Aston University and Birmingham City University are currently delivering a series of workshops aimed at arming our region’s SMEs with the knowledge and skills they need to drive innovation and grow their businesses.

Dr Mark Gillman, Professor of SME Growth and Development at Birmingham City University explains why the region’s SMEs should attend a series of innovation workshops to help them grow and prosper….

Strategy and leadership for innovation

Strategy and leadership for innovation (6th Mar 10) will help business leaders understand how their approach to team leadership and the culture they create can impact on competitive advantage. My colleagues from Aston and I invite SME owners and managers to this workshop to learn how to build their strategic leadership capacity and enhance their businesses from both a cultural and structural perspective. The culture of a business not only has an impact on your employees, but on your customers and suppliers too, and they may choose to work with another business instead if your culture doesn’t sit right with them.

During this session we examine different types of leadership styles and run a series of exercises to find out what sort of leaders our attendees are and what sort of leader they’d like to be. We then introduce techniques for adapting leadership styles for business success. During the final part of this workshop we work with businesses to explore how to build their own strategic leadership approach.

Marketing and finance for Innovation

The final part of our workshop series is on Marketing & finance for innovation (20th Mar 19). During this workshop we help SME owners and managers understand more about marketing – the psychology behind marketing techniques and how to maximise business success with an effective marketing strategy. This not to be missed series of workshops is open to any SMEs in Greater Birmingham and Solihull. Not only is it a unique opportunity to learn from the region’s leading business experts, it’s also a chance to collaborate with other like-minded businesses seeking to become more innovative in their approach to growth.

On behalf of myself and my colleagues at Aston University, we really hope you can join us at this series of workshops and apply the skills you acquire over the three sessions to take business innovation to the next level.

To find out more, book your place at the innovation workshops

Dr Mark Gilman is Professor of SME Growth and Development at Birmingham City Business School and Head of the Centre for Enterprise, Innovation and Growth. He has worked in industry and academia for the last 40 years engaging with businesses of all sizes including Boots plc, Barclays Bank, British Airways and a number of public sector organisations. More recently he has been impacting the growth of over 500 SMEs through research and coaching interventions for ambitious business owners.