Solutions for Business

Understanding Finance

 

 

 

The Challenge

 

In 2009 Business Enterprise North East (BENE) was keen to increase the economic prosperity and job creation in the North East through a programme of finance workshops. 

 

The objective was to improve financial knowledge and commercial knowledge confidence within the North East business community by specifically targeting SME businesses.

 

 

 

The Agreed Solution

 

Results International, working in partnership with BENE, designed and delivered the Understanding Finance Programme, a series of five one-day Financial Workshops to the North East SME business population – Understanding Finance, Financial Planning, Money Management, Business Growth, Raising Finance. 

 

To support the workshops an e-learning product suite was created that allowed all the delegates to revisit, test and expand their understanding as well as being a vehicle to attract new interested parties. The programme was also supported by a professional accreditation which would reward individual participants with QCF Level 3 in Business Finance.

 

 

The Result

 

The finance workshops have been an unprecented success with BENE’s targets on new business attendance being smashed and the workshops being oversubscribed. The workshops are meeting the challenge of increasing prosperity in the region. Numerous business have used the knowledge they gained to successfully raise finance, manage cash-flow, renegotiate supplier costs and build and present business plans; the stand out success to date has been that a start-up IT business, as an indirect result of the workshops, successfully secured their first major contract in 2010 worth £1m.