26 Feb 2014 – The saying goes “Getting an education at MIT is like taking a drink from a fire-hose”, and CTL has recently visited the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to sip from that fire-hose!  CTL Managing Director Giles Huby attended one of the world’s globally renowned businesses executive development programmes run by the MIT Sloan School of Management.  Around 120 entrepreneurs from across the globe take part each year to gain inspiration, insight and learn the tools they need to drive the growth of their businesses in national and international markets.

Giles is pictured on the far left in the picture below, along with some of his fellow course members from Scotland, Canada, Japan and the USA.

Since 2007, over 100 of Scotland’s most ambitious businesses have been sponsored by Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) and Scottish Enterprise to attend the course and HIE sponsored four leading Highlands and Islands entrepreneurs to attend the 2014 program in January this year.   Stephanie Anderson of HIE supports each of the companies from the applications process to their return from Boston. She commented: “The impact on participating businesses of taking part on this course has been seen to be transformational. Businesses gain the inspiration, confidence and tools to take strategic decisions within their organisations and in some cases radically overhaul their vision, strategies, structures, markets, profitability and success.

“Our strategic partnership with MIT has been ongoing now for almost 10 years and has benefitted many businesses across the Highlands and Islands. Our relationship with MIT, particularly its Sloan School of Management, is going from strength to strength and we’re delighted that another four of our companies have come back from Boston invigorated and inspired and proving that they are amongst the top talent in the world.”

Speaking of his experiences at MIT, Giles said: “Whilst we consider that CTL have taken the best of our team’s combined experience and blended it with modern business thinking, we wanted to learn more because we want to grow faster.  The MIT course offered a superb opportunity to gain exposure to world-class thinking on the best strategies, insights and techniques to be applied to ambitious and growing businesses. It has allowed us to expand our thinking through meeting with staff and students from all over the world and from a dizzying array of industries.

“From attending, the key lessons learned included the need to absolutely identify and quantify your intended market; the vital need to have the right culture and values in place in your business, to focus and simplify the message behind your product or products and most importantly, it's never too late to learn.  The whole team at Copernicus Technology Ltd are determined to work with me to use the new found knowledge from MIT to accelerate us toward bigger and better things.”