Evaluation of Client Management project: final report

Scottish Enterprise Dumfries and Galloway’s (SEDG) Client Management programme aimed to help local businesses to address issues, in order to enhance competitiveness and make the most effective use of organisations' powers and resources. The evaluation aimed to assess the programme’s ‘internal process’, ‘external process’ and output and impact issues.

The methodology consisted of: a review of monitoring information and other literature; 20 in-depth interviews with clients; 60 quantitative interviews with clients; consultations with all client managers; and brief reviews of good / best practice elsewhere.

Suggests that dedicated client managers are more productive than staff who have to deal with competing priorities. The programme is meeting its targets of the number of firms assisted. The impact which is achieved on company organisational capabilities is mixed and is most likely to be in areas such as marketing development, management reporting, or operational efficiency. A significant proportion of firms are able to identify quantifiable impacts and reflects the longevity of many relationships. Estimates that Client Management has generated the following overall impacts: £17,152,724 increase in sales; a 421 increase in employment at the Dumfries and Galloway level (491 increase, Scottish level); and a modest, but not quantifiable reduction in costs. Concludes that results indicate value for money and that Client Management must remain integral to SEDG's activities.

To improve the programme’s effectiveness, recommends that SEDG should consider: preparing and disseminating a comprehensive Client Management manual; replacing internal part time Client Managers with full time dedicated Client Managers; compiling a clearer segmentation and prioritisation for the customer base; conducting formal review of all case loads; allocating a single point of contact within SEDG to all firms who are not defined as Client Managed companies; and re-defining the role of part time Client Manager as a ‘single point of contact’ for those firms.