Oxfordshire is bristling with vibrant small and medium size enterprises, but for many of them, laying down the investment needed to grow their businesses can be daunting.

There's not only the investment required, which can be a large part of a small company's turnover, there is also the associated risk.

And there is also a concern that large service firms or consultancies will not give smaller businesses, particularly one-man-band operations, the right level of attention.

An alternative is to hire experienced staff to take on the extra work, but the cost of making the wrong appointment can be very damaging.

Taken together though, these small businesses represent a large market, so it's no surprise that help is becoming available in a way that resolves these issues.

Increasingly, companies that want to expand can get practical help, not just advice, from the right professionals, for anything from half a day a month to three or four days a month.

This gives them access to the skills they need but only when they are needed, so overheads do not grow out of control. But because it's a regular commitment, the professionals who come in to help out can build rapport and knowledge about their customers' businesses.

Two companies offering their services on this basis to enterprises in Oxfordshire and surrounding areas are The Project Managers and the PDQ Partnership.

Peronel Barnes, managing director of Oxford-based The Project Managers, started the company in 2003 on the basis of a commitment to following initiatives through and attention to detail.

This is very valuable in a small business, where good ideas are often started but making best use of them can be hard.

That is rarely because of a lack of desire or commitment but more because it is hard for a business owner to focus on an important development project at the same time as juggling all the other tasks necessary to maintain and administer the company.

Mrs Barnes has now helped a variety of different companies using project management skills with specialist knowledge of sales and marketing.

An example is the re-branding of a small florist shop in Watlington.

She said: "The owner was looking at how to brand the shop in her particular style, based on a cutting garden, such as large houses would have, purely to produce flowers to decorate the house.

"We talked about more than just the name and ended up tackling the approach to the business, the stock in the shop, design of the website and even her vehicle.

"The aim is to parcel the help up into bite-sized chunks, and some customers only use us for one job, which we're happy to do, but although it often leads to more, there's no commitment from the customer, no fixed term contracts, and no overheads.

"We like to think of ourselves as an outsourced business development department," she said.

The PDQ Partnership is run by Debra Jardine and is focused on marketing campaigns that find sales leads and appointments leading directly to improvements in the bottom line.

Ms Jardine explained: "The normal scenario for me is that a company will have some good ideas about developing the business, and intend to carry them out, but before they realise it six months have passed and they just haven't got round to it.

"Then customers realise that they can have me or one of my team around for a little or as long as they want, on an hourly or daily basis, specifically to develop business for them.

"This is often using their ideas, but they also find that we bring a fresh focus that comes from having a pair of eyes coming in from the outside."

Mrs Jardine enjoys seeing businesses experiencing measurable benefits from her involvement, sometimes in the most unlikely ways.

"I'm often working with the business owner, and although they are the customer, in an odd way they feel some obligation to me. If we meet once a month, then they have actions that they will do simply because we're meeting," she said.

For many small businesses such services are a valuable way of creating the time to work 'on' the business rather than 'in' it, something that's vital to growing and developing a firm.

A company can receive two days a month of high calibre work for less than the annual salary of an administrator. Which one is more likely to have a big effect on the bottom line?

FACT FILES: Name: PDQ Partnership Managing director: Debra Jardine Number of staff: One plus consultants Annual turnover: 150,000 Contact: 01869 337255 Web: www.pdqpartnership.com The Project Managers Managing director: Peronel Barnes Number of staff: One + five associates Annual turnover: n/a Contact: 01865 751531 Web: www.the-project-managers.com