With greater success comes an increased number of risks that can affect the financial health of a business, as well as its public image and standing in the marketplace.

This Masterclass will highlight some common risk areas for discussion and provide ideas and advice as how to avoid these pitfalls and highlight ways a business can protect itself. The Masterclass will also highlight how a business can help itself to minimise any loss if one of its own customers faces insolvency and highlight that even in times of prosperity and growth, debts can plague certain industries and bad debts can pass from one company to another almost like a disease.

This Masterclass will cover:

• Operational matters e.g. staff turnover, collections, credit control
• Administrative matters e.g. contractual matters and T&C’s
• Market changes e.g. competition
• Financial matters e.g. cash flow and debt issues
• Governance and compliance e.g. legislative changes
• Insolvency and bad debt and how it can impact a growth business
• Support through the insolvency process where your customer may be facing bad debt

What are the benefits to my business?

The Masterclass is intended to highlight key risk areas to business leaders and hopefully they will be able to take those learnings back to the work place and put those learning to use. The session will also go on to highlight how a business can help itself to minimise any loss if one of its own customers faces insolvency. We will assist to cut through some of the jargon and try and clarify some of the perceived mystery around the insolvency process.
Hopefully business leaders will take away from the session that they continually need to questions themselves and not take “their eye off the ball” if they want to confute to successfully grow their business.

Who is leading it?

The Masterclass will be led by Paul Hughes director at Restart BTi along with his co-Director Gareth Self a licenced insolvency practitioner. Paul Hughes has 20 years of experience in the insolvency industry working with HMRC, top five accountancy firms and as head of insolvency and debt recovery at RBS Lombard Asset Finance. Paul has spent the last 10 years working in the creditor services sector providing support to corporates, high street banks, funders, and accountant’s utility providers and other family owned SMEs. Gareth Self has been involved in insolvency all of his working life, eventually obtaining his licence in 2007. He has worked for a number of practices of varying size and began taking formal appointments in 2010.

Who is the Masterclass for?

This Masterclass is for all growing SMEs within the Sheffield City Region, as long as the below eligibility criteria is met.

The Masterclass is aimed at all business types; the issues highlighted will affect all businesses at some point in their journey. With regards to insolvency it is more prevalent in some industries i.e. construction and retail at the present, however this doesn’t mean that is won’t affect your business at some point in time.

The majority of the discussion will be aimed at business leaders and the decision makers, but those at the “coal face” will also derive benefit from some of the advice on the process side. We intend to try and keep the course jargon free as possible, so it should be accessible by all skill levels.

FAQs

Q/ How can I contact the organiser with any questions?

A/ Email enhancementproject@sheffieldcityregion.org.uk

Q/ What are my transport/parking options for getting to and from the event?
A/ Paid parking is available from a number of near by car parks. There are plenty of bus and tram stops nearby, and it is a 15 minute walk from Sheffield train station.

Q/ I would like to bring a colleague, is this ok?

A/ No, only one attendee per company is permitted.

Q/ Will refreshments be provided?

A/ Hot and cold drinks will be provided.

Eligibility

Only one registration per business via Eventbrite will be confirmed. If additional people from your business would like to attend, they can be added to a waiting list by emailing enhancementproject@sheffieldcityregion.org.uk with the business name, name of additional attendee and contact telephone number. If this Masterclass isn’t fully subscribed upon the closure of registrations, we will contact you to offer the additional place. The waiting list will be prioritised on a first come first served basis. Businesses that register more than one attendee via Eventbrite will be contacted and asked to nominate one person to attend.

This Masterclass is open to small and medium-sized enterprises based in the Sheffield City Region. If you are unsure whether you fall into this region you can use the postcode checker.

A part of your business must be based in one of the following districts: Barnsley, Bassetlaw, Bolsover, Chesterfield, Derbyshire Dales, Doncaster, North East Derbyshire. Rotherham or Sheffield.

Find out if your business meets the definition for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME).

Please note that if your firm that is part of a larger Group you may need to include staff headcount, turnover, balance sheet data for the Group too, to ascertain whether it is eligible.

We are pleased to be able to provide this masterclass free of charge due to funding from the European Regional Development Fund. There are a number of eligibility criteria for attendees which we will check using the online registration questions and in a phone call to every attendee prior to the event.

More Sheffield City Region Growth Hub Enhancement Project Masterclasses.

Contact us for more information.

This event will be delivered by the ‘Sheffield City Region Growth Hub Enhancement Project’ that is part-funded by the England European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020. The project, for high-growth businesses in the Sheffield City Region, aims to increase their competitiveness and so help them grow and prosper.