Help to Grow - About
Are you a business owner, leader, or senior manager of a small or medium sized enterprise (SME) in Northern Ireland?
In just 50 hours (taught over 12 weeks) we can teach you the skills needed to reach new customers and boost your profits.
Help to Grow: Management is a practical leadership and management training programme designed to help you boost your business performance, resilience and long-term growth and we are delighted to be delivering this unique executive development programme across Northern Ireland.
Your questions answered
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What does the course involve?
Facilitated by business experts from Ulster University Business School, this practical programme takes place over 12 weeks and includes both online and face-to-face sessions, alongside peer support and mentoring.
The programme is built around a practical curriculum that features:
- Eight facilitated online two-hour sessions
- Four practical and interactive case study workshops
- One-to-one support from a mentor, providing you with personalised support to develop your own business growth plan
- Peer networking, including peer group calls that give you the opportunity to share experiences with a small group of other small business leaders
This programme is structured to allow it to be factored into your schedule without disrupting your essential day-to-day working, letting you get on with business while investing in the future.
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What skills will I learn?
You'll learn how to:
- Develop an effective growth strategy
- Review systems and processes to work smarter
- Analyse financial information and ratios
- Communicate your business's purpose and values
- Adopt new digital technology
- Build good leadership and management practices
Course Modules include:
- Strategy and innovation
- Building vision and brand
- Adopting digital technology
- Growing national and international markets
- Engaging and inspiring teams
- Adopting responsible business practices
- Leading for high performance
- Creating customer value
- Financial management
On top of this, you’ll extend your business network by working alongside other business leaders taking part in the programme. You will also be part of an active alumni of professionals and experts.
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What’s in it for your business?
After 12 weeks of being advised and supported by dedicated business school expert facilitators, your peer group and your mentor, you will have developed a Growth Action Plan – one that is uniquely tailored to your business thereby helping you to lead and grow your organisation.
The course will allow you the opportunity to:
- Develop your leadership and management skills, enhancing employee wellbeing and engagement in the process.
- Help you recognise what drives productivity and growth in your market and understand what this means for your business.
- Learn how to advance responsible business practices, including how you create an inclusive workplace and greener workplace practices.
- Understand how to innovate your business model, including how to adopt and invest in new and digital technologies.
- Identify key domestic and export markets for your business and develop strategies for market segmentation, positioning and targeting.
- Develop strategies to improve operational efficiency, saving time and money.
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Eligibility
The Help to Grow: Management course is for business owners, leaders, or senior managers from all business sectors. To be eligible, you and your business must meet the following criteria:
Your business must:
- Be a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) based in the United Kingdom
- Employ between 5 and 249 people
- Have been operational for at least one year
- Not be a charity.
You must:
- Be a chief executive, owner/founder, or member of the senior management team
- Have at least one direct report
- Commit to completing all sessions.
Two people from the same business can participate in the programme if you meet the requirements. Regardless of participant numbers, your entire business will benefit, from increased productivity to enhanced employee wellbeing and more.
Hear why others have signed up
"I can't praise the Help to Grow: Management course enough! Over 12 weeks, it provided me with the perfect blend of online, face-to-face sessions and an invaluable 10 hours of professional mentoring, which accommodated my hectic schedule. I feel like a more confident leader and it has empowered me to take on more challenges as well as embrace new technologies. Additionally, through Ulster Business School, the Help to Grow network connected me to marketing research assistance from Masters students. I'm looking forward to developing our UU relationships with the Millennium Forum and the ongoing learning from fellow Help to Grow alumni which is hugely valuable."
Cara Mc Cartney, Development and Creative Engagement Manager, Millennium Forum Theatre and Conference Centre
"There is so much out there on the internet, it is nice to get it all the content in a proper structure and in a short period of time instead of picking out relevant information which is very time consuming, and time is precious! As an entrepreneur, you always want to get to the end goal as quickly and efficiently as possible. This will hopefully help us as a small business build the foundations appropriately for our expansion.
My goals for the end of the course are to have a much more structured approach to the expansion of the business. Diversification is the main goal and to see how we can help our community through the hospitality sector especially with coming out of a tough couple of years and potentially coming into another. The program is all about positive changes for the business and how I can bring the team along with me."
Stephen Miller, Director of Recruitment at Miller Hospitality
"Help To Grow has helped our business develop a clear mission and purpose of who we are and where we want to go. It has given us a clear path to how we can effectively market and focus our branding."
Victoria Morrow, Financial Director, CFC NI
Join Help To Grow: Management
Ulster University Business School will deliver the Help to Grow: Management programme across Northern Ireland.
The next course dates are as follows:
| Date | Location | Registration Information |
|---|---|---|
| 11 September 2024 | Belfast | Register Now for September |
| 8 January 2025 | Belfast | Register Now for January |
Register your interest below to hear about future course dates.
Sign up to find out about our upcoming dates
Help to Grow Explained
Designed to be undertaken alongside full-time work through a combination of online and face-to-face sessions, the in-depth high quality curriculum will support you to build your capabilities in leadership, innovation, digital adoption, employee engagement, marketing, responsible business, and financial management.
By the end of the programme you will develop a business growth plan, supported by dedicated programme mentors, to help you lead your business to release its full potential.