Peer Group Learning
 Plato GB Ltd holds the licence for the PLATO™ Programme in Great Britain. The creator and owner of the PLATO™ concept and brand is SPK vzw "Kempen" in Belgium. PLATO™ is a tried and tested two-year leadership and business development programme targeted at Small & Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) based on the principle of peer-group learning. It has been running successfully since 1988 in Europe and since 2003 in England, encouraging more than 9,000 SMEs to sign-up to a new way of building business, with the help and support of their fellow group members and from large company counterparts.
Share Knowledge and Experience
PLATO™ is unique in that senior executives from large companies and owner-managers, chief executives or senior-level director decision makers from small companies are brought together to share knowledge and experience, develop best practice and form close working relationships. PLATO™ groups are led by executives from larger companies whose objective is to help SME participant’s access high quality, low cost practical business solutions to enable them to grow their businesses in size, turnover and skills
The process is centred on local area PLATO™ groups, each of which comprises some 12-15 owner/managers of participating SME companies. Each group meets once a month to address a wide range of management issues, problem solving in groups or working in one-to-one coaching relationships. Guest speakers provide information and expertise based on needs and interests highlighted by the members during the course of the monthly meetings.
Achieving Growth
PLATO™ enables the SME owner-managers, chief executives or senior-level director decision makers and the larger company executives to develop their knowledge, skills and expertise by working together in small groups. In this way they help each other take their business forward, achieving growth, not only with regard to turnover, jobs created and trading internationally, but also in terms of confidence and skills of the managers concerned.
Past participants of PLATO™ say that the outcomes they achieved through the programme included:
 An average 34% increase in turnover;
33% increase in new jobs created;
96% would recommend the programme to other companies;
50% acquired new business through the PLATO™ network;
Average level of management skills in the key business areas has more than doubled;
85% noted improvement in internal systems.
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