FAQs
M Garner Consulting answers your frequently (FAQs) asked questions regarding business consulting and business improvement.
FAQs about our service:
FAQs about business improvement and consulting:
- What is the difference between Coaching and Mentoring?
- What is LEAN Management or Enterprise?
- What is Business Process Re-engineering (BPR)?
- What is SPRINT?
- What is a Non-Executive Director (NED)?
- What is a ‘critical friend’?
FAQs about business:
FAQs about our service
How does your service work?
The following information can also be found on our How We Work page.
We pledge to work with you in an open and transparent manner. We use your free consultation to make sure we both know from the outset what our work will entail, how long it will take and how much it will cost. No hidden extras.
Firstly we come and meet you for your free consultation. This gives us the opportunity to listen and to understand your business, your aims and your challenges. It also gives you the opportunity to meet us and decide if you feel we can work together. This meeting is free, so no hidden charges or expenses.
Next MGC presents a brief proposal outlining the support we can provide to help you overcome your challenges and work towards your goals. We set out our costings for the work, up front with no hidden charges. We keep everything open so you know what you’re getting, with no open-ended contracts. This includes the number and frequency of days and timescales involved.
Then we get to work! The adviser with the required skills will start working with you (and/or your team), providing regular progress reports to ensure your outcomes are being met.
Finally, MGC supports you with implementation to make sure our promises are delivered. We also offer our on-going support for your continued business improvement and growth.
We won’t leave you with a thick report for the shelf; instead we give you the tools and support to make improvement happen! We’re only ever a phone call away.
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Do you work anywhere outside the South West?
Our strategy is to keep expenses low for our clients. With this in mind our work is based close to our head office in the South West region of the UK.
This means that currently all our work is within the postcode areas in ‘Where We Work’. However, we’ll go wherever our clients need us!
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FAQs about business improvement and consulting
What is the difference between coaching and mentoring?
Coaching and mentoring are both extremely effective ways of developing an individual’s potential. However people often get confused as to the difference between them!
A Mentor is someone with the experience, skills and knowledge that you wish to attain. Someone how has ‘been there and done it’, who you might model, or look towards for advice and wisdom.
A Coach is someone who is skilled in teaching and training, who is able to instruct and motivate you to achieve your goals. Someone who stands by your side and helps you get there.
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What is LEAN Enterprise?
LEAN is the set of “tools” that assist in the identification and steady elimination of waste.
Or in other words ….LEAN helps to find processes which do NOT add value for the customer and are therefore wasteful. LEAN then helps to make progressive improvements to reduce or remove the waste.
Wasteful processes increase the effort and costs required to achieve the same output. This waste can be present in area of the business.
There are many ways of working with LEAN and the results can transform your organisation. As with BPR, the target is to improve profitability through reducing costs and increasing customer value. A very simple example of this is the move from paper invoices to electronic invoicing.
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What is Business Process Re-engineering (BPR)?
BPR is a development from LEAN enterprise. It is defined as: ”Fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical measures of performance such as quality, service and price.”
Or in other words…It is a way of looking at what you do and how you do it in order to find radically better ways of working, throughout your business, now and for the future.
The results can be truly incredible. Your business becomes significantly better at delivering your product or service, which ultimately leads to better profits and customer satisfaction.
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What is SPRINT?
Following the 2001 general election, public sector reform became a key government priority. The SPRINT methodology was therefore designed for use within local authorities to address this modernisation agenda. It was designed to:
- reflect the special needs of local government
- support individuals and teams to become better at carrying out change projects
- create a more knowledgeable, innovative culture
- offer a framework for the management of incremental and radical perspectives
- move from process analysis to creative re-design and lasting implementation
- maximise value from existing and new technology
SPRINT is relevant to a range of local government problems and opportunities. Its adoption throughout UK local authorities continues to grow and it has led to many outstanding innovation projects.
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What is a non-executive director (NED)?
A ‘NED’ sits on the board of directors of the company, but is not employed to work in the company. A government report published in 2003 set out their particular responsibilities in the following areas:
- Strategy: to constructively challenge and contribute to the development of strategy.
- Performance: to scrutinise the performance of management in meeting agreed goals and objectives, and monitor the reporting of performance.
- Risk: to satisfy themselves that financial information is accurate and that financial controls and systems of risk management are robust and defensible.
- People: to determine appropriate levels of remuneration of executive directors and have a prime role in appointing, and where necessary removing, senior management and in succession planning.
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What is a ‘critical friend’?
MGC’s advisers can act as your Critical Friend. In ‘Through the Lens of a Critical Friend’ (1993) a critical friend was defined as ‘a trusted person’ who:
- Asks provocative questions
- Provides data to be examined through another lens
- Offers critiques of a person’s work as a friend
- Takes the time to fully understand the context of the work presented and the outcomes that the person or group is working toward
- Is an advocate for the success of that work.
FAQs about business
What is an SME?
SME stands for Small and Medium size Enterprise.
A small business has less than 50 employees and a medium size business has less than 250 employees. An SME’s annual turnover does not exceed £24 million (€50 million).
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What is Satutory Pay and how much is it?
Satutory pay covers a number of areas:
Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP), Statutory Paternity Pay (SPP) and Statutory Adoption Pay (SAP):
- Next review date - April 2011 (and annually)
- Paid for 39 weeks
- SMP, SPP and SAP for first six weeks are 90% of the employee’s average weekly earnings
- SMP, SPP and SAP for remaining weeks are at £124.88 or 90% of average earnings, whichever is less.
Statutory Sick Pay:
- This is currently £79.15 a week.
Statutory Redundancy Pay:
- Next review date – February 2011
- Statutory redundancy for employees aged 41 and older = 1.5 weeks’ pay for each year of service
- Statutory redundancy for employees between the ages of 22 and 40 = 1 weeks pay for each year of service
- Statutory redundancy for employees aged under 22 = 0.5 week’s pay for each year of service (a week’s pay is £380).
National Minimum Wage
- Next review date - October 2010 (and annually)
- From October 2010, National Minimum Wage rates will increase from:
- £5.80 to £5.93 an hour for workers aged 21 and over
- £4.83 to £4.92 an hour for workers aged 18 to 20
- £3.57 to £3.64 an hour for workers aged 16 to 17.
If you have a question or need advice, please contact us using the form to the right. Or email info@mgarnerconsulting.com, or ring 07885 525221.
