CASE STUDY
Support Programme: LEAD
Company Assisted: Bibi Interiors
Support Activity: Leadership Development
A Lancashire based design business, Bibi Interiors has seen its sales soar, thanks in part to the help its founder has received from LEAD.
Background:
Junaid Khan launched Bibi Interiors in 2008, working initially on his own and producing interior designs for local schools, colleges and businesses. He soon developed an excellent reputation within the North West and a combination of business networking events and word-of-mouth recommendations enabled him to develop a very busy order book.
Faced with a growing waiting list for his services and opportunities to engage in larger commercial projects, Junaid recognised that he would need to grow the business. This would mean taking on new staff and assuming a leadership role while still remaining directly involved in much of the day to day work. Balancing these demands while ensuring that the business remained profitable presented a significant challenge, so he turned to Enterprise4All for assistance.
Support Provided:
E4All advisers met with Junaid and recommended that he take part in the LEAD programme – a business support initiative that is specifically aimed at business owners and senior managers, and designed to help them address precisely these sorts of issues.
Junaid duly enrolled on the programme and took part in a variety of events including interactive workshops, management exchanges and masterclasses in both leadership and business practice. The emphasis of these elements was upon stepping back from the day to day running of the business and adopting a more strategic perspective.
“The opportunity to join LEAD came at exactly the right time for me,” explains Junaid. “The business was growing quickly, I needed to take on more staff but, most of all, I needed to make sure that I stayed firmly in control – not only managing the workload but also devising a prudent investment strategy and planning how the company should develop.
“The LEAD programme helped me to deal with these and many other challenges; I have more confidence in myself now than ever before, and I really enjoy working with our new designers. Employing them has given the company badly needed extra capacity and, thankfully, it means I have never had to turn business away.”
Results:
Since graduating from the LEAD programme, Bibi Interiors has continued to go from strength to strength. The company now employs four other professional designers and, for the coming financial year, Junaid is projecting a growth in sales of more than 500%. This will come from a broad spectrum of new projects including commercial, public sector and residential design schemes.
To find out more about the LEAD programme, call Sajid Mohamed on 0845 607 0786 or click here.
To find out more about Bibi Interiors, please click here.