimate outcome of the pandemic is beyond anticipation, we can be confidently reconciled to an unfolding social and economic contagion of great magnitude and trailing an unknowable legacy for some years to come.
This programme responds to the unpredictable demands unfolded by the pandemic. Offering support provision designed to help facilitate small business owner managers’ and managers’ understanding of the implications of the Covid-19 crisis on their enterprises, identify the key challenges they face in ensuring survival and development and foster innovative entrepreneurial management practice and behaviours to underpin effective consolidation of operational health and growth.
In short, our concern is with the arming of Fintech micro enterprise and small businesses with resilient entrepreneurial learning and innovative management capabilities that will facilitate their navigating of crisis and uncertainty and co-creating of a ‘new normal’ social and economic development context which the Covid-19 pandemic will unfold across the globe. Thereby fostering enterprise readiness and propensity for dealing with and prospering in highly unpredictable and unknowable operating environments of all forms – Covid-19 and beyond.
A unique programme which combines training, coaching and consultancy support to participants who are handpicked and selected for their business development aspirations and their performance to date, their high level entrepreneurship orientation and capability and their deep desire for fast growth achievement of their business. Underpinned by a desire to nurture their own entrepreneurial learning and abilities through interface with and learning from other creative and successful entrepreneurs.
Aims of the course
The programme is specifically tailored to provide entrepreneurial growth-achieving and growth-seeking Fintech small business CEOs, owner managers and senior managers with state-of-the art management knowledge and abilities, and strategic development support to underpin and facilitate fast sustainable growth in the highly uncertain Covid-19 impacted business environment.
Who is the course for?
The programme brings together select and elite like-minded Fintech growth-oriented entrepreneurs [Founders; CEOs; Owner Managers and Senior Managers]
Benefits of attending the programme
This innovative support programme is oriented to fostering entrepreneurial organisational, managerial and developmental capabilities that quickly permeate the programme participant’s enterprise and can culminate in clear bottom-line benefits for the business, including:
- An agile learning organisation capable of controlling and managing highly uncertain and hostile external environments.
- Coherent extension of existing core business activities.
- Entry to new markets and/or new product development.
- Pace of growth in sales.
- Enhanced productivity and reduction in costs.
- Increased profitability.
Qualifications and supporting documentation
Course participants will receive a CPD portfolio certificate [carrying CPD Approved Programme Logo] confirming that they have completed the course and embracing summary of the entrepreneurial knowledge, abilities and behaviours fostered by the course – together with associate CPD points amassed on the course.
Participants ‘partnership working’ with our entrepreneurship specialists in the undertaking of a strategic development audit of their business will also receive a customised strategic development frame summarising the current strategic position of the business and identifying potential strategic development opportunities to underpin future growth.
Indicative content and structure of delivery
- Workshop-based Learning and Development
- One-day Workshop 1: ‘Best Practice’ Small Business Strategic Management.
- One-day Workshop 2: Financing Growth.
- One-day Workshop 3: Entrepreneurial Marketing – Building Entrepreneurship-Marketing Interface as Driver of Growth.
- One-day Workshop 4: Managing People as Key Asset and Growth Facilitator.
- One-day Workshop 5: Operations – Anchoring-in Technology to Optimise Operational Infrastructure.
- One-day Workshop 6: Fostering ‘Strategic Awareness Capability’ to Facilitate Sustainable Fast Growth.
- Entrepreneurship Development Forum – 3 Wednesday Evenings.
- Optional in-own-business strategic development audit – ‘Partnership working’ with programme small business strategic development special.
Teaching and Learning Strategy
- Draws upon understanding of best small business management practice and rigorous practice-relevant management theory and concepts.
- Utilises our own researched and designed teaching case studies and development exercises in the fostering of interactive learning and development activities.
- Anchors the creative thinking abilities of those participant entrepreneurs to help foster their innovative ideas.
- Facilitates a learning environment where the participants learn from each other and take on board their perspectives ‘to see if there is anything in that perspective for me’.
- Treats participants, not as passive recipients of instruction, but as inquisitive, active learners.
- Adopts a learning and development approach which facilitates participant ability to identify and draw on relevant existing objective out of context management knowledge – but also to create their own ‘in-business-context’ subjective management knowledge.
- Enables the participants to utilise their own business as the key learning and development vehicle.
- Plus- an innovative optional dimension of consultancy support provision:
Provides end of programme ‘in the participants own small business’ strategic development support: ‘partnership working’ with the entrepreneur in the provision of a strategic development audit of his business – an in-depth strategic position analysis and identification of strategic development opportunities, embedded within a working document ‘strategic development planning frame’.
Intended learning objectives (ILOs)
On completion of the programme delegates should be able to:
- Understand the inappropriateness of traditional long-term planning approaches to control of their external business environment and embrace the activities and behaviours of ‘Best Practice’ small business strategic management as key vehicle in the nurturing of development and growth of their enterprise.
- Understand key dimensions of small business entrepreneurship and nurture enhanced entrepreneurial mind-set and behaviours in self and key managers as underpinning to exploiting an entrepreneurship-marketing interface within the enterprise that challenges traditional marketing and fosters innovative entrepreneurial marketing processes and activities.
- Draw upon a robust ‘financial awareness’ capability to determine current financial position of his or her business and future financing needs and confidently identify and interface with appropriate providers of required external funding – using that financial awareness capability to facilitate consolidation of operational health and drive business growth.
- Review current operations of the business and identify opportunity for enhancing operational infrastructure as key source of reliable, secure and flexible scaffolding for business continuity and sustained growth.
- Understand alternative perspectives on and potential approaches to leadership and management of workforce and utilise these as frames of reference for self-reflection on own approaches to getting the best out of workers of varying levels of ability and commitment – including the key role of emotional competencies in day to day interactions with workforce and with external stakeholders.
- Utilise strategic analysis framework and tools to assess the current strategic position of own enterprise and identify profitable business development opportunities – and commence fostering of robust ‘strategic awareness’ capability into the natural infrastructure of the business to facilitate ongoing strategic learning among key staff with regard to unfolding external change situations.
- Progressively foster evermore effective and resilient individual and organisational learning capability in self and key workers as major source of competitive advantage.
Trainer Biography
Professor Peter Wyer
Peter is Professor of Entrepreneurship, an internationally respected specialist in entrepreneurship and business education. He has over 25 years experience managing, ‘partnership working’ with and consulting for growth-seeking small businesses. For several years, he divided his time between the teaching, research and development roles of Professor in Entrepreneurship in university business schools and provision of direct support to small businesses. His research focuses predominantly upon small business strategy development processes and incorporates a comparative dimension that examines small business development in the developed economy context of the UK, the developing economy contexts of Malaysia and Ghana and the transitional economy context of Russia.
He has held leadership positions in the higher education and commercial sectors ranging through Dean and Departmental Head of Business Management to Professorial Lead of Entrepreneurship Research Centres. Within such roles, Peter has designed, developed and delivered innovative business and management education programmes at all educational levels [undergraduate; postgraduate and executive education] and in developed, developing and transitional economy contexts; and has developed creative teaching and assessment approaches and methodologies.
In recognition of his work, his appointments have embraced business and management subject Quality Assessor for the Higher education Funding Council, Director on the Board of North Manchester Business Link and Consultant Industrial Fellow to a leading London independent school. His teaching and lecturing capability has regularly unfolded a ‘repeat client-base’ with students following him from their school context to undergraduate studies; and undergraduates requesting his support for their ongoing study at PhD level. Indicative of his coaching and mentoring skills are five PhD completions (and two of these progressing on to Professorship and Associate Professorship in their specialist fields}.
His international consultancy work includes small business strategic development support and the design, development and delivery of small business management training provision in Russia and Ghana, and Masters level curriculum development in the area of small business management in Malaysia. He has also undertaken consultancy activity for major British companies and agencies, based upon the outputs of his academic research activity, including projects for British Aerospace; the National Freight Consortium; London Development Agency; Welsh Development Agency, the British Council and the UK Small Business Service. His output in the field includes articles, book chapters and conference papers disseminated across ten different countries.