A multi award-winning St Helens company has boosted its contract winning ability, by taking advantage of the support provided by the Chamber’s Business Growth Programme.
Specialist Construction Health and Safety advisers Safer Sphere CHS Ltd identified an issue with its tendering and procurement process. To get help addressing the situation the company turned to St Helens Chamber and made use of the fully-funded support available through the Business Growth Programme.
Operating from its offices in Pocket Nook, Safer Sphere CHS Ltd was formed by current MD, Mike Forsyth in 2012. Coming from an Engineering background, Mike believed that he could provide a better service and help educate the construction industry.
Marketing Manager Lisa Mitchell explains: “We’ve grown year on year since Mike started the company, in fact we’ve gone from just two employees to 11 in the space of six years.
“We now have 3 offices, our main headquarters here in St Helens, another in Liverpool, and have recently opened a new one in Reading.”
The Reading office has its own Associate Director and aims to develop the Safer Sphere brand in the south of the UK, mirroring the success of the North West and assist the company in becoming a truly nationwide operation.
“We’re very good at winning business,” adds Lisa, “however we have not been as successful as we would like in winning tenders, especially local government ones.
“The market is very competitive, and we realised we needed to up our game in order to start winning more.”
Lisa contacted the Chamber for help and was told about the Business Growth Programme. Funded by the European Regional Development Fund and St.Helens Council the Business Growth Programme can provide up to 12 hours of fully-funded support from an experienced consultant.
The Chamber’s Tendering and Procurement consultant was instructed on the needs of the company. Working with Lisa he quickly established where the problems lay and they set about putting them right.
“It was great that the consultant was also experienced in construction,” says Lisa. “I can only describe him as exceptional, what he doesn’t know about tendering and construction isn’t worth knowing.
“One of the things he did, was to go through a recent tender application that we’d done. He analysed it in great depth and pointed out areas of improvement.
“Whilst some issues were minor, correcting them could have helped us be successful and win the tender.”
The company has applied for 3 tenders since it finished the support and is waiting for the results to see if it’s been successful.
“I was much more confident with the applications since working with the consultant, and the resources he provided us with have been invaluable.” adds Lisa
Safer Sphere is also a Member of St Helens Chamber and Lisa comments: “There are so many benefits to becoming a Member of the Chamber and I would recommend that any business, small, medium or large to actually join.”
To find out more about Safer Sphere Ltd visit www.safersphere.co.uk.
To find out more about the Business Growth Programme click here, contact John Woods on 01744 742058 or email john.woods@sthelenschamber.com
