Made Smarter takes a two-pronged approach when it comes to helping UK manufacturers with digital transformation.
The government-backed initiative provides grant funding for the adoption of industrial technologies, and it also helps SME businesses develop future digital leaders.
In this blog we hear from three North West based manufacturing leaders who have benefited from Made Smarter skills and leadership training.
Tom Fletcher from Firstplay Dietary Foods, Paul Dodd from Weaver Dane and Liz Foulds of Logs Direct met as part of the same Leading Digital Transformation cohort.
During Made Smarter’s monthly LinkedIn Live series they discussed all the ways it has helped them approach common challenges and become better digital leaders in their businesses.
Here’s three of the biggest benefits they wanted to share with other SME manufacturers thinking of signing up for the next Leading Digital Transformation programme in September.
“It gives you time out of the business to focus on the future”
One of the biggest benefits of skills and leadership training is the chance for business leaders to focus on the bigger picture.
Paul, managing director of Weaver Dane a furniture manufacturer in Cheshire found this very helpful.
He said: “I think when you’re running a business you can easily get caught up in the day-to-day, so I used my time on the course as a kind of breakout for myself. It allowed me to step back which ended up catapulting us forward.
“Made Smarter has been a catalyst for many business decisions and that all came from having an effective plan is place which we hadn’t for a good few years.”
Finance Director of Logs Direct Liz agreed.
She explains: “The biggest benefit, by far, was a timeout from the business. It was time just to step back and ask ourselves where are we really? Where do we really want to be? And how are we going to bridge that gap?
“The chance to talk to other business leaders was invaluable”
Alongside learning about business strategy our previous cohorts found the interaction with other business leaders immensely useful.
Liz said: “One of the biggest things for me was just the opportunity to meet and talk to other likeminded business owners.
“I think we all agree that sometimes it can be quite lonely at the top of a business when you’re juggling everything. So, unless you take part in something like this and share common challenges you don’t get time to just stop and think about driving the business forward.
“I wish I had done it two years ago
Tom is the managing director of a family-run food manufacturing business in Stockport.
He reflected that after 27 years of the business being run by his parents, the Made Smarter course helped create a spark for change and gave him the practical knowledge of how to lead the company into a more digital future.
He said: “The course was brilliant. It particularly helped me in a family business because when I came in with a few new ideas it was hard to put those ideas across and control how they were landing.
“The business had not been particularly tech savvy before so when I reflected on the course, and everything I had learnt, it made me think I wish I had known about it two years ago - as it would have saved a lot of time.”
He added: “It wasn’t just solely focused on digital transformation; it was the transformation of your business altogether which was absolutely brilliant.”
Register your interest in the next Leading Digital Transformation programme.