AN AYRSHIRE-based waste management specialist is on course to double turnover and return to profit in its current financial year as its founder reaps the rewards of attending an influential university business growth programme.

Wendy Pring, who runs New Cumnock-based KCP with husband Karl, said the experience of taking part in the University of Strathclyde’s GAP (Growth Advantage Programme) helped bring renewed focus to the business after a challenging period.

Ms Pring revealed the company is forecast to turn over £1.6 million in the current financial year, which ends in April 2019, more than double the £750,000 it booked last time. The growth is expected to help the firm to book a profit of £400,000 for the period, having broken even last time.

Ms Pring, who attended the GAP between September 2017 and June this year, said the course has helped formalise many key business processes, allowing her to ultimately make the business more efficient.

An engineer to trade, Ms Pring she was “pleasantly surprised” by the practical implications of all the lectures involved. She noted: “They gave you really, really good business tools. There were lots of things I was doing [in my business] and all of a sudden, they had a name, they had a box, they had a description. It was a route. It highlighted why I was maybe not getting the best out of what I was doing.”

Asked whether the experience of attending the course had fed through to the bottom line, Ms Pring noted that trading levels in July and August suggested KCP was on track to exceed forecast turnover by nearly 100 per cent. “I would say that is predominantly down to understanding our value proposition better,” she said.

The course allowed Ms Pring to refine what KCP does best, which includes solving complex waste management problems for clients. She highlighted the company’s success in securing a major contract south of the Border as a positive spin-off of her experience attending the Strathclyde programme. “That was one of the things that I got out of GAP – it was absolutely just being a little bit stronger, a little bit firmer, a little bit more aggressive in my sales approach,” Ms Pring said. “Not aggressive in a bad way, but [in] closing it.”

Ms Pring, who is the managing director of KCP, has recently appointed two new non-executive directors, Matthew Stewart and George Stroud, and plans diversify the range of activities it carries out.

“Again, it is all about watching the market, seeing how it is going to change, how Brexit [will influence business],” she said. “The [Scottish independence] referendum at the time affected our business significantly.”

On the 2014 referendum, Ms Pring noted that said global investors which often provide the capital for the development of anaerobic digestion plants had delayed investment until the result was known. Maintaining and cleaning out such plants, which cost tens of millions of pounds, is a key source of business for the company.

KCP currently employs 12 staff. Ms Pring said that, while the firm can achieve its current forecasts with the team it has, the task will be more comfortable if it brings on four more staff.

KCP is one of more than 50 companies which have completed the 10-month Strathclyde GAP since the first cohort in 2015. Those 53 companies had an average turnover of nearly £2m and 20 employees when they started, but collectively they have seen sales grow by 22% since taking part in the programme, with staff numbers rising by 19%.

The course is delivered by the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship at Strathclyde Business School. It is led by head of SME engagement John Anderson, former chief executive of Entrepreneurial Exchange, who said the programme is “absolutely not about academics showing off at the front of a classroom.”

He added: “We always say it is [about] the practical stuff. It is stuff that we know works.”