Smart Apprentices

Ann Ramsay

Smart Apprentices

Anne Ramsey attended our Executive Mini-MBA Accelerator programme to support her in the development of a strong director succession plan and to gain a greater awareness of strategic management that will support the transition of directorship within the company.

Read her case study below.

Smart Apprentices is a specialist apprenticeship software company. We are the current market leaders. Our software captures evidence of an apprentice’s skills, knowledge and behaviours. The software has dynamic and innovative dashboards which have been specially designed to keep all users engaged.

Smart Apprentices has been approved by all major awarding bodies and has won 11 awards over the last few years. We are a strong and stable partner of choice for apprenticeship providers and end-point assessment organisations.

Primarily to prepare a strong director succession plan and to gain a greater awareness of strategic management in supporting the transition of directorship within the company.

With this in mind, it was my personal objective to attend the Executive Mini MBA course so I could increase my awareness of strategic leadership, the different processes to achieve end goals and the shaping and leading organisational changes, with a particular interest in finance for managers. An additional motivation for the course was the idea of meeting new people – sharing best practice and building my peer network.

I felt Smart Apprentices’ biggest challenge to be the transition of leadership.

Our current team leaders need a confidence and knowledge boost so they can lead more effectively from the front and use for their time by delegating tasks to their team and mentoring team members to create high-performing teams.

I feel the most significant learning that I have taken away from the course is how to utilise the different tools that can be applied to identify the root cause of issues and how to apply these tools in the real world.

The course has given me a fresh view on my role and how I can make changes within my daily role using the examples and models provided. All the tutors were very knowledgeable and were able to draw on real-life examples, which I found particularly beneficial as I was able to see how I could use my learning back at the office.

I liked having the opportunity to engage with other professionals from varied backgrounds and roles. Together we explored the different methods of working and challenged each other’s perceptions, which really allowed us to open up as a group.

Since attending the course, I have been able to implement the success for change model within two areas of Smart Apprentices; the qualification and support teams. Both teams are already experiencing significant changes, they have reviewed their current practices and are working towards implementing changes to streamline practices and improve customer experiences.