Branduin Business Support EMPOWERING GROWTH

London Borough of Wandsworth reconnected with Branduin to deliver our Fit to Bid® Supplier Development Programme to SMEs based in the Borough of Wandsworth, with 40 businesses to receive up to 4 hours of personalised individual mentoring support to help them access opportunities and win more local business.

These high impact 1-2-1 tender advice sessions with 41 unique interventions (vs profile target of 40) also including 25 follow up sessions totalling 160 hours of offered business mentoring support.

Whilst each session was different there were some key similarities between the SMEs using the programme mainly on the need to understand how to build a Value Proposition that was of interest to large buyers, this comes from the idea that most of the SMEs had limited understanding of procurement and bidding processes, some had no knowledge of access points or experience then tender application process.

Overall feedback from the popular 1-2-1 tender advice sessions was highly positive. Some SMES expressed frustration at inability to access opportunities; that bid sizes/parcels were far too large; fears of spending scarce time of completing paperwork with limited chance of a successful outcome. These challenges are currently being addressed by Supply Wandsworth and Branduin.

The ability to signpost to further support including the learning resources suite, digital playbook, access to procurement databases, and social value guides leveraged the value.

Chocolate Films an awardwinning video film maker had expanded into a new state of the art filming facility in Nine Elms - just as the impact of the cost of living and US Writers strike started to hit.

In a couple of sessions, Branduin were able to review their strategy and start to develop a revised value proposition. That is focussed on turning a good history of public sector commissions into regular engagements and moving away from competing solely on price with smaller providers.

Rachel Wang CEO: The 1 to 1 sessions were excellent and exactly what we needed, and I am grateful for the Supply Wandsworth team for organising this important support for small businesses in Wandsworth.