How can an ambitious SME go about balancing agility and responsiveness to their market with a solid long-term business growth strategy? Here are five key areas for consideration:

There is a common misconception that, because SMEs have fewer resources at their disposal than large companies, this will stifle their ability to innovate. While it is true that SMEs may not have the resources of large corporates, the streamlined nature of most SMEs means that things can be done without much bureaucracy - which is actually an enormous advantage to innovation.

So you've had a great idea for a business. You've done your research and you've set up your home office. But now what? How do you make it through year one? How do you make it to years three and five without becoming just another statistic on how many companies fail within their first years of trading?

Oliver attended the Business Growth Programme in 2010 whilst running his software company, Jupix. Having successfully built the company up, Jupix was later sold and Oliver focused his attention on founding a new business, Loop Software.

It's often difficult for an entrepreneur to know the right time to hand over the reins of their company.

There's certainly no shortage of company founders who claim to have been unfairly ousted from the role of CEO of their own company by their investors. However, a transition in the role of the company founder does not have to end in tears, many entrepreneurs successfully manage a change in leadership, both for themselves and their businesses.

Jamie Waller has been there and done it, when he joined the Business Growth Programme in 2010, his business was turning over £4m and losing £400k per year. In 2016, Jamie sold that business for over £40m!

Geeta Sidhu-Robb is a true inspiration for any budding entreprenuers out there, we first met Geeta in 2013 when she completed the Business Growth Programme and we are proud to have played a part in her entrpeneurial journey so far.

I’m delighted to share with you a phrase that we often use on the Business Growth Programme (BGP) – squeezing the lemon!

Over my career I have taken business courses at Cranfield University, Stanford University and the London Business School (LBS).

In my opinion only one of them truly understood early stage business and the leadership credentials it takes to run one. That was Cranfield. I am not saying that Stanford and LBS were not excellent schools but they were almost entirely run by academics and attended by academic business people too.