Context and Challenge
As part of commitment to developing innovative and entrepreneurial alumni University of Worcester joined a collaboration of 12 UK Higher Education Institutions in mid-2006 to deliver the Student Placements for Entrepreneurs in Education (SPEED) programme to 750 students over 2 years. University of Worcester commissioned Blueberry Training to design and deliver a full programme of enterprise skills workshops to 15 SPEED students. University of Worcester employs 500 staff at its Henwick Grove campus to deliver further and higher education programmes to 8,000 students. Turnover in 2006 exceeded £38 million.
Objectives
University of Worcester wanted a training workshop programme that not only built a toolkit of enterprise skills appropriate to student entrepreneurs with a wide range of business ideas, but also worked alongside Business School academics to enable them to provide this service independently in the future. The workshops would give delegates the necessary legal, marketing, finance and sales skills to ensure that their new ventures got off to the best possible start.
Programme
A programme of eight half-day workshops ran weekly over the period January to March 2007 and were themed:
Results
Delegate satisfaction over the programme averaged 92.2%. Satisfaction was measured against such criteria as whether their performance would be improved as a result of the workshop, the learning methods used, quality of the content, and the facilitator’s enthusiasm and ability to answer questions. Here is a selection of the delegate feedback:
"A dry topic was really exciting and fun!"
"Really useful and not as bad as I thought. I don't like finances."
"Have enjoyed every aspect of the training and felt that my overall knowledge has improved loads!!"
“Not only is Andy a great teacher with a lot of patience he is also essential to the production of my
business.”
“The only thing that stops it feeling like another lecture is the fact that Andy delivers it. He delivers it in a way that is not like all lectures. He is motivated, enthusiastic and inspiring. He gives us confidence that we can achieve success with our business.”
“Andy has been a very motivating person and all the seminars that took place were very much geared towards student participation.”
Effect and Impact
Since January 2007, many of the students have incorporated and begun to trade as twelve new businesses.
What Next?
Blueberry Training will continue to work with Worcester Business School to develop its programme of business start up courses ready for roll out in June 2008.
What do you do first? Developing a business idea, testing your idea, protecting intellectual property and insurance....
How to keep business records? What exactly is cash flow and how do you go about fundraising for business?
How to carry our market research, promotional campaigns and get your product sold!
