We believe that the best solutions are yet to be discovered and the best outcomes yet to be delivered. That is why we prepare organisations for change and help them implement it. We do this through an intimate understanding of their business, a relentless focus on delivery, the use of techniques that challenge the status quo and bridge traditional disciplines. We provide a range of services to public and private organisations including project and programme management, property consultancy, change management and strategy development and strategic advice. Contact us to discuss a project.

Do you wonder what your purpose is?

Have you asked yourself how you fit into the vision of the organisation you work in?

These were the questions I was prompted to ask myself during my last residential at the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business programme which started in September. We are one of 80 other small businesses from different industry sectors to have been selected for this highly prestigious and competitive programme; funded by Goldman Sachs and the Goldman Sachs Foundation, which is delivered in partnership with Oxford University. The programme is helping 10,000 other businesses from across the UK to see immediate and sustained business growth. Over a four month intensive programme that runs until December, 100 hours of support are provided with online and in-person residential sessions.

So why did we decide to apply for the programme?

It’s to enable us to support more of our clients by growing the business. The end result will be a customised business growth plan which we will be implementing back into the business so that we can enhance the service we offer our clients.

All of us within the programme are part of a high growth business, with at least 20% year on year growth. Of the 5.6m UK businesses there are only 10,000 which fall into this category. The selection process was rigorous, involving strict criteria and a final panel interview to determine if we were the right fit for the programme.

We are delighted that we have been invited to join the programme and to see how it can help us grow our business. Other businesses who have passed through this programme have achieved on average 80% growth in the first year!

The story so far

The first residential was in Manchester, where we had dinner at the Manchester Museum. It was good to meet the other businesses taking part. Amongst the group there are construction companies, PR agencies, recruitment consultants, beer bottlers, flour makings and even a company that sells bull seamen!

The programme has made us at Inner Circle Consulting start to review how we do things, and look at how we can do them better, so far we’ve looked at;

• Our value proposition to see how we can refine it

• Conducted an in-depth customer satisfaction survey to see how we can improve and provide a better service to our clients

• Undertaken a detailed assessment of our competitors

• Started to refine our customer segmentation

• And we are reviewing our organisational processes.

What’s next?

1. We are in a group with four other companies; they are a recruitment agency, a heating and plumbing business, an English language school and a technology engineering business.

2. We have an appointed growth expert who will work within our group to produce a business growth plan.

We will share more as we progress on this journey and how the programme has helped us within our business to better serve our clients.