BRIDCON, the right choice in business and management consulting and advisory services

Recent studies have identified six types of startups, all of which can benefit from targeted professional support:

• Lifestyle Startups– businesses born out of passion and often the entrepreneurs’ own lifestyle and ambitions. We have designed and implemented strategies for health monitoring or improving apps, online crafting shops, wellbeing apps, to name a few examples.

• Small Business Startups– often starting with a very small group of people, possibly even just one. Typically, this could be jewellery making, artisan baking, or interior design. However, this includes any business venture and can equally well cover specialist professionals as well.

• Scalable Startups– often a new tech business with a unique offering that is suited to rapid expansion. Funding is a particular issue here, as profits may be slow to materialise. There’s also an overlap with Buyable Startups, below.

• Buyable Startups– this mainly refers to apps or e-commerce website projects, or anything digital, and are companies that are founded on the basis of creating mass appeal products or services, which, having gained traction, can be sold on.

• Large Company Startups– existing companies with a new subsidiary for a new product, or sometimes an enterprise-scale launch, such as in the electric vehicle market. At the heart of their proposition is a new concept and continuous innovation.

• Social Startups– driven by the need for social justice and equality of opportunity, frequently identified with particular communities; sometimes crowd funded or with substantial donations from philanthropists.

It can be misleading to assume these categories are always distinct, and one of our skills is in being able to create a clear vision out of what can seem to be overwhelming complicated.

In the UK, 20% of startups fail in the first year and approximately 60% fail within the first three years. Some of these projects may have been doomed to fail, especially if they were based mainly on little more than the enthusiasm of their founders. But most fail for avoidable reasons: naive business plans, poor grasp of financial planning, not properly understanding their market and failing to collect and use data. Further, any new business without an emergency plan will struggle when hit by unexpected circumstances.

With real insights into the way people and businesses function, BRIDCON has helped startups launch successfully in challenging markets, and we have helped many struggling startups find their feet.

Our work starts with deep market research, conducted in the fields relevant to your business and this will also include internal audits to identify bottlenecks or systemic weaknesses. We’ll include a detailed analysis of your market and competition. Once we have a clear picture of your goals and what’s needed to reach them, we work with you develop strategies and resources to help you get there.

The services we provide for startups include:

• Product and service analysis, pre-launch phase
  • Market Research
  • Product / Service category analysis
  • Product / Service analysis over features, costs, availability, quality, appearance and other aspects
  • Sensory analysis for evaluating human perception on senses such as taste, smell, touch, sight, sound, and sensation
  • Sentiment analysis to understand the perception of your target audience
  • Brand analysis for colours, look and feel, packaging, etc.
  • Product placement analysis over target, price, quality and features
  • Competition analysis
  • Target audience analysis
  • Product / service road map
  • Marketing and sales pre-launch campaigns

• Business plan – drafting and implementation
  • Business and objectives on short and long term
  • Skills and experience that your company needs on short and long term
  • Target customers and how you need to attract them
  • Market and competition, providing forecasting on short and long term
  • Marketing and sales plans
  • Operational plans
  • Back-up plan on financial, operation and human resources

• Business mentoring
  • Defining business objectives
  • Defining and guiding for marketing and sales strategy
  • Opening new international markets
  • Opening new sales channels and opportunities
  • Designing business proposals or other sales collaterals
  • Sourcing of start-up grants and funding
  • Creation of risk management plans
  • Creation of disaster recovery plans
  • Managing GDPR compliance
  • Registration for Data Protection (GDPR)
  • Mentoring on processes and management procedures

• Business management– planning, organizing, directing, and controlling company resources by drafting and implementing processes and procedures for:
  • People management skills
  • Sales and marketing
  • Planning and finance
  • Operations

• Business strategies, including implementation that includes:
  • Marketing and digital strategy
  • Product placement strategy
  • Sales strategy
  • Operation strategy
  • Digitalisation and big data strategy