FAQs

We help business leaders who are passionate about growing their business and have the intent to double their business in three years achieve their ambitions. We do that by matching businesses with proven business experts to define a tailored growth plan that will realise controlled and accelerated growth. We open doors to external funding, seize new business opportunities, boost your innovation and leadership and connect you to a community of organisations and fast growing businesses that will add value.

You need to be registered in England with fewer than 250 employees and a turnover of less than £40m. See eligibility criteria for a more detailed breakdown.

GrowthAccelerator is a partnership between private enterprise and Government which means we can keep the service affordable. Because the Government is investing with you in the growth of your business, the cost to you is significantly reduced. Your investment in GrowthAccelerator will reflect the size of your business:

• 1 – 4 employees – £600 + £700 VAT*
• 5 – 49 employees – £1,500 + £700 VAT*
• 50 – 249 employees – £3,000 + £700 VAT*

*VAT is based on 20% of the nominal value of the service, at £3,500, so all businesses pay the same amount of VAT– please talk to your Growth Manager for more information.

First you’ll be introduced to a Growth Manager. Our Growth Managers will get to know your business intimately and will guide you through every stage of the service.

One of our Growth Managers will have a 30 minute phone conversation during which we will establish your management ambition, every aspect of your capacity of your team and premises, and the potential growth opportunities for your products or services, as well as the markets in which you operate. At the end of this call we will generally be able to determine whether GrowthAccelerator is right for you, although we will be able to test this further if necessary during a subsequent face-to-face meeting.

We will give you access to our bespoke online assessment GROWTHmapperTM that’s a tried and tested way of identifying barriers to business growth. This will take around 15 minutes to complete. For best results each member of the management team should complete GROWTHmapper^TM.

Once you’ve done GROWTHmapperTM we’ll book you in for a 3-4 hour face to face meeting with one of our Growth Managers. This is a working session to really get under the skin of your barriers to growth and to agree a scope of support. Our Growth Manager will use all this information to find a Growth Coach to work with you.

We’ve put together a team of more than 800 expert Growth Coaches and Growth Managers, chosen for their track record in bringing substantial and sustained growth to ambitious businesses. Every major business sector is represented and all regions of the country. Whatever subjects your Scope of Support touches on – financial performance, innovation, fund raising, motivation, marketing – we’ll identify a Growth Coach whose skills ideally complement your needs.

It may be that the time’s not quite right for you as this service is not suited to everyone. Either way your Growth Manager will have helped you gain the most accurate measure of where your business stands with a good idea of the criteria you’d need to meet in the future. When you think that’s happened, we’d be keen for you to reapply. If you are not selected there’s no way of appealing the decision, but we will point you in the direction of a range of other services we think might help.

We know you’re busy and maybe you feel there’s no time to spare from actually running the business day to day. If you don’t think it’s right for you at present, come back to us when you do. We’d just leave you with two thoughts – there’s never a bad time to consider business support and new ideas, and what’s the cost of not dedicating some time to growing your business?

This depends entirely on your business outlook and the priorities we jointly agree with you. We can offer you help with raising money, implementing a business development strategy or bringing a new product to market. You can also get a leadership and management grant of up to £2,000 per individual.

Whatever your needs, we’ll put together an integrated package to help you reach an agreed growth objective. Your Growth Coach will pass on skills, knowledge and experience to improve business performance and help you realise your growth potential.

Coaching support will typically run for a period of several months to enable you to implement significant changes within your business. You’ll be able to attend a range of masterclasses, workshops, networking and mentoring opportunities and get access to peer-to-peer advice. And you’ll benefit from privileged access to a Leadership Development fund to support your skills development.

Again it’s down to your agreed Scope of Support but six to 12 months is a typical coaching schedule, influenced by the size of your business and the scale of the growth you’re pursuing.

Firstly it’s specifically about high growth… fast, ambitious, sustained and achievable growth for businesses that have that potential and are determined to realise it. If that’s not where you are, it’s not for you. Secondly it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach but a customised service focusing on the specific needs of your business. Thirdly you’ll get a constructive, practical and accurate idea of where your business’s potential lies thanks to the well-tested GROWTHmapperTM and other tools we use.

It’s a partnership between leading business growth experts, including Grant Thornton UK LLP, Pera, Oxford Innovation and Winning Pitch, and the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills.

We may need extra Growth Coaches in the future but we are fully resourced already, all used to working with high growth businesses so we’re not looking to recruit any more at the moment.