Case Study for Graham Robson – North East

 

Graham Robson is the Business Doctor covering the North East. The following testimonial has been provided following a recent Strategic Review Day.

About the client

The Trustees and Chief Executive Officer of Supportive (SRC) Ltd wanted to have a Strategic Review and develop a 5-year Business Plan to ensure its sustainability and resilience as we approach our 30th year of operation. Supportive is a not-for-profit social care and transport charity that was formed 29 years ago. Over the years, Supportive has grown to a £5 million business and is a significant employer within County Durham.

Supportive deliver the following services:

• Domiciliary Care with end-of-life support – £3 million turnover
• Volunteer Driver Services – £900k turnover
• Patient Transport ambulance services – £1.5 million turnover

It was agreed that all members of Staff, Trustees and Volunteers would have the opportunity to be part of the Strategic Review. This commenced in January 2022. Graham held sessions with the Senior Leadership Team and Trustees, and he ran a session of Engagement for Staff and Volunteers where no Senior Staff were present. This was followed up with a feedback session which enabled staff and volunteers to share their ideas and comments. This led to lively discussions.

About the review

In the Strategic Review led by Graham, we explored why we wanted the Review and discussed and agreed on Core Values  & Beliefs, the Purpose of our Organisation, Visionary Goal enabling us to Build Capacity, Grow Value and Realise the Future Potential, looking at the Impact of Social, Technology, Economic and Political, allowing us to look at negative impacts on our plans, and looking at ways in how we overcome them. We discussed the Market we are in and reviewed our customers and how we can develop existing services by looking at gaps in the market.

We delivered an analytical review looking at where we had strong elements and where we could improve our vulnerabilities, and we decided on our Sustainable Competitive Advantages.

The results

Once we had completed the above, we could develop a Strategy: Invest in our people, develop our business and Invest in our Organisation.

Graham then led us onto Critical Factors of Making it Happen, which looked at engaging with our Staff, structures, roles and responsibilities, and leadership. We looked at how we developed a business plan to secure future growth, improve financial control, implement the performance management framework, operational performance improvement, marketing, and communications plan. We also looked at Governance for the Trustees. Graham produced a strategic Action Plan to work with, which was made up of 7 Critical Success Factors, 16 Actions and target dates to ‘Make it Happen’.

The sessions were very constructive; Graham ensured everybody took part in the discussions and all points of view were discussed. He helped formalise our ideas, bringing us practical suggestions i.e. simplifying Finance systems and ensuring ‘Real Time Finance’. Graham made the Day interesting; he has a good sense of humour and was a good listener. He made us all think about where we were and where we wanted to be in the future.

We would undoubtedly use Graham in the future and would highly recommend his services.

Carol Reynolds

Chair of Trustees

Supportive (SRC) Ltd