Some Background:

The Organisation ... The People

BDN was established in 1997 to provide practical support services to small and medium sized businesses. Malcolm Weaver and his co-founders identified the need to help people running many of these businesses to improve efficiency and profitability and take the pressure off themselves.

BDN asked businesses what they wanted. Responses highlighted two things:

• Business operators are not interested in management theory or academic
approaches - they want practical tools to produce positive outcomes.

• Business operators need to understand and develop confidence in key areas of business before they can effectively plan for the future.

The BDN Team , through the Group Planning suite of Programs, Business Planning, Marketing Planning and E-commerce Planning, provides business operators with extensive practical experience and up to date knowledge in a breadth of business activity.

Since 1997, hundreds of businesses throughout the state of Victoria, with the support of local and state governments, have participated in the Group Planning Programs. Participants are provided with a holistic approach to their planning and on-going business development via the BDN programs.

The Group Planning Programs instil a planning culture into business through the use of workshops, individual consultancy sessions and implementation support to assist participants adopt a planning culture to manage the direction of their business.

In addition to running Group Programs, a range of services is provided offering practical, cost-effective help to smaller businesses in Melbourne and regional Victoria. Services available to individual businesses include: personal coaching and mentoring, project management, business planning and implementation, customer management, market research, process design and implementation, business financial review and planning, E-commerce implementation and marketing and organisational change.

Feedback shows that clients value BDN because they get:

• Encouragement

• Practical, straight forward advice.