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SME Growth Portfolio

Build a business worth growing

Build a stronger business with a clearer direction and more choice about what comes next.

Turn your business ambitions into informed action.

You have put time, money and a great deal of yourself into your business. The next stage deserves a plan that reflects what you want to achieve.

You may be managing rising sales alongside pressure on cash, finding that every important decision still lands on your desk or considering how the business could thrive under a successor.

The SME Growth Portfolio gives you space to examine those questions, challenge your assumptions and decide what needs to change. You will connect business strategy with personal ambition, then turn that thinking into practical action.

Why join us

Make your ambition work in practice.

Running a business can leave little time to question where it is heading. Join us to examine the decisions that matter, learn with other business owners and build the capability to put your ambitions into practice.

Work on your own business

Work through the questions that are keeping you busy, from finding the right customers to protecting cash and building your team, using practical tools that help you apply the learning to your own circumstances.

Connect the whole picture

Decisions about sales, people and finance affect one another. VALUES helps you examine those connections so that growth strengthens the business and moves it towards the future you want.

Test your thinking

Academic insight, commercial experience and constructive challenge come together in live discussions where you can explore assumptions, weigh your options and decide what deserves your attention.

Learn from peers and experienced professionals

Learn alongside other business owners and experienced professionals who have built, led and advised businesses. Their experience brings a practical perspective to the decisions you face, while discussion helps you examine your options and apply the learning to your own circumstances.

Learn at a pace that works for you

Scaling combines self-paced study with cutting-edge learning materials, business examples and practical workbooks. Explore ideas when you can give them your attention, then use the Growth Workshops and advisor sessions to move your plan forward.

Build choices for the future

Develop the resilience, profitability and independence that give you options for expansion, a different role in the business, succession or an eventual sale.

What we stand for

Growth should create lasting value for owners, people, customers and the wider community. We believe in purposeful ambition, evidence that stands up to scrutiny and practical action. Your definition of success shapes the direction, while the work you put in turns that direction into progress.

Find your pathway

Choose the support your business needs.

Foundations and Scaling draw on the VALUES framework but offer different formats, levels of depth and support, so you can choose the pathway that fits what you want to achieve in your business.

Foundations

Refresh your thinking and identify what deserves your attention. 

For owners and leaders at any stage who want fresh thinking on the essentials of building a stronger business.

Format

5 live online masterclasses

Starts

Tuesday 12 January 2027. 10am-12 noon UK time

Rhythm

Second Tuesday for each month, January to May

Programme fee

  • £500
  • Oxford Brookes alumni £250

Includes all five masterclasses and supporting online learning resources.

Explore Foundations

Scaling

Develop a coherent plan for the next stage of your business. 

For ambitious owner-managers and senior directors who want to grow a stronger business and build a holistic plan for its next stage.

Format

Fully online. Self-paced learning and live Growth Workshops

Starts

Wednesday 10 February 2027. 10-week programme

Rhythm

A new module every two weeks, followed by a Growth Workshop the next week. 

Programme fee

  • £1,950
  • Oxford Brookes alumni £1,450

Includes all five modules, learning materials and workbooks, five Growth Workshops, three individual advisor sessions and the online plan presentation.

Explore Scaling

Contact the BEE team a obbs-bee@brookes.ac.uk to confirm eligibility and booking arrangements.

The foundations learning experience

Put fresh thinking to practical use.

Foundations gives you time each month to revisit an important area of your business through a live masterclass, with space to ask questions and resources to help you put the ideas to work afterwards.

Learn live

Each masterclass starts with 90 minutes of teaching, connecting applied academic thinking with the commercial decisions business owners face.

Bring your questions

The final 30 minutes give you space to ask questions and discuss what the ideas mean for your circumstances and where they might change your approach.

Put the ideas to work

The research, further reading and diagnostic tools in the online learning environment help you examine a current challenge and identify a practical next step.

Content and additional support

What you will explore

The masterclasses introduce the five areas of the values framework, helping you refresh your thinking, revisit a current challenge and identify the priorities worth working on next.

Whether this is your first experience of the Business School or a chance to reconnect, you can focus on what is relevant to your business now.

Additional individual support

An optional one-hour session with a Scaling Advisor offers space to discuss your own circumstances in more depth. Contact the BEE team to confirm arrangements.

Discuss Foundations with the BEE team

The scaling learning experience

Learn at your own pace with support throughout.

Scaling gives you the flexibility to fit serious thinking around the demands of running your business, with high-quality materials to study within each two-week module and regular opportunities to put your thinking to the test.

Cutting-edge thinking

Clear explanations of current research, relevant frameworks and developments in business practice help you understand the ideas and consider what they mean for your organisation.

Real business examples

Examine the choices other entrepreneurs have faced and the trade-offs they have made, using their experiences to question your own assumptions and identify lessons you can apply.

Workbooks that build your plan

Structured questions, practical exercises and templates help you turn the learning into decisions about your own business, with each module contributing to your holistic Scaling Plan.

Explore

Work through the materials at your own pace.

Apply

Use your workbook to examine your business.

Challenge

Bring your thinking to the live Growth Workshop

Refine

Develop your plan, supported by individual advisor sessions.

Your work follows the five connected areas of the values framework.

Your plan and individual support

Your Scaling Plan

Your module work comes together in a holistic plan for the next stage of your business, setting out the direction, explaining your choices and identifying the priorities, milestones and measures that will guide implementation.

Presenting your plan online to faculty, an advisor and an external expert gives you the opportunity to test its commercial logic and refine your next steps through their questions and feedback.

Your live support

Growth Workshops give you two hours to discuss the questions and decisions emerging from your self-paced study and workbook activities with other owners and the programme team.

Three one-hour individual Scaling Advisor sessions provide dedicated time to examine your assumptions and work through the choices specific to your business.

Discuss Scaling with the BEE team

Who is this for?

Ambitious about what comes next?

These programmes are for people who can shape the direction of their business and want to make it stronger. The right fit depends on your ambition, the work you want to do and the support that will help you act.

Foundations

Refresh your perspective on your business
  • Your role
    A business owner, founder, owner-manager or senior leader.
  • Your business
    Any size or sector, offering an introduction for some and a useful refresher for others.
  • Your ambition
    Build your knowledge and practical skills, explore current applied academic thinking and identify ideas that can improve your business.
  • Your commitment
    Five two-hour online masterclasses and a willingness to connect the ideas to your own circumstances.

Scaling

Prepare your business for its next stage
  • Your role
    An owner-manager or senior director with the authority to make and implement strategic decisions.
  • Your business
    Typically up to £1.5 million annual turnover and a team of up to 10. The age of the business is not the defining factor.
  • Your ambition
    Deepen your understanding of how the business creates value and use applied academic thinking to develop a practical Scaling Plan for its next stage.
  • Your commitment
    Work through five modules, take part in the live Growth Workshops and apply the learning to your business with your Scaling Advisor.

Close to the guide, but not an exact match?

Alongside turnover and team size, your challenges and readiness to act help us judge fit, and the BEE team can explore with you whether the programme is right for your business.

Discuss your business with us by email at obbs-bee@brookes.ac.uk.

The framework behind the portfolio

Driven by VALUES.

Five connected areas that help you build a stronger, more valuable business.

VALUES brings the key decisions together so that your strategy makes commercial sense, your team has the capability to deliver it and the business supports your longer-term ambitions.

AI and sustainability run across these areas, shaping how you improve productivity, manage risk and build resilience for the long term.

Vision

Define where the business wins

Be clear about the customers you serve, the advantage you can build and the future you want. Connect business strategy with your personal ambitions so that priorities and trade-offs make sense.

What are you building, and why does it matter to you?

Acquisition

Create a repeatable system for winning customers

Understand who values what you do, sharpen your proposition and develop a deliberate approach to marketing and sales. Build customer relationships and routes to market that can support your ambitions.

Can the business win the right customers consistently?

Leverage

Reduce reliance on the founder

Develop people, culture, systems and leadership so that the business can perform without every decision coming back to you. Use technology where it helps the team deliver more effectively.

What needs to change for the business to work beyond you?

Unit Economics

Understand how the business makes money

Connect price, margin and cash with the operational realities of growth. Understand what drives performance, identify the measures that matter and make informed choices about resources and funding.

Does each step of growth strengthen the economics of the business?

Exit and Succession

Build a business that can outlive the founder

Create and protect value through the way the business operates today. Whether you want to retain ownership, hand over to a successor or eventually sell, build the capability and independence that give you options.

Could someone else lead, own or invest in what you have built?

What Brookes brings

Research with a practical purpose.

Our ambition is to connect the commercial focus of the Business School with specialist expertise across Oxford Brookes, bringing better questions and stronger evidence to the challenges SMEs face.

Where applied academic thinking meets commercial judgement.

The strongest business decisions combine an understanding of the evidence with the judgement to use it in the real world.

The portfolio combines academic thinking that helps you diagnose problems, question assumptions and see beyond immediate pressures with commercial experience that tests whether a response makes sense for your customers, cash, people and capacity to deliver.

At Oxford Brookes Business School, consulting academics work alongside a wider community of business practitioners, Entrepreneurs in Residence and Visiting Industrial Fellows. This connects research and teaching with the experience of creating, leading and growing organisations.

Explore Brookes faculty and practitioners

What that means for your learning

  • Understand the decision
    Use research and frameworks to identify what is driving the problem and which questions to ask.
  • Test the commercial logic
    Work through business examples and examine the implications for value, resources and risk.
  • Put the thinking to work
    Apply it through your workbooks, live discussion and Scaling Plan, with priorities you can explain and act on.

AI and business capability

Make informed choices about AI

The Artificial Intelligence, Data Analysis and Systems Institute (AIDAS) brings expertise in areas including machine learning, ethics, cybersecurity and software engineering, with a focus on translating research into industry and society.

For business owners, these fields raise practical questions about where AI can add value, how to assess its limitations and what responsible adoption requires. They connect directly with the portfolio’s focus on productivity, capability and better decisions.

The question for your business
 Where can AI improve how you work, and what needs to be in place to use it responsibly?

Explore AIDAS

Coaching and mentoring

Develop the person leading the business

The International Centre for Coaching and Mentoring Studies (ICCAMS) brings research, teaching and professional expertise in coaching and mentoring, including consultancy and programme evaluation.

Its focus on effective coaching and mentoring speaks to an important part of business growth, helping the person leading the organisation examine assumptions, develop their judgement and translate learning into practice.

The question for you
 What needs to change in the way you lead for your business to take its next step?

Explore ICCAMS

Meet the team.

Academic insight, commercial experience and individual support, with the Business and External Engagement team as your first point of contact.

Programme leadership

Martin Spiller

Programme and Academic Lead

Martin is Associate Professor in Entrepreneurial Practice at Oxford Brookes Business School. His experience as an entrepreneur, CFO, investor and non-executive director brings a practical perspective to strategy, growth and creating business value.

He leads the SME Growth Portfolio, helping owners connect applied academic thinking with the commercial decisions they need to make.

View Martin’s Oxford Brookes profile


Academic insight

Dr Karla Zimpel-Leal

Associate Dean for Professional Education and Business Engagement

Karla brings expertise in innovation, design thinking and business model development, helping organisations turn creative and strategic approaches into decisions they can use in practice.

Her work bridges research and practice, with a particular interest in responsible innovation, technology adoption and the conditions that support sustainable growth.

View Karla’s Oxford Brookes profile


Individual support on scaling

Supported by experienced Scaling Advisors

Experience focused on your business

Three individual sessions give you space to interpret the learning, test assumptions and work through the choices in your Scaling Plan with an experienced advisor.

Your advisor helps you connect the ideas to your circumstances, sharpen your priorities and identify practical action for the next stage of your business.

Programme dates

Each pathway has its own rhythm, with live sessions taking place online from 10am to 12 noon UK local time, including British Summer Time where applicable.

All dates are Wednesdays in 2027. Advisor sessions are arranged individually. The plan presentation date will be confirmed separately.

Foundations rhythm

Second Tuesday of each month

10am-12 noon: January to May 2027

MasterclassLive online session
1Tuesday 12 January 2027
2Tuesday 9 February 2027
3Tuesday 9 March 2027
4Tuesday 13 April 2027
5Tuesday 11 May 2027

Scaling rhythm

Modules open fortnightly from Wednesday 10 February 2027

Growth workshops: 10am-12 noon

ModuleOpensGrowth Workshop
1Wednesday 10 February 2027Wednesday 17 February 2027
2Wednesday 24 February 2027Wednesday 3 March 2027
3Wednesday 10 March 2027Wednesday 17 March 2027
4Wednesday 24 March 2027Wednesday 31 March 2027
5Wednesday 7 April 2027Wednesday 14 April 2027

Frequently asked questions

Practical answers for both pathways, with the differences between Foundations and Scaling explained where they matter.

Choosing your pathway

Learning and time commitment

Joining us

Contact us

What would a better business make possible?

Tell us where you are now, what you want to achieve and what is getting in the way. The Business and External Engagement team will help you explore the right next step.

OBBS Business and External Engagement

+44 (0) 1865 534800 (OBBS Reception > Option 4 > Option 1)

obbs-bee@brookes.ac.uk