My Ways Training Ltd

In October 2007, DHRinterim were sucessful in tendering to develop a marketing strategy for My Ways Training Ltd, to help them with the future sustainability of the organisation.

Our proposal covered

  • conducting commercial research to establish if there was a need (market) for the services My Ways  were currently providing
  • carrying out a market analysis to determine if there were new services which My Ways could develop which would fill a 'gap'
  • review the organisation - structure, location, assets and skills
  • develop a marketing plan to enable My Ways reposition itself
    • the desired outcome was to ensure the future sustainability of the organisation at its present size and resource-base

This assignment was not without its challenges; not least because the activities in which My Ways were engaged were largely of a capacity-building nature, and up until now had been offered free-of-charge because of grant-funding.

The underlying questions within the marketing and commercial research work would therefore turn out to be:

  • whether organisations would pay for the services My Ways could develop/deliver
  • and if so, would they pay a price sufficient to enable My Ways become sustainable into the future

Unfortunately, the commercial research identified that the answer to these questions was

(i) they prefered not to pay

(ii) if they would pay, not at a rate enough for My Ways to become sustainable without some level of grant funding (which was not available).

It was not all bad news however because we did identify an emerging 'gap' in the marketplace - one which My Ways, in our opinion, were in a good position to take advantage of due to their current knowledge of the Disability Duty legislation.

In February 2008 we prepared our final report to the Board of Trustees.  We recommended

(i) they re-focus their organisation to the delivery of Equality Duty self-assessment support and consultancy - for which they could charge a commercial consultancy rate, and engage with larger public sector bodies, as well as the voluntary sector, to provide assistance with the preparation of Equality and Diversity self-assessments which were to be required, by law, within weeks. 

(ii) that their current employment support activities for young people with learning disabilities should be further reviewed

In March 2008, the Board of Trustees deliberated on the recommendations above and decided that the provision of consultancy services was not where they wanted to go and so took the decision to wind-up My Ways Training Ltd with effect 31st March 2008.