Arrow Technical, who support businesses with developing new products and getting these into production, boast a golden client list of top industry names such as Rolls Royce, Toyota and Microsoft. The business also supports businesses across a diverse range of sectors such as education, medical and aerospace.
The business was attracting big clients, however met challenges when planning for future growth due to the lack of skills and experience of developing their marketing and sales strategy.
Dr Chris Worrall, founder and director of the business, found that he was overstretched due to balancing the day to day operation of the business and dealing with sales and marketing queries. “We lacked a sales and marketing function, as SME’s do, and we wanted to channel more business to grow. We knew E-Marketing needed attention as our current customers sought us out online”.
With ambitions to grow, Arrow needed in-depth support to realign their marketing and communication efforts. They had the technical ability but lacked the experience of developing their communication channels with their potential clients.
After providing one to one support to the business, Steve Goodare – one of the Sheffield City Region Growth Hub’s Business Growth Specialists quickly realised that they were perfect fit for the Growth Hub’s growth demand support.
With Steve’s support, the business applied for and successfully received a grant of £3,600 from the Enhancement Project, which is financed by the England European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020. This grant was for expert and in-depth development of a new marketing and communications strategy. “We wanted to spread our reputation further afield and generate new enquiries from new clients”.
The company also engaged with the Enhancement Project’s popular, fully-funded Masterclasses to improve their skill set and develop their knowledge of both cyber security and employee engagement “The Masterclasses were very informative and well worth the time away from the office”. Chris took away practical tools from both Masterclasses to implement in his business. They also supported the development of creating a Management team, allowing Chris to delegate aspects of the day to day operational duties. “Following the Masterclasses, I got the team eager, willing and able”.
Once the new sales and marketing strategy was in place, Arrow Technical attracted more clients into its pipeline. The strategy has generated at least £100,000 of new sales; one large contract alone was secured by E-marketing “The instant uplift of new business completely made the whole project worthwhile”.
The new strategy has enabled Chris to train a new member of his team into an internal sales and marketing position. This has enabled Chris to delegate even more of his workload. His next steps are to hire an external sales and marketing position to grow his business further.
“The Growth Hub was very helpful, the Business Growth Specialist Steve worked hard and made the whole process easy. The Enhancement Project grant application was quick and easy once the needs of the business were identified.”
The Sheffield City Region Growth Hub Enhancement Project is receiving up to £2.7m of funding from the England European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’ (and in London the intermediate body Greater London Authority) is the Managing Authority for the European Regional Development Fund. Established by the European Union, the European Regional Development Fund helps local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support innovation, business, create jobs and local community regeneration’s. For more information visit www.gov.uk/european-growth-funding.