Pruden & Smith, a maker of bespoke and handmade luxury jewellery with a 100-year legacy of craftsmanship, looks ahead to bright future after the Help to Grow: Management Course.
Pruden & Smith, bespoke and handmade luxury jeweller, has achieved record revenues a year after its creative director Rebecca Smith completed the 90% government-funded Help to Grow: Management Course at University of Brighton, School of Business and Law.
The business has achieved an overall revenue increase of 26% in the 12 months following the course – fuelled by the creation of an ecommerce site which has increased online sales by 250% in first 12 months from a standing start. Since Rebecca completed the course, the business has expanded its sales team, invested in re-fitting its workshop and added innovative online features, including a custom engagement ring builder.
Entrepreneur and creative director at Pruden & Smith, Rebecca Smith, said: "I had been looking for something to help us grow for a couple of years when I spotted details about the Help to Grow: Management Course in a local magazine. It was exactly what I was looking for, for me personally as a leader and for the business, so I signed up immediately. The course gave us what we needed - it provided us with the structures and support to take our business to the next level.
“I think many small businesses like ours struggle because they aren't putting the right organisational structures in place to support growth. As an entrepreneur, I’ve never worked in a large organisation so didn’t even really know the names of the roles we would require as we scaled into a bigger business" Rebecca explains.
Pruden & Smith had 13 members of staff when Rebecca enrolled and now has 19. The solutions can be quite straightforward, but you do need guidance and knowledge to implement them effectively. We started by asking everybody to keep a simple record of what they were doing for a few weeks so we could better understand where time was being spent. The first thing we did was to increase the hours our cleaner was working as we had too many people picking up cleaning tasks rather than the role, we employ them to do.
“This exercise allowed us to provide clarity around existing roles but also outline development paths so individuals could see how they would progress in the future. When we created the organisation map, I was in four of the roles. This process allowed me to identify which areas I should be stepping out of, but it also gave us real clarity on the roles we needed to underpin our growth. We recreated people's jobs to fit that model.
“It also improved communication because people better understood lines of responsibility between themselves and their colleagues. This is really important as you grow; the approach where everybody mucks in to get things done isn’t scalable.”
“For me, having a mentor was transformational. Our mentor helped me to feel a lot more confident, and much clearer on how everything needed to move forward and how to enact change. We’ve been able to access real-world ecommerce and digital marketing expertise which has been fundamental to our digital transformation. We’re now growing faster than ever and investing in creating the foundations for future success and I have a strong peer network which makes the journey less lonely and helps with my own development.”
Rebecca’s son joined the business with an ambition to launch the brand online. The course helped to underpin the jeweller’s digital transformation and futureproof its organisational structure. Pruden & Smith is continuing to expand its digital presence and team, refitting its workshop to meet increased demand.
Flora Hamilton, Executive Director of the Small Business Charter, said: “It’s always fantastic to hear a business owner has come across the Help to Grow: Management Course at the exact time in their growth journey that they needed it the most. Rebecca credits the course and working with her mentor as being the catalyst for boosting its existing revenues by 100% to date and 26% in the past 12 months alone.
“Pruden & Smith is a fabulous heritage brand with a century of history and now with the right organisational structure, facilities and digital presence, this is a business getting ready for growth.”
The Help to Grow: Management Course is a 90% government-funded leadership programme for SME businesses, delivered by a network of Small Business Charter accredited business schools. The course runs over 12 weeks and includes online and face-to-face sessions, 10 hours of 1-to-1 mentoring and peer networking. Its mission is to increase economic growth and productivity through improved management and leadership practice.
About Help to Grow: Management
Help to Grow: Management is a 12-week course designed to support business leaders and their senior managers to increase resilience, innovation, and growth within their organisations.
Developed and delivered by the network of Small Business Charter accredited business schools, the course is available in more than 60 locations across the UK and is 90% government funded. It is designed to fit around existing work and personal commitments, providing business leaders with more than 50 hours of online and in person training including 10 hours of one-to-one mentoring. Individuals completing the course automatically join the Alumni Network, where they have access to exclusive events, content and partner offers, as well as the support of a UK-wide peer network.
The Small Business Charter (SBC) empowers small business success through its network of expert business schools. Developed 10 years ago by Lord Young, the previous Department for Business, and the Chartered Association of Business Schools, the SBC was established to signpost entrepreneurs, small businesses, and local economic stakeholders to business schools in their region with the expertise to help them thrive. There are 67 SBC accredited business school centres of excellence across the UK which are trusted partners of local stakeholders and the national government to deliver effective leadership and productivity programmes and small business support to drive economic growth.