NICKY Spencer's business is built on the success of working with people to help them and their organisations to develop and thrive. She certainly leads by example and her Nottingham based business – Accomplice – is going from strength to strength.

Accomplice is based at BioCity and was established in 2007. It provides a range of organisational and business development skills, from strategic management and marketing to team building and personal development programmes, largely within the health service.

"We are flexible in what we offer and continue to develop our portfolio of services in line with the needs of our clients," said Nicky. "We strongly believe in engaging and developing our clients' staff to contribute and continue their input after we leave.

"To that end, we use a host of interactive and development activities for employees including personal coaching programmes – such as career coaching sessions which many use in these times of organisational reorganisation and restructuring."

The staff at Accomplice have backgrounds in health and social care to match many of their clients who are in this sector.

"We are specialists in the NHS and in management and are therefore, understandably, very sensitive to resource management issues." said Nicky. "We work with the client to complement the existing skills within their organisation. This way, the process is tailored to their specific requirements and just the essential expertise is commissioned."

With her commitment to skills and organisational development, Nicky felt that it would be beneficial to bounce her business ideas off an impartial expert and so contacted EMB, the enterprise and economic development company for advice on support available to help grow.

"I was looking to access some business support to help with the ongoing development of Accomplice and EMB seemed the ideal way of gaining some external input," she added.

After discussions with a business adviser, Nicky received information on a number of support initiatives. "With EMB's help I was able to progress from the fledgling 'Nicky Spencer Consultancy' – which I had started – to the fully fledged launch of Accomplice.

First, EMB helped with ideas on strategy, products, office base and even the naming of the business. More recently, they've introduced me to further opportunities offered by various business support schemes. I decided that MentorsforMe was the one that best suited my requirements."

Nicky recently completed the scheme and feels the outcome has, once again, been beneficial.

"Having a mentor who can help you take a step back and look at the bigger picture is really valuable. It is something that can be difficult to do with your own business. Being able to discuss my ideas with an experienced, impartial business person has also been a great help in focusing my future plans.

"I am in regular contact with EMB and it's good to know that I can contact them with any business issues. They keep me up to date with relevant information and helps me keep my plans on track, ensuring that business issues and development plans are routinely discussed."