ACCELERATE – Driving Your Business Forward

Brief Programme Description

This pilot ACCELERATE programme is to provide, the owners/managers of small businesses in the Fingal County Enterprise Board (CEB) area, who have been up and running for a minimum of 18 months with the management, leadership skills and business knowledge to achieve sustainability and growth in their business.

Programme Aim

The aim of this programme is to provide you, the owner manager with the management, leadership, business skills and knowledge to achieve sustainability and growth in your business.

The programme will help:

• To effectively address your business challenges
• Improve and develop your business offer

You will gain a greater understanding of:

• Why you are in business and where your business is headed
• Marketing
• Continuous improvement
• Developing yourself and Entrepreneurial Capabilities
• Sales and selling
• Managing the finances
• How to develop your business in a focused way suitable to your business needs.

Programme Content -  Modules

• Module 1 - Why am I in business?
  Create a vision for your business and a route map to achieving it
• Module 2 - Finding and Keeping Customers
  Understand practical marketing and promotional tools and be able to use these tools effectively to sustain and grow your business.
• Module 3 - How can my business do better?
  Identify opportunities for innovation in your business
• Module 4 - Managing the Money
  Understand your financial position and how to improve the profitability of your business
• Module 5 - Selling For Profit
  Use the appropriate selling models for your business and therefore sell more effectively
• Module 6 - Being the Boss
  Manage yourself more effectively to achieve the business goals.

Programme Duration

The programme inputs of 7 workshops and 6 mentor meetings will be delivered over a 6-9 month timeframe.

Mentoring

You will be allocated a mentor as part of the programme. The mentors are people who have practical business experience, who have a genuine interest in the business and in the development of the business. The mentor’s role is to give feedback and encouragement, suggest alternative courses of action and discuss issues around specialist areas.

Peer Review

At the beginning of each module 2-6 there will be an opportunity to exchange ideas with peers. In particular progress on implementation of programme

Trainer Background

• Padraig Warren holds both a B.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from UCD.
• Certificate in Training and Continuing Education, National University of Ireland
• Certified Management Consultant – Institute of Management Consultants and Advisors
• Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants and Advisors (IMCA).
• IMCA Director of All Ireland Relations
• Registered FAS Trainer.
• Chinook Consulting is an Institute of Management Consultants and Advisors (IMCA) Registered Practice and a certified FETAC Training Centre.

Following a career in the electronics, brewing, food, soft drinks and third level education sectors both in Ireland and abroad Padraig Warren established Chinook Consulting as a consultancy practice specializing in Training,  Mentoring, Coaching, Strategic Management, Business Development, Research and Programme Evaluation support to companies in the Micro and SME sectors.

He has mentored companies in preparing their business plans which specifically identified their funding requirements including sourcing of grant aid funds from County Enterprise Boards, Enterprise Ireland and Local LEADER Partnerships. He has also helped companies source private equity funding.

He has worked with many companies in helping them define and understand their future strategic direction through the application of Scenario Planning techniques.  These companies then construct a strategy implementation and performance monitoring process based on the Balanced Scorecard.

Please Contact Us for more information.