What is the New Anglia LEP Grant Scheme?
New Anglia LEP fund projects and programmes designed to support businesses of all sizes, across all sectors. They offer grants ranging from £1,000 to £25,000 to help business growth and development, and these grants typically cover up to 40% of the total project costs.
Why did Mackman apply for a grant?
We applied for a New Anglia LEP grant because, as a service based business, we have experienced a significant increase in people costs over the past 12-months. Soaring inflation has driven double digit increases in staff costs and as a Living Wage accredited employer, our hourly rates for our most junior staff have jumped by as much as 25%. The need to retain and grow talent within the business has seen us investing in people development during 2022. Training and personal development costs are anticipated to continue to rise in the next 12 months to support business growth plans.
Improving productivity is a key driver to ensure that we remain competitive and maximise margins, as costs increase. It is not appropriate to pass costs to our clients by increasing our charge out rates in the current climate, there is no doubt that to do so would have a negative impact on sales levels. Instead, we intend to work smarter, focusing on significant productivity changes as we review and improve our working practices.
Our aim is to achieve 20% growth in sales turnover in 2023 which will see us maintain net profitability levels with enhanced working practices. In 2023 we aim to achieve B-Corp accreditation and will use this to guide our future development using the triple bottom line lens of People, Planet, & Profit.
How will Mackman use the grant Awarded?
We were delighted to be awarded with £15,000+ to help towards our Synergist optimisation project. Synergist is a tool that we use within the agency which provides everything we need to manage projects, people, clients and financials, all in one scalable agency management system.
The Agency Works are Synergist experts that help agencies like us to have better systems, better processes and better reporting. They will provide us with consultation support in order to significantly change and re-define financial and commercial software, create processes and develop key agency reporting outputs, ultimately creating efficiencies throughout the business to yield higher profit margins and create streamlined processes that will enhance and define Mackman client relationships.
The consultancy programme will use Synergist software as it’s basis and will also look at all processes that underpin the agency, thus facilitating agency growth and insights.
This grant has enabled us as a business to build resilience by making long lasting changes to our working practices.
Paul Mackman, Managing Director
