hub South West’s tenth Building for Growth programme, where ambitious local businesses learn how to grow in a sustainable manner by building the skills and internal capacity to take on increasing volumes of business, is now under way.

The bespoke business development initiative is open to any company in construction and related sectors based in Lanarkshire, Ayrshire and Dumfries and Galloway, which is looking to win new work from participating Tier One building contractors, including Morisons, Graham, Morgan Sindall, Ashleigh and Keir.

The highly successful programme, through which almost 100 local businesses have now graduated, is run by hub South West, the public-private partnership of local authorities, NHS, blue light services and a clutch of leading construction industry Tier One building contractors.

The tenth programme, which has just got under way, is scheduled to run through until the end of November. Fourteen participating companies are drawn from locations across south west Scotland including Airdrie, Carluke, Dumfries, East Kilbride and Rutherglen. 

The programme comprises 8 half-day sessions (10.00am-2.00pm) over a period of 12 weeks. Throughout the autumn 2019 session workshops will focus on topics such as leadership and management, Innermetrix profiling, business analysis, strategy and exit options, cost management, data security, marketing planning, corporate social responsibility, environment  and presentation skills. The course culminates with an awards ceremony in Glasgow on 21 November.

Gordon Hunter, hub South West’s Supply Chain Manager who manages the Building for Growth programme, said: “The aim of the programme is to ensure that local companies are ready, willing and capable of securing work from the Tier One contractors, and, I am delighted to say that we achieved our aim in 2018 with around 60% of sub-contracting work on major projects going to local businesses.”

Michael McBrearty, Chief Executive of hub South West, said: "Our Building for Growth programme has already delivered success to the leaders of its participating companies by both broadening and deepening their grasp of the factors needed to win more new, bigger contracts from Tier One contractors and we hope and trust that all of the participants in our tenth Building for Growth programme will follow in their footsteps.”