Manufacturing Sector Support

Peer-to-Peer Networks
CIRCLE Leadership in partnership with the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and regional Local Enterprise Partnerships are pleased to support the Manufacturing industry across the UK.

Peer Networks is a pilot initiative that brings together diverse cohorts of business leaders to discuss their challenges, gain and reflect on valuable feedback, while implementing practical solutions through action learning sets. When presented with challenges and opportunities, many businesses want to take advice from trusted sources and we are here to provide that environment.

Delivered through a series of virtual high impact group sessions with a qualified facilitator, Peer Networks will enable you to make connections that go far beyond networking.

From finance and HR, crisis management, to sales and marketing, our business expert and trained facilitator, Mark Bayley-Smyth, will create a safe support network, helping to build and strengthen your business, and improve its overall performance.

What are Peer Networks?

It is well recorded that accountability to our peers is a powerful motivator.

The aim of this fully funded programme is to provide a safe learning environment with trained facilitators, in which local business leaders and owners can share difficult issues that their businesses are facing in the current pandemic. Using action-learning methodology, resolutions to those issues can be discussed within a supportive framework in small intimate group sessions, with an intention to effect change.

Course participants will receive:

• A total of 18 hours of action-learning group work, through 3-hour Zoom sessions each fortnight.

• 3.5-hours of one to one coaching 

There are limited places available, which means only one place can be allocated per organisation.

The Sessions will launch in December and will run until the end of March.

Is this programme for you?

Eligibility:

• The organisation must have been operating for at least one year
• The business must be small to medium sized (SME) with a minimum of 5 employees pre-covid
• The turnover of the business must be over £100,000 pre-covid
• Participants will be tourism businesses who value peer support, collaboration and are open to learning.
• Businesses applying for the course will be the owner of a business, or a senior decision maker within the organisation
• Applications are open in the following regions:

              Cheshire

              Dorset

  Greater Manchester             

  Hampshire

              Liverpool City Region

              North East

              West Surrey

How to apply:

Fill in your details on our enquiry form  HERE.

Once the completed application form has been submitted, the applicant will receive a telephone call to check eligibility, and to gather initial eligibility data.

Participants will complete a detailed survey at programme start, mid-point, and end. You will also complete a survey at the end of each session, to enable quality monitoring and to capture the impact the programme has on the participating businesses. All information given will remain confidential, in accordance with GDPR.

*Businesses who accept a place on the course are expected to commit to the full length of the programme*

Meet Your Facilitator:

Mark Bayley-Smyth is founder and Managing Director of CIRCLE Leadership, a Manchester-based leadership and business consultancy.  Mark has held senior management positions across a range of market-leading, international companies, corporates and SMEs in a variety of industries and disciplines, most recently as Managing Director at Siemens. He also served as Executive Committee Member of a key UK trade association, supporting the development of policies for the energy sector.

With 30 years’ business experience, from Engineering Apprentice to Managing Director, Mark is passionate about helping business leaders accelerate their growth rates and transform their businesses, especially in the SME scale-up market. Mark is a business mentor for the NatWest Entrepreneur Accelerator and portfolio Non-Executive Director.

He is a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute.



If you need any further information, please get in touch on 0800 368 8900 or via the enquiry form.