Leonard Curtis Glasgow team eyes expansion as support to Scottish SMEs grows

Nine months after accountant consultancy firm Leonard Curtis Business Solutions Group (LCBSG) opened its doors in Glasgow - its 13th UK office and first in Scotland – the firm has outgrown its existing premises on West Regent Street and will now move to a new city centre location.

Now eight-strong, the LCBSG Glasgow team has already supported a number of businesses operating within a wide variety of sectors - including food and drink, retail, finance and construction - and has recently helped facilitate compensation payments to savers at a Glasgow-based credit union, which experienced some financial difficulties earlier this year.

The firm says that by working in partnership with LCBSG, accountants are able to enhance their client service capabilities - and therefore their satisfaction – as well as growing practice reputation and revenue.

The introduction of LCBSG to Scotland’s professional services market - in addition to the Lifecycle accountancy network that it provides - has been headed up by local Director Stuart Robb.

Mr Robb said: “I believe we have entered the Scottish market at the right time to realise our objectives - to provide trusted, reputable, and expert specialist professional services to our accountant colleagues and the clients they represent. LCBSG is not an accountancy firm, so we complement professional advisers rather than competing against them.

“Statistics show that last year over 348,000 SMEs were operating in Scotland. Between them, they provided 1.2 million jobs. What’s more, with our two biggest cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow ranking within the Top 5 UK cities for start-ups outside London, the former being named as the best place in the UK to start a business, and Scotland attracting more foreign direct investment projects than any other part of the UK outside of London in 2015, our country’s entrepreneurial spark and ambition is clear.

“The recently launched £500 million Scottish Growth Scheme to help SMEs grow and enter new markets reaffirms our nationwide commitment to nurturing and supporting them. They are essential to the Scottish economy. We are happy to have entered the SME space in Scotland at such an exciting time and are enjoying supporting those within it - at whatever stage of their lifecycle.”

Lifecycle is a unique network for accountants that complements their own offering to ensure they can provide expert solutions to their clients. Having launched in England last year, there are now over 1,200 registered members.

Mr Robb added: “With the opening of LCBSG’s first office in Scotland, the time is now right to introduce Lifecycle to the Scottish accountancy profession. There is no cost to join and, as well as gaining access to free advice from our team of specialists, Lifecycle members also benefit from ongoing practice development through our free CPD seminar programme.”

The first Scottish events will focus on “MVL - How to close a client’s company and extract the profits effectively” which will include the unveiling of our national online solvent liquidation tool, (“My MVL”) in Scotland.

These breakfast seminars will take place at The Lighthouse, in Glasgow, at 9am on Wednesday 22 and Thursday 23 November 2017.

To book a place, click here.