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Innovate UK

Design coaching that’s helped 500+ SMEs grow their businesses

When many SMEs don’t understand how good design can improve their business, how could we help promising startups use it to accelerate their growth and impact?

Our approach

With Innovate UK Business Connect, we developed Design for Growth, a pioneering coaching programme to help the most promising startups integrate user-centred design into their businesses. 

Beginning with a three-month pilot in 2021, we created a scalable blueprint to deliver tailored coaching, group workshops and on-demand digital resources. Each SME had a 12-week tailored coaching journey, focused on their individual business needs. We equipped them to plan, commission and manage design activity and to integrate design within their business, structure, processes and culture. 

Delivering it online meant we could pair each business with the most appropriate coach, based on their needs and the coach’s expertise rather than location. Over time, we’ve added improvements such as smaller, personalised briefings and focused peer learning sessions, to maximise impact. 

We were awarded the multi-year contract to manage Design for Growth and it’s been our biggest transformation programme to date, cementing our role in helping SMEs design better futures for their customers, businesses and the UK economy. 

Innovate UK
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The impact

Over the past three years. Design for Growth has supported 500+ SMEs in sectors including healthcare, education and sustainable manufacturing. They’re forecasted* to provide a 10.7:1 ROI to Innovate UK and create:

641
new jobs by 2029
£23m
net GVA impact by 2033
£95.4m
turnover by 2033

*Independent evaluation by Amion, March 2025

Toby de Belder, Executive Director

Contact Toby at toby.debelder@wearemagnetic.com to discuss how we can help you answer big questions and design a better future for your business, your people and the planet.

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