South Bank Students’ Union – Commercial Services Review.
Brief:
South Bank Students’ Union has undergone a period of considerable turnaround over the last few years, and is operating in a more financially challenging environment in the context of its block grant funding.
Key stakeholders at the SU and University commissioned this review of the Union’s current operating context, in order to explore potential opportunities for the Union to grow its own income over the course of its strategy and beyond, and to provide well-informed recommendations, which include the investment or resources that would be needed, from both institutions in order to act on these.
The SU was keen to come away from this exercise with a real and honest reflection of the potential spaces and services, their impact on students at London South Bank University, and some support on how the spaces and services can be developed to improve engagement in a financially viable way.
This project was completed in partnership with Jan Sowa from Greenhouse.
Results:
“Working with Nina and Jan has been a pleasure. They are super knowledgeable, organised, and responsive. They delivered an extremely thorough review of our commercial opportunities in line with brief and to deadline, keeping us updated and informed along the way.
Jan and Nina were able to quickly tune into the specific needs and challenges for our Union and our students as well as our university colleagues to compile a well-researched and realistic set of helpful recommendations for the Trustee board, all of which have been approved and work is underway. This will mean the Union can confidently forecast an incremental rise in turnover over the next few years – with an increase of over 30% predicted in year 1.
However, Greenhouse and Nina & Co went further than simply providing recommendations. Recognising that our newly appointed team would need to hit the ground running to implement this work, they provided clarity via their report on priority areas for the new Head of Commercial Operations, excellent operation detail to inform planning, and a comprehensive marketing plan to follow which has been extremely helpful in setting the team up to ensure they meet their first year of income targets”.
Amy Eden, CEO, SBSU.