Fast track plan means growth for North firm
Published 04/05/2008
PROGRAMME aiming to put small businesses on the fast track to growth has helped a County Durham firm double in size in just two years. Medical Services (North East) is aim-ing to add two more ambulances to its 11-strong fleet and a further four people to the 22 staff it employs. The Bishop Auckland-based firm, which supplies non-emergency ambu-lance transport to a number of the region's hospitals and health trusts and offers health-based training courses, credits part of its growth to the Fastest SO business development programme. Medical Services founder Wayne Hall signed up to the scheme, which use a mixture of workshop sessions and one-to-one support with a business ment-or, to help the business grow. He said: "The best part of the course has been the mentor Paul Storey - we click, we get on, it's great. It's great to bounce my ideas off him. There's no book you can go out and buy - you have ideas in your head but I can run it past Paul." Mr Storey is the managing director of MRB Schumag, an engineering com-pany also based in Bishop Auckland. Mr Hall sat down with his mentor to make a list of what he wanted to achieve and they discussed how he would meet his targets. One of Mr Hall's key aims was to own the busi-ness outright with his wife. The couple originally owned 40% of Medical Ser-
vices, which was set up with help from family and friends, but they were able to buy out the other investors last year. The business has also met the strin-gent targets for growth that Mr Hall set himself. He said: "In July 2006, we'd had a not very good year. We'd still made a profit but it wasn't very good compared to the year before. I sat down and said I'm going to be double the business in three years but we actually achieved 93% growth in two years. "In the first six months of this fin-ancial year, it has gone up by 53% again. It is growing at a fantastic rate." Mentor Mr Storey said he was de-lighted that Medical Services was go-ing from strength to strength. "I have found the whole experience very rewarding and am happy to have played a small part in something so successful," he said. The Fastest 50 scheme has advised more than 60 County Durham-based businesses on issues such as finance, marketing, funding, people manage-ment and growth, in sectors ranging from software to market gardening. The scheme, run by the county's five enterprise agencies, has now been ex-tended by a further year. "Support is particularly important during difficult times like these when businesses are competing in such chal-lenging markets so we are giving more businesses the opportunity to benefit," said Shaun Stuart, chief executive of The Enterprise Agency which runs the scheme on behalf of the five agencies. "Companies are helped to maximise their potential."
