Growth Accelerator and tutor2u - the initial strategy session

We are up and running with a process of strategic review following our acceptance onto the Government’s GrowthAccelerator programme.

​Our coach - Keith Stearman from TalktoSPS - led the initially session, which was a really thought-provoking session which covered some broad strategic issues such as:

• Our core values
• What Geoff and I (as 50% shareholders) want from the business
• What “success” might look like in 2-3 years’ time
• Our existing proposition - products, markets, customers

The GrowthAccelerator programme is designed to support firms with the potential and ambition to at least double in size in the next 3 years. A combination of Government funding and contributions from participating firms enables those businesses on the programme to benefit from one-to-one coaching from strategic growth experts.

We’re certainly finding the process useful, even at this early stage.

Amongst the potential benefits from our participation in GrowthAccelerator opportunities to:

• Appreciate our true potential for growth and then set some achievable goals
• Identify and overcome the barriers which have been holding us back
• Attract investment by developing our proposition
• Stimulate product development and innovation
• Redesign the organisational structure to provide better motivation and focus

The focus and outputs of the GrowthAccelerator sessions inevitably vary from business to business. For us, some more focused strategic and marketing planning is a key output from the process and the next session looks at those in more detail, including examining:

Online Community (the core proposition)

• Products/resources available and potentially available through the Online Community
• The tutor2u brand and possible sub-brands for propositions that flow from the Online Community (or Core Business)
• Core values, goals and principles for the Online Community

Marketing strategy

• Website and maximising benefits of huge traffic (32million+ visitors per year)
• Online audiences - different environments for each
• Alliances and partnerships for access to markets
• Sub-brands and other propositions

Marketing plan

• Website development plan
• Proposition
• Markets/segments/niches
• Routes to market
• Commercial proposition
• Revenue streams

It should be a fascinating discussion.