Is your business just surviving or THRIVING?
The University of Portsmouth is offering a FULLY funded and FREE Small Business Leadership Programme for your company, so please read on to see if your company qualifies, it doesn’t matter where you’re located as it’s all online.
What we will help you to do:
The business leadership programme aims to support your business during and after the pandemic
From business survival to growth in 90 minutes per week
From business survival to growth in 10 weeks
Helping businesses to survive and thrive beyond COVID
Build your business resilience, productivity and growth
The short leadership course to help your business play the long game
Develop your leadership skills to steer your business through the pandemic
Free eight 90 minute sessions with business experts from the University of Portsmouth Business School and ‘real world’ business facilitators who can help bring an outward face to your business and ‘deep dive’ insights to help you grow
Where does the programme cover?
If you’re located in Oxford, the south east, south west, East Anglia and Cambs, south of the UK you WILL qualify so please apply and we can sign you up.
About the Programme:
The Small Business Leadership Programme supports senior leaders to enhance their business’s resilience and recovery from the impact of COVID-19, and develop its potential for future growth and productivity.
Participants will develop strategic leadership skills and the confidence to make informed decisions to boost business performance.
Participants must be in senior management roles, with at least one direct report, in businesses which have been operating for at least one year and with 5-249 employees in England.
To aid business survival and future growth in the current climate, the practical curriculum will explore leadership, innovation, employee engagement, operational efficiency, marketing, sustainable practices, and finance.
The short and focused programme will be delivered online by small business and enterprise experts from university business schools.
The programme is designed to be manageable alongside full-time work. Participants will attend eight 90-minute webinars across ten weeks, and complete up to two hours of independent study and peer-supported learning per week.
Participants will strengthen their business network by taking part alongside a cohort of 20 senior leaders throughout the programme.
The Small Business Leadership Programme is free and fully funded by the Government to support the resilience, recovery and growth of SMEs during and after COVID-19.
The Small Business Leadership Programme is being delivered by a consortium of business schools accredited by the Small Business Charter (SBC), and supported by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy.
Benefits of taking part
The Small Business Leadership Programme will:
Develop your strategic capability to plan for the future of your business, and to ensure that your business is in a great position to recover from the impact of COVID-19.
Learn how to make your business more productive and resilient.
Support you to develop your management and leadership skills, and increase your confidence to make better decisions, boost business performance and become more effective.
Provide a reflective and practical programme tailored to support your business. Apply your learning to your business
Help you to build lasting relationships with a network of small business leaders and business experts in your region.
Create an innovative, productive and agile organisational culture able to drive growth.
Support you to embed responsible business practices.
Learning outcomes
Participants will learn to:
Develop an action plan for resilience and productivity in your business.
Understand how innovation can impact productivity and help you to respond and recover from challenges.
Reflect on your leadership style and build on your leadership skills to improve your business’s performance.
Develop your business’s vision and values for the long term sustainability of your business
Assess employee engagement and identify actions to achieve high performance
Outline a strategic approach to operations management, efficiency, and value creation in your business
Programme format
The Small Business Leadership Programme will equip you with the confidence and leadership skills to plan for the future of your business, and ensure that you are in a great position to recover from the impacts of COVID-19.
The programme is:
A structured programme of eight 90-minute webinars over the course of 10 weeks.
You will also be required to complete up to two hours of independent study and peer supported networking per week.
Delivered online whilst social distancing measures are in place.
A network of up to 20 other small business leaders and opportunities for peer-learning.
A LinkedIn group set up especially for you to network and connect in with 200 other companies free of charge
Facilitated by small business experts in university business schools
A practical curriculum which will help you to develop leadership skills to improve performance in your business.
We will guide you through online session with academics and ‘real world’ business facilitators covering:
Innovation and Markets: What is meant by innovation in business? How it impacts on productivity and how to respond and recover from challenges.
Leadership and Employee Engagement: Develop your leadership skills to have a positive effect on the performance of your business; and assess the key elements of employee engagement to achieve high performance.
Vision, Purpose and Brand: Explore your own leadership style and how to get the best out of the people around you; understanding the culture of your business.
Demand Creation and Customer Relationships: Identify key markets for your business and consider your approach to creating customer demand and building customer relationships.
Operational Efficiency: Build a strategic approach to operations management including the use of digital technologies
Finance and Financial Management: Understand the key elements and principles of financial management and the use of financial data to support strategic decision making in your business.
Action Planning and Implementation: Develop an action plan for resilience and productivity in your business, including what key tools and metrics are required to measure your performance.
Eligibility criteria
To join the Small Business Leadership Programme, your business must:
Be a Small or Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) based in England
From any business sector, employing between 5 and 249 people
Have been operational for at least one year
The participant should be a decision maker or member of the senior management team within the business eg Chief Executive, Finance Director etc with at least one person reporting directly to them
Participants will be required to complete all sessions so must commit fully to the programme for 8 weeks during office hours only.
This training is worth approximately £10k worth of value to a company and there is no limit to how many people in a company can attend the course as long as they are senior leaders (subject to places being available)
Over 75% of the places are already full and start dates are December 2020 and January 2021, so please secure your place NOW
How to secure your FREE place:
To apply for the programme, then e-mail: adele.ferguson@port.ac.uk for more information or click on the link here to be contacted by the University to discuss this further, this is a dedicated form to be submitted and sent back.
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