Sharing and building university and business perspectives of how to enable high growth in small firms

This Knowledge Exchange project will bring together a private company - Winning Pitch (WP) - and the research team at the Centre for Enterprise at Manchester Metropolitan University Business School (CFE) to exchange dialogue and share mutual and different knowledge around small firm growth. Both Winning Pitch (and its associated High Growth Foundation) and CfE have been working to support small firms growth through leadership and entrepreneurship programmes. WP has done so from a pragmatic and experience -led viewpoint but with some awareness of research. CfE has based their approaches on learning theory and the literature on growth and small firms. This project will also allow both parties to articulate how their approaches differ and coincide, bring new understanding of commercial realities to CfE and build new understanding and appreciation of the application of research to WP. In comparing research themes with practical approaches, gaps will also emerge with the potential for new knowledge will also be developed which will engage both CfE and Winning Pitch teams and bring research and practice together.
Based in the Northwest region of the UK, Winning Pitch is a small firm with 25 employees, a specialist provider of high growth coaching services. The aim of its founder, John Leach, is for it to be a fully research led business to fuel their passion for supporting ambitious entrepreneurs in order that they realise their full potential and achieve levels of growth way above the norm. Winning Pitch offers tailored coaching services, underpinned by specialist high growth methodologies. These provide a suite of practical tools proven to deliver transformational performance - well defined business strategy, clear supporting implementation plans, enhanced sales, innovative approaches to changing markets, organisational and leadership excellence as well as investment readiness.
Winning Pitch has worked with over 5,000 businesses over the last 4 years, including high potential start -ups, growth SMEs and FTSE listed companies. Their quality and proven track record recently secured the contract to support 2000 small firms in the Northwest annually, working nationally in consortium with Grant Thornton, Pera and Oxford Innovation. The CEO of Winning Pitch is interested in research and sees its value. This Knowledge Exchange partnership will build on that to establish the role of research in delving high levels of support to high growth firms and co-develop knowledge with university partners.
CfE has a track record in working with small firms since its inception in 2001. With 28 members of the CfE team, activities include research, learning and consultancy. Recent enterprise programmes include the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Initiative, which take a particular approach to SME growth. The research being carried out focuses on entrepreneurial learning in organisations and on the small firm growth journey. In this application we would bring two established academics and two new researches into the project as a share placement, to develop understanding of how research can be articulated, shared exchanged and co-developed between a university and a private sector organisation. This is a small firm which means that their commitment to working to understand research is clearly a priority given the time they have identified to work on the project with university staff.

This project will impact first of all on both participating organisations. Researchers at MMUBS will gain key new insights into the knowledge exchange process to build on its previous experience, and will derive new understanding of the private sector, its needs, drivers and development opportunities. WP will take some steps towards achieving its strategic aims in exploring the role of research, given the recognition in its plan that delivery of support for small firms requires sound theoretical and pedagogical basis in order to provide firms with the best support in such challenging economic climates. Both will also gain from a robust partnership to support knowledge exchange on both sides. The individual direct beneficiaries will benefit as described above, by forming new relationships with project partners, by understanding the nature of work in academic and non academic environments, by exploring the process of small business development and the role of applying research in the process. The team will develop an action plan to share ideas with others in WP and its High Growth Foundation and the WP network and with CfE staff and staff in related disciplines at MMU (from the Faculties of Business, Education and Hospitality d Food Science, given that all engage with lending approaches to small firms in their research work). Planned impacts will also include activities with other organisations involved in research into small firms (via ISBE and BAM networks), knowledge exchange and business development in universities (AURIL and the Insatiate of Knowledge Transfer), those supporting small firm growth and those making policy in this area (e.g., via the All Party Parliamentary Group on Micro Enterprises).
The plan will break down activities into those likely to impact on groups and individuals both internal and external to project partners, identifying how aspects might impact upon them and indicating the best routes to communicate new ideas to them. This will include online and offline means to communicate ideas and encourage engagement.
The setting up of an online small firm growth group to explore key questions, with timed debates and ongoing twitter feeds will be part of this process. This is likely to include WP personnel, those from MMU and those from the other organisations named above. Offline means will include team members presenting findings and news about the process to other organisational members at internal and external events. This will include faculty-wide groups and university-wide enterprise and research groups at MMU. Broader academic knowledge exchange will be achieved via traditional means such as presentation of papers at national conferences (the British Academy of Management Conference for instance, to share knowledge exchange findings). It will also include non traditional techniques such as the series of 10 minute pod casts planned to take research into different groups in a non-threatening way, using simple language to engage with user groups.
The core WP team members will benefit by:
1.Gaining insights into the role of research and the way in which research can support activities
2. Identifying how to recognise knowledge developed as part of WP core activities and how this fits within a research context, with potential validation of tools and techniques and co-development of new activities to support SME learning and growth.