Auditing digital needs and providing recommendations for future success
Written by Rachael Skews, Founder of Cognus Consulting
I started Cognus Consulting in January 2023. I wanted to create a business that offered coaching, training and supervision for coaches across business, health and life domains. I also wanted to offer consultancy services to businesses looking to improve performance or health in a sustainable and scientifically valid way.
I am a chartered psychologist with years of experience in academia and industry; especially in the healthcare technology sector where I led on a lot of innovation work involving AI, wearables and other technologies. When I decided to start my own business I was highly motivated to share my knowledge and expertise with organisations who would benefit from my research.
As a start-up, you have to do everything on your own and while you know a lot about your own area, there are always areas of weakness where the right support is really important.
I heard about the Digital Pathfinders programme in my local library in Hexham. The support the programme offered was really focused, so I knew what was going to be offered before I got in touch. I was looking for ways to grow the business and things like digital marketing were new to me, but I knew that getting the right digital presence, building a website etc, were very important.
Digital Pathfinders did an audit of my business around its digital needs, created a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) of the business, and made some useful and highly personalised recommendations on how to take the business forward. Their analysis focused on some areas where I needed to improve my skills and how the business needed to grow.
One of the main things I offer is training and development for coaches. Digital Pathfinders helped me to identify the right digital platform to host online learning and a payments system. They went through all the different packages available and gave me a report that highlighted which one would serve my business needs best.
Working with the Digital Pathfinders team was a really positive experience and I very much appreciated it.
If you would like to learn more about the Digital Pathfinders programme and how our Digital Adoption Specialists can help your organisation, please get in touch at: hello@digitalpathfinders.uk
"It saved me a hell of a lot of time and meant that people who really understand technology were able to assess different providers and give an unbiased view on what would work best. For a knowledgeable expert in that area to give this quality of advice was fantastic – I was pretty blown away by it all."