This is about recognising the progress and effects of a support programme offered to clients, so that any problems are dealt with quickly and appropriately. The programme may include support provided by yourself, your organisation and by other individuals or agencies that you have recommended.

It is also about identifying ways that the support offered by your organisation could be improved.

You must make sure that your practice meets the following requirements.

1. Agree with clients how often to review the progress of the business support programme they use and in how much detail.
2. Adopt valid and useful measures of the performance of support programmes provided to clients.
3. Ask clients to review their progress against their action plan
4. Identify the effect of the support programme on a client’s business.
5. Encourage clients to identify any concerns or problems with the support programme.
6. Investigate any problems with the support provided and take action to solve problems within your area of responsibility or refer the problem to the relevant people where the problem lies outside the limits of your responsibility.
7. Report if the support programme infringes the legislation, advisory regulations and organisational guidelines that apply to business support.
8. Agree with clients how to improve any part of a particular support programme, and make any changes that will make the support more effective.
9. Regularly reflect on the business support provided by you and your organisation; and evaluate the service provided to clients.
10. Recommend and contribute to any improvements that can be made to the quality of the business support service provided by you and your organisation.

You need to know, understand and be able to apply each of the following.

Performance monitoring techniques

1. How to apply effective informal and formal ways of regularly and fairly monitoring the progress and quality of work of your self, individuals and/or teams against the standards or level of expected performance.
2. The reasons for monitoring business support activity.
3. The limitations of self-appraisal.
4. How the type of client and their business needs can affect your performance.
5. Any performance goals set by your organisation.

Monitoring services

6. The principles that support organisational improvement.
7. The importance of establishing and applying valid and appropriate measures for evaluating the performance of business support services provided to clients.
8. The value of a customer focused culture.
9. The importance of developing a culture that continually improves and how to involve others in achieving this.
10. The importance of finding out the cause and effects of problems and changes.
11. The principles and processes of effective communication and how to apply them.
12. How to establish systems for collecting and assessing information on the overall performance of the support services provided by your organisation and how to use the findings to identify opportunities where performance could be improved.
13. How to benchmark the performance of your organisation’ support services against others and take action based on the findings.
14. How to select and use appropriate methods for evaluating the support programme provided to clients (for example, through SWOT analysis, benchmarking or application of performance measures).
15. The guidelines for evaluating services set by your organisation or professional body, about:
    • the conditions and measures of economy, efficiency, effectiveness, value for money and quality;
    • the effect of financial and time limits on services; and
    • any local or regional priorities and problems.

Personal behaviours

You need to show the following behaviours.

16. Appreciate how an organisation operates in different client sectors. ^{IiP 1.1}
17. Tailor your approach to align with the client’s goals and circumstances. ^IiP1.2
18. Think strategically and take a holistic view of the way forward. ^IiP3.1
19. Apply knowledge/experience effectively, whilst being open to exploring new ideas. ^IiP3.4