Stu Olden, founder of SDO Associates, said the pace of expansion in both his own business and the wider defence sector forced a rethink in how the company was being run, prompting him to enrol on the government-backed Help to Grow: Management programme delivered by the University of Bath.
SDO Associates, which supports small and medium-sized engineering firms entering the defence and aerospace supply chain, was founded in 2022 and has already grown from a single-person operation to a team of 10, alongside more than 50 specialist associates.
The company sits within a wider ecosystem that is beginning to take shape across Swindon, with new investment, inward migration of defence firms, and the development of uncrewed systems technology expected to drive significant job creation over the coming years.
Against that backdrop, Mr Olden said rapid growth can create as many risks as opportunities if businesses are not prepared.
“It’s quite a scary time,” he said. “Going from a single person company to employing people, putting systems in place, becoming a grown-up business.”
With demand increasing and the sector evolving quickly, he said it became clear that instinct and experience alone were no longer enough.
“I don’t know everything,” he said. “It felt like the right time to step back and sense check what we were doing.”
The Help to Grow programme, delivered over 12 weeks, combines online learning, in-person sessions and one-to-one mentoring, designed to support business leaders navigating expansion.
For Mr Olden, the timing aligned closely with a key phase in the company’s development, as it transitioned from early-stage growth into a more structured organisation supporting a growing number of clients across the defence sector.
“The first module around strategy was hugely useful,” he said. “We’d done bits of planning before, but it gave me a structure, something I could actually put down on paper and build around.”
That structure is now being embedded not only within SDO Associates, but also in how the firm advises its own clients, many of whom are navigating similar challenges in scaling within a complex and highly regulated sector.
“We’re now using that approach with the companies we support,” he said, referring to the programme’s “strategy cascade” model, which helps businesses map where they are, where they want to be, and how to get there.
Alongside formal teaching, Mr Olden said access to mentoring and peer discussion proved equally valuable, particularly at a time when leadership decisions were becoming more complex.
“Just having an hour away from the business to talk through a challenge with someone experienced was powerful,” he said.
Participants on the course came from a range of industries, offering perspectives beyond defence and helping to challenge assumptions.
“You get ideas from people doing completely different things,” he said. “It makes you think differently about your own business.”
As Swindon’s defence and advanced engineering sector continues to expand, Mr Olden said businesses need to focus not just on winning work, but on building the foundations to sustain growth.
“It’s not just about winning more work,” he said. “It’s about having the structure, the people and the processes in place to handle it properly.”
That includes how companies recruit and build teams, something he said becomes increasingly important as organisations scale.
“It’s not just, we need more people, let’s hire,” he said. “It’s thinking about how those people fit, and whether they actually enable you to grow in the right way.”
The programme’s government subsidy also played a role in making it accessible at a critical stage of growth.
“Cash is king,” he said. “For what we paid, it was huge value. A really good investment.”
With thousands of jobs expected to be created in and around Swindon as new defence and technology investment comes forward, Mr Olden believes the challenge for local businesses will be keeping pace operationally.
“It’s about being ready,” he said. “Not just for where you are now, but for where the opportunity is going.”
The next cohort of the Help to Grow: Management programme, delivered by the University of Bath, begins on 24th September and 18th November, with places available for eligible business leaders.
You can find out more on the University of Bath Management School website.
