Case Study - Team Factors

Introduction

Team Factors Ltd, based in Hertfordshire, were established in 2010 and provide start-ups, micro companies and SMEs with flexible factoring solutions enabling businesses to receive payment of up to 90% of the value of their invoices immediately.

Streamlining cash flow in this way avoids significant delays, irons out peaks and troughs and enables businesses to make timely decisions, plan for growth and pay their employees and suppliers promptly.

Dean McGarry joined Team Factors as a Business Development Manager in 2012, drawing on many of years of experience in recruitment and finance, and gained promotion to Commercial Director in 2015. In 2023, the business was going through a management buyout process and in March of that year, Dean took the decision to join the 12-week Help to Grow: Management course with the University of Leicester School of Business after recognising a need to broaden his business skillset, gain a fresh perspective and explore new ideas to support the ongoing development and growth of the business.

“The Help to Grow course proved invaluable to me personally and to our wider business. It helped broadened my skillset, facilitate the identification and resolution of our weaknesses, and directly influenced the vision and growth trajectory of Team Factors.” – Dean McGarry

Lizzie Williams joined Team Factors in 2013 as a Relationship Manager and, over the years, worked her way up to Operations Director. Dean recommended Help to Grow to Lizzie who then went on to complete the programme with the University of Hertfordshire Business School a few months later. Together they embraced the tools, models and approaches learnt using them as a springboard to transform the future direction of the business. Following these developments, Lizzie has recently been appointed Managing Director.

“The course helped enable us to systematically break down every area of the business then gave it focus to evaluate and make improvements moving forward. It gave me confidence learning we had successfully covered off some areas of the business and then the guidance required on the areas we needed to improve in order to grow.” – Lizzie Williams

Growth

Since completing the course, both Dean and Lizzie took a strategic lead in disseminating their newly-acquired insights and knowledge throughout the business leading to a phenomenal transformation in business performance and culture.

18 months later, they now employ an additional 12 employees with this having risen from 14 to 26 staff members; their client base has increased by a third from 210 to around 336 and the volume of work, the number of invoices handled for their clients, has more than doubled from circa 10 million to circa 21 million in invoices purchased per calendar month. Additionally, they have recently bought another Factoring business in Manchester with 25 further staff and are applying the lessons learned and strategies implemented in Team Factors through Help to Grow to growing that business.

Business Transformation

The impressive growth of Team Factors has been driven by adopting a strategic and pro-active approach to planning for growth, a greater awareness of the opportunities for growth and the professionalisation of key aspects of the business.

Dean and Lizzie have been instrumental to developing an exceptional working culture at Team Factors. Insights from the Help to Grow course led to a re-evaluation of the company’s mission and values, with input from staff, leading to improved engagement across the workforce with the future direction of the business.

The professionalisation of management within the business has been key with a more structured approach and supportive culture enabling open and constructive discussions about performance and development needs. This has helped managers feel confident to delegate effectively enabling employees to feel empowered to learn, to take ownership of their performance and to progress in their careers within the business.

Additional benefits such as flexible working have also been introduced and clear communication across the business has been prioritised. These steps have enabled Team Factors to retain valued employees and to have the confidence to recruit new employees with the right expertise to move the business forward.

Dean has adapted his leadership style, following insights gain from the Help to Grow course. He has become more confident in delegating tasks to his team enabling him to better focus on leadership, management and business development. He has recognised a need to be more reflective and strategic and less impulsive when making decisions. Dean also feels that, alongside other leaders in the business, he is taking a more understanding and empathetic approach to management.

The Help to Grow course led Team Factors to explore new markets both in terms of developing a national presence by setting up regional hubs and by growing their initial focus on the recruitment sector to enable them to serve businesses across most sectors.

Whereas marketing activity was previously limited and based primarily on word of mouth, they now have a new marketing manager role in place, a specific marketing budget and are running webinars and attending trade shows to engage with the growing market for their services.

They have also taken steps to engage with existing clients by automating email communications to create a series of touchpoints including Monthly Newsletters, google review requests, options to refer a friend and testimonial requests. This change led to an increase in Google reviews from just 1 review to 63 five-star reviews in just one month.

The Help to Grow course included 10 hours of one-to-one mentoring which led to the creation of a growth action plan for the business. Team Factors were so impressed with the support provided by their mentor that they have continued with the same mentor on an ongoing basis which has been central to their successful transformation.