VCMO & PR Smith Unite to Equip SMEs with Essential Business Planning Skills

London & Bristol, UK — 8th May 2024 — VCMO Limited, a pioneer in Fractional Marketing Leadership, today announces a strategic partnership with PR Smith Marketing Limited. This collaboration aims to share the SOSTAC® Certified Planning Course with SMEs lacking formalised business and marketing planning processes.

This partnership enables businesses to craft business, marketing, and project plans that boost results using the renowned SOSTAC® Planning methodology. VCMO specialises in providing fractional marketing executives to businesses, including investor-backed portfolio companies, that do not have a full-time chief marketing officer. Helping businesses to find superior marketing strategies, VCMO will promote the SOSTAC® Certified Planner course primarily to sales and marketing professionals and business leaders in companies striving for growth.

Developed by PR Smith, and ranked as one of the Top 3 Business Models in the Chartered Institute of Marketing Centenary Poll, SOSTAC® offers a proven, systematic framework for business planning. With statistics showing that over half of SMEs lack a robust business plan, this initiative aims to democratise access to top-tier strategic planning tools, thereby improving commercial outcomes.

Paul Mills, Founder of VCMO, expressed his enthusiasm about the partnership, stating, "We are excited to solidify this partnership with PR Smith. Often, the underlying cause of business failures can be traced back to inadequate marketing strategies, which are the result of poor planning and reliance on instinct rather than data. By integrating SOSTAC® into their planning cycles, businesses can significantly reduce the risk of failure and achieve sustained growth."

PR Smith, the creator of SOSTAC®, added, "SOSTAC® was designed to be a simple yet powerful methodology that revamps businesses into customer-focused, stakeholder-aware, and data-driven businesses. This collaboration with VCMO empowers businesses to develop Strategies, Tactics and Actions that boost results. The course explores the 9 key components to consider when developing a strategy. After that comes the marketing mix (i.e. Tactics).”

SOSTAC® is endorsed and used globally by thousands of organisations and professionals, including major players like LinkedIn and KPMG. Businesses love SOSTAC® - once they discover it. See what they say.

About VCMO

VCMO is a UK-based provider of fractional marketing services, supporting B2B SMEs—ranging from funded scale-ups to mid-tier and private equity-backed businesses—through key moments of growth and transformation. Its Chartered Fractional CMOs and SOSTAC® certified planners embed strategic marketing leadership into organisations navigating product launches, new market entry, acquisitions, and leadership gaps.