What to work on and in what order
“I will repeat what I see as my fundamental message as Chair of the ScaleUp Institute: we must keep encouraging ambitious businesses to keep Scaling. Stay optimistic, challenging times will always create opportunities for the ambitious and innovative to differentiate themselves, to demonstrate their potential and grow.”
Adam Hale, Chair, Scale Up Institute Annual Report 2021
Once you are on the Scale-Up journey, it is all about staying focussed on your 3 year roadmap, and keeping one eye firmly on the 10 year goal.
Easier said than done as challenges present themselves and drag you back into the business. The trick is not to stay in that space. Get in, listen, understand, then get out and solve in a style that keeps the business on track, scaling and making a difference in the world.
Cloud-Busting have a developed 5 essential workshops that focus on each Scale-Up Success Factor. They are also able to develop bespoke workshops and programmes around specific challenges that may be unique to your business.
These workshops are designed to prompt creative thinking, explore solutions, resolve challenges with the objective always remaining to keep the business on its Scale-Up journey at the right pace with high levels of engagement throughout the organisation.
Scale-Up Success Factor workshops include:
Scale-Up Your People Framework
In a SMALL business an Org Chart is usually retrospectively produced. Why? As growth occurs decisions are made and implemented. Very rarely do we plan what the Org Chart should look like in advance. MD’s act and then document.
To scale effectively the business needs to switch to an Accountability Chart.
This provides the workforce with a scalable model that will grow in line with the business. It is clear who is responsible for what.
We base this on the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) developed by Gino Wickman (author of Traction) which has been successfully deployed globally.
| Duration | 1 Day or 2 x Half-Day Sessions |
|---|---|
| Who attends | MD/CEO + Leadership Team |
| Pre-workshop | Review of the current structure Meet the Managers and teams Produce an Observations & Feedback Report |
| Fee | £3750.00 + VAT = £4500.00 Includes Workshop materials, travel expenses (up to 40 miles from S40) £4375.00 + VAT = £5250.00 with the follow-up session. |
| Payment Plan | Payment pre-workshop. Credit Cards accepted. |
Scale-Up Strategic Foundations
It’s time to revisit your Vision, your Values, your mission in this world, your Customers experience and how their businesses are changing, your competitiveness, what value are your offering. We take a deep dive into the Balance Sheet and ensure all assets are being utilised to drive scale-up growth. Often we become blinded to hidden gems sitting on the balance sheet, when they should form part of our tool-kit to scale.
What got you from Start-Up to now will have evolved over the years. Successful scaling relies upon excellent communication. Know where you’re heading and why. Your customers need to know, your team needs to know and your stakeholders must know to continue their support.
Scale-Up Strategic Foundations re-energises the MD or CEO, reinvigorates the leadership team & aligns everyone on the same page.
Cloud-Busting Tip: deliver this workshop as an extension to your Strategic Annual Away Day to gain the most from the process.
| Duration | 2 Days |
|---|---|
| Who attends | MD/CEO + Leadership Team (max 10) |
| Pre-workshop | Cloud-Busting preparation includes a brief review of business strategic plan, current performance v targets, meet the business leader, research into market sector and customer feedback. |
| Post-workshop | Half-day follow-up is included 3 months after workshop. Review 3 Year Strategic Plan. |
| Fee | £5625.00+VAT Includes Workshop materials (up to 40 miles from S40) |
| Payment Plan | Payment 14 days from date of invoice, pre-workshop Credit Cards accepted. |
Scale-Up Strides Workshop
Scaling is about driving growth, not growth driving the business. Successful scale-up businesses are one-stride ahead at all times forging the way not following in someone’s footsteps.
Focus one whole day exploring what growth options are available to build the 3 and 10 year plan on.
All ideas put on the table. Follow a methodical elimination process – what is easy to do, what is expensive to do, what is quick to do, what will take more time, what resources are required and most importantly what will be the impact on achieving the 3 Year and 10 Year Strategic Plans.
Th Scale-Up Strides Workshop is creative, collaborative and productive. It boosts team-skills such as listening and decision-making which will drive the business growth.
We recommend delivering this workshop as part of the Leadership Teams Annual Off-site Strategic Review to gain the most from the process.
The workshop can be delivered on-line, however Cloud-Busting recommend face to face for maximum results.
| Duration | 1 Days |
|---|---|
| Who attends | MD/CEO + Leadership Team (max 10) |
| Pre-workshop | Cloud-Busting will conduct background research into growth options for the individual business ensuring they understand your business, your market and your competition Produce an Observations & Feedback Report to support the Workshop process |
| Post-workshop | 1/2 day post-workshop (3 months after) to review the 3 Year Strategic Plan with MD + Leadership Team |
| Fee | £5,000.00 + VAT = £6,000.00 Includes Workshop materials, research, travel expenses (up to 40 miles from S40) |
| Payment Plan | Payment 14 days from date of invoice, pre-workshop Credit Cards accepted. |
Scale-Up Your Productivity
Maintaining scaling at a pace that leaves your competition in the distance demands Operational Excellence and Efficiency.
Lean operations is having end to end control from sales through to your after-sales service. Standardised processes, removing waste, finely-tuned stock control all contributing to delivering customer satisfaction and repeat business.
In an era where low birth rates are making human resource less widely available and full employment exists, scaling SME’s need to adopt new approaches to meeting continued increases in sales.
Our workshop covers quality, health & safety, in-house production v outsourcing, standardising processes and products, automation benefits, and what data do you need to sustain scaling-up. We are also able to bring in specialist speakers to facilitate in-depth brainstorming in specific focussed areas identified at the pre-workshop review. Our aim to make the event relevant and useful for your business.
| Duration | 1 Day |
|---|---|
| Who attends | MD/CEO + Leadership Team (max 10) |
| Pre-workshop | Cloud-Busting will spend up to 2 days on site to carry-out a pre-workshop review of current operations, strengths and weaknesses. Meet the managers and teams involved with the end-to-end process. Produce an Observations & Feedback Report to support the Workshop process |
| Post-workshop | 1/2 day post-workshop (3 months after) to review the actions agreed at the workshop MD + Leadership Team |
| Fee | £5,000.00 + VAT = £6,000.00 Includes Workshop materials, research, travel expenses (up to 40 miles from S40) |
| Payment Plan | Payment 14 days from date of invoice, pre-workshop Credit Cards accepted. |
Scale-Up Funding Essentials
Manufacturing business have different financial models to service providers, who are different to online subscription providers and so on. Whatever the financial model that supports your organisation… is it ready to fuel the scale-up process?
Positive working capital, competitive rates of finance, separating finance for innovation from finance for day to day activities are a few of key ingredients for a scale-up recipe for finance. Finance reporting and knowing what ratios to pay attention to, underpins every successful scale-up business.
Starting with in-house cash collections and spend, our workshop walks through how we protect, manage and utilise cash. Cloud-Busting works with you to identify where improvements can be made. You will deep dive into the profit & loss report, budgets, balance sheet assets and liabilities and make sure you are not missing anything blindly obvious that could negatively impact your scale-up journey, or could positively accelerate growth.
Where initial issues have already been identified, Cloud-Busting will invite specialists to come and speak about options in more detail. For example, we often see there are opportunities for grant applications or alternative, lower-cost funders which would positively impact the scale-up journey. Whilst Cloud-Busting are not finance specialists, Mel Archbould has strong links in this sector, supported by many years working with traditional business finance, invoice discounting, grants, loans and short-term cashflow support.
| Duration | 1 Day |
|---|---|
| Who attends | MD/CEO + FD or Finance Manager + Leadership Team |
| Pre-workshop | Cloud-Busting will spend one day on site with the Finance Team, reviewing the Management Report, Financial Data and ensuring the background information is to hand for the workshop. |
| Post-workshop | 1/2 day post-workshop (3 months after) to review the actions agreed at the workshop MD + FD / Finance Manager |
| Fee | £5,000.00 + VAT = £6,000.00 Includes Workshop materials, research, travel expenses (up to 40 miles from S40) |
| Payment Plan | Payment 14 days from date of invoice, pre-workshop Credit Cards accepted. |
