We speak with Jamie Shaw, CEO of Shawton Energy, a leader in delivering large-scale commercial solar energy solutions to businesses across various sectors.

With almost three decades of experience in the renewable energy industry, Shawton Energy has helped companies like DHL, Princes, and Hilton transition to greener, more sustainable energy solutions.

Here Jamie discusses how Shawton Energy blends its family-values heritage with the global expertise of Lazard Asset Management to drive renewable innovation and offers his unique perspective on sustainability, team culture, and the future of energy in the UK.

In 2023, the Newton-le-Willows-based company went into co-ownership with global financial advisory and asset management firm, Lazard Asset Management, to help accelerate fully funded solar photovoltaic (PV) projects for industrial and commercial clients across the UK.

As a result, Shawton Energy is a unique business that brings together a well-established, family-values company with a global investment firm.

From the initial design and planning stage, through to working with internal stakeholders, managing the permitting process, and installing solar PV systems, Shawton Energy offers its clients an end-to-end solar solution.

The organisation is aiming to deliver more than £100million of invested capital in high-quality solar projects over the next three years.

What is the main problem you solve for your customers?

We help UK businesses be more sustainable – reducing their carbon footprint and reaping the environmental, financial, and operational benefits of on-site solar energy generation.

For businesses committed to a greener future, we help them make the transition to clean, green energy in the form of commercial solar panels – rooftop or ground-mounted – making the most of their building’s footprint to maximise efficiency.

This, in turn, helps companies to not only reduce their carbon emissions but their energy bills, too – by up to 30%.

We also help companies to futureproof their energy supply and decrease their reliance upon the National Grid – protecting them from the market and price variability linked to this energy supply.

Finally, we believe that every business should be able to invest in sustainable energy infrastructure, so we aim to remove the financial barriers – offering fully funded solutions in the form of Power Purchase Agreements. This means there’s no capital outlay or ongoing operational expenditure, so doesn’t put pressure on organisations’ already squeezed budgets.

What made you start your business – did you want to rock the status quo, or was it a gap in the marketplace that you could fill?

I originally took on Shawton’s engineering business – Shawton Engineering – that was established by my father.

This was jumping straight into the fire, as it saw me running a well-established business, with a team that had been in place for many years. I came in at a young age and had to prove that I could add value to the team as well as take the company to the next level.

As Shawton Engineering is a metal fabrication business and, at the time, was doing a lot of metal roofing projects, we then started to be asked to install solar along with our projects. As a result, we naturally transitioned into the energy sector, and that was how Shawton Energy was born.

When we first started in the energy space, there were lots of solar installers, but what we found was that no one was reallylistening to what the customer needed and what their businesses objectives were. So, when we set up Shawton Energy, we ensured this was central to our proposition.

Fast-forward to now, and we have over 200 employees within the Group, and Shawton Energy has a 30-strong team of knowledgeable renewable energy professionals, who are passionate about helping our customers to achieve greater sustainability and reduce their carbon emissions.

What are your brand values?

Our brand values are, knowledgeable, excellent, integral, collaborative, and genuine, and we apply these to every project we carry out, as well as every customer and employee interaction we have.

Customer collaboration is extremely important to us. We make it our mission to understand their business models and pain points – taking them on a solar-energy journey that’s genuinely tailored to their needs.

Being agile and entrepreneurial is also important in this fast-moving industry, and it’s how we provide excellence. Not only does the industry change, but customers’ needs do too, so being experienced and providing solution-based thinking is extremely important.

As we were originally a family business, it’s important to us to retain these deep-rooted values, as well as adopting the values and aspirations of Lazard Investments. There’s a truly collaborative environment that runs throughout our business, and it’s an exciting time to be a part of the Shawton Energy journey.

Do your values define your decision making process?

Absolutely. Carefully and quickly balancing the risks with the benefits is important to secure business and foster growth.

Our partner, Lazard, is a large business, but is able to match our speedy decision-making, which means we can deliver the best possible service to our clients.

Also, with all our processes and customer interactions, we always have the customer at the heart of our thought process. We understand what it’s like to be on their side of the fence, trying to obtain sign-off. We listen to what their needs are and take a balanced approach, which benefits all parties.

Is team culture integral to your business?

Team culture is the heartbeat of the business.

Our day-to-day business has been built around operating as a unit. This enables everyone to focus on what they’re good at – meaning we can be nimble and fast paced, so the customer gets exactly what they want, and they feel genuinely valued.

Also, every time we secure new business, it’s a team celebration as we all recognise that everyone adds something unique to every project.

What do you do to go the extra mile to show your team you appreciate them?

I roll my sleeves up and get stuck in. As much as I have day-to-day tasks as my role as CEO, I like to be in the middle of it all – talking to customers, finding solutions, working with the team, and closing deals.

I think this lead-from-the-front approach helps to create a supportive environment, where everyone gets involved and works a united collective.

In terms of your messaging do you think you talk directly to your consumers in a clear fashion?

In the energy industry, and specifically renewable energy, I believe you absolutely have to speak directly and clearly to your customers.

It’s a complex topic – a minefield of acronyms, technicality and legislation – but, unfortunately, there are people out there who complicate things to justify their existence.

We aim to simplify it as much as possible, as we want to be long-term energy partners for our customers – not just a simple transaction.

For us, it’s important to know who we are talking to, too. Throughout the process of developing solar projects with clients, we often speak with up to 10 people within the business – across various departments including finance, facilities, operations and at board level.

We appreciate that each person will have a different understanding of the project, as well as questions and pain points that they want answering and resolving. Therefore, we tailor our messaging accordingly.

We add value and educate but also support and explain for all stakeholders.

Our departments are all aligned too, which ensures that the customer has all the information – that’s easy to digest – readily available, at any stage of their solar journey.

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

Ultimately, the projects we develop with our customers are fully funded. This means we put forward the capital and the ongoing operational costs, and the customer buys the energy from the project – at a much lower price than that off the Grid.

Therefore, we are careful to get a balance between a good return for our investors, but also a good energy price for our customers. If either is unbalanced, it simply doesn’t work. Cost of lending has also been high, but we’ve always been very balanced and that has worked for us.

How often do you assess the data you pull in and address your KPIs and why?

A lot of what we do is continually assessed and measured. We are always looking to evaluate and adapt.

In the case of our sales function, we check we’re doing the right things and being efficient. Regarding our marketing spend, we frequently analyse to make sure we’re getting a good return on investment. And in relation to technology procurement, we ensure we’re getting good value from the manufacturers and make sure we’re competitive in the market.

It’s always important to assess the data and information to make sure we’re being the best we can for both ourselves and our customers.

Is tech playing a much larger part in your day-to-day running of your company?

Technology is a vital component of any modern business, and we make sure we have the best systems in place, to maximise efficiencies and deliver the best results for our clients. This sees us use state-of-the-art modelling software and drones to assess roofs and conduct site surveys.

We also practise what we preach and have solar PV panels installed on our roof – making our operations more sustainable and reducing our carbon footprint.

What is your attitude to your competitors?

Competition should always be welcomed. If you look at the requirement of renewable energy in the UK over the next 15 years, there’s so much opportunity out there for all of us – both independently and collaboratively.

As long as we’re supporting our customers and delivering high-quality and safe projects, then we hope to collaborate more with some of our competitors and work alongside them.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?

I can’t describe how important it is to make sure you have a great team of people around you.

Finding employees who are talented and knowledgeable about your area of business, and who are genuinely passionate about it, is vital – not only for creating long-standing relationships with customers but for creating a collaborative team culture, too.

It can be a lonely and pressured place to be as the lead decision maker of the business. What do you do to relax, recharge and hone your focus?

Family is important to me. I have a wife and kids they keep me busy, but I also have a large wider family. I’m one of six children, and being the only boy means I have lots of sisters and nieces (and one nephew) to keep me entertained. Time with family is the best time.

Outside of the family and work spheres, Liverpool FC is my passion. I’m an avid supporter and season ticket holder.

Do you believe in the 12 week work method or do you make much longer planning strategies?

The 12-week worth method is about short sprints and adding urgency to your business style.

We have been like this as a business for a long time, ensuring our goals are achievable but stretching – working collectively as a team to deliver on those sprints where we can.

However, with the nature of the industry we’re in – and the associated red tape – we understand that project goals can take longer. No matter what though, we still implement urgency on everything we do.

What is your company’s eco strategy?

As a renewable energy solutions business, we talk the talk, but we also want to make sure we walk the walk.

That’s why we have solar installed on our roof and enjoy 100% renewable energy ourselves. We’re so proud of our own install; we often invite prospective customers to our site to see it in-situ and in operation.

It certainly shows our customers that we genuinely believe in what we do and shows we’re as committed to our net zero ambitions as they are.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

We have made massive strides in the last 12 months – expanding our business and the 50% acquisition by Lazard Investments.

However, we’re never ones to sit still, so we’re working hard on new propositions – including commercial batteries, and virtual Power Purchase Agreements. The latter is where large-demand businesses can come to us, and we’ll build a bespoke solar farm, dedicated to their usage elsewhere in the country.

We’re also delivering lots of large, high-profile solar projects for some well-known brands in the UK.

One of our recent projects saw us collaborate with logistics specialist, Knowles Logistics, to deliver a large-scale rooftop solar energy installation at a Wisbech distribution centre site – operated on behalf of international food and drink group, Princes.

We’re exceptionally busy, but we’ll continue to grow and capitalise on what is a large-demand market. We expect to be celebrating a lot as a team over the next 12 months.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Jamie Shaw, CEO, Shawton Energy

Here we speak with Brendan Noud, co-founder and CEO of LearnUpon, a pioneering Learning Management System (LMS) company that has revolutionized how businesses deliver training to their employees, partners, and customers.

Having identified a gap in the market for customer-centric LMS solutions, Brendan and his co-founder, Des Anderson, built LearnUpon from the ground up with a commitment to innovation and customer support. From the early days of offering 24/7 support through 12-hour shifts to becoming an industry leader with over 1,500 customers, Brendan shares the insights and values that have driven LearnUpon’s success.

Having previously worked for companies offering learning management systems and services, Brendan Noud spotted a gap in the market for something bigger and better. Fed up with the lack of innovation and customer-centric values within the Learning Management System (LMS) space, Brendan decided to start his own company, and that’s when LearnUpon was born.

Alongside his co-founder, Des Anderson, they developed LearnUpon to support the learning needs of businesses. From the beginning, Brendan and Des placed a big emphasis on customer service, ensuring customers were able to reach out and get the support they needed. Before their first hire in 2013, Brendan and Des took turns working 12-hour shifts to offer 24/7 support to their customers. Fast forward to today, and they have a global business with over 1,500 customers.

LearnUpon’s mission is to partner with businesses that believe delivering great learning is essential to achieving great results. They focus on helping organisations deliver effective learning that bridges the gap between employee, partner, and customer training and business goals.

With Brendan leading LearnUpon, the company has gained widespread recognition and earned multiple industry awards. His leadership has driven substantial growth, with LearnUpon now serving customers across diverse sectors and establishing itself as a leader in the LMS landscape.

What is the main problem you solve for your customers?

At LearnUpon, we help businesses deliver engaging LearnUpon experiences to their employees, partners, and customers, all within one centralised solution. We aim to ensure the learning they provide impacts what matters, like performance, retention, and growth.
What made you start your business—did you want to rock the status quo, or was it a gap in the marketplace that you could fill?
My co-founder, Des, and I have both worked in the learning industry for over 20 years. We interacted with so many people and businesses that weren’t happy with their learning solution. They were dated, bloated, and lacked a focus on what really mattered: the user’s experience.
We decided to invest in building a solution that we believe meets the needs of real companies out there, focussing on making the learner experience as engaging and simple as possible and the admin experience as automated and efficient as possible.
What are your brand values?

LearnUpon has many brand values, but the most important is to “put the customer at the heart of everything”. Nothing is decided, built, or achieved without asking the question: Is this putting our customers at the heart? We’re a customer-first company; we build for their needs. Our roadmap, our community, our conference—it’s all about the customer experience and putting them first.

Is team culture integral to your business?

From day one, we had a strong vision for LearnUpon’s company culture. It’s since developed significantly. Today, our culture code maps out the shared beliefs, values, and practices that are important to us. We encourage all employees to celebrate when these values are followed and feel comfortable highlighting instances when they’re not.

These fall into a few buckets: putting customers at the heart of what we do; leading with curiosity, asking questions, and learning from mistakes; leading by example in a constructive and caring way; and delivering quality, which we believe is best done through diverse voices and experiences.

Above all, we hire great people and trust them to do great work, trying to harness a team that is adaptable, resilient, collaborative, compassionate, driven, humble, and fun. Culture is the most important component of running a successful business.

What do you do to go the extra mile to show your team you appreciate them?

We offer plenty of perks to show our appreciation for our team, but it’s the daily actions that truly shape our company culture. We trust our team members and encourage them to take risks and explore new ideas.

Moreover, we believe in full transparency. Every month, we hold a company-wide meeting where we openly share updates, celebrate our successes and learn from our challenges.

It’s this trust and openness that our people value the most.

In terms of your messaging do you think you talk directly to your consumers in a clear fashion?

Transparency is big at LearnUpon, especially with our customers. If a prospect is talking to us and we feel like we won’t be the right solution for them, we’re transparent. And we will direct them to another solution we feel is right. We also encourage everyone on our team, from sales to product to customer success to be honest and open with our customers. We build authentic relationships because of that, and you can see that shine through in our reviews and retention rates.

How often do you assess the data you pull in and address your KPIs, and why?

Every decision we make is data-driven, be it qualitative or quantitative. We constantly monitor customer stats like happiness, NPS, retention, and product adoption. We also give our customers an opportunity to talk to us, be it 1-1 on calls with our Customer Experience teams, within our customer community, or at our conference. We want to know how we can constantly improve to meet their needs.
For our employees’ happiness, this is a big priority too. We run two surveys each year. A survey at the end of the year to assess team sentiment and a mid-year pulse survey. It’s critical that we know how our employees are feeling and if we are living up to our company culture.

Is tech playing a much larger part in the day-to-day running of your company?

It’s huge. As a tech company, we want to be on the cutting edge and use the best technology internally, as well as provide it for our customers. We have robust processes within the company for using the newest technology, and we also have a strong roadmap for our customers around AI. Additionally, we have a big focus on automation. Our customers and our team’s time is precious; therefore, we want to provide solutions that allow them to do more in less time.

What is your attitude towards your competitors?

The learning tech space is filled with competitors. It’s a busy space with an estimated 1,000+ learning solutions on the market today. At LearnUpon, we don’t look at it as a bad thing to have a competitive market. To us it means opportunity. It means there’s a growing market and a growing demand for corporate learning.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?

Have your company’s values in mind from the get-go. When Des and I first started LearnUpon, we wanted the businesses to have the best support in the industry. But with just the two of us, this meant splitting 12-hour shifts so that we could offer 24/7 support.

That drive for the best customer support has never waned. Instead, it’s grown with LearnUpon’s substantial customer experience team, still offering 24/7 support.

It can be a lonely and pressured place to be as the lead decision maker of the business. What do you do to relax, recharge, and hone your focus?

I consider myself incredibly lucky that I have Des, LearnUpon’s co-founder, by my side. I’ve known Des for 20+ years; we both came up together in the industry, and I can always rely on him to be a sounding board for ideas and ensure we’re making the right decision for our team, our customers, and LearnUpon as a whole. Plus, playing sports with my kids is always a great break!

Do you believe in the 12-week work method, or do you use much longer planning strategies?

We have a long-term vision but to get there, we work in quarters. At the start of each quarter, we set team- and company-wide OKRs that we all work towards. Each month, the whole company is updated on the progress. It keeps everyone dedicated and focused on an overall goal.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

At the start of each year, we assess and revise our company goals, our product vision, and our positioning in the market. We want to be secure in those things. Team growth is also a key focus. We’re opening new offices and growing teams, and we’d like to continue to bring the best talent into our business.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Brendan Noud

We sit down with Jennifer Davidson, the founder of Sleek, a leading experience marketing agency based in London with a global client base.

Known for delivering captivating, immersive events that challenge norms and inspire change, Davidson shares the journey behind launching Sleek and discusses the agency’s core mission to create meaningful connections through expertly crafted live experiences. From the motivations that sparked the creation of the agency, to the values that shape its culture and the innovative approach to client collaboration, Davidson offers a glimpse into what sets Sleek apart in a competitive industry.

I’m the founder of Sleek, a full-service experience marketing agency based in London that works with clients globally.

We’re known for our ability to create real moments that captivate audiences, challenge norms, and inspire change. We pride ourselves on serving as strategic partners for our clients, crafting experiences that leave lasting impressions and creating authentic connections, evoking genuine emotions, and delivering impactful events.

What is the main problem you solve for your customers?

We understand the importance of forming meaningful connections, and we believe that well-crafted events can address this need effectively. Our approach involves a deep dive into a client’s strategy, values, and objectives to design moments that truly resonate with audiences and secure tangible results. Through our comprehensive experiential marketing services, we create immersive live experiences that captivate audiences, develop compelling brand narratives, and produce engaging content.

What made you start your business – did you want to rock the status quo, or was it a gap in the marketplace that you could fill?

It’s hard to believe it’s been over a decade since I started Sleek. In all honesty I did  want to rock the status quo to bring a fresh perspective to agency life. Before taking the leap into agency ownership, I spent years as a freelancer, working with diverse brands and agencies. During this time, I encountered a significant gap in the industry: a lack of transparency and genuine communication. Clients and agencies often spoke in code, and staff welfare and growth seemed secondary to just getting the job done.

What are your brand values?

Respect – This is the foundation of each department. We respect our clients’ businesses, including brand values, working styles, processes and budgets and importantly ourselves and our colleagues.

Versatile – It’s important for us that we tailor our service to your requirements and budget with guaranteed high standard, no matter the size of the event. Our clients always appreciate our flexibility.

Big Hearted – We pride ourselves as being friendly, approachable and reliable, with everyone from clients to partners and suppliers.

Resourceful – We love to be challenged and won’t rest until we’ve found what you’re looking for. We’re always open to thinking differently; from spaces and budgets to objectives and timings. Nothing’s too much trouble. No idea is too big and no request is too quirky. If there’s a way, we’ll find it.

Do your values define your decision making process?

Absolutely, our values are central to our decision-making process. We prioritise working with clients who share our values because they play a crucial role in maintaining our team’s well-being and fostering a positive company culture. We seek partnerships with clients who understand the true role of an agency and are interested in growing together, rather than just engaging in one-off projects.

Is team culture integral to your business?

Building a culture of inclusivity, transparency, and gender equality has always been my top priority. It’s not just about the bottom line; it’s about empowering the team. I’ve created a sense of ownership. With a focus on work-life balance, equal pay, and initiatives supporting women’s health, we’ve fostered an environment where everyone feels valued and empowered. Our most recent employee engagement score of 86% speaks for itself.

What do you do to go the extra mile to show your team you appreciate them?

Doing the bare minimum to be an equal employer was never an option for me and I wanted to tackle specific problems that I know employees face.

I’m so proud that we now have a comprehensive suite of policies and initiatives in place that put employee wellbeing at every life stage into central focus. This really helps foster a culture of inclusivity and transparency. Here are some key examples:

Profit Sharing: Sleek ties a portion of profits to employee performance, further incentivising success and a shared financial stake.

Work-life Balance: Generous parental leave policies exceed legal requirements, recognising the vital role parents play.

Equal Pay: Clear salary bands ensure equal pay for equal work regardless of gender. Bonuses are awarded based on transparent criteria, fostering accountability and ensuring women are rewarded fairly.

Gender Equality Initiatives:

Women in Leadership positions:

Women’s Health & Wellbeing: Programmes specifically address challenges faced by women, including menopause and other health conditions.

In terms of your messaging do you think you talk directly to your consumers in a clear fashion?

Yes, we believe our messaging speaks directly and clearly to our consumers. We recently underwent a ‘Sleek Evolution’, which allowed us to refine our approach to ensure that our communication is straightforward and free of unnecessary jargon. Our goal is for visitors to understand what we offer as soon as they land on our website.

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

We always try to remain competitive with our pricing, but pride ourselves on being fair across the board. Having this approach may mean a transparent conversation would need to happen about how that impacts rates. As with all businesses we have to move with the times and do what we need to to protect those we pay a salary to.

How often do you assess the data you pull in and address your KPIs and why?

Often. Every eight weeks we meet as a board where each department reports on their KPIs. This all ladders up to our business strategy and targets. But regardless of meetings, we assess these data points daily to ensure clarity on all metrics. I believe this is why we’ve been able to build the success we have so far as we’re very focussed on ensuring clarity with our goals.

Is tech playing a much larger part in your day-to-day running of your company?

Yes, I think naturally it’s the way the world is moving and as a service-based company with global clients, tech is a tool we have to utilise. It also enables us to find more efficient ways of working though which ultimately benefits the clients bottom line. We also adapt to our clients needs so will often be using different forms of tech for collaborative working. We have an inquisitive team who are always bringing ideas and new tech to the table to inform everyone.

What is your attitude to your competitors?

There is a great quote by Henry Ford that sums this up: ‘The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.’

Our goal is to remain focused on us and not be distracted by our competitors. We aim to create better work this week than we did last week, and make this month better than last month – for no other reason but to continuously raise the bar.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?

Success wasn’t something I ever expected, and the feelings of doubt were a constant companion. However, my inner thoughts of “you can’t” only fuelled my fire. The truth is anyone can achieve anything they set their mind to. Our abilities aren’t defined by anything other than the belief in ourselves. We should always look to show up with confidence and keep in mind that every failure presents the opportunity to learn, and the harder we work, the closer we get to proving the doubters wrong.

It can be a lonely and pressured place to be as the lead decision maker of the business. What do you do to relax, recharge and hone your focus?

To relax, recharge, and maintain focus, I prioritise a few key practices. I take Fridays off to ensure I have time to unwind and reflect, as well as spend time with my young son and husband. I also make it a point to exercise regularly, which helps me stay energised and clear-headed.

Mornings are my personal time for quiet reflection; I wake up early to read, journal, and enjoy some peaceful headspace, which sets a positive tone for the day. I cherish time spent with family and friends, especially when we get away to the coast, as it provides a refreshing break from routine.

Additionally, I invest in continuous learning and improvement by using a variety of coaches over the years. I listen to podcasts in the car and read books, which helps me relax away from screens. These practices are essential for maintaining my well-being and sharpening my focus.

Do you believe in the 12 week work method or do you make much longer planning strategies?

We tend to plan on an annual basis, but we ensure that progress is reported on monthly. This approach allows us to remain agile, enabling us to quickly identify any issues and make necessary adjustments to our strategy. By regularly reviewing our performance, we can refine our approach in real-time and stay on track to achieve our goals.

I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to approach strategy planning – ultimately it’s down to what works for the business, industry they are in and the people doing the doing

What is your company’s sustainability strategy?

This year, we teamed up with The Bulb to create our sustainability strategy. We’re taking a step-by-step approach, starting by measuring our environmental footprint and then building a plan focused on people, planet, and partnerships. I am committed to equipping our team with the tools and knowledge they need to make a difference.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

Launched the Sleek Academy – We want to take our learning and development programme to another level by engaging an external ambassador to formulate more structured training and development which we will have badges and certificates for. The ultimate goal is to make it an academically accredited course.

Fully execute the Sleek Evolution – We recently announced we were evolving and becoming a full-service experience marketing agency which expanded our service offerings and reinforced our commitment to create authentic and memorable experiences. This evolution will continue to roll out as we implement these new services and offerings to ensure our client’s get access to the best possible event outcomes.

Nailed year 1 of our 3 year strategy – Our company year starts on the 1st August so we want to ensure we are nailing this and getting into the rhythm of our strategy across the board as we’ve just kicked off our new year!

Read more:
Secrets of Success’: Jennifer Davidson, founder, Sleek

In a landscape where technology is evolving at breakneck speed, Alan Stephenson-Brown, CEO of Evolve Business Group combines innovative IT solutions with a commitment to simplicity and security.

Since 2005, Evolve has been on a mission to transform the connectivity of multi-site businesses across various sectors, offering bespoke end-to-end IT and managed network solutions that are as reliable as they are user-friendly.

Under Stephenson-Brown’s leadership, Evolve continues to set the standard for enterprise-grade IT services, empowering businesses to stay compliant, connected, and ahead of the curve in an increasingly digital world.

They are known for leveraging cutting-edge technology to provide enterprise-grade solutions that are reliable, secure, and user-friendly, with a strong focus on security. Their PCI DSS compliant solution is Level 1 certified, and they are part of the Cyber Essentials Scheme. Additionally, they hold ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 certifications.

In November 2022, they acquired the Preston-based IT firm GB3 from EG Group, creating an IT services powerhouse in Lancashire. GB3, now rebranded as EvolveIT, has a team of over 60 talented professionals working across the organisation. This acquisition was followed in January 2023 by the formal acquisition and incorporation of the Sheffield-based mobile telecoms provider, 4G Voice and Data (4G VD), which specialises in offering the latest 4G and 5G mobile SIM cards and devices to meet the growing demand for faster and more reliable mobile connectivity.

By offering a comprehensive range of end-to-end services, they simplify the operations of their customers’ businesses, saving them money by providing a seamless experience and a single bill, alleviating the complexities of connectivity. In essence, they keep the networks of retail, hospitality, fast food, and petroleum franchises compliant, protected, and connected.

What is the main problem you solve for your customers?

Evolve was created to serve multi-site brands who were being neglected by incumbent technologies. We’ve branched out over the years and found that all sectors have certain problems in common.

For example, data management and protection from evolving cybersecurity threats, and network and infrastructure issues. These include interruptions to internet service, ensuring IT infrastructure can scale with the business, and keeping physical IT infrastructure up-to-date and functional.

We also solve integration problems; integrating legacy systems, ensuring different software solutions work seamlessly together, and migrating to and managing cloud services.

Additionally, many of our customers struggle with compliance. Achieving and maintaining PCI DSS compliance can involve enormous operational and technical investments, especially for businesses that don’t have payment infrastructures as part of their core operations. For a business operating in multiple sites, like Fuel Forecourts or Retailers, it can be a logistical nightmare to assess every POS terminal or gateway and the processes that accept card payments.

We help in two ways. Firstly, because Mako’s SD-WAN technology is PCI DSS Level 1-certified PCI-compliant SD-WAN, and we are a Mako platinum partner, Evolve can provide customised SD-WAN solutions with PCI Level 1 certification for payment security.

Secondly, instead of slogging through the 240-question assessment document, for every location, IP address and terminal to get PCI-certified, Evolve’s team can answer them for our customers. Of those 240 questions, 210 of them – or 90% – are answered by Evolve’s PCI compliance capabilities. The team can also guide businesses on the journey to achieving complete PCI audit compliance – something no other provider can offer.

What made you start your business – did you want to rock the status quo, or was it a gap in the marketplace that you could fill?

It was both really. Initially we identified a gap in the market in how legacy infrastructure was failing multi-site brands. Evolve Business Group was formed with the aim of providing these customers with a comprehensive, fully managed network solution under one roof. We recognised that businesses often struggle to find a single provider who can manage all aspects of their network, from design and implementation to maintenance and support.

But in developing our own suite of innovative solutions, I think we’ve also managed to rock the status quo. For example, our latest deployment, Evolve Vision, is a ground-breaking product that gives businesses complete visibility of all their third-party suppliers in a single, easy-to-use portal, so connection problems can be detected before they impact business operations.

The dashboard, which has been designed with usability in mind, allows customers to view the status of on or off-site suppliers, such as payment solutions, gift cards and ePOS system. This means all connections to data centres and every connected device can be monitored 24/7/365. In fact, Vision is updated every 30 seconds so issues can be spotted, reported and resolved, often before the customer, supplier or end user are even aware of it. This level of visibility is unrivalled in the industry.

What are your brand values?

At Evolve, our foundation is built on three core values: Curiosity, Pace, and Dedication.

We believe in the power of curiosity to fuel innovation, and our team is constantly exploring new ideas and seeking out fresh perspectives to stay ahead in a dynamic world.

But in today’s fast-paced environment, agility is also key. We therefore thrive on maintaining a swift pace, ensuring we do more than keep up, we lead the way in our industry while maintaining quality and doing things right the first time.

Finally, our commitment to our mission is unwavering. We’re dedicated to delivering exceptional results and providing unparalleled value to our clients and partners.

These principles guide everything we do and constantly drive us towards excellence.

Do your values define your decision-making process?

Absolutely. Company values are more than a box-ticking exercise. They provide a common framework that align decisions across all levels of the organisation, ensuring consistency in actions and strategies. I also firmly believe that teams are more motivated and engaged when they feel their work is underpinned by strong company’s values. When we make decisions that align with core values, they tend to be more sustainable, balancing short-term gains with long-term goals, and therefore play a significant role in my decision-making process.

Is team culture integral to your business?

Yes, and I think this goes back to having strong company values that everyone can get behind. Team culture is a fundamental component of any successful business, impacting everything from productivity and innovation and customer satisfaction. It’s always been important to me to create a positive and inclusive team culture; I believe it’s the best way to achieve greater cohesiveness, resilience, and long-term success.

What do you do to go the extra mile to show your team you appreciate them?

We have an Employee of the Month initiative to recognise team members who excel themselves, but I think showing appreciation means consistently making people feel seen and heard. As such, I make sure the senior leadership team, myself included, is always visible and available, and together we have nurtured a culture where everyone knows their voices are heard. I believe if a company gives, its people give back; give people something to aspire to and a bit of autonomy and they’ll rise to it.

In terms of your messaging do you think you talk directly to your consumers in a clear fashion?

In terms of tone-of-voice, we aim to balance no-nonsense with professional; relatable, but confident enough in our expertise to be straight-talking. We know not all our customers are tech experts – but don’t want to talk down to them either. It’s a fine line, but I think we do a good job of walking it in all our communications, from the website to our 24/7/265, multi-lingual customer service team.

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

Unfortunately, rising inflation and interest rates are hitting businesses hard across all sectors, and it’s inevitable that some of the increased cost to business will sometimes be felt by the customer. At Evolve we have always strived to offer exceptional value for money, and will continue to do so by only increasing prices when absolutely necessary as a result of increased supplier costs.

How often do you assess the data you pull in and address your KPIs and why?

We assess on a quarterly basis, when the data is analysed during our board meetings.

Is tech playing a much larger part in your day-to-day running of your company?

Tech is at the heart of Evolve, so it’s always played an integral part of day-to-day business.

But as customer needs change, we have had to look at how to leverage that tech to best meet their expectations. To that end, we’ve developed and built several of our solutions – including the latest; Evolve Vision – entirely in-house. By dedicating 240hrs+ per week to development time, we can build tech to solve the problems we know face our customers every day, and create solutions that really do take the pain out of connectivity. It also allows it to observe the progress of the project, introduce changes to projects faster, and speed up implementation.

What is your attitude to your competitors?

I think it’s important to use competition as motivation to continuously improve and innovate, so I keep an eye on what other MSPs are doing, but I think Evolve has such a unique offering that it’s not really my focus. The team’s focus is on innovation, customer satisfaction, and maintaining our position as industry leaders. It’s vital to prioritise understanding and meeting customer needs over trying to outdo competitors; delivering exceptional value should be the goal.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?

I can’t overstate the importance of doing your research. Starting out in any business without adequate research increases the chances of encountering obstacles that could derail your plans. Investing time and effort into doing your homework is the best way to lay a strong foundation for making informed decisions and achieving business success. Once you get off the ground, my advice would be to trust your instincts and go with what feels right occasionally.

It can be a lonely and pressured place to be as the lead decision maker of the business. What do you do to relax, recharge and hone your focus?

In another life I think I would have been a chef – I’ve always really enjoyed cooking and it’s still something I do to unwind. I also think the skills you use in cooking translate to other areas of life and work; it requires attention to detail, balancing different tasks and managing time effectively.

Do you believe in the 12 week work method or do you make much longer planning strategies?

So, this is a system that approaches goals as short-term sprints, the theory being that it forces you to act with urgency and focus on what matters most to avoid the pitfalls that come with more ‘annualised thinking’.

I believe this is an effective method, and at Evolve our planning strategies are reviewed very frequently. We have development sprints every two weeks, referencing the businesses KPI’s, which then feed into traditional yearly business goals, with quarterly interventions to ensure we can adjust strategies as needed.

What is your company’s eco strategy?

At Evolve, we recognise that our operations impact the environment. As such, we’re committed to the improvement of the environment and recognise our responsibility to manage and minimise the environmental impacts of our activities, products and services. We strive to lead the industry with new levels of environmental awareness, and have collectively pledged a commitment to continual improvement.

As well as identifying the environmental impacts of our activities and complying with relevant legislation, regulation and other requirements, we have developed objectives, targets and management programmes, and applied appropriate operational procedures, to minimise our environmental impacts. We also ensure all employees understand the environmental impacts associated with their responsibilities by providing training, guidance and up-to-date information.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

It’s been a really exciting few months for Evolve. We’ve made several high-profile hires to the executive team as part of our growth strategy, which will bear fruit over the coming year. Our aim is to be the leading managed network provider, and we will continue to work towards this goal by delivering the innovative solutions, exceptional customer service, and robust network security we’re known for.

Read more:
Unlocking success with Alan Stephenson-Brown: the driving force behind Evolve Business Group

Ed Johnson is the CEO and Co-Founder of PushFar, the world’s leading mentoring platform.

Since its founding in 2018, PushFar has rapidly grown into a widely used tech startup, providing mentoring technology to hundreds of clients and tens of thousands of individuals in over 100 countries.

The platform allows mentors and mentees to find, form, and manage effective mentoring relationships globally.

As an open mentoring platform, anyone can sign up for free to find a mentor, volunteer to mentor others, network, connect, and develop their career using a host of career progression tools and techniques.

Additionally, organisations can launch, run, and scale mentoring programs for their employees and networks.

What is the main problem you solve for your customers?

The main objective is to make mentoring more accessible, effective and impactful for all, so they can each reap the multitude of benefits that mentoring has to offer. We help individuals to find and form mentorships, whether they want to provide the mentoring or be mentored. We also help organisations to run mentoring programmes in an easy and effective way.

What made you start your business – did you want to rock the status quo, or was it a gap in the marketplace that you could fill?

I was originally looking for a mentor for myself and struggled to find one and I soon realised that a lot of people were in the same position as me. Organisations were also struggling to launch impactful mentoring programmes, with a lot of manual processes involved, which were time consuming and not wholly effective. It was clear that mentoring wasn’t easily accessible to either individuals or organisations and I wanted to change that.

What are your brand values?

Our brand values are what form the foundations of PushFar: Authentic, Accessible, Supportive and Innovative

Do your values define your decision-making process?

Yes – always. Our values are the fundamental principles by which PushFar is led, and they all play in to one another. We must remain innovative, constantly adapting the services we offer to ensure we are offering our customers the best support on the market whilst remaining accessible to all. Working by these values ensures that we remain authentic to PushFar’s founding mission of providing effective mentoring to all.

Is team culture integral to your business?

Team culture is absolutely integral to us. Working closely with clients who are mainly in the HR and learning fields, we know firsthand, the value of a powerful and supportive culture.

What do you do to go the extra mile to show your team you appreciate them?

Our appreciation to our team is shown via trust and empowerment across the board. We provide flexible hours and fully remote working, as well as flexible holidays. This allows our team to feel respected in the same we appreciate and acknowledge the value they bring to PushFar.

In terms of your messaging do you think you talk directly to your consumers in a clear fashion?

Yes! We ensure that our messaging is concise and understandable for all. We are here to help both individuals and organisations and we like to make the process as easy as possible from the start.

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

We’ve not increased pricing in the last 6-years. We are focused on delivering a great service that helps our business grow whilst continuing to add value.

How often do you assess the data you pull in and address your KPIs and why?

We are constantly assessing the data that we pull in, in real time. As a tech company this is critical for both us, and for our clients. In an ever-evolving industry, the data we are continuously assessing ensures we remain the leading mentoring platform and that our customers receive the most up to date and highest quality service.

Is tech playing a much larger part in your day-to-day running of your company?

Yes! As a tech company,  it is at the heart of everything that we do; From our service offering to clients, through to our remote working approach with colleagues and employees. Tech plays a major role in our growth, both in terms of our reach and the services we provide. The use of advancing technology helps us streamline processes without diminishing quality, guaranteeing the service that customers receive is as efficient as possible.

What is your attitude to your competitors?

We have a very healthy attitude towards our competitors. It discourages complacency when we all play fairly. Competition is important to ensure that the market keeps evolving and that the services on offer have no option but to be innovative. Innovation and growth are of great importance to PushFar so we don’t fear our place within the market.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?

If you are wanting to start a business, just do it. There will never be a right time, it’s all about the mindset that you apply. Focus, dedication and hard work are what you need to abide by. There’s no shortcut for any of it.

It can be a lonely and pressured place to be as the lead decision maker of the business. What do you do to relax, recharge and hone your focus?

I switch off, partaking in a digital detox and immersing myself in books and the outdoors through the likes of running.

Do you believe in the 12-week work method, or do you make much longer planning strategies?

I personally believe longer-term strategies are key. They’re less restrictive and allow for a greater sense of direction and a view of the bigger picture and long-term goals.

What is your company’s eco strategy?

As a tech company, we try to do everything we can to reduce impact on the planet. We actively encourage remote working and regularly host video calls where possible to reduce commutes. We’re also entirely paperless and will continue to make strives to ensure we are considering eco-impacts.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

Over the next 12 months our focus is on growth; a larger team, a greater client base and more awesome features on offer.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Ed Johnson, CEO and Co-Founder of PushFar

Roach Bridge Tissues, a specialised printer and converter of wrapping tissue paper, serves the retail POS and e-commerce markets with a diverse clientele that includes designer apparel, footwear, cut glass, pottery, wine bottle wrapping, interleaving for sheet metals, optical lenses, and home removals packaging.

Approximately 70% of the company’s sales are bespoke printed tissue paper, with the remainder comprising plain white or coloured reams and rolls. Roach Bridge Tissues prides itself on being a design-led company, transforming customers’ design concepts into tangible products that enhance brand presentation. Their expertise lies in offering design support and technical assistance to clients who have a vision but lack the knowledge to realise it.

As an SME manufacturer based in the picturesque countryside of Lancashire, the ten-member team at Roach Bridge Tissues boasts over 120 years of combined experience in the tissue paper industry. Their printed and finished tissue paper adds the perfect finishing touch, providing luxury and brand awareness to customers’ unboxing experiences.

For the past eight years, Roach Bridge Tissues has been a proud member of Made in Britain, using the official registered trademark on all ream wrappers. This trademark symbolises low product miles, quality, rapid production, support for the UK economy and workforce, and British manufacturing excellence.

Since its inception 25 years ago, Roach Bridge Tissues has been committed to ethical and environmental responsibility. One of the company’s ongoing goals is to minimise the environmental impact of its processes. Striving towards net zero involves integrating impact reduction into decision-making, ensuring both economic viability and environmental considerations guide their outcomes.

What is the main problem you solve for your customers?

Versatility. Given that the majority of our work is bespoke, each order comes with a unique set of requirements. Our extensive knowledge, accumulated over the years, allows us to support our customers from the initial design phase. We maintain a substantial stock of paper in various weights and sizes, enabling us to meet most design briefs. Being a British manufacturer, we can respond swiftly, delivering from brief to finished product in less than two weeks for minimum order quantities.

What inspired you to start your business – did you aim to disrupt the status quo, or was it a market gap you sought to fill?

Tissue paper feels like it’s in my blood; my grandfather owned Roach Bridge Paper Mill and produced tissue paper until his passing in the late 70s. When my husband and I learned that some of the Mill’s machinery was for sale, we saw an opportunity to fill a market gap for bespoke branded tissue paper.

In the early 2000s, printed tissue paper wasn’t particularly popular, but with the shift in laws regarding plastic bags and the rise of e-commerce, branded tissue paper has become highly sought after.

What are your brand values?

Service and quality are at the heart of Roach Bridge’s values. Our entire team is dedicated to ensuring that every ream of tissue paper we dispatch exceeds expectations.

While the Roach Bridge Tissues brand may not be widely recognised, our business focuses on enhancing our customers’ brand visibility. Our values are integral to how we manage the business and produce our products.

Do your values influence your decision-making process?

Absolutely. Our values guide everything we do, from sourcing the finest raw materials and maintaining our machinery to planning production schedules efficiently and valuing our team and environment.

Is team culture crucial to your business?

Yes, team culture is vital. As a small team, collaboration is essential. We ensure that all team members are trained on different machines and rotate through various processes. This approach not only provides coverage for holidays and illnesses but also promotes better wellbeing and problem-solving through a shared pool of expertise. I understand the importance of flexibility, especially when unexpected personal issues arise, and we all work together to support each other.

How do you show your team that you appreciate them?

While we don’t have team-building days or reward schemes, we value and respect each other’s opinions. I am actively involved in all aspects of the process, maintaining an open-door policy for questions, ideas, and issues. When quoting for unconventional jobs, we make collective decisions, leveraging the specific expertise of team members.

Seven years ago, we transitioned to a four-day week for economic reasons, and when business picked up, the team preferred this arrangement. We now have a condensed workweek with an optional plus four hours on Fridays during peak seasons.

Do you communicate directly and clearly with your customers?

Yes, clear communication with customers is paramount. I always provide honest feedback on what is possible within our capabilities and find solutions to deliver what our customers need. Transparency avoids hidden costs and disappointments, ensuring customer satisfaction.

How are you handling inflation and interest rates – are you passing costs onto customers or absorbing them?

The paper industry faced significant price rises at the onset of the Ukraine war due to its high energy consumption. We experienced a period where prices soared, but customers rarely questioned the increases. Now, most prices have stabilised, and we can mostly absorb the costs. Interest rates haven’t impacted us as we operate on a pay-as-you-go basis. To support my team during the cost-of-living crisis, I decided to give a substantial wage increase, prioritising their wellbeing over profitability.

How do you assess your data and KPIs?

Our primary data comes from satisfied customers, with key performance indicators being returning customers and reaching new ones. While monitoring figures is important, I focus on the broader picture: providing excellent service at competitive rates, maintaining team enthusiasm, and achieving year-on-year turnover growth. As long as these goals are met, I am not overly concerned with monthly targets.

Is technology playing a larger role in your company’s operations?

Our printing machines are traditional, as tissue paper is too delicate for digital printing. Our team’s skills, such as colour matching hand-mixed inks, set us apart. The office, however, embraces modern technology, though we are unlikely to go paperless.

What is your attitude towards your competitors?

As long as our competitors maintain their standards, I am content as we strive to do better.

What advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs?

Always do your best, value your team and customers, and focus on long-term outcomes rather than immediate gains. Include environmental impact in all decisions; it may be more expensive initially but is worthwhile in the long run.

How do you relax and recharge?

I excel at leaving work behind at the end of the day. Beekeeping and serving as a referee and judge for Artistic Swimming keep me busy and focused on weekends, providing a great way to relax. Family, though wonderful, doesn’t fall under the category of restful!

Do you follow the 12-week work method or longer planning strategies?

I do not adhere to a specific planning method. Most customer orders are on a just-in-time basis, so while I maintain an overview of about six weeks, the production schedule is planned weekly and can change. We prioritise urgent requests, ensuring no impact on other customers. Stock paper takes approximately 12 weeks to manufacture, while other consumables are ordered as needed. Maintenance is planned, with our team of engineers, including my husband, ready to assist when necessary.

What is your company’s eco strategy?

We strive to reduce our environmental impact and provide the best working environment. Many certification standards are costly for an SME, so we adopt their criteria without the audits. We are FSC registered, and much of our paper stock is 100% recycled.

Our factory runs on electricity from an on-site hydroelectric turbine, and we plan to install solar panels. We utilise natural light, LED lighting, and efficient heating systems. Our team lives locally, minimising travel impact. We have a de-inking plant for waste management, and all manufacturing waste is recycled. Our rural location, with free-range chickens and bee hives, enhances our environment.

What are your goals for the next 12 months?

Our primary goal is to install a new, better-insulated roof with solar panels, enhancing our sustainability efforts.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Insights from Camilla Hadcock, Director of Roach Bridge Tissues

“There has to be a better way”: This simple, yet powerful sentiment from Harold Groothedde sparked a revolution in cloud optimisation.

Meet Harold Groothedde, the founder of Surveil, an ITEXACT company, and the driving force behind Surveil, a global SaaS provider renowned for its cutting-edge cloud analytics and insights engine. Since 2009, Harold has harnessed the power of AI and high-performance technology to propel Surveil to the forefront of cloud optimisation and security. With a career spanning over three decades, Harold has led pioneering technology programs, including the world’s first SAP HANA production install in Microsoft Azure. As CTO, he continues to ensure that Surveil sets the standard for cloud solutions, helping businesses achieve unmatched efficiency and security.

Today, Harold’s main focus as CTO is to ensure that Surveil becomes a globally leading product for their partners and customers. Harold takes some time out to sit down with Business Matters and share some of what he’s learned from his 30 years’ experience across IT and corporate engineering.

What is the main problem you solve for your customers?

At Surveil, we solve our customers’ critical challenges in cloud asset management and digital transformation. Our main focus is on optimising their Microsoft 365 investments, helping them secure identities, enhance productivity, and manage and optimise Azure resources in the most cost-effective manner. With our cloud optimisation tool, Surveil, we provide deep insights into user interactions, uncover cost-saving opportunities on unused licenses, and offer actionable recommendations for improved security and access control.

What made you start your business: did you want to challenge the status quo, or was it a gap in the marketplace that you could fill?

As an IT consultant and managed service provider, I was on the front lines of deciphering complex Azure bills and handling numerous manual optimisation tasks. I soon realised there had to be a better way, and thus, Surveil was born.

What are your brand values?

Our brand values are deeply rooted in a culture-first approach, prioritising customer success above all else. We are obsessed with delivering outcomes that ensure our customers’ success, measuring our achievements by their triumphs. Precision and accuracy are non-negotiable – we adhere to the highest standards to build trust and guarantee quality. Our pursuit of excellence is relentless, as we strive to be the leading cloud analytics engine globally. We embrace simplicity, transparency, and collaboration, innovating with purpose to create impactful solutions for our partners and customers.

Do your values define your decision-making process?

Yes. Our decisions are made with partner success in mind, relying on reliable data and information. We uphold the highest standards, favour straightforward solutions that deliver tangible results, and involve cross-functional teams to ensure shared responsibility.

Is team culture integral to your business?

Absolutely, team culture is integral to Surveil. We believe in openness and prioritise transparency and collaboration in all we do. By fostering a culture of accountability, we work together with partners, customers, and each other, to consistently deliver exceptional results and drive success for everyone involved.

What do you do to go the extra mile to show your team you appreciate them?

Team appreciation goes beyond bonuses or birthdays off – it’s about recognising effort and celebrating wins. My executive team and I go the extra mile by acknowledging specific contributions, investing in employee development and growth, trusting employees with autonomy and work-life balance, and marking milestones together – because every victory, no matter how small, counts!

In terms of your messaging do you think you talk directly to your consumers in a clear fashion?

Clear messaging is our north star. Our target audience is bombarded with information, so simplicity wins. That is why we made it one of our company’s core values.

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

In response to inflation and interest rates, we are committed to supporting our customers rather than passing on the increased costs. Over the past year, we have removed the commercial barriers that hinder partners and their customers from accessing value, as well as the operational barriers that slow down their teams. This change has allowed us to offer improved margins with significant discounts for higher volume commitments compared to PAYG (pay as you go), enhancing ROI potential.

We’ve also provided greater speed to valuable intelligence through broader and deeper data points and widespread assessments. We’ve given our clients freedom from reliance on health checks through the use of at-will deployments, as well as reducing admin tasks and tools to replicate success by setting replicable campaign blueprints. Overall, we’ve offered enhanced support across sales, marketing, and technical training – all aimed at rewarding customer loyalty and maintaining our commitment to their success during these tougher times.

How often do you assess the data you pull in and address your KPIs and why?

KPIs aren’t just numbers – they are the heartbeat of our strategy. We assess wisely and let data guide our decisions. The frequency of assessing data and addressing KPIs depends on several factors, from characteristics, resource allocation/efficiency, and leadership scorecard reviews.

Is tech playing a much larger part in your day-to-day running of your company?

Microsoft licensing is a complex labyrinth, evolving at warp speed – its pace is relentless. Security and privacy are at the forefront of every organisation in every corner of the world. For us to meet the demands of our partners and the market while staying competitive, it is imperative we remain agile, adapt accordingly by way of continuous innovation, and integrate modern tooling into our organisation and processes.

What is your attitude to your competitors?

I see competitors as both motivators and collaborators. Healthy competition pushes us to innovate, improve, and stay agile. It’s like a friendly game of chess – we learn from their moves and strategise accordingly. However, I also believe in collaboration – there’s room for everyone at the table. Sometimes, competitors become partners in industry initiatives, such as the FinOps Foundation. It’s about finding that balance.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?

Starting a business is like launching a rocket – exhilarating and nerve-wracking. My advice is firstly to define your ‘why’. Understanding your purpose will guide every decision. Secondly, build a solid network. Connect with mentors, peers, and fellow entrepreneurs. Thirdly, embrace failure – see it as a stepping stone, not a stumbling block. And finally, stay curious. Learn, adapt, and keep your compass pointed toward growth.

It can be a lonely and pressured place to be as the lead decision-maker of the business. What do you do to relax, recharge and hone your focus?

Decision making in business is an ensemble, not a solo act. Our executive team balances decisions, expectations, and the occasional juggling act! While decisions aren’t made in a vacuum nor with a singular spotlight, the pressure occasionally can still feel like it is. As a team, we find an equilibrium by tapping into each other’s wisdom or checking in with our advisors, making room for decompression rituals or off-the-grid moments, and prioritising tasks to cut through the clutter.

Do you believe in the 12-week work method, or do you make much longer planning strategies?

Both have merits. The 12-week method keeps us focused, sprinting toward goals. But I also believe in long-term vision. It’s like building a cathedral – one brick at a time, but with the blueprint in mind. Balance short-term wins with the grand design.

What is your company’s eco strategy?

Our company’s eco strategy centres on empowering our partners and customers to be one step closer to sustainability by delivering data-driven insights that help them right-size resources, convert cloud waste into value, and reduce their own carbon footprint.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

Number one – robust and high-performing multi-cloud capabilities.

Secondly – leveraging AI to improve our platform capabilities with recommendations and forecasting.

And finally – a well-established footprint (and substantial market share) in North America.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Harold Groothedde, CTO and Founder of Surveil, an ITEXACT Company

Freshbat is a dynamic strategic communications agency offering comprehensive marketing services, including social media management, email marketing, and web content.

With a dedicated team of five full-time staff members and three freelancers, Freshbat is committed to supporting growing service-based businesses in developing and implementing effective content marketing strategies. By emphasizing a structured, strategic approach to marketing, Freshbat helps clients transition from reactive to proactive marketing, resulting in less stress, more satisfaction, and significantly better results. Their unique Worry-Free Marketing System guides businesses in a manageable and structured way, ensuring sustainable growth and success.

What is the main problem you solve for your customers?

Many businesses lack the specialist knowledge to undertake their own marketing activities. We support growing service-based businesses by creating and implementing content marketing strategies that effectively reach their target audience. Our strategic approach helps small businesses move away from stressful, reactive marketing and towards a more structured and enjoyable marketing experience. We assist in core content areas such as blogging and SEO, email marketing, and social media, ensuring a comprehensive and effective marketing strategy.

What made you start your business – did you want to rock the status quo, or was it a gap in the marketplace that you could fill?

As a Head of Marketing, I worked with various marketing agencies—some excellent and some terrible. I wanted to offer affordable and effective strategic marketing support to SMEs who could benefit from senior marketing expertise but couldn’t afford a full-time marketing team. Additionally, I wanted to provide marketing services that closely aligned with sales. Often, marketing and sales compete rather than collaborate to achieve business outcomes. At Freshbat, we operate as an outsourced marketing team, partnering with our clients and becoming an extension of their sales and marketing teams.

What are your brand values?

Our brand values are encapsulated in the acronym FRESH: Fun, Relationship-focused, Eager to learn, Socially responsible, and Honest. These values are central to our business operations and shape how we interact with our clients and team.

Do your values define your decision-making process?

Absolutely. Being relationship-focused is essential to our success. We ensure that we work with clients who share our values, which keeps our team motivated and engaged. This approach helps us build long-standing relationships with clients. We also prioritize working with clients who are open to learning and trying new things, as marketing is an ongoing test that requires flexibility and innovation.

Is team culture integral to your business?

Yes, culture is at the heart of building and growing our business. As a remote-working business, we place extra emphasis on our culture to support our team and build effective relationships with our clients. Our open, honest, and supportive culture fosters trust within our team and with our clients, enabling us to integrate seamlessly into their organizations and deliver high-performing marketing solutions.

Our team independently described our culture as ‘connected’ during our content day at the end of 2023, which is a testament to the strong culture we’ve built. We are committed to maintaining and developing this culture further by increasing face-to-face meetups, regularly meeting online, and aligning team members’ development plans with our FRESH values.

What do you do to go the extra mile to show your team you appreciate them?

We offer several perks to show our appreciation for our team. Each employee gets a free day off for their birthday, and we ensure an annual pay rise in line with inflation, not based on performance. We also have a two-week closed period over Christmas for everyone to rest and recharge, along with an annual Christmas get-together. Additionally, we provide flexible working hours and recently introduced a working abroad policy, allowing team members to work from different locations if they wish.

In terms of your messaging, do you think you talk directly to your consumers in a clear fashion?

Transparency is key to developing positive partnerships with clients. We ensure clear communication by telling our clients the truth, even if it’s uncomfortable. We are straightforward about our plans, processes, and results. Regular update meetings and an open-door policy help maintain transparency and trust with our clients.

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

To ensure fair salaries for our team and the continued success of our business, we incorporate an inflationary increase into our client contracts. This approach is transparent and allows us to maintain high service standards while rewarding our team appropriately.

How often do you assess the data you pull in and address your KPIs and why?

We assess our key performance indicators (KPIs) weekly during our Monday team meetings. Using a scorecard, we track important metrics such as profitability, sales pipeline, and utilization. This transparency ensures that the entire team understands the health of the business and the rationale behind our decisions.

Is tech playing a much larger part in your day-to-day running of your company?

Yes, technology plays a crucial role in our operations. We use a robust tech stack for onboarding, project management, time tracking, and content creation. CRM systems and email marketing software help us and our clients optimize value and efficiency, allowing us to focus on strategy and performance analysis.

What is your attitude to your competitors?

While there are many marketing agencies, we believe there is ample work for everyone. Each agency attracts different clients based on their values and specialties. We focus on delivering the best service possible rather than dwelling on competitors, continually improving our offerings and client relationships.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?

Have goals but be flexible as you learn more about your business and market. Surround yourself with people who excel in areas where you need growth. Learning from a business coach and industry groups has been invaluable. Embrace imposter syndrome and let challenging experiences help you grow as a business leader.

It can be a lonely and pressured place to be as the lead decision-maker of the business. What do you do to relax, recharge, and hone your focus?

I practice short morning meditations, incorporate more movement into my day, and enjoy socializing with friends and family. Regular holidays and time away from the business are essential for gaining new perspectives and ideas.

Do you believe in the 12-week work method or do you make much longer planning strategies?

We implement the 12-week work method within Freshbat. Setting quarterly priorities helps us achieve significant progress throughout the year without feeling overwhelmed. Each team member is responsible for contributing to these goals, ensuring collective advancement.

What is your company’s eco strategy?

As a fully remote business, we have minimal emissions compared to office-based businesses. We operate paperlessly, store work remotely, and prefer public transport or electric cars for travel. The environmental impact of our operations is a key consideration in our business model.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

1. Extending our service offerings to include branding, employer branding, advertising, and pay-per-click services.
2. Specializing in technology, healthcare, and finance sectors to enhance our expertise and marketing approach.
3. Establishing the first member of a management team to support company growth, building on the recent addition of a Fractional MD.

Through strategic vision, commitment to values, and a focus on building strong relationships, Freshbat continues to grow and evolve, setting new standards in the marketing industry.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Catherine Storey, CEO of Freshbat

Wave is a national water retailer, working with business customers of all sizes to help them benefit from the open water market in England.

Wave helps businesses keep track of and manage their water usage, offering support and guidance on how to maximise efficiency and identify where potential savings can be made.

Working with businesses across a range of sectors including retail, leisure, transport and manufacturing, Wave’s highly experienced teams possess decades of experience supporting SME, public sector, large and multi-site organisations across all industries. Whether it’s water, wastewater or trade effluent services, Wave’s team of in-house experts are able to support a diverse range of businesses, whatever their needs.

Wave was formed as a joint venture between Anglian Water and Northumbrian Water following the de-regulation of the non-household water market in April 2017, which meant that businesses, charities, and public sector organisations were no longer tied to a single regional provider for all their water services. Wave was initially created to support all of the businesses in Anglian Water’s and Northumbrian Water’s regions with their billing, meter reading, customer service and water efficiency needs and to compete nationally for new business.

Now seven years in operation, Wave is the third largest retailer in the Non-Household (NHH) water market, supporting over 300,000 businesses. The business currently stands at over 324 employees across its Durham and Peterborough offices, with 41 new starters in the last year alone. Wave has established itself as a key player in the sector with a great reputation for its customer focus, social value and wellbeing culture.

What is the main problem you solve for customers?

Wave’s aim is to make it as easy as possible for businesses to have a water supply – as it really should be. Businesses should know exactly what price they’re paying, easily understand their bills and have their meter read regularly. The activities associated with delivering all of this generally aren’t high on people’s radars, however, if customers do need to interact with us, we also want to make that as efficient as possible.

What we aim for is to be the most customer-focused utility, by prioritising the delivery of value and efficiency and having a low cost to serve but also excellent customer service. The importance that we place on the customer experience really sets us apart and means that we have a very loyal customer base.

What are your brand values?

Wave’s values are ‘putting the customer first’, ‘succeeding together’, ‘being accountable’ and ‘embracing learning’, all of which form the foundation of what we do here. As a business we’re as open and honest as possible, and we trust in our people, so from day one they’ll be encouraged to be accountable and take ownership. This is key to helping our people grow and succeed within their role, which in turn then enhances the experience of our customers.

Do your values define your decision making process?

Our brand values, along with our Social and Sustainability Promise, are responsible for the decisions we make and the direction we choose to take the business. From its formation in 2017, I always wanted Wave to act, do and be different. To be focused not just on standard business drivers such as making profit, but to also drive positive change within the industry and the wider communities in which our customers and employees live.

Our Social and Sustainability Promise outlines Wave’s ambition and commitment towards making a positive difference to our society and the environment, whilst aligning to key UN Sustainability Goals.

Is team culture integral to your business?

We’ve always endeavoured to shape our culture in a way that brings out the best in people, by building a culture of feedback and trust with wellbeing at its core. This year I was extremely proud to see our commitment recognised at the Employee Experience Awards, with a Gold Award for our Health and Wellbeing strategy.

Our culture is driven by an employee-led approach, with many of our wellbeing benefits, groups and tools suggested by our people. We also have a representative from all areas of the business on our active internal Health, Safety and Wellbeing Forum and a waiting list of people wanting to join.

We constantly strive to provide an elevated level of support to our team. Our goal is to ensure that our employees’ experience at work is a positive one, where they feel comfortable bringing their full selves to work and have the support and tools they need to succeed in their roles.

Is tech playing a much larger part in your day-to-day running of your company?

Advancements in technology play a huge role in evolving our practices and allowing us to provide a better experience for our customers. We’re investing in our online journey, making our online account quicker and simpler to use as well as using new platforms to support all of our customers with their High Consumption Alerts. This all allows us to help businesses with their drive to become more sustainable and identify potential cost savings.

At Wave we are focused on data quality, automation and digitization and we aim to reduce the level of repetitious tasks via automation and accurate data. New tech allows us to digitize and streamline more of our activity, as seen through our eBilling option, which lowers the demand for paper billing, providing a better experience for our customers and supporting our sustainability goals.

What is your company’s eco strategy?

A key focus of our activity is shaped by our Social and Sustainability Promise which commits to becoming net zero by 2030 as well as saving 9.4 million m3 of water by the end of our current business planning period of 2026. A lot of people and businesses don’t realise how scarce a resource water is. We want to help businesses use their water as efficiently as possible, which might be by sending out high consumption alerts, or for some of our larger customers, encouraging them to think of water as a strategic asset and developing strategies and processes to help them operate more efficiently. This is something I believe all businesses are going to need to focus on more in the future.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?

If you work in utilities you have to enjoy being focused on data and processes – it’s an important skill in a lot of sectors but particularly within utilities.

There’s also a Richard Branson quote that is good to keep in mind when you’re starting out: “If someone offers you a really amazing opportunity, say yes and learn to do it later.” I love that attitude because there are a lot of opportunities at Wave, giving people the chance to take secondments and move between teams. Gone are the days that people stay in one role or business forever. You can move to a new role and hone your skills by trying out different things until you find something that you’re passionate about and enjoy doing.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Lucy Darch, CEO of Wave

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Lee Bryan, CEO of Arcus Compliance

Giving podcasts the edge in a saturated market

In an ecosystem where over 500,000 podcasts were created just in the first half of 2021, a creator faces real challenge in finding an audience, monetising a show and handling all the distribution logistics. Auddy solves all that.

It’s a one stop podcast company which hosts, publishes, markets and distributes globally the best in original podcast content from award-winning and high-quality sources. Its shows span across different genres and are available on every major platform (Google, Apple. Amazon, Spotify, Deezer, Stitcher, Soundcloud, etc.).

What type of businesses do you work with?

Auddy works with a wide range of businesses varying from commercial partners looking to advertise and promote their brand to podcast listeners, to those looking to produce a podcast. We also work with podcasters looking to commercialise their previously produced podcasts and seeking to increase their listeners and engagement figures. So, in a nutshell, we work with everyone involved from the concept stage, right through to hosting, producing and promotion.

What problem does Auddy solve?

Not unlike YouTube, podcasting is now a vast ecosystem, valued at over £7bn by 2027. With over 100m listeners in the US and 20% of the UK already listening, a creator of a podcast faces a real problem in finding an audience for its show and, therefore, leading to a potential for commercial return by way of ad sales and sponsorship sales. As a publisher, Auddy uses data analytics and advanced skills in hosting, marketing, promoting its published podcasts and, in doing so, can help the creator to create a commercial outcome for the podcast.

What is your USP?

We are unique in that we manage everything under one Auddy roof – from concept which produces, publishes, markets and distributes the best in original podcast content and audio shows, all in one company. We also own proprietary systems, data analytics tools and technology to bring efficiency and business intelligence to the business of publishing.

What are Auddy’s values? Have you ever had them challenged and if so how have you dealt with it?

To date, we have never had our values challenged – that’s not to say we won’t, however as a company, we believe in integrity, reputation, diversity, inclusiveness and in being socially and morally astute.

We like to work with people who have the same values so that our values are represented in the work that we do and whichever industry we are working with.

How do you ensure that you recruit a team that reflects your company values?

We work with a team psychologist in the recruitment of all hires. She specialises in working with candidates through a testing process and by which we can better understand the personality and dynamics of the candidate, ensuring that they – and we – are a great fit. Our psychologist also works closely on the dynamics within the leadership team, ensuring that the team’s understanding skillsets are accelerated to improve effective communications. Our testing also includes work on the candidate’s tolerance or need for home working.

Are you happy to offer a hybrid working model of home/office post-covid?

We believe that remote working is a critical component of our future development. While we believe in the need for a close-knit team to have personal interaction, office life can be stressful and lead to health-related challenges, especially of a mental health nature. Therefore, we plan to maintain a support for and encouragement of flexible working hours, in-home work and team building through in-person engagement.

Do you have any tips for managing suppliers and customers effectively?

We strongly believe that whoever you are and in whichever position you are in, you must treat others how you would want to be treated. Respect goes a long way so it’s important to respect your peers and treat others kindly in all areas of life.

Any finance or cash-flow tips for new businesses starting out?

We feel it’s important to be transparent, fair and reasonable in managing and preserving cash. If you have to be slow in paying a bill, contact the vendor, express your position and be sure to treat them with respect, thanks and fairness.

What is your attitude towards your competitors?

Without competition, you and your business will remain unchallenged so you could get bored or complacent. Competition makes you compete better. In our world, with hundreds of millions listening globally to podcasts, there is an abundance of room for all the competitors to thrive and succeed and without the need for one to win at the expense of others.

Any thoughts on the future of your company?

 Tomorrow is way more exciting than yesterday.

We are at an exciting stage where we have managed to crowdfund our target figure within days of launching our crowdfunding campaign. The interest and commitment has blown us away and we are truly excited to be in a position to discuss our plans for the future. The future is exciting, the future is scary but when you see the level of interest from crowdfunders who wish to invest, the thrill of getting started and wanting to achieve great things is what drives the team.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Andrew Craissati CEO and Co-Founder of Auddy

Specialists in connecting brands to youth audiences

Rocket are a marketing and content business that helps brands and organisations better understand and better engage youth, children and family audiences. As specialists in reaching this audience, they now have over 12 years of experience in the field.

James takes some time out to speak to Business Matters.

What is the main problem you solve for your customers?

We use social media, influencer marketing, media partnerships and content to reach brands target audiences. We have to deliver outcomes for our customers – sales, measured brand uplift, downloads – we are focused on how to measure success for our activity and what we can do to solve business challenges, not just marketing challenges  The problem we solve is knowing the right mix of content and media to achieve the desired outcomes for our customers.

What made you start your business – did you want to rock the status quo or was it a gap in the marketplace that you could fill?

It was an attitude and a spirit of being a pioneer. We were amongst the first to work with social media advertising in the UK and we knew that the use of content when engaging children, parents and families had to change – so we changed it. We were amongst the first to trial influencer marketing and changed it to work harder for our clients. Now clients look to us to change how things are traditionally done in order to make them work harder to achieve results.

What are your brand values?

We are agile, we are innovative and we are committed to making a difference – without these I think our customer base would have stopped working with us a long time ago. Because we are able to be innovative and bespoke, it means we can work on something designed to work to achieve our customers results.

Do your values define your decision making process?

To a point, yes! We ensure that our responses are always innovative, creative and agile. We are also careful to do what we responsibly – ensuring when we target children we do it in such a way that we remain very much within the guidelines/regulations as well as focusing on what’s effective.

Is team culture integral to your business?

Hugely. I know this is something of a cliché but we try to foster a family atmosphere. We always try to focus on taking our work very seriously and not ourselves too seriously!

We also ensure we respect each other and know there is more than one way of completing a task and that this can vary depending on who is moving it forward.

What do you do to go the extra mile to to show your team you appreciate them?

Some obvious things, some less obvious things. We have a “yes” management style – always trying to say ‘yes, but……..’ to new ideas and initiatives with a caveat of what the new idea might do to help us achieve our wider goals and objectives.

We try to finish at 3:30pm on a Friday. We have regular quarterly meetings and team nights out. We give people their birthday off (or the day afterwards) and everyone gets a Christmas shopping day.

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

We have been working with a some of our customers at brands and organisations for as long as 8 or 9 years so the relationships have weathered all sorts of storms! At the moment the social media ad market is looking like advertisers are going to be paying a slight premium, but we have not yet seen that cause day-to-day problems with campaigns so far.

How often do you assess the data you pull in and address your KPIs and why?

Constantly. We have 12 years of campaign data in a number of key verticals and targeting key target audiences.

So, this means we know (for example) what children want from a new book and what parents want from a new book for their children….. Parents tend to focus more on the author , children tend to focus on the characters or narrative – for example.

We know which social platforms are likely to help drive family ticket sales for an attraction and which social platforms are effective at driving ‘date nights’ at a different attraction.

This campaign data helps ensure we are able to be responsive in our targeting and are able to achieve better results.

Is tech playing a much larger part in your day-to-day running of Rocket?

We have always involved tech and social media data in the planning of our creative content and distribution.

What is your attitude to your competitors?

There are some excellent content and marketing businesses / agencies that service those wanting to target youth, children’s and family audiences. In some ways it is important to know where we fit.

It is very easy to get caught up in what competitors are doing and not focus on the work you are doing. We also understand that sometimes we won’t be the right partner for every brand and organisation that want to work with us and vice versa. Developing and understanding as to what makes a perfect relationship means it is easier to not obsess over competitors.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?

Think really hard about whether you want to! Running a business, being a shareholder or Director of a business is NOT for everyone. Many people may well prefer their role in a business that doesn’t involve the shaping the strategic growth and direction of the business.

Also, don’t sweat the small stuff too much – detail is important, but it took me having children to realize it wasn’t the end of the world if a tweet didn’t go out at exactly the right time over a weekend.

It can be a lonely and pressured place to be as the lead decision maker of the business. What do you do to relax, recharge and hone your focus?

I relax by playing with my children and am constantly amazed by how much they make me laugh. Outside of regular home stuff, I love the theatre, I love a nice bottle of red wine and in terms of rediscovering focus, I am a huge consumer of podcasts. I listen to some podcasts that really help my day job (and plenty that nourish me as a news and politics junky).

We also have launched a podcast of our own that focuses on youth marketing and youth culture….. search Rocket Fuel Youth Marketing to find our previous episodes or click here:  https://pod.link/1481856126

Do you believe in the 12 week work method or do you make much longer planning strategies?

It completely depends on the task you are looking to deliver in 12 weeks. Some ideas need to take longer. Some ideas can be drawn out. I am a big believer in all thoughts getting the time they deserve but not all thoughts are as deserving as each other.

What is Rocket’s eco strategy?

We need to be better. We have appointed someone as our ‘Head of Wellbeing’ and their focus is on eco, staff mental health, company culture and acting as a whistle blower.

We try to prioritise partners with a net-zero target but it is not always easy. I want our business to do whatever we can to be better to the planet.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

1. Debriefs of campaigns that reflect our company values
2. A better tech solution for customers of our Family Collective service – an offering of short form social content featuring real families for marketing and research purposes.
3. A senior hire – someone to inspire and manage some of the team to allow our awesome Strategy Director to become Managing Director.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: James Erskine, CEO of Rocket

Have you considered international languages to boost SEO for clients?

In 2010 Guido worked in the search marketing department for Expedia in London, covering the EMEA market. What he learnt there was the importance to have a different strategy for each country via specialists who are native speakers. So, over the past few years at GA Agency, he has invested in building a multilingual team, recognising London to make it easier to facilitate that.

Not many agencies can offer multilingual in-house teams, especially not ones that cover ten languages. It’s common to use external translation services to plug this gap and the results are incomparable versus having local specialists. Guido takes some time out from his day to share his journey with Business Matters.

What problem does your company solve?

We lend resource and our expertise in digital to our client partners – helping them to become more competitive in the digital space. Of course, most of the time the ultimate goal is to increase online revenue. As part of our work, we also want to educate our clients, and we try to explain every time why we are doing this or that.

 ​What products or services do you provide?

We are a 360-degree digital agency, a one-stop shop for customer acquisition.

We became a 360-degree digital agency in response to the fact that these days customer acquisition happens on different channels. When I started the agency more than ten years ago, we specialised in search engine marketing (SEO and SEM) as that was the main channel to acquire customers in the digital space. Now it is a different game. Customer acquisition happens through multiple touch points and having just one agency partner to manage all those has been proven to bring considerable benefits.

We offer our clients digital strategy, data analysis and reporting, and from that we activate different marketing channels such as SEO, SEM, Social Commerce, Programmatic, Amazon marketing, Influencer marketing and so on. Also, content, a lot of high-quality content, text or visual, as that is essential for a successful digital strategy.

What type of businesses do you work with?

We have built our expertise with well-established international brands. More than 50% of our clients are companies with an annual revenue above £100 million, however we also work with upcoming brands and cool start-ups. We look for long-lasting partnerships with our clients, so we’re a bit selective about the companies we work with. It’s important to believe in the project.

What is your USP?

The market for digital agencies is more competitive than ever and it is important to differentiate ourselves. The most important USP for us is that we are a multilingual team. Our in-house team covers ten different languages, enabling us to have projects active in 18 countries.

Our specialists treat each of our customer’s locations as if it were their own project. It’s a significant value add. Of course, this approach doesn’t work for every business, it is suitable for medium-big size brands with a presence in more than one country.

What are your company values? Have you ever had them challenged, and if so, how have you dealt with it?

Probably the most crucial is honesty. If we don’t see an opportunity to do well in a project, we don’t take it. We are here for the long run, and reputation is essential for our business. We also never lock clients into contracts. We always keep open the opportunity to interrupt a contract without any reason with 30 days’ notice. There’s no reason to keep a client on if they’re not happy.

Another value is transparency. For most of our services, clients are billed on hours worked per month. Each specialist on the GA Agency team logs their hours at the end of each day and against the projects they have worked on. Then, on a monthly or quarterly basis, we send the report to our clients to show how they fit in-line with the agreed scope of work.

How do you ensure that you recruit a team that reflects your company values?

We are getting better and better in this. I started this business three years ago and at the beginning didn’t have much HR or hiring experience, so mistakes were made. With practice, reading and experience this is no longer a problem. We also hired a HR manager this year. We have a good process in place, and I’m pleased with my team. They all reflect the company values, are intelligent, kind and always willing to help each other. I’m still involved in recruitment; I interview every candidate at the last stage to understand if they match our values.

Are you happy to offer a hybrid working model of home/office?

Yes, 100%. I think it is the best solution. After I left Expedia, I worked for five years as a consultant and managed everything remotely, and I loved it. Now with GA Agency we have an office in central London (Soho), and some people come to the office, some permanently, some are keen on the hybrid approach and some want to work from home, I’m OK with that as I have been doing it for many years. I think nowadays if you have the tools to control productivity, there shouldn’t be many problems in working from home. I’m aware also that some people want to go to the office, especially after the extensive Covid lockdowns, so we offer this option.

Do you have any tips for managing suppliers and customers effectively?

While employed at Google and Expedia, I managed supplier agencies like us. The advice I have is to give agencies time. Somewhere from 3 to 6 months is a good period for them to properly understand a business’ dynamics, products, consumers etc. If an agency has promise a little bit of time will yield results, but over time their impact will get better and better. So, it is essential to wait a few months before evaluating an agency.

As for managing clients, I have probably worked with more than 100 clients between my consulting and agency business and its generally all been positive. What I tell my team is, first, be kind/polite. You are providing a service. In the meantime, try to build a relationship and have a good sense of humour. It is boring to talk with someone weekly and have an icy relationship.

Secondly, always have an answer! If you don’t have it now, do your research and come back on it. They have hired you for your expertise, be sure to demonstrate it at every opportunity.

Thirdly, respond swiftly. My rule is that each email should be replied to in less than one working day. If it requires a long answer, respond quickly to acknowledge it and come back with an answer after doing your research.

Lastly, go the extra mile. It is a good way to show clients that you care about their project.

Any finance or cash-flow tips for new businesses starting?

My business started with very little capital. I quit Expedia and started as a consultant but before pulling the plug on my employment, I made sure I had enough savings to keep me going for at least one year of no income.

I was scared a bit, of course, as I had an excellent full time job with a good salary for my age. However, as soon as I started my own business the freedom and time available to me gave me motivation to build a website, put together a valid service offering and find clients (the most complex and important part). In the meantime, it is important to keep costs to a minimum; I was working from cafés, not offices.

Following that, it is important to offer services with a retention model that permits you to plan. Working on too many one-off projects is painful as obviously every time they end you have to search for new clients again. Best avoided.

Another piece of advice is to understand which clients are safe in terms of payments and which can be trouble; with the safe ones, usually well-established businesses, don’t stress them if they are a little late. With troublesome clients, send a reminder as soon as they are late, and if they ignore the reminder, stop providing the service.

If you could ask one thing of the government to change for businesses, what would it be?

In the past few years the hot topics of Brexit and Covid meant a lot of people left the UK. This has added a layer complexity when hiring digital talent, so potentially what I would ask is for an easier way to get Visas for foreign workers coming into the UK.

What is your attitude towards your competitors?

I get inspired by them and want to learn. When I see agencies in our field doing better than us, I’m not jealous. I want to understand why they are better than us and what we can do to become more competitive.

I spend time looking at their website, history, service and I start to follow their company page on LinkedIn. All of this is done with the aim of learning to improve ourselves.

Any thoughts on the future of your company and your dreams?​​​

We have some ambitious goals for this year. We want to keep growing. To do that, we aim to hire a few more senior people to bring more experience to our team; we are looking for people with an agency background to contribute new ideas.

We also want to modernise our services with a mind to the future. Digital evolves quickly, so it is essential to stay up to date with the services offered, otherwise you can become obsolete quickly. Two years ago, we launched Amazon marketing services, last year we started to work with TikTok. This year, we have something new ready to launch (secret…), and we are always actively looking at and testing emerging technologies for future use.

Lastly, we want to acquire more expertise in more markets, by adding more international people to our team.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Guido Ampollini, founder and CEO GA Agency

A famous name, like any entrepreneur, James had to start somewhere

James Constantinou is an entrepreneur, CEO and Founder of Prestige Pawnbrokers,

You may have seen James in his TV Show ‘Posh Pawn’, we go behind the scenes to speak to the man who has made a multi million pound empire by combining tenacity, knowledge and commercial knowledge.

With cash flow at it’s tightest in a long time, many business owners are looking to raise large sums of cash, instantly. Posh Pawn’s aim is to meet that requirement which is managed by having the best appraisers/valuers within the sector and access to sold data.

What is your USP

We offer instant cash loans secured against ALL luxury goods/valuables from art, wine, jewellery, watches, handbags, boats, planes – but our USP is that we cover such a broad spectrum of asset classes and can release funds against all of these assets faster than anyone else in the UK.

What made you start your business – did you want to rock the status quo, or was it a gap in the marketplace that you could fill?

Following the crash of Lehman Brothers and the downturn of markets in 2008, there was certainly a gap in the market to fill and although I didn’t set out to rock the status quo I certainly did that. We changed the public’s perception of pawnbroking and the industry too.

I can’t deny the challenge to do something new magnetised me to the arena but the opportunity to deal with some amazing, and on occasion, priceless items was a big draw to me.

What are your brand values?

Transparent-Open-Fair

I think people respect our values and there are absolutely no hidden agendas.

Our loans are simple and straight forward, there are no hidden costs.

We want to make money from our service and I believe our clients respect this.

Do your values define your decision-making process?

Absolutely….Our service is 100% bespoke and our teams are trained to handle each case individually with our core values in mind.

Repeat business is a major factor in our success.

Is team culture integral to your business?

We employ over 50 of the best appraisers and valuers in the luxury pre-owned market and collectively our knowledge is infinite. We interreact and play off each other’s strengths and passions – this is how we are able to function efficiently and swiftly and where our competitors find it difficult to keep pace.

What do you do to go the extra mile to to show your team you appreciate them?

We have team building exercises and they are incentivised through our bonus structure but it’s much more than this, I consider the entire team as part of a family that are achieving something very special, from the shop floor to the highest tiers of management.

They are highly regarded by me individually and they are valued – this is so often lost within the work place and individual talent should be appreciated more.

In terms of your messaging do you think you talk directly to your consumers in a clear fashion?

I think our message is very clear and the Posh Pawn TV show has done a great job in representing the industry and getting our message across.

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

We do not need to alter our rates during times of adversity. The trend is growing and our customers’ demands are more frequent so this more than covers any extra costs the business suffers due to these issues.

How often do you assess the data you pull in and address your KPIs and why?

Data is being analysed almost on a daily basis and we adapt to any key needs instantaneously. This is one of the major advantages of being an owner operator.

Is tech playing a much larger part in your day-to-day running of your company?

Although I’m a technophobe there is no getting away from it – yes it’s playing an increasing role in what we do especially when it comes to data analysis.

What is your attitude to your competitors?

I’m not concerned with my competitors, I just want to be the best at what I’m doing. If I consider myself not to be the best then I’ll go and do something else…There are no prizes for second place.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?

Study your market and trends, develop a USP that is not easily copied and work your balls off.

Make sure it’s in a field that you are passionate about.

It can be a pressured place to be as the lead decision maker of the business. What do you do to relax, recharge and hone your focus?

This is where I’m meant to tell you stories of long walks in the country and pub lunches followed by trips to the theatre. The truth of the matter is that if I’m not busy evolving new concepts, locating sites for new stores or thinking about the next big deal then I’m not relaxed or focused, I’m at my most comfortable when I’m working.

Do you believe in the 12 week work method or do you make much longer planning strategies?

I’ve not heard of the 12 week work method and most strategies are thought of laying in bed trying to sleep.

What is your company’s eco strategy?

As a business, we are making a contribution to sustainability as the luxury goods we deal in are all pre-owned. Like everyone else we are concerned with the environment and are doing what we can in the workplace. We would look to ongoing and new Government policy to help us all be more focused on the environment and always ensure we are playing our part. I’ve stopped short of supplying the team with super glue along with a shuttle service to the M25.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

6 more operational stores, a two week break somewhere hot and a knighthood.

Exactly that. Thank you James.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: James Constantinou CEO and Founder Posh Pawn Brokers

Imagine receiving a gift that tells a unique story about you, created just for you. That’s the essence of personalised gifting, and at Gifts Online 4U, we’re making this vision a reality.

Since our inception in October 2013, we’ve been on a mission to revolutionise the UK personalised gift market with our warm, inviting, and personable brand voice. Our online platform offers over 2,500 bespoke gifts, each crafted to celebrate the individuality of our customers. We cater to a predominantly female ABC1 demographic, ensuring that every product exudes quality and a personal touch.

Our journey began with a simple yet powerful idea: to make gift-giving a more meaningful and memorable experience. Over the past decade, we’ve grown to become a trusted name in personalised gifting, with products featured on major marketplaces like Amazon and Not on the High Street. We also serve business-to-business customers, providing customised solutions that enhance corporate gifting experiences.

At the heart of our business lies a commitment to exceptional craftsmanship and customer satisfaction. We believe that every gift should reflect the recipient’s personality, and our AI-driven personalisation techniques ensure that each product is unique and heartfelt. As we continue to innovate and expand, we’re excited to share our journey and insights with the readers of Business Matters Magazine.

What is the main problem you solve for your customers?

We solve the challenge of finding truly personalised gifts that resonate with the recipient’s personality and preferences. Our wide range of customisable products ensures that every gift is special and memorable, providing a unique and heartfelt experience for both the giver and the recipient.

What made you start your business – did you want to rock the status quo, or was it a gap in the marketplace that you could fill?

We started Gifts Online 4U to address a gap in the marketplace for high-quality, personalised gifts. Frustrated by the lack of unique options, we aimed to challenge the status quo by offering bespoke gifts that truly capture the essence of the recipient, making every occasion more special.

What are your brand values?

Our brand values are quality, personalisation, customer satisfaction, and innovation. We are committed to delivering products that meet the highest standards of craftsmanship, making every gift unique and meaningful, and continuously improving our offerings through innovative techniques.

Do your values define your decision-making process?

Absolutely. Our values guide every decision we make, from product selection to customer service enhancements. They ensure we remain true to our mission of delivering exceptional and personalised gifts, fostering trust and loyalty with our customers.

Is team culture integral to your business?

Team culture is vital to our success. We foster a positive and collaborative work environment, encouraging creativity and innovation. A supportive team culture boosts morale and translates into the high-quality products and services we offer.

What do you do to go the extra mile to show your team you appreciate them?

We show appreciation through regular team-building activities and professional development opportunities. By investing in our team’s well-being and growth, we create a motivated and dedicated workforce.

In terms of your messaging, do you think you talk directly to your consumers in a clear fashion?

Yes, our messaging is designed to be warm, engaging, and informative. We use storytelling techniques and relatable anecdotes to create a sense of connection with our audience, building trust and ensuring our customers feel valued and understood.

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

We strive to absorb as much impact as possible to avoid significant cost increases for our customers. We are investing in productivity, which has made us more efficient and able to absorb some of the costs. Our priority is to maintain customer loyalty by offering value and affordability, even in tougher economic times.

How often do you assess the data you pull in and address your KPIs and why?

We assess our data and KPIs monthly to ensure we are meeting our business goals. Regular reviews help us identify trends, measure performance, and make informed decisions, allowing us to stay agile and responsive to market changes.

Is tech playing a much larger part in your day-to-day running of your company?

Technology is crucial to our operations. From AI-driven personalisation tools to efficient e-commerce platforms, tech streamlines processes, enhances customer interactions, and scales our business effectively.

What is your attitude to your competitors?

We view competitors as both a challenge and an opportunity. They push us to innovate and improve. By staying true to our values of superior quality, personalisation, and customer service, we differentiate ourselves and carve out a unique market space.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?

Stay passionate and persistent. Believe in your vision but be adaptable to change. Surround yourself with a supportive team, seek mentorship, and always put your customers first. Innovation and creativity are key to driving your business forward.

It can be a lonely and pressured place to be as the lead decision maker of the business. What do you do to relax, recharge, and hone your focus?

I relax by spending time with family and engaging in outdoor activities like walking and cycling. These activities help me clear my mind and gain new perspectives. Practicing mindfulness also helps me stay focused and maintain a positive outlook.

Do you believe in the 12-week work method or do you make much longer planning strategies?

We prefer a balanced approach, combining short-term and long-term planning. Setting quarterly objectives helps us stay focused and agile, while long-term strategies ensure we work towards our bigger vision, adapting to changes along the way.

What is your company’s eco strategy?

Our eco strategy focuses on sustainability and reducing our environmental impact. We use eco-friendly materials and minimise waste in our production processes. We support environmental initiatives and encourage customers to make sustainable choices, aiming for a positive planetary impact.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

1. Expansion of our product range: Introducing new and innovative personalised gifts.
2. Enhanced customer experience: Investing in advanced personalisation technologies and improving our website’s user experience.
3. Sustainability initiatives: Implementing more eco-friendly practices and expanding our range of sustainable products.

Read more:
Secrets of Success within the personalised gifting sector: the journey of gifts online 4u

In the bustling world of business, where sales reign supreme, finding the right approach can be akin to unlocking a treasure trove. Enter Charlie Day, a dynamic sales expert on a mission to revolutionise the sales landscape.

With a passion for empowering business owners and a unique perspective on the art of selling, Charlie Day embodies a fresh approach to sales strategy. In an exclusive interview with Business Matters, she delves into the ethos driving her business, shares insights on navigating challenges, and unveils the secrets to her success.

Unlocking the Power of Sales: A Conversation with Charlie Day

Reinventing Sales Strategy: Charlie Day’s Unique Selling Proposition (USP) lies in her unwavering commitment to transforming the sales experience. “Selling is easy if you just know how,” she asserts, emphasizing her dedication to reshaping traditional sales paradigms. At the core of her mission is a desire to instill confidence in business owners, particularly women, debunking myths of pushy tactics and cold calls along the way.

Empowering Confidence: Addressing the pervasive issue of confidence in sales, Charlie identifies it as the primary hurdle for her clientele. Through her work, she seeks to instill unwavering confidence and integrity in sales practices, debunking the notion that selling equates to being ‘pushy.’ For Charlie, sales should be a seamless process guided by authenticity and conviction.

The Genesis of Change: Reflecting on the inception of her business, Charlie traces its roots to a profound realization. Witnessing a trend of self-doubt among female entrepreneurs, particularly in sales, spurred her into action. Determined to catalyze a shift in mindset and strategy, she founded Charlie Day Sales, driven by a vision of empowering entrepreneurs to realize their full potential.

Cultivating Core Values: At the heart of Charlie Day Sales lie five guiding principles: Making a Difference, Leading with Integrity, Giving More Than Taking, Starting with Sales, and Taking Massive Action. These values serve as the compass for decision-making, permeating every facet of the business, from client interactions to team dynamics.

Nurturing Team Culture: Recognising the pivotal role of a dedicated team, Charlie underscores the importance of fostering a supportive and collaborative environment. Drawing talent from her vibrant online community, The Entrepreneur’s Growth Club, she emphasises transparency, goal-sharing, and mutual appreciation as cornerstones of team culture.

Direct Engagement: With a fervent commitment to her audience, Charlie embraces a hands-on approach to communication. From weekly business trainings to active participation in online forums, she ensures direct and transparent engagement with her consumers, fostering a sense of community and trust.

Resilience in Adversity: In the face of economic challenges, Charlie remains steadfast in her commitment to value-based pricing. Rejecting the notion of discounting, she advocates for charging one’s worth and maintaining excellence in service delivery, even in tumultuous times.

Harnessing Technological Innovation: Embracing the digital age, Charlie recognizes the pivotal role of technology in amplifying business impact. Leveraging tech tools for innovation and differentiation, she underscores the necessity of staying ahead in an increasingly competitive landscape.

Embracing Uniqueness: In a sea of competitors, Charlie stands firm in her belief that authenticity trumps comparison. With a singular focus on her distinctive approach, she remains undeterred by external pressures, urging fellow entrepreneurs to carve their own paths to success.

Words of Wisdom: For aspiring entrepreneurs, Charlie offers a simple yet profound mantra: “Just do one thing every day to move yourself forward.” Coupled with a relentless focus on sales, this philosophy has propelled her journey from concept to fruition.

Balancing Act: Beyond the realm of business, Charlie finds solace in pursuits that invigorate the mind and body. From family time to outdoor adventures, she underscores the importance of holistic well-being in sustaining entrepreneurial zeal.

In a landscape defined by innovation and resilience, Charlie Day emerges as a beacon of empowerment, challenging conventions and inspiring change. With her unwavering commitment to sales excellence and inclusive entrepreneurship, she embodies the essence of success in today’s dynamic business world.

Read more:
Unveiling the Secrets of Success with Charlie Day, Sales Expert

In today’s competitive business landscape, creating an environment where employees thrive is a pivotal goal for success. Gina Battye, CEO of Psychological Safety & LGBTQ+ Inclusion Consultancy, is on a mission to revolutionise workspaces worldwide.

With a unique blend of expertise and passion, Battye shares her journey, insights, and vision exclusively with Business Matters.

Unlocking the Blueprint for Success

At the heart of Battye’s consultancy lies a unique proposition: fostering safer, more inclusive work environments where every individual can bring their whole selves to work. With a commitment to advocating for psychological safety legislation globally, Battye introduces groundbreaking initiatives designed to transform workplaces.

Central to her approach is the development of the “5 Pillars of Psychological Safety,” a blueprint crafted to cultivate fully inclusive workspaces. Supported by the cutting-edge Psychological Safety Diagnostic Tool, Lux, Battye empowers organisations to accurately gauge and enhance psychological safety levels.

Addressing the Core Challenge

Battye’s journey was sparked by a stark realization during her tenure as a teacher and later as a victim of workplace discrimination. Her dedication stems from personal experiences, igniting a fervent resolve to champion psychologically safe environments. Drawing from a wealth of global experiences, Battye addresses the critical need for workplaces to prioritize psychological safety, underpinning inclusive cultures.

A Values-Driven Approach

At the core of Battye’s consultancy are values such as authenticity, co-creation, and innovation. These principles guide every facet of her work, ensuring a cohesive alignment with her mission to revolutionize workplace dynamics.

Fostering Collaborative Cultures

Recognizing the integral role of team culture, Battye emphasizes the importance of creating environments where everyone can thrive. Through her 5 Pillars framework, she equips teams with the tools to enhance collaboration, communication, and productivity, fostering a culture of inclusivity and empowerment.

A Sustainable Vision

Beyond business success, Battye is committed to environmental stewardship. Embracing sustainability and eco-conscious practices, she actively supports reforestation initiatives and advocates for environmental causes globally.

A Vision for the Future

Looking ahead, Battye aims to harness the wealth of data collected through her Diagnostic Tool to influence workplace legislation, starting with lobbying efforts in the UK and expanding globally. Her ultimate goal? To usher in a new era of workplace inclusivity and psychological safety on a global scale.

In a world where success is measured not only by profits but by the well-being and empowerment of individuals, Gina Battye stands as a beacon of change, reshaping the future of work one organization at a time.

Read more:
Unveiling the Secrets of Success with Gina Battye, CEO of Award-Winning Psychological Safety & LGBTQ+ Inclusion Consultancy

In an era where sustainability has become paramount, businesses that champion eco-friendly practices are rising to the forefront. Shamanth Pereira, the founder of Something Co, is on a mission to facilitate a zero-waste lifestyle without burden or guilt.

With a unique approach encapsulated in their 4S Method—Source Sustainably, Transport Sustainably, Dispose Sustainably, and Offset remaining Sustainably—Something Co is reshaping consumer habits towards a more conscientious future.

Pereira recognises the pervasive desire among consumers for guilt-free consumption, particularly when it comes to disposing of products. Through Something Co, he aims to alleviate this concern by providing accessible, sustainable alternatives without the accompanying overwhelm. “People want to make a difference,” Pereira notes, “but often lack the guidance on where to start.”

For Pereira, the impetus to start Something Co stemmed from a dual passion: intellectual curiosity and a deep-rooted commitment to sustainability. As a mother of three, Pereira grappled with the challenge of reconciling everyday essentials with environmental consciousness. Thus, Something Co emerged as a solution—a platform where transparency meets practicality, offering thoroughly vetted sustainable products.

Central to Something Co’s ethos are their brand values, which embody a blend of encouragement, energy, and a commitment to impact without self-aggrandizement. Pereira emphasizes the importance of these values in guiding decision-making processes, ensuring alignment with the company’s overarching mission.

Regarding team culture, Pereira underscores its significance, particularly in the startup landscape. Recognizing the dedication of his team, he ensures they feel valued through various initiatives, including product benefits and upskilling opportunities.

In navigating the complexities of messaging, Pereira acknowledges the evolving nature of communication strategies, especially as Something Co expands its product lines. The goal remains clear: to engage consumers directly and transparently.

Addressing economic challenges such as inflation and interest rates, Pereira remains committed to rewarding customer loyalty, prioritizing competitive pricing over passing costs onto consumers. He elucidates the various factors contributing to inflation, highlighting the interconnectedness of global events and their impact on business operations.

Data-driven decision-making is fundamental to Something Co’s strategy, with regular assessments guiding their approach. Technology plays an indispensable role in the company’s day-to-day operations, enhancing efficiency across various functions.

In a competitive landscape, Pereira adopts a collaborative stance towards competitors, viewing the market as expansive enough to accommodate multiple players. His advice to aspiring entrepreneurs echoes this optimism: “Just do it,” he asserts, emphasizing the importance of research, problem-solving, and action.

Amidst the demands of entrepreneurship, Pereira prioritizes self-care, incorporating meditation, exercise, and intermittent fasting into his routine. He subscribes to shorter-term goal setting, finding it conducive to productivity and progress.

Looking ahead, Something Co aims to secure investment for further expansion, leverage social channels for broader outreach, and enhance their eco-friendly product offerings. With a steadfast commitment to sustainability, Pereira envisions a future where positive change is achieved, one person at a time.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Shamanth Pereira, Founder of Something Co 

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, employee wellbeing has become a critical concern for businesses striving to maintain productivity and foster a healthy work environment.

Emma-Louise Fusari, the innovative mind behind In-House Health, offers a refreshing take on addressing this challenge. With a focus on data-driven solutions and long-term strategies, Fusari aims to revolutionize the way companies approach workplace health. In this exclusive interview with Business Matters, she shares her insights into the unique approach of In-House Health, the challenges of the digital tech industry, and the importance of aligning values with business decisions.*

What is your USP?

Traditional employee wellbeing initiatives often fall short in delivering tangible results. Emma-Louise Fusari’s In-House Health takes a different approach, leveraging data to identify and tackle the root causes of workplace issues. Through innovative programs like the M.E.T.A Wellbeing Audit and the M.E.T.A Programme, Fusari and her team provide bespoke support to organisations, aiming to enhance both employee wellbeing and business outcomes.

What is the main problem you solve for your customers?

In-House Health primarily works with digital tech organisations, addressing the pervasive issues of stress, burnout, and mental health within the industry. By implementing actionable strategies and fostering a culture of wellbeing, Fusari helps businesses retain talent, drive innovation, and promote sustainable growth.

What made you start your business?

With two decades of experience in nursing, Fusari was driven by a desire to make a meaningful difference outside the confines of traditional healthcare settings. Frustrated by the limitations of existing employee wellbeing initiatives, she embarked on a mission to revolutionise the field, guided by a strong sense of justice and a commitment to positive change.

What are your brand values?

Openness, integrity, and respect form the cornerstone of In-House Health’s values. Fusari emphasises the importance of upholding professional standards and empowering individuals to prioritise their health and wellbeing.

Is team culture integral to your business?

As a startup, Fusari is in the process of embedding her values into the company culture. However, she recognises the significance of shared values in fostering a collaborative and supportive environment, both internally and with clients.

Do your values define your decision-making process?

Absolutely. Fusari’s unwavering commitment to transparency and integrity guides every aspect of her business, ensuring that In-House Health remains true to its mission.

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates?

During the early stages of development, In-House Health offers discounted rates to its customers, prioritising accessibility and affordability.

How often do you assess the data you pull in and address your KPIs?

In-House Health adopts a data-driven approach to continuously evaluate performance and identify areas for improvement. Fusari emphasises the importance of meaningful metrics that drive strategic decision-making.

Is tech playing a larger part in your day-to-day operations?

As a data-driven consultancy, technology plays a crucial role in In-House Health’s operations, facilitating automation and innovation while maintaining a focus on human-centric solutions.

What is your attitude towards competitors?

Fusari views the increasing focus on workplace health and wellbeing as a positive trend, but emphasises the importance of strategic approaches that address underlying issues rather than superficial solutions.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?

Fusari stresses the importance of resilience, self-awareness, and finding mentors who align with one’s values. She encourages aspiring entrepreneurs to embrace challenges and remain focused on their long-term goals.

What do you do to relax and recharge?

For Fusari, music and golf provide essential outlets for relaxation and focus, nurturing both physical and mental wellbeing.

Do you believe in the 12-week work method?

While Fusari acknowledges the value of short-term goals, she emphasises the importance of maintaining a long-term perspective to drive meaningful progress and purpose.

What is your company’s eco strategy?

In-House Health is committed to sustainability, aligning its values with the UN sustainable development goals and the World Health Organisation. Fusari is actively pursuing B Corp certification and investing in training to minimise the company’s environmental footprint.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

Fusari’s vision for the future includes building a strong non-executive board, securing seed investment, and expanding the team to support the company’s growth and social impact initiatives. Ultimately, her goal is to foster healthier and happier workplaces through In-House Health’s innovative solutions.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Emma-Louise Fusari – Founder of In-House Health and Clinical Director

In the realm of professional development, few things hold as much promise as real, tangible growth. Samantha Sloan, Founder and Director of 123 People Development explains why the secrets behind lasting transformation is paramount and the core ethos and driving force behind her business.

 What sets your company apart?

Our unique selling proposition (USP) lies in our coaching programme, which not only instills a profound shift in mindset and behaviours but also ensures that this transformation endures over time. Through meticulous psychometrics, we chart a course towards sustainable learning, focusing not merely on tasks or processes, but on the individual themselves. Moreover, our Learning Management System (LMS) fosters reflective learning and practice, solidifying newfound knowledge. It’s a true investment in both time and money.

How do you address the primary concerns of your clients?

Our mission is to make learning stick. Unlike superficial training exercises, we deliver real change that resonates long after the workshop doors close. By challenging entrenched beliefs and fostering autonomy, we disrupt conventional thinking, nurturing both personal growth and enhanced performance.

What prompted the inception of your business?

Initially, my desire for greater flexibility led me away from the corporate sphere. However, as our business flourished, it became apparent that we were making a tangible impact on workshop participants. We have a knack for unlocking latent potential, that untapped essence within each individual.

Can you outline your brand values?

Our values underpin everything we do:
Growth: Nurturing confidence in performance through an understanding of behaviors.
Rejuvenation: Embracing dynamic thinking as the key to reinvention.
Passion: Fostering a relentless pursuit of improvement.
Empowerment: Unleashing the potential within to cultivate a culture of growth.

Does your ethos guide your decision-making?

Absolutely. Our mission, to leave things, especially people, better than we found them, serves as our compass.

How crucial is team culture to your operations?

Team culture is the cornerstone of any successful enterprise. Our collective skills and shared vision shape our approach, fostering effective communication and alignment with our values.

How do you express appreciation to your team?

Sometimes, a simple thank you suffices. Acknowledging their contributions and recognising their positive impact goes a long way.

Do you communicate directly with your consumers?

We strive for clarity and simplicity in our messaging, ensuring our consumers grasp our offerings effortlessly.

Regarding economic challenges, how do you handle pricing?

Despite rising overheads, we’ve maintained our price points, prioritising value for our clients. Virtual training costs remain consistent, reflecting our commitment to accessibility.

How frequently do you assess performance metrics?

After each workshop, we meticulously analyse data to gauge personal growth and mindset shifts—a crucial aspect of our continuous improvement strategy.

Is technology integral to your operations?

Technology enhances our efficiency and effectiveness, enabling seamless workshop delivery and optimising the learning experience.

What’s your perspective on competition?

Healthy competition fuels innovation and growth, keeping the industry dynamic and evolving.

Any advice for aspiring entrepreneurs?

Embrace hard work, maintain a thirst for knowledge, and stay true to your vision. Clarity of purpose is key.

How do you unwind amidst the pressures of leadership?

Aviation is my sanctuary. Whether it’s watching planes or attending airshows, it’s where I find solace and inspiration.

Do you prefer short-term or long-term planning?

We typically operate on a 6-12 month planning horizon, balancing agility with strategic foresight.

What’s your eco-strategy?

Partnering with Blue Marble allows us to offset carbon emissions—a testament to our commitment to environmental stewardship.

 What are your goals for the next year?

Introducing new courses, expanding our professional network of coaches, and providing further training opportunities are top priorities on our agenda.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Samantha Sloan, Founder and Director, 123 People Development

Leslie Kenny, Founder & CEO of Oxford Healthspan, leads her company with a unique selling proposition focused on connecting clients with breakthrough molecules that support healthy aging.

Driven by personal experience and frustration with the slow pace of scientific breakthroughs reaching consumers, Kenny founded Oxford Healthspan to bridge the gap between cutting-edge research and practical solutions for patients. The company’s core values of innovation, integrity, inspiration, impact, and empowerment guide its mission to bring safe and effective anti-aging products to market.

Team culture is integral to Oxford Healthspan, with a diverse team of experts dedicated to health and wellness. Flexibility and understanding around family responsibilities foster a supportive and inclusive work environment, ensuring team members can thrive both personally and professionally.

Technology plays a crucial role in Oxford Healthspan’s day-to-day operations, supporting inventory management, communication, and collaboration among distributed team members.

Competition is viewed positively as a driver of innovation and market growth. Oxford Healthspan believes that a thriving ecosystem of competitors benefits both consumers and companies, driving product innovation and awareness.

For aspiring entrepreneurs, Leslie Kenny advises starting from a place of passion and conviction, emphasizing the importance of belief in one’s mission to weather the challenges of entrepreneurship.

Oxford Healthspan’s eco strategy includes plans to reduce plastic waste by introducing reusable containers for subscription customers, demonstrating a commitment to sustainability and environmental responsibility.

What is your USP?

We connect our clients with safe, effective, breakthrough molecules that support healthy aging. Our flagship product, Primeadine, contains spermidine and nobiliten, two molecules shown to activate autophagy, the body’s own ability to renew itself at the cellular level. We work closely with the Japanese scientists behind the 2016 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology and are the only foreign member of the Japan Autophagy Consortium, while also working with researchers on physiology, autophagy and spermidine at the University of Oxford.

What is the main problem you solve for your customers?

We give them access to safe, efficacious, science backed breakthrough molecules that slow down the aging process, while leading to visible benefits in hair, skin, and nails and felt benefits in sleep, energy and mood.

What made you start your business – did you want to rock the status quo, was it a challenge or a gap in the marketplace that you could fill?

I really entered the market as a patient who was frustrated with the time it takes to bring groundbreaking scientific discoveries in the lab to consumers. The therapy I used over 18 years ago to reverse my own lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, IVIg, still isn’t well known in spite of very good science showing it can have dramatic effects. This frankly just angered me after meeting so many other patients who had the same illnesses I was diagnosed with but who have been on ‘maintenance’ treatments for years. So when I learned about the benefits of spermidine but also that no one was prepared to bring it to the US in food-derived form because it couldn’t be patented, I decided I would do it. Sometimes if you want to get something done, you have to do it yourself!

What are your brand values?

Innovation, integrity, inspiration, impact and empowerment are our core values.

Do your values define your decision making process?

Absolutely. It’s one of the reasons that we adhere to such high sourcing and manufacturing standards.

Is team culture integral to your business?

I like to think so. We have 6 team members with degrees or certifications in biochemistry, nutrition, nutrigenomics, and health coaching.  Two of us are autoimmune patients who have had to find our own way to protocols that have worked with our unique biology, so our ethos of bringing the safest molecules that work for our clients while educating, empowering and inspiring them is very much at our core. All of us on the team also walk our talk around health, too – with a few healthy breaks around the holidays!

If team culture is integral to your business, what do you do to go the extra mile to to show your team you appreciate them?

We’re an all woman team which means most of us have family and household responsibilities too, so we all work flexibly while keeping professionalism around attending several key meetings each week. We are also understanding around the reality of being a woman with a career and a family and have had the occasional burbling toddler home sick in the background on calls.

In terms of your messaging do you think you talk directly to your consumers in a clear fashion?

As a consumer and patient myself, I try to communicate directly with our consumers wherever possible. Because we are a Direct-to-Consumer product, our Customer Service team has regular contact with our clients, as opposed to having a retailer in between us funneling messages to us. This allows us to respond more quickly to our customers’s needs and wants.

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

We entered the market as a tiny player who had to take out MOQ’s that meant our per unit prices were higher. Now that we’ve grown and can manufacture at greater scale, our unit costs have largely remained the same, so we have been able to keep our prices stable without needing to increase prices, something which our customers appreciate!

How often do you assess the data you pull in and address your KPIs and why?

We do this weekly and then hold quarterly reviews. Being a small business means that we can quickly analyze the data and adapt to positively impact it. It’s all about being agile to constantly changing market changes and consumer preferences.

Is tech playing a much larger part in your day-to-day running of your company?

Inventory management is a big moving part for us so having access to excellent inventory management software is key.  We are also a distributed company with team members in the UK, US, Latin America and Asia Pacific, we communicate quite a lot using Slack, Trello and Zoom, .

What is your attitude to your competitors?

The world is big enough for multiple competitors and the more of us there are, the faster we will get the word out about the benefits of these wonderful molecules to human health and the better our products will become as we all stay abreast of one another’s innovations.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?

Always start from a place of passion and conviction. Start-ups can be hard work so when the going gets tough, you need to dig deep to stay with it. The more belief you have in what you are doing, the easier it will be for you to keep at it.

It can be a lonely and pressured place to be as the lead decision maker of the business. What do you do to relax, recharge and hone your focus?

Dance and go upside down! Dancing on the kitchen tiles with my headphones on to a great Latin Mix while cooking dinner honestly keeps me sane. I just get lost in the music and leave everything behind – that grounds me and allows me to keep the crazy hours a start-up founder inevitably has to keep. I also love going upside down in my FeetUp Trainer. You have to really concentrate to stay upside down for 10 minutes at a time – this forces out any other stresses you might have.

Do you believe in the 12 week work method or do you make much longer planning strategies?

While we have a quarterly component to our business planning, it’s part of a 6-quarter plan.

What is your company’s eco strategy?

As a supplement company, we are very aware of the environmental impact of the bottles that we use to sell our supplements in. We are about to move towards a re-usuable container for our subscription customers to place their supplements in once they receive them in a lighter weight pouch instead of a plastic bottle. This will decrease the carbon footprint when we ship while still giving the customer the same excellent product they expect.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

Recruiting new talent to our ever growing team, sharing more groundbreaking products that work to our family of customers and getting the message out globally that we really can do something about aging by slowing it down!

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Leslie Kenny, Founder & CEO, Oxford Healthspan

Ben Snowman, VP of Partnerships & Advisory at Mambu, champions the cloud banking platform’s unique selling proposition (USP) centered on modernising core banking services.

Mambu’s goal is to empower financial institutions of all sizes to transition to the cloud, thereby enhancing agility, innovation, and cost efficiency. By evangelising the concept of “building the new to replace the old,” Mambu facilitates seamless technology adoption, enabling clients to meet evolving market demands and customer preferences.

The primary problem Mambu solves for its customers lies in addressing the complexities of digital transformation within the banking sector. Financial institutions often struggle to adapt to market changes, personalise services, and future-proof their operations. Mambu serves as a technology enabler, providing the tools necessary for agility, flexibility, and innovation in product offerings. Through its composable banking framework and API-first approach, Mambu empowers clients to seamlessly design and deliver tailored financial solutions.

At the heart of Mambu’s brand values lies a commitment to levelling up access to exceptional banking experiences. Guided by principles of boldness, customer obsession, accountability, curiosity, unity, and diversity, Mambu fosters a culture of ownership, collaboration, and innovation. These values drive decision-making processes, ensuring a customer-centric approach and delivering impactful results.

Team culture is integral to Mambu’s success, with a focus on inclusivity and collaboration despite remote working arrangements. Utilising tools like Natter for company-wide meetings facilitates communication and fosters a nurturing environment where employees feel empowered and valued.

In terms of messaging, Mambu aims to communicate directly and clearly with its consumers, emphasising its role as a trusted partner in their digital transformation journey. By providing flexible, cloud-native solutions and enabling rapid innovation through technology, Mambu supports its customers’ growth and success.

Technology plays a pivotal role in Mambu’s day-to-day operations, enabling the company to innovate, collaborate, and deliver cutting-edge solutions to its customers. With a focus on cloud-native architecture and API-first design principles, Mambu remains at the forefront of technological advancement in the banking sector.

Mambu’s eco strategy aligns with growing consumer demand for sustainable banking practices. By leveraging its cloud-native platform to reduce carbon footprints and support green finance initiatives, Mambu enables financial institutions to align with sustainability goals while driving innovation and growth.

What is your USP?

Mambu is a cloud banking platform. We enable banks, fintechs, lenders and non-financial institutions of all sizes and maturity levels to take their core banking services to the cloud. Our goal is to lower the barrier to entry to move onto modern technology and to adopt a more agile, innovative operating model. We do this by evangelising the concept of “building the new to replace the old” both directly with our customers, as well as with our partnership ecosystem.

Outdated legacy tech stacks are a burden on banks and on their end customers. The flexibility that a modern core banking engine provides is unmatched. With this technology, financial institutions can compose the types of financial products and services their customers and the market demands.

In a nutshell, Mambu can improve the speed-to-market and time-to-revenue, while enabling a lower cost-to-operate – a major barrier for customers.

What is the main problem you solve for your customers?

The Deloitte report Digital transformation hits core banking, confirms what banks already know: they have a complex decision to make on how to change. They need to be agile enough to explore and test new markets and products, customer centric enough to personalise services to compete, as well as future proof enough to navigate internal and external changes.

Mambu customers often want to innovate in tandem with market changes and customer preferences, but they lack the agility and technology to do so. Mambu is a technology-enabler. For our customers, this means we’re best placed to provide the tools they need to be agile and flexible in all aspects of their product offerings.

We’ve taken great care in building up an ecosystem of best-in-breed technology partners, so that financial institutions are not locked into specific vendors. By allowing integrations through APIs – fundamental to what we consider our composable banking framework – our customers can seamlessly design and deliver financial solutions for their customers.

What are your brand values?

The heart of our objective is to level up access to great banking experiences – for everyone, everywhere. Our technology powers that change, and our people power the technology. A few core principles guide us: be bold and embrace challenges, be customer-obsessed, be accountable for results, be curious and evolve, be one Mambu, be yourself and embrace difference. This is how we deliver and innovate for our customers.

Do your values define your decision-making process?

It’s not just what we do, it’s how we do it and how we work together. We have created a true ownership culture, which is integral to our success. We help and empower each other to make decisions that can have a lasting impact on our business, and positively influence thousands of customers and millions of their end users worldwide.

Is team culture integral to your business?

With more and more team members working remotely and across different countries, it’s no longer feasible to gather everyone in one room for a conversation. Despite this, we are all united in our efforts to deliver great work for our customers.

To create the culture we want, and cater to remote working needs, we use a tool called Natter in our company-wide meetings. This tool allows us to randomly pair people from different departments and levels within the organisation, breaking down silos and encouraging conversations – ultimately fostering a nurturing, inclusive environment. Culture is integral to every business, or at least, it should be! At Mambu we believe strongly that defining your culture from the start is a crucial step to success.

In terms of your messaging do you think you talk directly to your consumers in a clear fashion?

Distilled to its essence, a core banking system is the software used to support a bank’s most common transactions from daily banking to lending and interacts with accounting and reporting systems.

These functions don’t in themselves help financial institutions differentiate their services. However, they do help with the heavy lifting behind the scenes, so banks can focus on the products and services that do allow differentiation.

We seek to be our customers’ trusted partner on this journey. Their success is our success. As such, we align as a trusted partner to ensure our customers are successful in what they’re trying to achieve so their business grows with us.

The solution landscape is evolving fast, which means having the flexibility to use new services as new needs emerge. Our composable banking framework and API-first approach enables this, so financial institutions can innovate at pace.

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

Our research shows that cloud migration can bring financial institutions a ±40% cost reduction. As the current market challenges financial services providers to move more quickly and be more flexible to shifts, moving to the cloud is a sustainable solution to spending less on key infrastructure. Instead, they can direct resources to other areas as they grow their business and focus on changing customer needs.

Another key value proposition behind cloud transformation is speed. Agility will be key to staying resilient in these times, and the speed that a cloud banking platform brings is unmatched. With a low-code, modern UI, financial institutions can launch new products and services in a matter of hours or days, compared to months or years of implementation to change or upgrade on-premise solutions. Not to mention the SaaS operating model means new features are available weekly and accessible instantly.

Is tech playing a much larger part in the day-to-day running of your company?

As a fintech, we were born in the cloud and enabling our customers to innovate with technology is what we do. We hope to bring more financial institutions along with us on this journey.

To stay competitive, it’s crucial for banks to embrace new technology. Most banks have focused on digitising their front-end systems to meet ever-changing customer demands, while their core banking continues to run on decades-old legacy systems.

By migrating their legacy systems to the cloud, banks can build agility, flexibility, and scalability into their core banking systems. This, in turn, enables them to innovate faster, speed up time-to-market, and deliver the seamless digital experiences that today’s customers expect.

What is your attitude to your competitors?

The answer here is likely to be similar across most industries, which is that healthy competition is good for innovation.

A parallel can be made with the interplay of incumbent financial institutions and new banks and fintechs players. As exciting as the new banks and fintech plays are, today’s established banks still have major assets to bring to the table like a large, loyal customer base built from years of brand recognition as well as strong balance sheets to fund innovation with less dependence on outside investment.

In many cases, incumbents are going digital through acquisition or launching their own digital banks. All this to say, both sides drive the other to become better.

What is your company’s eco strategy?

Over two thirds of consumers want their bank to become more sustainable in the future, according to our research. A further, 25% have knowingly made use of a sustainable banking product or service like sustainable credit and debit cards, green savings accounts and bonds, green mortgages and green loans.

Financial brands need to shift gears and understand how to win new customers while protecting the planet. Our cloud-native banking platform enables a 40% carbon footprint reduction when compared to on-premise computing equivalents. We are proud to be an effective enabler of green finance by supporting our customers in building offerings that keep both innovation and sustainability in mind.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Ben Snowman, VP of Partnerships & Advisory at Mambu

Growing the UK’s £127bn hospitality industry is no mean feat

As the UK’s most experienced hospitality management company,  Offering a complete in-house solution for hospitality investors, every day at RBH Hospitality Management is a busy one.  From their qualified Capital Projects team, Facilities Management and full IT project and helpdesk support, David Hart CEO, leads his team to drive the business forwards in an ever changing landscape.

He takes some time to share his Secrets of Success with Business Matters …

What is the main problem you solve for your customers?

For hospitality investors we take on complete operational and commercial management of their hotels leaving them to focus on investment.

What made you start your business – did you want to rock the status quo or was it a gap in the hospitality marketplace that you could fill?

When RBH started out just over 20 years ago the model for hotel operation/management was starting to change. Previously hotels were operated by those that owned hotels themselves or the big brands. As brands began to focus a bit more on franchising to enable growth, then hotels began to attract more investment and often from those who had no interest in operating the hotel themselves or experience in doing so.

What are your brand values?

At RBH, we believe our team should always:

• Act with integrity
• Deliver operational excellence
• Have the ambition to continuously improve
• Show that we care

We are proud that our team and the hotel owners we work with share these values as they form the bedrock of our business. We have had the same values in place for around 12 years which we are also proud of and believe it indicates a consistency of mindset and culture that has helped make us the business we are today.

Do your values define your decision-making process?

Absolutely, and never more so than in the last few years as we dealt with the difficulties of Covid and more recent issues like the inflationary environment and cost of living crisis. As a business that has no assets other than the people that work here to provide our services, it is essential that Care and Integrity in particular are present in any decision making that impacts our team. I’m particularly proud of the way we worked with our team through Covid and see it as a real validation that our values are live in the business. From the Executive Committee down through the team, we do everything we can to ensure they form the basis of how we work.

Is team culture integral to your business?

As a people business, without our culture we really wouldn’t have a business that has been around for any length of time. Our culture is one of the key factors that differentiates us and is why any investor should work with us. The culture has of course adapted over time, but the fundamentals haven’t largely changed in 20 years, surviving through multiple CEOs and senior members of staff so it’s always been a crucial consideration in the recruitment process.

That said, we also have significant long service in the business (for what is a relatively young business in the grand scheme of things) with our Executive Committee having over 15 years’ service each on average and the business as a whole having more than 6 years’ service on average. This consistency shows that people do love working here, and in turn helps to keep the culture alive for the future.

What do you do to go the extra mile to show your team you appreciate them?

We’ve always tried to be a business that socialises well together, and I think that really helps with forming relationships internally. Whilst the wider world is now focused on flexible working to ensure they can retain staff, this is something we have being doing for as long as I can remember without needing to put a formal name to it and I think has long been a huge positive about working at RBH. I’d like to think that generally speaking, we empower our team to focus on the output of their work rather than the specific times or locations they are doing it in.

I know that when I was back in my first role at the company, 17 years ago, my boss and the then senior team, expected a lot in terms of quality output, but they were more than happy that I work in the way that suited me best which was perfect for me, and I think this is an approach that works for most people.

But we do regularly evaluate what else we can do for our teams to make RBH a great place to work. A few years ago, we created our internal health & wellbeing programme, ‘Tree of Life’, which commits us to supporting our people’s activeness, nutrition, mental fitness, social and financial wellbeing. I have loved seeing the programme grow and develop over the last few years and it has contributed to making RBH a great place to work.

In addition, open communication has always been important to us. We try to ensure that when we make significant decisions for the business that impact the team, we are as transparent as possible in what our decision-making process was. Whilst there will always be some things that we can’t fully share, we’ve always tried to inform the team on what our options were, why we discounted certain things, and why we have made the decision we have come to. We have found that this has tended to go down well and has helped ensure open lines of communication.

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

Pricing in the hotel industry is generally very much market-driven which means that we don’t need to make a clear decision as such to just put our prices up by X because our costs have gone up by Y. We can only ever sell hotel rooms at a price that is essentially acceptable to the customers that are buying rooms in that specific market – we alone can’t charge more just because we want or need to. In practice this means that where the industry as a whole is seeing an increasing cost base, which is certainly the case at the moment, then every provider will in essence want to see selling prices rise and over time the markets will naturally then do so as we all need it to. In the short term it can be difficult as certain hotels may have more or less pressure than others so may keep prices lower to try and ensure they retain demand but over time this will move and catch up with the wider market. Of course, this also means that if the market wasn’t moving more widely then it would be extremely difficult to do much about pricing on our own which could cause profitability issues.

How often do you assess the data you pull in and address your KPIs and why?

Some KPIs are assessed daily, others weekly and others monthly or less regularly – it just depends on the specific KPI. As an example, optimal rooms revenue performance is critical for hotels and success relative to the local market is assessed daily (if not multiple times a day)A hotel bedroom is a perishable product in essence and if it isn’t sold for a night then you can never sell it again. Local markets are also changing so quickly that dynamic pricing throughout the day can be critical to a hotel’s success – a cancelled flight, bad weather and so on can mean a huge change in a particular hotel market at very short notice, making it essential to be close to the market.

Other KPIs, such as staff engagement, may be assessed less regularly as it is largely reviewed through employee surveys, which we naturally can only do periodically.

Is tech playing a much larger part in your day-to-day running of your company?

Very much so. We have always tried to be ahead of the industry in terms of tech – from being the first management company in the UK to introduce a comprehensive Business Intelligence system several years ago and trying to lead the way in how we provide information to our investor partners through the introduction of our online Owners’ Lounge.

At hotel level there is a constant battle to have the most efficient systems, with an ever-increasing desire to maximise integration capability. In addition, payroll is the largest cost in almost all hotels so inevitably there is a relentless focus on how tech can be used to streamline manual processes and make savings. However, we must always remember that as a management company, we are only as good as our people and the services they provide and relationships they form. Our hotels providing exceptional service to our guests is key to a successful hotel business and therefore we must always remember to strike a balance between tech/system efficiency and personal service.

What is your attitude to your competitors?

The hotel industry, and in particular the third-party management sphere which we work within, is a small industry – everyone pretty much knows everyone and we see each other at the same events regularly. We’re all very competitive and a number of the KPIs we look at in our business actively involve comparing ourselves to our competitors where we can, not just comparing our hotels to their local hotel competitors. We’re always interested in better understanding what service others are providing, how it varies to ours and how we can do better in order to stand out in an increasingly crowded space.

We think we sit in quite a unique position amongst our competitors based on our experience, scale and service offering but are constantly having to ensure that remains the case and that the areas where we believe we have competitive advantage don’t become eroded.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?

Work in a business where you’re genuinely interested in what the business does (i.e. the service it provides or the goods it produces). Although my background is as an accountant, working in hospitality made a huge difference to me as I love hotels and knowing how they work, getting to stay in them and working with so many different ones. It has always made my job fascinating, whatever level I’ve been at. It’s far easier getting up in the morning if your company is interesting to you.

It can be a lonely and pressured place to be as the lead decision maker of the business. What do you do to relax, recharge and hone your focus?

I have 4 young boys so fortunately don’t have any time to sit and worry about being lonely and not enough time to recharge! I love following a number of different sports such as golf and Formula 1 and in the last few years I’ve become slightly obsessed with Lego which I’ve found to be an excellent way to relax and just focus on something simple (even if my house is running out of space to store it all).

What is your company’s eco strategy?

This is another area that we believe we were focused on long before it became such a hot topic in the media and the industry more widely.

For a while now we’ve had our own “Giving Something Back” programme which focusses on our people, our communities and our environment. In terms of our commitment to the environment, we’ve had a specific environmental committee in place for several years and set targets in 6 key areas: water, energy, waste, the supply chain, travel, and buildings. Importantly, we are focused on the decarbonisation of our existing hotels, working with our partners to develop net-zero new build hotels, and increasing biodiversity across the areas we operate in.

We were proud to be the only management company to exhibit at COP26 in Glasgow in 2021 and our team is very passionate about the work we are doing to make hospitality more sustainable.

In 2023 our specific focus is on biodiversity and really reinforcing the environmental focus in the hearts and minds of our wider team as the pressures of inflation, competition and the fallout from Covid do what they can to distract us all.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

We are currently working on a significant new commercial data project, as part of our Business Intelligence system, to further enhance the excellent work that our commercial teams do and drive our hotels to even more commercial success – which is expected to be completed this year.

We are also looking at some slightly different business models to complement the way we currently operate and contract, and the target is to sign hotels under some of those models this year.

Finally, Cyber Security has become an ever-increasing issue for the industry and our team are putting a specific focus this year on updating our infrastructure to cope and continue to protect ourselves and the investors we work with.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: David Hart, CEO, RBH Hospitality Management

In the dynamic world of retail technology solutions, Ian Moore, Founder and Head of Services at Excellent Zephyr, stands out as a leader with a clear mission.

With years of experience in ERP and integration projects, Ian’s journey began with a realisation of the lack of dedicated service providers for retailers.

As the pandemic spurred a surge in eCommerce, he saw an opportunity to leverage his expertise to help fast-growing brands navigate the complexities of technology adoption and achieve sustainable growth.

What is your USP?

We have years of experience working with some of the fastest-growing brands within the retail space, specifically on ERP and Integration projects. We understand the challenges that retailers face on a daily basis and that’s why we’ve tailored the most effective services to help brands achieve their business goals.  

What is the main problem you solve for your customers?

We work closely with our customers to understand their pain points, long-term roadmap and short-term goals. From here we implement the best solutions available on the market to help them achieve these. Our services are centred around optimising their three core business processes – Order-to-Cash, Procure-to-Pay and Record-to-Report.

What made you start your business – did you want to rock the status quo, was it a challenge or a gap in the marketplace that you could fill?

After working for 20+ years with Oracle and NetSuite solutions on various retail and non-retail specific projects I identified a lack of dedicated ERP service providers for retailers. Additionally, around this time the pandemic was happening and we saw a boom in fast-growing eCommerce businesses. This is when it became clear that I could use my experience to create a business that can deliver the technology solutions that these brands need to achieve successful growth. 

What are your brand values?

We pride ourselves on not being another one of these generic corporate-style ERP service providers. We’re trying to think outside the box whether that’s in terms of marketing content, personal relationships with customers or exciting initiatives with our rapidly growing partners. On-top of this, we pride ourselves on delivering a top-quality with honesty and integrity! 

(honesty and integrity)

Do your values define your decision-making process?

Absolutely, honesty and integrity are at the core of how we work with our customers.

Is team culture integral to your business?

We pride ourselves on being a very diverse bunch who are all working towards the same cause. We now have a five-person strong service team in Egypt, our Head of Marketing and Head of Partnerships in Spain and we’ve just hired an amazing Project Manager in the Philippines. This is on top of the continuously growing UK-based team. 

If team culture is integral to your business, what do you do to go the extra mile to show your team you appreciate them?

We love to attend events, whether that’s partners, conventions or our own just like last year’s football tournament! Due to the nature of remote work we try to create an open culture where everyone has a voice within the business that is valued. We love to meet up with each other as much as possible and we’re also looking to fly out to Cairo to see the Egypt team in 2023!

In terms of your messaging do you think you talk directly to your consumers in a clear fashion?

I believe so because we’re constantly working within the retail space, so we know from first-hand experience what challenges they are facing. Our messaging is centred around their needs and their core business processes, so it’s definitely a language they can relate to.

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

Technology projects can be incredibly expensive, we know that! That’s why we’ve identified this and developed a managed service at a fixed monthly cost. This way, during the impending recession, retailers can rest assured we’re not going to raise our pricing, and will continue to grow their business and get the solutions they need at a manageable cost that works for them. 

How often do you assess the data you pull in and address your KPIs and why?

Just like our customers, we’re also growing fast! As we do this, we’re making a conscious effort to analyse our business performance and marketing data. We do this so that we spend funds in the most effective way to achieve the best results.

Is tech playing a much larger part in your day-to-day running of your company?

Aside from us delivering retail technology to our customers every day, internally we use several solutions to optimise the running of our business. We use NetSuite internally for all our financials, a marketing CRM, Asana for our Project Management and Slack for communications.

What is your attitude to your competitors?

We are completely focused on our own growth and operations but we’re aware that there are other NetSuite solution providers doing great jobs.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?

Just do it! It’s one of the most rewarding things you can do so don’t be scared to pursue your ambitions. Also, when it’s the right moment, make sure you hire the right people who share the same passion for the business as you.

It can be a lonely and pressured place to be as the lead decision maker of the business. What do you do to relax, recharge and hone your focus?

Actually, we have a four-person strong management board where we bounce ideas off each other and discuss important decisions. Actually, it was a purposeful strategy to hire young and talented team members with a view to developing them for the long term. Outside of work I love to get out with my dog on a nice walk on the beach or in the countryside. I also make time to go to the gym because exercise is great for my mental health.

Do you believe in the 12 week work method or do you make much longer planning strategies?

As our growth has accelerated, planning has become more important. For 2023 we have put together a 12-month plan with quarterly reviews against our objectives.

What is your company’s eco strategy?

We’re a remote-first business and do all we can to eliminate all unnecessary travel and where possible use public transport.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

We have a lot of exciting plans for the future. We want to continue developing internal talent, focussing on integration and automation technology to address labour shortages in the UK and establishing Excellent Zephyr as a leader of NetSuite for retailers.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Ian Moore, Founder and Head of Services at Excellent Zephyr

In the bustling world of food and drink communications, AJ Sharp, CEO and Founder of Sharp Relations, stands out as a beacon of strategic excellence.

In an exclusive interview with Business Matters, AJ unveils the secrets of success behind her agency, boldly claiming the title of the best in the UK. With a laser focus on delivering tangible results and measurable impact, Sharp Relations prides itself on crafting messages that resonate and drive growth for clients across the board.

What is your USP:

I think we’re the best food and drink communications agency in the UK. In terms of ROI and results, there’s not many that come close. So, I guess our USP has to be: Strategically driven, insightfully informed results, which can be measured against the impact it has on the business.

What is the main problem you solve for your customers?

We help our clients to grow faster and more efficiently through improving awareness with whomever will make the biggest impact on the business. This could be food and beverage buyers, to Executive PAs, to consumers in a specific part of the UK, we know exactly how to craft the message and reach the audience.

What made you start your business – did you want to rock the status quo, was it a challenge or a gap in the marketplace that you could fill?

Most people who don’t have direct experience with PR struggle with the concept of measuring and understanding its value. Understandably.

So, when I started my agency I realised that I had to be really very clear about the value we could bring to our clients – and I’m not referring to price – I’m talking about the genuine impact of the work on the businesses we work for.

We measure our worth against our client’s revenue and their routes to market. We measure against actual bums on seats, or heads on beds, or products sold and we take huge joy in being an integral part of that business’s success.

We’ve been producing extraordinary results in the PR space for our clients now for years and have developed an industry-leading reputation.

What are your brand values?

• Accountability
• Authenticity
• Passion
• Empowerment

Do your values define your decision-making process?

Yes, they do.

• Accountability, this is about trust, we want the results of our work to have a measurable impact for our clients, and we make sure they do by genuinely understanding what impact they’re hoping to achieve.
• Authenticity, if we think a brand or business is not a good fit, we will politely decline. We invite our team to feel relaxed enough to bring their whole selves to work each day, we find that in such a creative space, it generates the best results.
• Passion, the business was founded on a genuine passion for great sustainable food and drink. But it’s more than just passion for our industry, it’s about humour and kindness for co-creating an environment which we all want to work in.
• Empowerment, magic happens when everyone feels empowered!

Is team culture integral to your business?

Our culture is key to our success, I’m very protective of it. The model was created by using freelancers, so it was founded on a culture of trust and empowerment, and a lot of that culture exists today. We don’t clock watch or ask people where they are every second of the day, as long as they are available for meetings, when necessary, how and where work is completed is up to the individual.

If team culture is integral to your business, what do you do to go the extra mile to show your team you appreciate them?

We create personalised growth plans for everyone on the team. I believe the reason employees leave a company is usually caused by [1] a lack of progression, [2] feeling that no one cares about them, or [3] a change in personal circumstances.

The latter is beyond our control, changing circumstances is a part of life. But we can make sure that we do all that we can to show that we care about our team, that we have a genuine interest in them, which we do. We’re growing fast so progressionary prospects are very exciting here at the moment. And that opportunity is on offer to all that want that, added to this there needs to be stability and kindness across the board for everyone to draw a steadying strength from.

I’m proud of our appraisal process, it was designed by my military partner in work and life, who adapted it from a similar format used by H M Forces. Additionally, I personally do ‘check-ins’ with everyone on my team every month. This helps me to understand the pressures on the company at every level, and I like to know what is going on with everyone, even if it takes me a whole day, I see this as my job as a CEO (even if I still have half a dozen other roles too!).

And finally, we offer everyone group coaching. Not just training but coaching which is about helping us all identify and overcome our own challenges (work related or personal) in our own way.

In terms of your messaging do you think you talk directly to your consumers in a clear fashion?

Hope so! We don’t market directly to consumers; our target market is ambitious food and drinks business owners looking to grow. I think we talk to them well.

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

To be honest, it isn’t really affecting us much, or if it is, we aren’t focusing on it. At our year end we gave the whole team an inflation matching pay rise, and necessarily put our fees up accordingly for new customers. Yes, we always encourage loyalty.

How often do you assess the data you pull in and address your KPIs and why?

We measure everything regularly. The company marketing meeting each week measures how we are doing against KPIS. The client management meeting measures how delivery for clients is being executed against expected KPIs, plus problem solving and ideation. At the end of every month, we capture all the KPIS and revenue in a spreadsheet and then share it with the team at the end of each quarter.

Is tech playing a much larger part in your day-to-day running of your company?

It certainly is. From more obvious things like an improved CRM system and media monitoring services, to upgrading systems and processes to automate as much of what we do as possible.

What is your attitude to your competitors?

Who?

Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?

Keep going! Listen to your instincts. Follow the paths of least resistance. Don’t waste time and energy trying to push water uphill, if there is an easier way to do something, then do it, unless you feel utterly compelled to do it a new way, then listen to that!!

It can be a lonely and pressured place to be as the lead decision maker of the business. What do you do to relax, recharge and hone your focus?

Nature is usually the best medicine. Even 15 minutes in a park or walking in a nearby woodland will recharge your brain. But don’t take technology with you, turn your phone on silent and just walk and let your brain unpack itself. You’ll know the answers to your biggest questions soon enough, or even if you don’t yet know, you’ll feel more positive that the solution is on its way.

Do you believe in the 12-week work method or do you make much longer planning strategies?

Yes, I think so. I also believe strongly in Pareto’s Law, whereby 20% of your activity affects 80% of your output. Be very clear and honest with yourself about what that 20% looks like for you. For example, emailing five key contacts about potential business is in the 20% zone, changing the font on the website is not.

What is your company’s eco strategy?

Sustainability is at the core of everything we do at Sharp Relations. From the clients we choose to work with, to the way in which we conserve our resources. More than that, we have a moral and ethical spin, not only in the way we approach our clients, but also in the way we engage with our local community.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

1. We’re going to employ another four people in our client delivery team, so we are going to be able to take on twice as much work as we have now.
2. I’m going to speak at a number of key industry events and engagements, I’ve already been approached for about three, but I want to hit eight this year, as a target.
3. And we’re going to put in for several awards – we generated over 3000 pieces of coverage for an event we ran last year which included 6 TV crews and over 200 pieces of broadcast coverage – we keep forgetting to shout about it!

Read more:
Secrets of Success: AJ Sharp, CEO and Founder of Sharp Relations

In the realm of private security, Kate Bright, CEO of UMBRA International Group, shines as a trailblazer redefining safety and protection in a modern world.

With a unique selling proposition centered on navigating the intricate landscape of the private security industry, UMBRA offers a paradigm shift towards what Kate terms ‘Secure Lifestyle.’

As the only global business providing this comprehensive approach, UMBRA empowers high-profile individuals and their families to take control of their safety, fostering situational awareness and resilience in an ever-evolving permacrisis environment.

Kate’s journey as a female founder in a traditionally male-dominated field adds a distinctive dimension, attracting a new generation of clients drawn to UMBRA’s innovative and future-proofed methodologies.

Grounded in core values of trust, transparency, family focus, collaboration, and peace of mind, UMBRA’s ethos shapes every decision and interaction, ensuring a client-centric approach. Kate fosters a culture of empowerment and innovation within her team, valuing their input and prioritizing their well-being. From personalized birthday celebrations to mental health support, UMBRA goes the extra mile to show appreciation for its team members, fostering a positive and inclusive work environment.

In terms of messaging, UMBRA communicates directly to its audience, focusing on values rather than product-driven content. Kate’s dedication to making the private security sector more accessible and sustainable is evident in UMBRA’s outreach efforts, including educational initiatives like the Secure Lifestyle Coaching program. With a commitment to transparency and impact, UMBRA is on a mission to revolutionize the industry, leaving a legacy as the Founding Mother of Secure Lifestyle.

Amid economic challenges, UMBRA navigates inflation and interest rates by balancing fair pricing structures with a commitment to value and loyalty. Regular assessment of financial and market data guides strategic decision-making, while technology plays a pivotal role in addressing evolving security risks and opportunities.

To relax, recharge, and hone focus, Kate embraces biohacking, music, yoga, and meditation, aligning personal well-being with professional excellence. With a growth mindset and a commitment to sustainability, UMBRA pursues B Corp accreditation and international partnerships, striving to make a positive impact on society and the planet.

What is your USP

We are the only business globally providing a navigation through the complex and sometimes hard to understand, private security industry. We have brought a new paradigm of ‘Secure Lifestyle’ to an age old industry and are crashing through the stereotypes of what it is to be protected and feel safe.

We work with the world’s most interesting, dynamic and successful people and their families empowering them to take ownership of their feelings of safety, and help them hone their own ability to become more situationally aware in a fast-paced permacrisis world – focusing on education rather than simply a protective sticking plaster.

As a female founder in a historically male dominated industry we tend attract a new generation of clients who learn about our unique and future proofed ways to protect them, and who value my journey through the Close Protection world as a woman. These are often specifically the reasons they will hear about, be referred to, and ultimately work with us.

What is the main problem you solve for your customers?

We help prominent high profile people and their families with complex needs to feel safe. It is often hard for our clients to be able to build teams of trustworthy talented people, get the right advisory network in place, and regularly review the physical, digital, reputational and emotional support they need to be safe. We are a unique boutique ‘Secure Lifestyle’ navigation advisory for UK & international clients who take these problems away. We do this by vetting & recruiting the right people, providing timely risk-based advice and concierge style project management on behalf of our clients under one roof rather than having to work with multiple suppliers and services.

What made you start your business – did you want to rock the status quo, was it a challenge or a gap in the marketplace that you could fill?

I definitely saw a gap in the provision of ‘Invisible Security’ and Secure Lifestyle in all its forms. This was mostly from my unique standpoint as one of only a few women in the industry at an Operator level, and prior, as a gatekeeping Chief of Staff, where I struggled to bring together the right holistic security strategy in the way that UMBRA does. As I developed the business I saw there was a huge need to challenge the industry norms, and I was gradually able to change the industry mindsets around the modern private client and their holistic needs, based on my deep knowledge and now decades of experience working directly with these families. The fact that no one had coined the term ‘Secure Lifestyle’ seemed to give UMBRA an instantly recognizable ‘concierge’ type white glove approach that traditional security companies seemed to be struggling with as it is time – and labour – intensive compared to corporate security provision.

Our team are proud to be able to bring the best services and suppliers to our clients in a jargon free manner, sitting always at our client’s site of the table through times of change to their circumstances. This change can be through relocation, liquidity event, succession or any number of reactive life events that alter our client’s perspective of their risk and emotional safety. We are proud to work with some of the worlds most impactful leaders and philanthropists who share our vision to create a safer world for everyone through our UMBRA Academy projects – and we are delighted to see other companies in the sector following suit and realising that growing businesses sustainability and with impact at the core is precisely why the modern consumer engages with any business.

What are your brand values?

WE have an internal document called THE UMBRA WAY – A CLIENT FOR LIFE – this sets out how we deliver our services around core themes: PERSONAL, PROACTIVE, POSITIVE, PRACTICAL. We are priviledged to work with some of the most interesting dynamic people and we like to make sure we are focused on them as the person, solving problems before they are problems, approaching their problems and quest for a Secure Lifestyle with a ‘glass half full’ mentality, and think outside the box to bring good advice, people and project management to the table.

OUR VALUES sit around these core themes, and we have them on our signature block so everyone we touch with our services knows what to expect when working with and for the team. These are – TRUST : TRANSPARENCY : FAMILY FOCUS : COLLABORATION : PEACE OF MIND. We are privileged to get to know our client community really well, and want them to know they can trust us, be open and empower themselves through the work we do. We work with multiple generations of families and so the needs of our own Team UMBRA family always comes first. A unqiuely collaborative business, we champion our industry and work with the best of the best from within it, as ultimately we want our clients to ‘feel safe’ – however that manifest for them.

Do your values define your decision making process?

Absolutely. Everyone in the team is empowered to understand the importance of ‘intrapreneurial thinking’ so I will regularly ask for advice from them amongst the zillions of ‘micro decisions’ I make every day. From our employment contracts giving benefits over and above that which a business our size would be giving to enable the team to work in a way that is best for them and their family, to decisions about who we work with, who must share our vision, our values go before us. As a leader I challenge myself regularly through coaching, strategy review and reflection to ensure that we are living and breathing why, and how, we do what we do.

Is team culture integral to your business?

Yes, as is leading from the top. The pandemic was a huge test of company culture – for most businesses. Creating team spirit and engagement now in a hybrid world, as well as ensuring the right timely in person face time with the team, clients and wider business community are all ways we ensure that every touch point with the business is aligned with our goals – to make the world a safer place.

I therefore have prioritized making UMBRA a safe place to work for the team – psychologically as well as physically. I still carry out 1-2-1 time monthly with the inner and wider team and make sure I ask how they are, and what more we can do for them.

A happy team is reflected in the interaction with clients, sometimes at the most stressful times of their life, so it is important our ‘wealth of health’ mantra is clear for all to see.

If team culture is integral to your business, what do you do to go the extra mile to to show your team you appreciate them?

The little things are the big things. I wanted to create an environment I could only have imagined working in. Flexible on working location and style (focused on delivery and quality), and remembering the important days, and celebrating the small and big wins.

Everyone gets a present (and day off) on their birthday. We celebrate everyone’s UMBRAversary, the day of their joining, with either an in person lunch if we are having a team day, or a virtual ‘high five’. Everyone receives a voucher on that day aligned with their needs and interests (family-focused, sport, learning etc).

One of our team days incorporated vitamin IV ‘drips’ and infusions for those who wanted a health boost, as well as days out to see the sights of the UK, including a strategy day on the British Airways i360 at 460 feet to really encourage ‘blue sky thinking’! we’ve signed up to the Fertility pledge, alongside huge businesses like Natwest and Channel 4 so the team know that whatever the stage of their family journey we will support them.

Mental Health First Aid training is a mandatory part of new team induction so we can look out for each other, and ourselves, and there are Mental Health days off written into contracts so that everyone can take preplanned long weekends to do something important to their overall wellbeing. A recent one of mine was a long weekend in Lisbon spent walking round and discovering the city and joining a local yoga club.

In terms of your messaging do you think you talk directly to your consumers in a clear fashion?

When you’re not selling a product that is clear, eg Coconut Water, and your services are breaking new ground as we are, we have to work harder to communicate who you are, what you sell and how you sell it.

A lot of what I talk about in my panel and keynote speeches, as well as through social media, is values rather than product driven. I talk a lot about the impact we want to have on the industry, the way we think outside the box on behalf of our clients, and the bigger mission we have to make the world a safer place.

We make use of professional platforms to talk about what we are tangiably doing to make our industry more accessible not just from the client side, in terms of services, but also from the perspective of working within it, such as our Sport to Security programme, encouraging & suppoprting ex sportswomen and men to transition to a career in security

I believe that any messaging can always be clearer, and I see examples of big brands ‘getting it wrong’ or not hitting the mark, and so we are working hard to articulate what we do through eg our Instagram channel currently in the way of more ‘FAQ’ and relatable ‘tips style’ content, and more widely in the form of our Secure Lifestyle Coaching for a broader audience. Our clients work with us because of these unique ways that we broaden the reach of services that are typically reserved for the super-wealthy, to a wider audience of those of us who simply want to know how to feel safe.

I would love for us to be known as the Founding Mother (not Father!) of Secure Lifestyle, and that as a legacy, I’ll take that!

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

A mixture of both. Because what we do services the premium end of the market, and we want to value the team and wider service partners we work with, we have to have a pricing structure that is fair, transparent and that moves with the times. Our investment of profits into purpose is part of the loyalty and community we inspire with our work. I’m reading ‘Net Positive’ at the moment which is inspiring me to think even bigger about our goals, and we are on the B Corp accreditation journey which will in part enable us to keep ensuring value for money as well as being able to reinvest into providing our services for those in need – our pro Bono work is often where we do most of the learning.

How often do you assess the data you pull in and address your KPIs and why?

Financial data is the lifeblood of any business and I keep a keen eye on our monthly targets, paying suppliers weekly instead of monthly. Having been on the supply side I know the importance of individual’s own cashflow for their financial security so will always stand by a weekly payment run being good for business. Our year-end is always a time to reflect on the past year, reset budgets alongside a refreshed 1 and 5 year strategy, and as a result we are proud to be growing steadily year on year, with 0 external investors.

Market data, Private Client and Wealth migration trends we pay close attention to, and increasingly we are using AI to assist us to understand geographical mapping of wealth migration trends. This informs our thinking around international expansion – where and how our clients are moving and relocating for education, work and enjoyment.

Is tech playing a much larger part in your day-to-day running of your company?

Absolutely. Particularly across the digital and cyber risks our clients face. We have to stay abreast of ‘risks’ that can change on a moment-to-moment basis, and the opportunities of where technology can provide mitigations to those risks in the form of services and solutions that are created on a moment-by-moment basis.

Chat GPT is a prime example – we started working with this AI based tech through our legal advisory network – I’ve used it to help me remain current with security trends for my talks, to compare / contrast our contracts and to gain insight & bolster knowledge around certain aspects of our service. I’m in my mid-forties so like to think I am digitally aware and enabled as well as having remembered a time before the technological revolution.

I’ve always said ‘as technology advances humans will have to become more exceptional’, and I stand by that. I am a human being who loves humans AND technology, and I keep an eye on Dame Stephanie Shirley’s incredible work with the Oxford Internet Institute – where we need to be aware of the societal/social and ethical effects of the internet and technology. She is an inspiration to me in terms of her early adoption of technology but never failing to prioritize the people – a hard balance to strike

What is your attitude to your competitors?

We don’t have competition, just collaborators. It may sound cheesy or arrogant to say it, and probably annoying to those who consider themselves to be our competitors (if you’ve not worked with us yet please get in touch to collaborate ) but genuinely there is no one doing what we are doing, particularly in making our sector more accessible and sustainable.

As such more and more of our industry and wider advisory community are approaching us to work with us. I believe in a ‘Formula 1 pitstop’ approach to our work – sometimes I am very much channeling my inner Toto Woolf, bringing the projects to our network of specialists and managing the outcome, other times we are called in to be a part of someone else’s pitstop team. Low ego, huge servings of humility and a hunger to provide the best service, on time, at the right price, with tangible benefits to the society we will be leaving behind is my mantra.

As a fiercely competitive person, growing up in a family of 2 brothers and a sister, the only competition I believe in now is the one with myself – to drive my own high performance and drive my own metrics of striving to be 1% better everyday, fail forwards fast and look after myself to the best of my abilities.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?

Look up the Japanese word ‘IKIGAI’. When the going gets tough, which it will, frequently, have something to remind you why you do what you do. Noticing a gap in the market for something is a really good start, but being really obsessively into what you’re doing, will see you through.

When your passion, mission, profession and vocation overlap you’ll never work a day in your life, just the problems you’re facing will become more complex, and the micro decisions of which I make 000s per day, increase in number and dimension.

Prioritize your physical, mental and spiritual health and always ask for help and advice. My advisory team – both official and unofficial are my guides and champions – and I could not have done it without them.

It can be a lonely and pressured place to be as the lead decision-maker of the business. What do you do to relax, recharge and hone your focus?

I am obsessed with the world of biohacking. So much so that it has now overlapped into my day job, I regularly host clients and our UMBRA community in the hyperbaric oxygen chamber – a room big enough for 4 people where we breathe highly pressurized oxygen to help boost cognitive performance and longevity. Its benefits are multifold, and as a massive fan of multitasking, that pleases me greatly.

I love music and am learning to DJ – I realized as a Grade 8 pianist way back in the dark ages, that I actually have an ear for a good tune and the power of music to help switch off and relax. Since a friend helped me download my shazam playlist to spotify and got me set up on mixing software I have not looked back.

Yoga has been a stalwart of my life for 20 years, as has Meditation since I did the London Meditation Center course years ago. Yoga, in all its forms is my ultimate safe space. Everywhere I go in the world I check into a local class, and as a result was doing breathwork before it became mainstream and highly recommend it for times of high stress as well as optimizing downtime. I regularly send clients pictures of the ‘box breathing’ framework when they are having a stressful time in their lives. I think you could say I relax, recharge and hone my focus like I do my day job – with enthusiasm, passion and energy!

What is your company’s eco strategy?

We are in the process of the B Corp accreditation to bring together all the work we do a a business to prioritize sustainability and impact. We are being helped by others in the B community and very much in growth mindset around what more we can do to ensure we play our part in addressing the problems we face as a society and planet.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

Firstly I’d like to see more progression on our B Corp accreditation and meet more of the B community. Secondly, I want to expand the delivery of our Secure Lifestyle Coaching, making what we do more accessible to those who want to understand how to empower themselves through simple things they can do to feel, and be safe. We are on course to have developed 2 of our international partnerships more fully – putting the ‘International’ into UMBRA.

We would love also to partner with other businesses that want to work more closely to represent the ‘best of british’ – I’m talking about this a lot to everyone I meet. Clients love the idea that we as a British Business have a grounding in a unique history and culture. As an internationally outward-facing business I almost act as a Trade Ambassador on my international travels, and I think it is really important in a post Brexit world that we get strategic about doing business in the UK/ I want to fly the flag more for our sector and encourage more clients that UK PLC is very much open for business despite the challenges we have faced as a nation in recent times.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Kate Bright, CEO, UMBRA International Group

Defining opportunities in the world of e-bikes

Established in 2015, Eskuta are the company behind the uniquely designed e-bike the SX-250. The bike, which is assembled by hand at the company’s headquarters and workshop in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, resembles a moped but is in-fact a road legal e-bike. A popular choice as the bike can be ridden anywhere a regular pedal cycle is permitted, so no sitting in timely traffic jams and no tax, insurance or fuel to pay for. In-line with electric vehicles becoming more prevalent in the UK market Eskuta have, in recent years expanded the consumer side of the business and are now looking to emulate this success into Europe.

Ian takes the time to chat to Business Matters …

What is the main problem you solve for your customers?

We have a diverse customer base which is split between consumer and B2B. Within the consumer stream our customers span all generations, however, their commonality is that they are all looking for a cost effective, carbon neural and cheap to run electric vehicle. Older customers love the bike for its more robust styling, comfort, storage capacity and safety features such as indicators, rear view mirrors and LED lighting, comfort saddle, suspension, and motorcycle grade braking system, which gives them a greater sense of presence and confidence on the road. Younger customers who may not have a driving licence enjoy the bike as it not only looks cool but it’s a great, easy way to get around. We also have several customers who due to a disability are unable to drive and so do not have a licence but want to be able to get around without relying on public transport.

What made you start your business – did you want to rock the status quo or fill a gap in the marketplace?

At the time of inception back in 2015, e-bikes were not at all mainstream in the UK. I identified that there was a gap in the market for consumers who wished to commute sustainably and cost-effectively and for business’s, particularly those in the takeaway and delivery industry who wished to reduce their delivery costs and, key to this particular market, reduce the time taken to complete deliveries. Quicker delivery times equal the more deliveries that can be completed and the great thing about using the SX-250 to get around is that it can be used in cycle lanes, which means no sitting in costly traffic jams. Time lost because of congestion costs the UK economy approximately £2 billion per year and as well as the huge economic costs, congestion also imposes serious environmental costs.

What are your brand values?

As an electric mobility company, we believe electrification can bring freedom of motion to the masses, whilst at the same time contribute to the longevity and heath of our planet. Our products are designed with this goal in mind, cost-effective, intuitive, micro, and sustainable.

Do your values define your decision-making process?

Absolutely, insomuch that within our decision-making process, the end goal is to bring freedom of sustainable motion to the masses. As a society we are on the verge of a transport revolution. Innovation and improvements in transport, vehicles and infrastructure have for the past century been slow and incremental. Radical new technologies are emerging that within a generation will transform everyday journeys. Zero carbon emission vehicles are replacing those powered by fossil fuels. New technologies, a re-think on urban architecture, a focus on the environment and radical ideas are all contributing to the acceleration we are now seeing in electric vehicle sector. Eskuta are at the forefront of this revolution; probing, innovating, and challenging the conventional as we all move towards a new era of transportation.

Is team culture integral to your business?

Totally, Eskuta is a family, we all work together as a team to meet the businesses goals and our team are committed to this culture and strategy, many of whom have been with the company since its infancy.

If team culture is integral to your business, what do you do to go the extra mile to to show your team you appreciate them?

Communication between all of us is key, the whole team is involved in developing the business strategy and each member plays a vital role in the day to day running of the business.  Being able to listen to each other is vital, as a team we consolidate feedback both good and bad, ideas and product development. They all know that Eskuta is a team effort, and we are all working together to hit the same goals. Additionally, the company operates a monthly bonus scheme whereby all members of the Eskuta team benefit from the company’s ongoing success.

In terms of your messaging do you think you talk directly to your consumers in a clear fashion?

Yes, communication is key to the success of the business. Both with our messaging from a wider marketing level through to our direct communications with our customers. In this respect our strategy has been to go back to basics. We speak to every customer that places an order. We also communicate with them via telephone, email, and text throughout the process from order placement, manufacture to delivery. Delivery is via our own trained driver and the customer receives a handover of the product at their door. Additionally, we communicate with our customers post-delivery to ensure they are totally satisfied with their bike and enjoying their purchase, as they should.

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

We have reviewed our pricing model based upon current dollar/GBP exchange rates, together with additional importation costs. We feel from a competitive perspective that we do not wish to increase prices further so in fact are absorbing additional costs in achieving this and ensuring our products are competitive.

How often do you assess the data you pull in and address your KPIs and why?

Constantly, to ensure that our customers and their reviews and recommendations, meet the expectations of the business. By doing so, we believe this is the only way we can grow our business.

Is tech playing a much larger part in your day-to-day running of your company?

More and more so and we are always looking to implement new innovations to make our processes simpler, easier, and more effective. We have recently introduced a tracking and communication App for our deliveries, which gives our customers real time data on their delivery. Additionally, we are automating several processes within the business to increase productivity, reduce manual work and overall improve the customer journey and experience.

What is your attitude to your competitors?

Respectful, insomuch that every business is working to create success and where possible improve. We believe we have the edge over our competitors with a unique product and a high level of customer service. For us to grow and remain ahead of our competitors, we need to constantly improve and be innovative in our products and processes, however, we also acknowledge electric mobility is a relatively new sector and a collective movement so from that perspective we are very supportive of the all the businesses within the community.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?

Believe in what you can achieve, and do not give up or be deterred by setbacks. Have a firm and detailed plan of action. Whilst this needs to be fluid as things change, the overall goal and ambition should remain constant.

It can be a lonely and pressured place to be as the lead decision maker of the business. What do you do to relax, recharge, and hone your focus?

Do not make the mistake of believing working all hours is beneficial. Everyone needs to take time to rest and recharge. I always try and switch off when I walk through the door of my home, as difficult that is. This helps me to be refreshed and focused for the next day.

What is your company’s eco strategy?

All our products utilise, where possible, components that are or can be recycled. Our packaging is removed as we build a complete product, and this export packaging is recycled accordingly. We are implementing initiatives to reduce our utility use and with this, our carbon footprint.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

• Commencement of our export business
• Replacement product line for our existing hero product the SX-250
• To expand our  B2B business via our own website

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Ian O’Connor – Managing Director, Eskuta

Carving a niche marketplace within a sector

Crafted to be the perfect Tequila base for Margarita cocktails and mixing. Neurita’s range of naturally flavoured Tequila are fruit infused, removing the need to add sugary triple sec syrup into Margaritas. So the UK’s #1 trending cocktail, Margaritas, are therefore simpler to make and lower in sugar.

Founder, Lucy Smith chats to Business Matters and shares her journey …

What made you start your business – did you want to rock the status quo or was it a gap in the marketplace that you could fill?

I have always loved Margaritas and through my work as a brand consultant on food and beverage brands have always followed market trends. I understood that Tequila was having a regeneration in other markets but when I looked at the UK Tequila category found it very traditional, and stoic in tone, contrasting the uplifting fun Margarita moments I drink Tequila in. I wanted to shake up what it meant to be a serious Tequila brand.

What are your brand values?

Neurita is a premium Tequila brand, authenticity, realness, inclusiveness is core to who we are and what we do. We are also here for Margarita moments so ‘fun’ would be a core personality trait that filters across to our values, we’re Tequila after all. Why do you need to be stone faced and serious to be a serious player?

Do your values define your decision making process?

Yes they do, from the manner in the way we communicate to our consumers to the agencies and suppliers we use. I’ve worked in the industry for close to 20 years and understand that authenticity and ‘realness’ is key to building long last relationships. Also that you can’t be all work and no play.

Is team culture integral to your business?

Yes, great team culture is core to the success of any brand. There is a number of people working on Neurita whom all uphold our values. Everyone working on the business I’d be happy to have a Marg with at the end of the week. That’s from shareholders to suppliers. We’re all in this together.

How do you go the extra mile to show your team you appreciate them?

Marg O’Clock is our shrine moment at the end of the week, the put down your tools and have a Marg moment. This is something we encourage in the team, it’s a celebration of what we’ve achieved together.

In terms of your messaging do you think you talk directly to your consumers in a clear fashion?

Yes, Neurita is very single minded that we are ‘Tequila crafted for Margaritas’. Single minded messaging is key to any brand when launching to avoid confusion but also utilize marketing budgets.

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

At this stage no, we are instead reviewing how to reduce internal costs / cut out any waste. Every cost and raw material is increasing to be honest. We’ve bought raw materials in bulk to avoid short term increases and currency flux. I believe that as business it’s our responsibility to put our loyal consumers first.

How often do you assess the data you pull in and address your KPIs and why?

Everyday we’re reviewing, but also on a monthly basis we have a review of sales, consumer feedback, media, demand planning, our budgets and our overall strategy. Given the shifting nature of FMCG at the moment, our strategy is evolving on a monthly basis which we can do as we’re smaller and flexible. This is a great competitive advantage for us vs bigger players.

Is tech playing a much larger part in your day-to-day running of your company?

Absolutely, there are many platforms through our suppliers we’re using to help with the day to day. From accounting software, media tracking to flexibility in newer banking technologies. We also work remotely as a team (all scattered around different cities and countries).

What is your attitude to your competitors?

I think if your proposition is built on solid consumer insight it shouldn’t matter what your competitors are doing. You need to be aware of whom they are, their products innovation & sales promotions etc, but just because a competitor jumps it doesn’t mean you should too.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?

2 minds are better than 1, 3 minds are even better. One of the core reasons we have had success so early and are building at the rate we are is due to the team we have. We all have different views on things, challenge each other but also bring different skillsets to the team. This is key. You have good and bad days and weeks, a team also helps keep you going.

It can be a lonely and pressured place to be as the lead decision maker of the business. What do you do to relax, recharge and hone your focus?

I am big believer in writing down goals, both in business and in personal life. If you’re ever having a downer or feeling stressed it can be great to review and see how far you’ve come. A few Margs at the end of the week also helps!!

Do you believe in the 12 week work method or do you make much longer planning strategies? 

I believe in having longer term goals 1,3,5,10 years. While they are goals, they need to have flexibility in how you achieve them. Again, this is both within business and personal life . If anything the last few years has taught us is how uncertain the world can be and those that are resilient and flexible are the ones who will make it.

What is your company’s eco strategy?

This is very important to us. We were very eco conscious when launching Neurita, looking to use only recyclable or reusable materials. We import our Tequila in bulk to the UK and bottle it locally so we’re not ‘shipping glass and air’ for example. It’s something we continue to review in a ‘ eco value up waste out’ manner.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

1. Listing in our ‘must have’ bars and restaurants (this is mapped out)
2. Make Neurita Margaritas the at home cocktail in the UK of summer 2024
3. Listing in a major retailer

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Lucy Smith, founder Neurita Tequila

Upping the ante on family fun and interior style

It’s time to show the world that you can take to the floor, and make a mess without compromising the style and care of your home. That was Susie Stubbs’ mission when she set up Totter + Tumble. Today her team remain solid on that wish to create the best in class products for growing families, while helping to maintain a sense of personal style and pride in the home.

Susie takes some time out of her day to chat to Business Matters …

What made you start your business – did you want to rock the status quo or was it a gap in the marketplace that you could fill?

After completing a home renovation, I just couldn’t face placing down our garish, puzzle piece playmat. Not only did it overwhelm our new, stylish space, but the individual pieces were low quality and  frustrating to put together. I knew there could be a high quality, better solution, which inspired me to create it.

What is your USP?

Our playmats are designed with the busy family home in mind. They aren’t just for babies. They are for babies, for toddlers, older children and for adults. Our thick, memory foam mats are created with interior trends in mind too, so that they complement your well-considered home interiors. But most of all, they are a multi-functional and supportive floor covering. For tummy time, lego building or yoga, Totter + Tumble has it covered.

What are your brand values?

We believe that your home should feel like home, especially as your family grows. You shouldn’t have to sacrifice your personal style, in order to support, comfort and keep your children safe! That’s why we created Totter & Tumble – For them, for you, and for all the things that make your house your home.

Do your values define your decision making process?

Absolutely! Our founding principles of simple, stylish, support and safe will always be forefront of our decision-making.

At Totter + Tumble we want to be proud of what we create- be it our playmats, the brand or the business in general. We recognise that for a busy family they want to focus their time and energy on their children, and not their playmat. So we created that. We talk to our customers as proud customers ourselves, with honesty and integrity . By not focusing on the sales but instead on the product, the brand and our people, means that we, as a team, are intent  on growing a great business and one we are proud to be part of.

Is team culture integral to your business at Totter + Tumble?

We are a remote team of 7 at the moment, so being aligned on principles as well as the strategy is imperative. We don’t get those coffee break chats you do in an office, though regular whole team meetings, working across shared inboxes and project planners helps keep us all united. With such a small team, we have single people wholly responsible for areas they’d otherwise have whole teams to support, so everyone’s input makes a huge difference to the overall output. It makes it really exciting and rewarding, but at the same time, work has to work for them. Our business is all about recognising that parenting is demanding, so as a team of parents we too support each other too both professionally and personally. If one person is struggling, you can put a bet on everyone else jumping in to help regardless of expertise. The initiative to get stuck in and help out is one of our top criteria when recruiting.

What do you do to go the extra mile to to show your team you appreciate them?

We have a combination of ways to support our team, both in the structure of how we work and in the little extras. Totter + Tumble has always had a remote and flexible working policy: Our team is valued on the work they do, not the hours they are present for, which gives each person ownership for their area as well as the ability to create their own schedule that enables them to work well and live well. Encouragement to go to those school shows or take exercise without feeling guilt or pressure is so important to us and makes for a happier and more productive team. And of course, birthday gifts, team meet ups, and Christmas celebrations all help too!

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

The beauty of founder-led businesses is that we generally do everything with the customer in mind, including pricing. Whilst adapting and being flexible is a real strength of smaller businesses, having the cash flow to negotiate tougher economic times is rarer. Our biggest inflation came at the end of 2020 when shipping costs increased 10 fold and our raw materials went up an extraordinary amount too. We took the hit for as long as we could, but without an end in sight and without wanting to compromise our product, we put our prices up in 2022  to share the costs out for a more sustainable and secure future. As purchasers we have the power to use our money wisely, to purchase good value products and services from companies that earn our trust. Any brand not thinking about the customer is in for a rockier time.

How often do you assess the data you pull in and address your KPIs and why?

Probably not as often as you may think. We are really fortunate that our Totter + Tumblers are incredible brand champions, and families keep growing, so we are able to focus on building the brand, and not analysing the data for sales at every opportunity. That being said, we have great tools at our disposal such as shopify, Klaviyo (email marketing), Meta and google, that tell us a lot, but really it is our socials that we are really tuned in to – that is where we hear first hand from our customers and see what is really going on. Data tells us a lot about has happened,  but by being tuned in to the customer, you get a far better analysis of what is happening now.

Is tech playing a much larger part in your day-to-day running of your company?

We use some great platforms to stay connected and wolf collaboratively with each other, such as Monday.com and Front. Shopify, Klaviyo and fulfilment software allows us to deliver a great customer experience post purchase too. As an ecommerce company, social media is key to connecting with our customers at every stage of their journey with us. From creating an AR filter so they can ‘try before they buy’ to engaging with them in their key milestone memories.

What is your attitude to your competitors?

We are confident in what we offer so we don’t feel there is harm in competition at all, but it has been painful to see imitators pop up since we launched in 2018. It is frustrating when there is so much space for businesses with an authentic and original offering.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?

My top three would be don’t rush, don’t compromise, and hire people better than you, before you need them.

It can be a lonely and pressured place to be as the lead decision maker of the business. What do you do to relax, recharge and hone your focus?

I’d love to say I have a handle on this, but it is very much a work in progress. In parenting it is known as  the ‘mental load’ especially as a mother or primary care giver, but running your own business as a parent doubles this – and it is 24/7.  I’ve had to be really reflective and strict to carve the time out, but it took years and having a great team with me to take any meaningful steps.

Do you believe in the 12 week work method or do you make much longer planning strategies?

We don’t have fixed strategies of any length, but rather have a commitment to our ultimate goals and shorter term initiatives that help us keep moving towards them. Being nimble has served us well, especially in the last few years.

What is your company’s eco strategy?

We are so aware of how damaging green washing can be and we will always strive to be more eco-friendly. For us sustainability starts with products designed with function foremost, with quality materials chosen for their features, made safely and intentionally with those who they are aimed for. That way we should consume less, have value laden items that last longer and avoid landfill. We spent a year before we found our incredible factory in South Korea who operate to the highest standards, and therefore our playmat reduces the number of products you’ll need, can be reused and, eventually, recycled.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

We’ve only just started out in the US, so getting to know our American Totter + Tumbler’s in that market is key for us. And of course, we have some beautiful designs on the way to help more families free the floor!

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Susie Stubbs, Founder of Totter + Tumble

Could connected packaging elevate your consumer experience?

We’ve all been there, you’re out shopping and you tap a product with your smartphone to launch an experience in a brand’s digital realm. Whether it’s QR Codes, NFC or augmented reality, the experience from a packaged product has elevated the way that we shop … thanks to Cameron Worth’s global business SharpEnd.

SharpEnd works with brands in over 130 countries, making it easy for consumer brands to scale connected packaging, by making sure they have everything under one roof (experience, technology and data).

Cameron takes some time from his schedule to share his thoughts with Business Matters ..

What is the main problem you solve for your customers?

Professionally, we help brands scale connected products (via packaging mostly) as a new engagement platform that yields valuable customer data and insights. We do this via integrating QR Codes, NFC or Augmented Reality onto physical touchpoints such as product packaging (which tech we choose is generally guided by vertical focus). Simply put, consumers tap a product with their smartphone to launch an experience in a brand’s digital realm. Once we’ve created the ID’s they are then managed on our io.tt platform which is live in more than 130 countries and used by a lot of the world’s biggest brand owners.

This technology presents a real opportunity for brands to connect with their customers and adoption is picking up pace. Our Connected Experience Report, the first-ever definitive study on how and why consumers engage with connected products, showed that 86% of consumers who like NFC agree that the technology is exciting, and 55% are more likely to buy a connected product if it introduces them to a new product experience. This is where SharpEnd comes in, we’re supporting brands in rolling out this technology (many for the first time at scale) and it’s transforming the way consumers are shopping and engaging with brands.

Take our roll-out for Clinique (part of Estée Lauder Companies).  In a beauty-industry first last year, we used the io.tt platform for NFC-enabled products across 35 countries giving consumers an experience-led gateway to exclusive content. From skin analysis to product recommendations, how-to tutorials, and loyalty rewards, there is a raft of content available for customers to access simply by tapping their smartphone on the NFC enabled packaging of the moisturiser. Emilia Clarke fronted the campaign which was the first time many consumers around the world would have been introduced to the concept of connected packaging and what it can give them. The campaign won several prestigious awards and it was an amazing shift in how beauty brands communicate (product to service).

What made you start your business – did you want to rock the status quo or was it a gap in the marketplace that you could fill?

My fascination started with QR codes on beer mats about 15 years ago and I’ve been obsessed with ‘physical to digital’ ever since. That then became called IoT, which then became connected experiences, and now it’s just sort of rested at physical to digital.

I started SharpEnd in 2015 at 25 years old to prove a point – that connected products need creativity as much as technology. At the time, other businesses were only focused on ‘how many QR codes or NFC tags can we put on products?’ while I was, and remain, laser-focused ‘but why would anyone engage in the first place?’ Without engagement there’s no success, without success there’s no scale, without scale there’s a very sales-intensive business that I’d never want to run.

If I was right, and creativity was the important thing, then I would have the world’s biggest brand owners as clients and have real leverage and insight to make some moves. That happened.

We then went on to build the infrastructure, called io.tt, that would power this connected future as it still didn’t exist (regardless of how many overly complex IoT businesses tell you it did). 10 trillion products coming online equals big data opportunities and challenges to address. So we did that too.

These days we’re an effective (and fast growing) team of about 50 people, across two continents and together, we support some of the world’s most ambitious brand owners in more than 130 countries, from Estée Lauder Companies, Compari, Levi’s and Balmain.

What are your brand values?

Communicating with honesty and integrity is important and trying to make decisions during calm moments is something I’ve learnt to be incredibly valuable.

Do your values define your decision making process?

Rarely am I in a situation where I can’t/don’t rely on my values to guide my decision, and I really get affected when I have to make decisions that can’t sit perfectly with my values. I set out to have my own company to enjoy that autonomy.

I also categorise where possible – to me there’s difficult decisions, straightforward decisions, fun decisions and heavy decisions. I try to give each decision their own credit and focus, and have done a lot of work to understand how my processes impact my decision making. Scenario planning is one of my biggest pleasures and heaviest burdens.
I am comforted in the knowledge that my team around me is well composed. I see what I’m doing as a team effort and credit everyone equally to ensure I only feel proud and content behind closed doors.

Is team culture integral to your business?

I think so. I’ve told the team for the last few years that this is their business now, and my work is to look after the company. It creates the right amount of space where I’m not expected to dictate culture and gives the team a greater sense of ownership which is important.

We tripled during Covid to 30 people, and have kept growing ever since. After such a period of fast growth, we were totally unrecognisable as a business, so had to start again understanding who we are as a team and as an organisation. That for me was when the culture topic became fluid and evolving.

We do have one rule which I mandated called ‘Tribal Dynamics’ – it’s the appreciation that absolutely everything we do is based on the whole team doing their respective things, so we don’t call people out individually. No employees of the month, all that stuff.

In terms of your messaging do you think you talk directly to your consumers in a clear fashion?

We exist to help brands speak directly to their consumers through products they buy and use via technologies such as QR codes and NFC on packaging. So it’s an interesting process that requires clear communication along the chain.

I think what we offer to brands is very simple – Put X onto your products to unlock Y and receive Z. In a complex space like the IoT, clear communication is essential and one of the things I believe clients really like about what we’re doing here is that we make a confusing space easy to understand.

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

Our platform business is saving clients a huge amount of money on acquiring customer data – which is a very clear business model. When you compare the cost of a scan of a QR on pack to that of a ‘click’ of a paid Instagram post or a PPC advert on search, you instantly see the huge media value (or saving).

One of the unique benefits of connected packaging is the ability to track and measure ROI in real time. This has been a limitation of analogue packaging. We’ve been building out a measurement methodology and ROI model over the past year which will allow packaging to be viewed on a level playing field against other media channels. The good news is that all of our programs indicate just how powerful this medium is. This includes engagement, conversion, sharing of first-party data, and transactions alongside the rich marketing intelligence that each connected product provides.

How often do you assess the data you pull in and address your KPIs and why?

Data protection is, and should be, a top priority for brands and technology providers such as ourselves. Particularly as we’re a global business we need to make sure we’re clean in all areas. For that reason we have a data protection officer that makes sure everything we do is compliant with regulations like GDPR and CCPA in the different regions. The platform has obtained several security certificates and we pride ourselves on security and compliance.

Brands own all the data they collect via our io.tt, and we’re very clear to them that we have no rights over/to it.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?

• Don’t call yourself an entrepreneur, let others do it for you
• Try to keep space between your work and home identities
• Take pride at the right times, stay centred the rest
• Ensure among the chaos and uncertainty that you maintain a creative outlet that nourishes your soul

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

• We will be 65 people, with at least 10 in the US
• I will have had an actual holiday of rest and reflection without checking mails
• We have reached the 500bn product milestone on the io.tt platform

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Cameron Worth, Founder and CEO of SharpEnd

Women entrepreneurs take note: your presence is required online

On a mission to ignite the power of female entrepreneurship through comprehensive, personalised social media marketing services, Dawn Baxter founded Beyond the Dawn, her digital business, to foster the growth and success of women-led businesses by providing a full suite of services from content creation, brand shoots, website design to podcasting, and more. Determined to challenge the conventional ‘bro-marketing’ approach with their pink-powered, ethical strategy has paid off, already driving millions in client sales. She takes the time to talk to Business Matters …

What is the main problem you solve for your customers?

We create supportive training, personal growth and tangible business assets that support building exceptional businesses and enhanced authentic visibility and messaging.

What made you start your business – did you want to rock the status quo, was a gap in the marketplace that you could fill?

Yes. We wanted to show our feminine edge as a positive and show that women in the world of marketing can do things in a different way.

What are your brand values?

In all that we do, we pledge to stay true to our core values of inclusivity, ethical practices, and exceptional customer service, making Beyond the Dawn not just a brand, but a catalyst for women to rise and shine in the digital world.

We believe in the strength of every woman to build a thriving online presence, and we commit ourselves to aid her journey, every step of the way. Our passion lies in empowering women to dare, dream, and achieve more in their businesses, carving a unique identity that shatters traditional norms.

Is team culture integral to your business?

Yes it wouldn’t be possible for us to achieve all we have without the amazing team we have. The dedication to supporting people is deeply ingrained in our culture and we love being the not so secret weapon behind supporting thought leaders who are changing the world in a positive way!

What do you do to go the extra mile to to show your team you appreciate them?

We are very close as a team and have regular time together away from work as friends and colleagues, we travel together and we like to inject fun into our day together too. We lean on each other and have built trust and connection together both personally and professionally.

In terms of your messaging do you think you talk directly to your consumers in a clear fashion?

Yes we do and we cover a lot of ground with many themes and differing opinion but our message is always the same throughout. It can be done, ethically and with joy and we can help you to do it.

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

2024 is the year we give back. We have frozen prices where we can and where we cannot we have added ridiculous value to ensure that our clients are rewarded for their loyalty and get more bang for their buck.

How often do you assess the data you pull in and address your KPIs and why?

Monthly. We don’t just review our own data , we review our clients data too and look for general trends and patterns as well. It is so important for us to be able to keep on top of how the market is moving and have a clear understanding that benefits us and our clients alike.

Is tech playing a much larger part in your day-to-day running of your company?

Our Tech VA services is one of our most popular services in 2023 and is showing great interest in increasing to meet the demand of our lovely clients. We are always here for extra tools that get the job done and yet know that our mission is to support the growth and joy in experience for humans!

What is your attitude to your competitors?

We embrace others in the industry, there is more than enough work for everyone and everyone has a different style in delivery! In the way we do our business we feel this comes from our heart and collective personalities, it defines us as a different and unmatched entity. For us “competition” only exists in beating our old targets and performing on a higher rate for our cherished clients.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?

Don’t be scared to do it your way. The temptation is to copy others but all this gets you is passing visibility back to the original person who created that in the first place. Come into the party with your own style and know that you have the chance to do whatever you feel you want to as long as you stay true to your own purpose.

It can be a lonely and pressured place to be as the lead decision maker of the business. What do you do to relax, recharge and hone your focus?

I love a spa day and relaxing with my friends. I also like to spend focused time with my children to get out of work mode and into personal mode. I don’t find making decisions difficult because we use data to support us in making educated decisions and forecasting.

Do you believe in the 12 week work method or do you make much longer planning strategies?

I plan our business strategy in terms of 3 years and less, we reverse engineer a lot of what we do and although 12 – 16 weeks will get more detailed focus we always know where we are heading in the next couple of years.

What is your company’s eco strategy?

Each month we pay a little eco insurance to offset our carbon footprint and we are always driving recycling and sustainability as much as we can.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

We are working towards offering more self study products for our clients. We would love to be able to offer more services in the area of podcasting and we are rapidly outgrowing our current premises so watch this space!

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Dawn Baxter, CEO and Founder of Beyond the Dawn

Going public in your vision for 2024?

As an active investor in SMEs for almost two decades, Paul Seabridge is CEO and Founder of Mergers, Acquisitions, Private Equity firm Opulentia Capital. They help companies achieve scale by taking them public, and over the years Paul and his team has completed over £250m worth of deals, across 90+ transactions, 9 countries and 26 industries. Paul is passionate about people, seeing them as the core of any business.

Preferring to work for himself and learn on the job, Paul cut his teeth in real estate, establishing himself as someone able to analyse strategic problems, identify opportunities and turn round companies to make them more efficient and more profitable.

Recently, Paul released his new book Build, Buy, Sell shares his expertise in buying or starting a business and developing it to its full potential, covering topics such as recruitment, sales, business finance and accounting and then how to sell on a business through an IPO, merger, acquisition or similar.

What is Opulentia’s USP?

Most private equity firms are investors, whereas, whilst we are investors, we are also entrepreneurs – all the founders in Opulentia Capital have started, built and sold a business, so we understand the challenge entrepreneurs face.

Having started in the recruitment industry, we have now participated in over 23 industries, made over £250 million worth of transactions and been involved as shareholders in 60 plus businesses.

As well as this, we aim to not only take care of the monetary aspect of a business owner’s exit, we also make sure to provide opportunity to the company’s current staff, protect the legacy of the brand and look for inorganic and organic growth opportunities for the business.  Our approach towards managing the businesses post-acquisition is what makes us stand out from the crowd.

What is the main problem you solve for your customers?

We help businesses grow and scale. Our vision is to partner with well-run entrepreneurial businesses to ensure they have access to capital, resources, support and expertise needed to help them reach their full potential.

What made you start your business – did you want to rock the status quo, or was it a gap in the marketplace that you could fill?

Having sold my first start-up in 2010, I wanted to emulate being an angel investor to acquire or invest in businesses, not just providing capital for growth but also my expertise in business.

What are your brand values?

As a business, our brand values are: ambitious growth, shareholder value, trust, being ethical and diversity and inclusion.

Do your values define your decision making process?

Yes we only get involved with businesses that share the same values. When investing we want to make sure that people feel they are selling their business into a safe pair of hands, and this is easier when values are shared and we’re all on the same page.

Is team culture integral to your business?

Yes – I’d describe it as a high performance culture. Everyone shares in our journey to achieve our goals and vision.

What do you do to go the extra mile to show your team you appreciate them?

We offer our people a share scheme so they can be a part owner of the company and have a genuine vested interest in the future by benefitting financially from the work they do. There are regular incentives and trips abroad also.

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

I’m not an economist but I believe higher inflation and interest rates will be around for a while yet. It costs more to do business (energy, wages etc) and borrow for growth – but that creates opportunity – it’s about demonstrating to your customers the value you create and the problems you can solve.

How often do you assess the data you pull in and address your KPIs and why?

We use a CRM that we can use to pull data off to see each stage of the sales pipeline. It also means we can drill down into the details to assess progress and identify any bottlenecks.

I don’t think there is a right or wrong way to address and track KPIs; you can track four KPIs or forty. If you have lots, this helps identify problems; if you have a few, you can really focus on the key metrics. As an investor in businesses, I typically only track revenue, gross profit margin and EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation), which essentially amount to cash- flow generated, I compare it to historic figures so I can see how we are improving. Data is an essential part of being able to do this well.

Is tech playing a much larger part in your day-to-day running of your company?

Yes, in fact we have even developed our own marketing software that has automated part of our processes, creating efficiency.

What is your attitude to your competitors?

Competition is healthy. There are some competitors we respect and even partner with.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?

I would recommend getting a mentor – someone that has been in your shoes and learn from them. Also hire the best people you can. Being a successful entrepreneur is about more than just you. Having the right (and the best) people in the right places doing the right things is crucial. Mentors are hugely beneficial and can help you avoid costly mistakes – though it’s likely you will still make mistakes along the way.

Then ensure you have a winning marketing and sales plan, and always strive to stay in financial control. Get those things right and you are on the right path. Get just one of them wrong and you will likely join the 95% of failed start-ups. Business success may not look how you thought it would – work out what success looks like for you and then begin to build it.

Entrepreneurs are renowned for flitting from one project to the next, it’s what I call ‘shiny new thing’ syndrome. One of the big lessons I learned here was that, when you fall out of love with a business, it’s time to get out. When you are no longer passionate, you lose focus and the business declines.

It can be a lonely and pressured place to be as the lead decision maker of the business. What do you do to relax, recharge and hone your focus?

I love to travel, and whilst I rarely switch off 100%, exploring new places and spending time with loved ones helps me to relax.

Do you believe in the 12 week work method, or do you make much longer planning strategies?

We have short, medium and long term goals. Each year we review the business plan and set a target for the year and then regularly review progress against the plan.

What is your company’s eco strategy?

We try to be environmentally friendly as possible. For example, we monitor our carbon foot print, look for sustainable energy suppliers and recycle where possible.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

1. Expand the team further
2. Achieve £100 million of acquired revenue
3. Open a further office in Australia (we are already in Melbourne and want to be in Sydney also).

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Paul Seabridge, CEO of Opulentia Capital

Non-recyclable waste? Finally, there’s a transformative solution

It is inevitable reality that more of our homes, communities and industry need to decarbonise and reduce their carbon emissions. KEW Technology turns non-recyclable waste and low-grade biomass into sustainable energy. Their mission is to deliver advanced circular solutions that help address the energy trilemma – the provision of energy affordably, securely and sustainably for hard-to-abate sectors such as off-grid energy, energy-intensive industries, chemicals and transport.

This is such a critical issue to solve, I was excited to hear Kamal’s Secrets of Success and how, along with his dedicated team, he’s pioneered the solution and brought it to life. He took time out of his day to share his story and if this issue is on your mind to fix for your business this year, please read on and be inspired for 2024 …

What made you start KEW Technology – did you want to rock the status quo, was it a gap in the marketplace that you could fill?

As an engineer originally from Kenya, I always envisaged a world without fossil fuels. How I was going to achieve this was the hardest part. I wrote the business idea for KEW on the back of a napkin one night when I met our CTO Hans Mansson and COO Kevin Chown. Hans and Kevin are now an integral part of the senior leadership team and true advocates of the 10-year journey we have been on. We designed the initial concept of our first sustainable energy plant that night and then had to work out how we were going to fund it. With over £50m of funding received so far, we’ve tried and tested our technology at our Sustainable Energy Centre in the West Midlands and are now preparing to take this to market on a commercial scale.

What is the main problem you solve for your customers?

Our transformative solution goes beyond mitigating methane and fossil fuels emissions; it pioneers a shift from waste to sustainable energy products, simultaneously addressing broader environmental and health concerns in our communities. By bridging the gap between waste management and clean energy, KEW catalyses positive change, contributing to a healthier, more sustainable future for both the environment and the people and planet we serve.

How does your solution work?

By taking any form of waste (including non-recyclable and low-grade biomass), our technology converts it into fuel and different advanced molecules for use across hard-to-abate sectors such as energy-intensive industries, off-grid energy, transport, and chemicals thereby making it truly multi-functional. So our innovative pressurised advanced gasification process, a form of Advanced Conversion Technology (ACT), can play a vital role in decarbonisation across multiple sectors.

And it’s now this advanced gasification technology, that is revolutionising the waste-to-energy sector and is reaching its watershed moment by being at the heart of two major parallel market solutions with a mission to address some of our climate’s biggest problems.

This strategic approach aims to make sustainable energy and waste management universally affordable and accessible, contributing to breakthrough momentum in solving the complex challenges associated with the global energy transition.

What are your brand values?

Sustainable waste management and energy provision are key global climate change challenges. KEW Technology is crucial in scaling up waste-to-energy solutions that can address both those challenges simultaneously.

Our core brand values align around:

1. Innovation: we emphasise a decade-long commitment to technological innovation, showcasing a pioneering spirit in waste-to-advanced energy solutions.
2. Sustainability: The core of our mission is to deliver sustainable solutions that address the energy trilemma, promoting affordability, security, and sustainability.
3. Accessibility: we have a commitment to making sustainable energy and waste management universally affordable and accessible, suggesting a value for inclusivity and broad societal impact.
4. Environmental Stewardship: our focus on transforming waste into sustainable energy products indicates a dedication to environmental stewardship, contributing to a healthier and more sustainable future.
5. Global Impact: The vision of delivering a world beyond fossil fuels demonstrates our commitment to making a significant global impact on reducing carbon emissions and advancing clean energy solutions.

We also champion internal core values centred on excellence, respect, innovation, collaboration, continuous improvement, and accountability.

Do your values define your decision-making process?

Absolutely, we are pro-actively working to contributing to meeting the global climate targets by leading the deployment of emerging and innovative technology that is pioneering the transition to a zero-waste world through enabling circular economy solutions for the production of sustainable energy supply for the hard-to-abate sector. Our values play a big role in guiding our choices in technology, sustainability, affordability, and strategic global impact.

What is your company’s eco strategy?

As a sustainable energy business, our ethos revolves around environmental consciousness. Our strategy is centred on guiding clients and stakeholders towards a world beyond fossil fuels. Through our technology, we aim to not only facilitate this transition but also to educate and inspire others to join us. Winning the hearts and minds of stakeholders is key as we embark on this growth journey together.

Is team culture integral to your business?

Surrounding yourself with the right people is crucial, especially when you are in the start-up stage of any business. I’ve been fortunate to have recruited some of the best minds in the business. Over the last decade creating the right culture has been key for us to grow and prove the worth of our technology and innovation. By recruiting a diverse workforce, we have collectively achieved what KEW stands for today; a pioneer in sustainable energy technology and solutions.

What do you do to go the extra mile to show your team you appreciate them?

Firstly, they are rewarded with a competitive salary package. There is a shortage of green skills in the industry, so when we have found the right candidate, it’s important we retain this talent. Especially at our Sustainable Energy facility in the heart of the Black Country as this is where many green skills are deployed.

To show our way of thanks throughout the year we arrange company days which involve a team meeting off-site, followed by a special evening where the team can socialise with their peers.

Beyond this, we aim to always foster a strong team culture, and always strive to go the extra mile to appreciate our team through regular recognition, personalised feedback, professional development opportunities, and inclusive team-building activities. We prioritise open communication, value diverse perspectives, and foster a supportive work environment that encourages both individual growth and collaborative success.

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

In the face of inflation and rising interest rates, our commitment to customer loyalty remains paramount. While cost pressures may impact margins, we aim to strike a balance. Our primary focus is on maintaining the quality and reliability of our advanced gasification services. We are actively exploring efficiency measures and cost optimisations to mitigate the impact on customers, ensuring a fair and sustainable pricing strategy that reflects our dedication to long-term partnerships.

What is your attitude to your competitors?

We’re pioneers, creating the market for innovative and emerging technology in collaboration with our peers. Our current focus is on fostering collaboration rather than competition. We firmly believe that by collectively shaping the landscape, we’ll naturally pave the way for healthy competition in the future. For us, it’s about leading with our technology and vision, establishing a strong presence in our sector.

It can be a lonely and pressured place to be as the lead decision maker of the business. What do you do to relax, recharge and hone your focus?

We all work long hours at KEW, so downtime is very precious to me and the team. For me personally, finding solace in my downtime involves spending time with family and occasionally getting involved in motor racing. Just as in business, racing demands precision, strategy, and a clear focus. The intensity of the race-track becomes a parallel to the high-pressure decisions in the business realm. It’s a unique way to recharge, offering valuable insights and fostering the mental resilience needed at the helm of KEW while also getting a chance to team-build and connect with stakeholders outside the workplace.

Do you believe in the 12-week work method or do you make much longer planning strategies?

While we appreciate the effectiveness of the 12-week work method, our planning strategies extend beyond that horizon. Given the dynamic nature of our industry and our commitment to continuous improvement, we find value in longer planning horizons. It allows us to align with our transformative vision, incorporate evolving technologies, and adapt to changing market landscapes. This approach ensures a harmonious balance between short-term agility and long-term strategic vision, crucial for our pioneering role in the energy transition working towards bet zero and beyond.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?

Never give up, believe in your vision and keep going until you’ve fulfilled it. Be proud of what you’ve achieved, no matter how big or small the wins are.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

In the next 12 months, our goals are clear: a market ready proposition for both industry and investors, the onboarding of future talent to shape the next decade, and substantial progress in developing our project pipeline. 2024 stands as a tipping point for KEW, signalling a transformative era and substantial change.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Kamal Kalsi, CEO and Co-Founder at KEW Technology

Could you change your articles of association to ensure the ESG impact of every decision is considered?

Set on becoming the world’s most sustainable marketing agency, Webmart have. So this means that when they take an integrated approach to each client’s marketing campaigns, they’re also building in their solid values of people, planet and profit. Yes, this agency is BCorp, and they’re bossing it. Aside from designing strategic creatives, they have actively developed their own print carbon calculators to PAS2060 standards and are working with the Scottish government to rewild 164 acres of woodland.

They live and breathe their values, which in turn gives their clients the much needed transparency over their impact to be able to reach their marketing and their ESG goals and an opportunity to offset the emissions through an approved scheme. As consumers are demanding more conscious options of product lines, it’s only a matter of time until they start demanding that those products are marketed to them in a conscious way.

Simon takes the time to share his news and views with Business Matters …

What is the main problem you solve for your customers?

We look at the strategy as a whole and work out which existing areas can be improved, optimising their existing budget rather than increasing it. For example, we recently worked with Pavers, the footwear retailer, and saved over £170,000 by re-engineering their mailing format to qualify for more efficient postage rates. Through this process, we also reduced their CO2e output by 30 tonnes. We aim to make small, logical improvements, rather than overhaul an entire strategy simply because one or two areas aren’t performing as well as expected.

What made you start your business – did you want to rock the status quo, or fill a gap in the marketplace?

Rock the status quo! I built Webmart on Marxist-capitalist principles, which sound contradictory but work together symbiotically. I aimed to build a profitable business where the team could work hard and be rewarded for those efforts, which is where the capitalist principles are important. Where the Marxist-capitalism difference comes into play is what we do with the profits we generate.

Webmart has been built to benefit the stakeholders and not the shareholders. We use our profits to reward our staff, invest in sustainability initiatives, support our local communities and charitable causes. The result is a profitable, sustainable business of 27 years which has created industry-leading sustainable marketing solutions and has donated hundreds of thousands to good causes.

What are your brand values?

We focus our efforts on balancing People, Planet and Profit.

We support our people (our Webmarteers) by including long-standers in our annual profit-share scheme and new starters in the Bonus for Outstanding Achievement (BFOA) scheme to ensure no one is left out. We offer additional family days off per year and free mental health support through The Printing Charity.

Our green efforts are listed below in response to the eco-strategy question.

As well as supporting our Webmarteers with any annual profits, we also ensure that we are consistent with our charitable giving. Charities can apply throughout the year for a one-off £150 grant and just before Christmas we did a £10,000 giveaway to charities close to our Bicester and Barnsley offices. To date, we have given away over £700,000 in charitable donations.

What is Webmart’s eco strategy?

In 2021 we became a certified B Corp, an award that we are incredibly proud of, and the result of several months of hard work. Before we joined the prestigious few UK B Corps that existed, we had already implemented several eco-initiatives to support the environment including:

• Our Oxygen Farm, which is based in Coldingham, Scotland and home to 164 acres of woodland and a solar-powered log cabin. In partnership with the Scottish government, we are working to rewild the entire area over the next 20 years and create a wealth of ponds and nature trails for future generations to enjoy
• We aim to be as green as possible in both our north and south offices. We have added a fleet of electric vehicles at both sites and also installed solar panels at our Bicester office
• We are a carbon-neutral certified company
• We are FSC and PEFC accredited
• In July 2021 we launched our postage solution, Enviromail. We calculate the carbon emissions from our client’s postage to PAS2060 standards and offset twice that amount through accredited carbon offsetting schemes, making their postage climate positive.

Do your values define your decision making process?

Our values influence us throughout the business, and whenever making any key decisions we consider the implication for any stakeholders. That could be our team, our suppliers or our customers. And we assess the impact of that decision on our ability to carry on the good we can do as a result of our operations.

Value-driven decision making has always been important to the business, and as part of our B Corp certification in 2021, we further changed our articles of association to legally bind us to consider the impact of every decision that we make.

Is team culture integral to Webmart?

A core part of team culture is collaboration, and this is something that happens day in, day out at Webmart. In all of our client projects, there are several Webmarteers across the different teams who come together to work on that project and deliver results for our customers. Collaboration and sharing knowledge are at the core of the business.

What do you do to go the extra mile to show your team you appreciate them?

We offer a range of things to support our employees, including £500 for them or someone close to them to receive counselling and free mental health support through The Printing Charity. A popular one includes free visits to stay at our Oxygen Farm up in Scotland. In terms of the way the business runs, we keep the team small so that everybody knows each other. Senior management have developed a support system, through which they are aware of family commitments and childcare/elderly care so that we can try and accommodate the needs of every Webmarteer and provide a more flexible work/life balance.

In terms of your messaging do you think you talk directly to your consumers in a clear fashion?

The term ‘integrated marketing’ can often cause confusion. There’s a lot of similar names that essentially mean the same thing; multi-channel marketing, full service, omni-channel etc. We aim to take the mystery out of this when talking to consumers by being clear about the benefits in a simple yet helpful way. Everything we do, from social posts, to collateral, to webinars, aims to explain clearly and concisely how to improve your marketing campaigns, whether that’s by working with us or not, though of course, we hope people do!

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

Every business will approach this differently. At Webmart, we’ve worked closely with our supplier partners to mitigate these rising costs so that we minimise the impact that these have for our customers. However, it’s impossible to avoid increased costs overall, so our unique approach to marketing is how we can best support our customers’ budget during times like these. When we assess the full marketing mix, we uncover opportunities to improve and refine their approach and find cost savings via this route.

How often do you assess the data you pull in and address your KPIs and why?

I think this depends on the KPI, however one of the things we do is run client surveys twice annually to see how we are performing for our clients, with our last survey results giving us 96% for both customer service and quality satisfaction.

Is tech playing a much larger part in your day-to-day running of Webmart?

Tech has played a huge role at Webmart for many years. We created TradePrintManagement.com or TPM, which as the first of its kind, allows suppliers to log on and generate instant prices for print across millions of specifications. Since then, we’ve brought on numerous platforms and technologies to better measure our customers’ marketing strategy and support across the full marketing mix.

What is your attitude to your competitors?

I don’t believe we have any true ‘competitors’, we can all work together one way or another. It’s a collaborative approach that we work with; we want to understand them, we want to help if we can, and then in return they will help us when we need it. We feel there are always ways we can collaborate.

A lot of our suppliers are our customers as well, because if you treat people with respect and decency, and listen to them, then opportunities come from all places.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?

A business’ success is down to its people, so invest in your people and get the best people you can afford. And that includes considering if they will not just be an experienced fit, but also align with your ethics and morals. If you get a great bunch of people, and you train them, nurture them, care about them and align them with honesty and a sense of purpose, you’ll be amazed at what you can achieve. A business is successful because of the quality of people that you have, and the respect that you give them drives the quality of the business you have.

It can be a lonely and pressured place to be as the lead decision maker of the business. What do you do to relax, recharge and hone your focus?

One of the things I’ve done over the years is taking part in extreme events. I’ve done this for a few reasons; one is that the training creates a good level of discipline. Often you get wound up in work and never get a chance to prioritise exercise, but if you have a big event, you have to make the time. It’s also so important to exercise more than just your brain – you have a body to look after too.

However, the main reason for putting myself through extreme activities is that it puts everything into perspective. Every other issue you face in everyday life is nowhere near the physical demands of these gruelling challenges, so you can deal with them better – it makes everything else seem relatively easier.

Lastly, make sure you keep your outside interests. Don’t be that person who only has friends within their industry, it’s important to have friends and spend time with others from other walks of life.

Do you believe in the 12 week work method or do you make much longer planning strategies? 

We believe in much longer planning strategies, we have a three year plan. But we also work in 90-day ‘bursts’ to evaluate and assess the businesses’ performance. So it’s both long and short term.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

A new government, Barnsley being promoted to the championship and our sustainable, integrated approach to marketing being recognised as the future of sustainable business growth.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Simon Biltcliffe – Executive Chairman, Webmart Agency

There’s more to providing the nation’s finest brew than you think …

A reminder that we should never take high quality tea for granted. This Southampton based company has been inspiring the love and appreciation of high quality tea since 1986. Determined never to compromise on quality, no matter what economic situation the country is facing, has been no mean feat to uphold. Dr Ebraham took some time out of his day to speak to Business Matters

What is the main problem you solve for your customers?

Our main day-to-day business is with our global network of distributors who sell our tea to shops, cafes, restaurants and workplaces in their countries. For these long-standing partners we solve various problems, such as, helping them when they are faced with economic turmoil in their country, or a lack of inventory or facing unforeseen circumstances. We like to think of our relationship with our distributors as a partnership and we work hard to help them grow their businesses as we are growing ours. It’s not a traditional buyer/seller relationship.

What made you start your business – did you want to rock the status quo, was it a challenge or a gap in the marketplace that you could fill? 

In 1986 we spotted a gap in the market for the availability of high-quality teas. Once we entered the market, like lots of businesses, we realised that it was much more complicated than we first thought. After four years of hard work we finally turned a corner into profitability and our business has been growing every year since.

What are your brand values?

Wisdom, creativity (with our blends and our packaging) and humanity. Ahmad Tea was founded on a vision that business is an opportunity to give back and we have built a network of local charity partners all over the world who are able to take action where it is needed most. Sharing the fruits of our success with those in need is a big driver for us as a business.

Do your values define your decision-making process?

Yes, they have to. Our values are our blueprint for our business. Our charity work, wisdom and creativity are integrated into the very way we do business.

Is team culture integral to your business? 

Yes, absolutely. Creating a team culture means that people work by the same values and also start to make similar decisions on company strategy. It’s more efficient for a business if many peoples’ decisions align.

So what do you do to go the extra mile to show your team you appreciate them? 

I always make a conscious effort to thank people for their work. However, as a leader, I’m always thinking about other genuine and sincere ways I can show my appreciation to staff.

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

We always try to minimise any price increases to the end consumer, even when we’re faced with higher costs. Two years ago, when transport costs started rising we decided to take a hit on the margin, hoping that the price rises would slow down. Last year when wages, raw materials and transport costs started rising by double digits, we had to pass on some of the costs. Double digit inflation isn’t great for anyone and we always try to act fairly.

What is your attitude to your fellow tea industry competitors?

Many years ago, I used to be quite conscious of our competitors. However, as I and the business have matured, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s better to spend my time on what we do, and how to do it better, rather than the other way round.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?

Don’t put all your money into it. Be patient, pour your heart and time into it. Understand that it’s more than a 9-5 job. Surround yourself with good advisors and listen to their advice.

It can be a lonely and pressured place to be as the lead decision maker of the business. What do you do to relax, recharge and hone your focus?

My religion is very important to me and I pray regularly. This helps me not feel lonely and helps me to remain calm. I also meditate which helps.

Do you believe in the 12 week work method or do you make much longer planning strategies?  

As we’re a tea business, we need to take into account the seasonality of tea and therefore we plan in 6–8-week cycles to take into account the latest harvest information. For HR and machinery decisions, we plan in 9–12-month cycles.

What is your company’s eco strategy?

Sustainability is now at the core of our business. We have recently received a gold accreditation from EcoVadis, the world’s largest and most trusted provider of business sustainability ratings. We’re continually investing in every area of production to improve our sustainability credentials and are looking to make small improvements that can make a monumental difference over time.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

Firstly, I would like to feel on top of my work, I hope 2024 brings us a sense of calmness. Secondly, I would like our management team to have finished their management training programme. I’ve witnessed the positive impact that personal development and management training can have on businesses and at Ahmad Tea we’re committed to help our employees maximise their potential. Thirdly, I would like to have improved our IT capability for the business, to help us keep innovating, increase our performance and efficiency, and finally to improve the speed of business processes and operations.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Dr Ebraham Afshar, MD of Ahmad Tea

This lockdown concept has since grown their nationwide success

When Mark Sinjakli, took over My Baker it was a platform of 80 bakers, mostly London and Birmingham. Today is has over 200 bakers, based in the majority of UK cities, providing artisanal cakes for customers, made by talented independent bakers, often at short notice.

Mark takes some time out of his day to speak to Business Matters …

What is the main problem you solve for your customers?

Providing a quality, reliable, cake delivery service at short notice. By carefully vetting bakers and only accepting those that meet our high standards, the customer is assured of a lovely cake, without the potentially “hit and miss” approach of contacting local bakers directly.

As independent bakers are frequently run by a single individual, they may lack the bandwidth to respond promptly to a customer enquiry, not have the capacity for a certain order, not be able to make a certain style of cake, or be able to adhere to a certain dietary requirement.

By aggregating the services of over 200 talented bakers, we can get the customer the right baker for their specific needs, and at short notice.

It is also great for the bakers – they take the orders they can do, when they need them most, with no obligation if they are too busy.

We opened our first physical bakery in Hendon, North West London, in November 2022, which gives our offering even greater brand presence.

What made you start your business – did you want to rock the status quo, was it a gap in the marketplace that you could fill?

We acquired the business in June 2020, when the country was in lockdown, it was already established but needed some TLC. The business exists because it fulfils the needs of both of its key sets of stakeholders – customers and bakers.  There was a real gap in the market for a cake provider that offered cakes nationwide, guaranteed quality, and speed of service.

As our reputation has grown, we now receive applications from several bakers a week looking to join our books.

What are My Baker’s brand values?

1. A commitment to high quality and excellent service: My Baker is synonymous with convenience and quality;
2. Our bakers work with us, not for us: each one is a valued partner, and many have become friends. We pay them well, and we have on occasion paid out early to help them through financial hardship. We get them a range of supplier discounts, and we offer them orders at no cost to them and with flexibility to choose. Being small and without layers of hierarchy to wade through, we can make these decisions quickly and considerately.  We are a family-owned and run business.
3. Honesty. This is absolutely critical. To give an example, on the rare occasions we have a complaint, we assess it carefully and absolutely on its merits.  We hear from the customer, and the baker, and take all the facts into consideration before deciding on the appropriate approach. At my former firm, AlixPartners, one of the core values is “candour with compassion”, and I think that’s a very good approach.

Do your values define your decision making process?

Absolutely.  All of our bakers have to meet the required standards and be fully complaint with food hygiene legislation before they work with us – no exceptions. At the same time, we have been a supportive ear to many of them.

One incident I am particularly proud of is when one of our bakers faced a tough (and in many ways unreasonable) complaint.  It wasn’t even on one of our cakes, it was one they had made directly to a customer.  But I was able to talk them through how we deal with complaints, help them process the emotion, take everything into account, and reach a fair settlement with the customer. Some months later they said to me that just talking to me had helped them “step back from the edge”, and must admit I felt very emotional when I heard that.

Is team culture integral to My Baker?

It is vital. We are a small team and work closely together. By necessity everyone in the team has to perform to a high standard if we are to thrive.

At the same time, we are humans, not robots, and there needs to be an acceptance of mistakes, of “off-days”, of life outside of work, and of people’s genuine limits in terms of skill sets and working hours.

I think we all give our best because we all believe in this project and like each other.

How do you go the extra mile to to show your team you appreciate them?

Some very tangible things in terms of paying well and for exceptional employees there is a share scheme, so they get to participate financially in the success of the company.

But based on my experience as a junior employee and then coming through the ranks, it can be small things, like acknowledging when great work has been done publicly, and never taking credit for what someone else has done.

In terms of your messaging do you think you talk directly to your consumers in a clear fashion?

We like to think so. We are available on the phone and live chat seven days a week, and having recently overhauled the website one of the big focal points was improving the customer journey.

However, there is always room for improvement. Automated order confirmation emails, for example, have sometimes confused customers and we’re striving to get that right.

Our strapline which is repeated across all our branding, and on our signage at the bakery, is “My Baker – Cake to your Door”.  We wanted something that explained what we did succinctly and we think we’ve found it!

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

I think inevitably it’s a bit of a compromise. The price of butter, flour, and sugar have all gone up substantially, plus fuel for deliveries. Our two key stakeholder groups are our customers and our bakers, and we have to do right by both groups.

What we didn’t want to do was to keep nudging prices up.  Therefore we made substantial price increases over the summer, but now we don’t plan any more for the foreseeable future. The attitude was, “do it once, do it properly, give customers and bakers certainty”.

We recognise that things are hard financially for our customers, and have a range of discounts and offers, our semi-naked classic and classic ranges, and free delivery on larger orders, to ensure our offer remains reasonably priced and to offer something for most budgets.

How often do you assess the data you pull in and address your KPIs and why?

Some weekly and some fortnightly. We have a very scaleable platform here, and the aim on one level is quite simple: growth, through more sales and more talented bakers.

Data such as website traffic, search engine rankings, CTR and ROAS on paid ads, and press coverage is therefore critical and monitored weekly.

We have a great digital marketing partner (Lead Genera) and terrific PR Agency (Rochester PR) and we discuss these metrics with them frequently.

Is tech playing a much larger part in your day-to-day running of your company?

My Baker has always been a tech business, from its inception. The initial investment was used to build a tech platform capable of accepting orders, locating the nearest bakers, filtering them for relevant skill sets, and assigning the orders. There was nothing off the shelf that could do this, so a custom-built system was required.

What is your attitude to your competitors?

We’re conscious that we didn’t invent cake! There are some longstanding companies, some exciting new kids on the block, and some great offerings out there. We respect and learn from what others do.

However, we don’t fall into the trap of becoming obsessed by our competitors. It is more important and a better use of head space to have a clear vision and implement it, than to seek to mimic the approach of others.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?

Get some experience working for someone else before going out on your own.

Many people see starting their own business as a route to freedom, but It’s not for everyone so think carefully as to whether you are wired for it. As far as is possible, make sure you have a financial cushion in place, and try to obtain third party funding as well as putting your own money in.

My own journey has been to get experience in my 20s and 30s, where I trained as a chartered accountant and had a career in corporate restructuring, before becoming an entrepreneur in my 40s. I don’t think I would have been a very good entrepreneur in my 20s, I learnt so much from others (including their mistakes) in my first career.

This is probably the number one point though: figure out what it is that you are really good at and enjoy doing.  Do that, well.  And then surround yourself with people who are good at the stuff you aren’t good at / don’t want to do. I am incredibly lucky that in our small, nimble team, we all bring something entirely different to the table.  You wouldn’t want me baking and decorating cakes (Mel) or crafting our brand identity (Shane)!

It can be a lonely and pressured place to be as the lead decision maker of the business. What do you do to relax, recharge and hone your focus?

I’d love to say that I’m in training to climb Mount Kilimanjaro for charity and doing an Iron Man, but that’s just not me! I obsess about the business and it leads little headspace for other pursuits.

I think the things that keep me grounded are the fact that I have a great team, the bakers (many of whom have become close friends), a superb set of friends and family, and some fantastic advisers –  so I am never short of a sounding board.

One recent addition to our lives has been our cute Pomeranian, Marley, who needs regular walking and gives us a lot of affection. He does allow me to genuinely switch off!

Do you believe in the 12 week work method or do you make much longer planning strategies? 

I don’t think there is a “one-size-fits-all” answer to this question. From my years in the City, I came to realise that you need a combination of approaches.

On the one hand, you need long-term planning. You need to define your goals and strategy, and implement processes and best practice to achieve that.

At the same time, you never know when and where your next big opportunity is going to arise, or what macro-economic factors might be at play. For example, when we bought the business, everyone bar essential workers was working from home, so there was little point in courting the corporate office market.  But now, we do really well there, with WeWork in particular a fantastic client for us.

So you need to be reactive and nimble. One of the great advantages of being a small company is that we have very simple, flat and non-hierarchical decision-making processes.

What is your company’s eco strategy?

Our model is intrinsically eco-friendly, since we are a national network of local independent bakers. This means that our cakes are delivered to the customer’s door over short delivery distances, normally about one – three miles.

Coupled with this, we insist that our bakers only use recyclable packaging and free range eggs.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

1. We are launching our “5 by 77” programme in January – we aim to have 5 talented bakers in each of the 77 cities of the UK by December 2023;
2. Our new bakery is a fantastic space – as well as serving the public with cakes to take away and cake consultations for future events, we plan to make it a place for content generation and baker collaboration;
3. Last but not least – we’re looking to bring our incredible service to even more customers, which may require an injection of capital, and potentially the support of a strategic investor and / or a crowdfunding campaign– so watch this space!

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Mark Sinjakli, Founder and MD of My Baker

Finding the right systems and processes can propel your digital business to growth

Branwell Moffat is the Director of CX Consulting at KPS Digital in the UK; an award-winning SAP partner and SAP CX SI in London. With over 20 years experience helping companies grow their digital businesses to levels of individual revenues in excess of $500 million per year, he works on a consultative approach with customers, layering a mixture of CX, business and technical consultancy that ensures that the solutions that they design, fit the strategic, business and technical objectives of each company. He takes some time out of his day to share his thought processes and Secrets of Success with Business Matters …

What is the main problem you solve for your customers?

Many of our customers come to us with a general idea of what they want to achieve but without the knowledge of how to do so.  We work with them to uncover the key business and technical objectives and design pragmatic and achievable solutions that achieve those objectives and allow them to better engage with their customers.  Our engagements are never just about us asking what the customer wants and then going away and building it.  They are about us collaborating with them to design and build a solution that aligns with what they are trying to achieve.

Approximately 50% of our customers come to us because they are unhappy with the service and advice they are getting from their incumbent Systems Integrator (SI).  This is sometimes where an implementation has stalled or failed or where they are looking for a better service.

What made you start your business – did you want to rock the status quo, or was it a gap in the marketplace that you could fill?

We started the business straight from university back when the internet was relatively new.  We certainly saw a gap in the market for a company that could provide a mix of business and technical consultancy backed up with quality delivery (all of the founders were business graduates).  We were excited by and believed in the internet and saw its potential.

Back then, many websites were static and hard-coded and it was about a year before we built our first e-commerce website – completely hand-coded.

If I’m perfectly honest we didn’t have much of a long-term plan and didn’t envisage being the company we are today but it seemed like the right thing to do and, as we were fresh graduates, we had very little to lose.  We started with three of us in a tiny spare room sharing a desk, a phone, and one computer.

What are your brand values?

Our values are probably the most important thing we have and, I believe, the main reason for our success.  The leadership team has spent a long time trying to distill and define our values but they really boil down to giving a damn.  Giving a damn about your colleagues, your customers and your work.  I firmly believe that living by these values is the key reason for our success.  It helps us attract and retain staff and ensures that we deliver quality and service to our customers.

Personally, I despise the ruthless ‘it’s just business’ stereotype as I think that we have proven that you can be successful while maintaining your integrity.

Do your values define your decision making process?

I believe that our values define almost all of our decisions.  We have a leadership team where every member is passionate about our values.  The values define how we treat our staff, whether as a collective, or on an individual basis and also how we work with our customers.  We will never be the kind of company that lowballs a deal to then hammer the customer with change requests.  We are much more interested in building a long-term partnership so it makes both commercial and ethical sense to be fair and do the right thing.

We have turned down business multiple times where the client does not align with our values, whether that is down to the products they sell, the way they treat people or even who is associated with that company.

We are not a charity and are part of a larger listed company so we have a responsibility to shareholders to drive growth in revenue and profitability, but we believe that we can do this while still living true to our values.

Is team culture integral to your business?

Team culture is absolutely integral to our business in a number of ways.  Most importantly, it helps us attract and retain talent.  Skilled people in our industry are highly in demand so creating a great working environment is critical to us.  It’s not just about having a nice office and lots of perks, it’s also about mutual respect, work-life balance and working on good projects.  The culture also helps ensure that the work we deliver and the way we treat our customers is aligned to our values.  It’s important that all of our staff embody our values.

What do you do to go the extra mile to show your team you appreciate them?

For us it is about providing a genuinely good work-life balance, flexible working, listening and communicating.  Of course, we have to be competitive in our salaries and package (last year we doubled our pension contributions and rolled out private medical insurance) but, for our leadership team, it is about respecting and looking after our staff.  Everyone is an individual and has their own challenges whether it is health issues or monumental issues such as living in Ukraine.  We ensure that that we treat everyone with fairness and compassion and help out where we can.

Every year we carry out an employee engagement survey which staff answer anonymously.  It asks questions ranging from how they feel about our work-life balance to whether they are rewarded fairly.  This is taken very seriously and real change is actioned from it.

We also communicate as much as we can.  We have quarterly company updates where the leadership team presents everything from the last quarter’s performance to any changes to the strategic direction of the company.

In terms of your messaging do you think you talk directly to your consumers in a clear fashion?

One of the challenges we face is that it can be quite hard to communicate what we do.  There is a fine balance between talking about outcomes such as better customer engagement and talking about technology solutions.  I find it frustrating when I go to a website and spend a few minutes on the home page and still have absolutely no idea what the company does as it is just full of buzz words.

I think that we probably have more work to do to improve our message.  When we are face to face, it is very easy to clearly communicate what we do but it is much harder otherwise.

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

Inflation is a challenge for our staff and our customers and we need find a good balance.  In reality, we expect to share the burden with our customers.  It is not feasible for us to absorb the entire burden ourselves but we also do not expect our customers to do this either.  Over the last year, we have been carrying out a process of rate reviews with our customers and this is still on-going.  It’s all about having an open and honest conversation and being fair.

How often do you assess the data you pull in and address your KPIs and why?

We are probably better at doing this with our staff than our customers, at least in an organised and formal way.  We have quite a small number of large customers and are very close to all of them, so we generally know what is going on at any point.

We do measure the CSAT score for each customer on an annual basis but this rarely results in a surprise but is a good way to measure the level of service we are providing.

Like any business, we have commercial KPIs such as our margins that we measure on a monthly basis.

Is tech playing a much larger part in your day-to-day running of your company?

As an SI, tech has always played a fairly big part in running our company.  However, as we have grown a lot in the last five years, we have had to automate more processes as they can no longer be done manually – everything from HR to finance.  The biggest change is probably in our increased use of Microsoft Teams.  While we have been providing hybrid working for decades, since the pandemic, we have a more geographically diverse workforce and even those in commuting distance to the office work at home for the majority of the time so the majority of meetings, internal and external, are now done over Teams.

What is your attitude to your competitors?

It’s always important to respect your competitors and avoid thinking that you are better than them.  Competition is always healthy and good for our customers as it pushes suppliers to deliver a better service at a better value.

In our industry, we tend to come up against the same companies when pitching for business.  I would place us into a middle tier where we rarely find ourselves in competition with small or very large consultancies.  We sit in a space where there are relatively few competitors. I’m certainly happy that we win a lot more pitches than we lose.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?

The main advice I would have is that I believe that acting with integrity is surprisingly rare and it can become one of your biggest strengths and make you stand out from the rest.  Look at how busy a tradesperson becomes once they get a reputation for being honest and doing a good job. A long-term partnership is worth so much more than getting a quick buck from a customer.  It is much harder win business from new customers than it is from happy existing customers.  It also helps you sleep better at night.

If you are in a service industry, like KPS, look after your staff as they are the most important things your business has.  You are only as good as they are.

I’ve often thought about what I would go back and tell myself when I founded the company and I one of the things I would say is that everything will cost twice as much as you think you’ll make half as much as think you will.  I remember building a theoretical business plan as part my university degree course and, looking back at it, I was very naive about revenue and costs.  It’s very easy to have a ‘build it and they will come’ view but that is rarely correct.

I think the final bit of advice would be to never be afraid to hire people who are better than you.  Early on, we decided that e-commerce was going to be our focus so, instead of trying to do it ourselves, we hired some talented people who would be much better.  This goes for almost all parts of the business.  As a business leader, you tend to be a generalist so most people you hire will be better than you are at the thing you hire them for.  This should be embraced.

It can be a lonely and pressured place to be as the lead decision maker of the business. What do you do to relax, recharge and hone your focus?

Personally, I like to get out on my mountain bike and go on long cross-country rides, either on my own or with friends.  I’m lucky enough to live in a relatively rural area where I can ride for many miles without barely going on a road.  I also like to spend time with family and friends.  It can be very hard to switch off when you are a business leader so it’s important to try to do that when you can.  It took me many years to be able to do that.  When you go on holiday, I actually delete my email account from my phone so I don’t see the unread messages start to stack up.

Do you believe in the 12 week work method or do you make much longer planning strategies? 

We do a bit of both.  Our business can be quite dynamic and we know, for sure, that we always end a year very differently than we planned to 12 months ago.  We certainly do plan on a quarterly basis and even on a monthly basis in some areas.  However, we also have long term strategies such as diversifying into other technologies and services; something that can take some time.

What is your company’s eco strategy?

Corporate Social Responsibility is one of our core values and is, therefore, very important to us.  We have a CSR group within the business who run various initiatives ranging from small (removing waste bins throughout the office) to larger ones like energy usage.  We also have a focus on sustainable software development where processing and energy usage is considered when developing and running code.

As well as looking at eco issues, the CSR team also looks at other areas of social responsibility such as charity work.  One of the schemes we have in place encourages staff to volunteer time with local charity shops during working hours.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

Our biggest focus for the next 12 months is to expand our technology and service offering to allow us to provide a more rounded service to our customers.  We have been very successful in implementing SAP CX platforms but are in the process of building new practices to widen our offering. This includes leveraging the huge amount of experience and skill in the SAP ERP area that KPS has a group so that we can offer this within the UK.

Last year we rolled out mandatory diversity and inclusivity training to all staff which was really successful, and something that I passionately believe in.  This year, we are looking to roll out more soft-skills training on subjects like time management and line management.

I would like to see a good balance of office and remote working in the next 12 months.  I don’t think that we will ever return to a point where we make it mandatory to come into the office, and it is up to us as leaders to give staff a good reason to do so, but I still believe that meeting colleagues face to face occasionally is beneficial for individuals and the company.  We have had a few days last year where the office has been reasonably full and there is an energy and buzz that we have all forgotten.

We are still working on understanding what is the right balance but I would, ideally, like to see most of our staff who live close enough coming into the office once or twice a week within the next 12 months.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Branwell Moffat,  Founder and Director CX Consulting

Future proofing people’s retirements and high quality way of life is paramount

More than a retirement property, Dr Ed Gladman ensures that Adlington Retirement Living builds communities that centre around happiness, safety and physical wellbeing. He shares the journey of the family owned and run company with Business Matters …

What is the main problem you solve for your customers?

Our retirement communities are designed to empower the older generation to live a long, happy and healthy life in a safe and secure environment with activities, communal facilities and beautiful private gardens. They’re about much more than the bricks and mortar of our apartments.

Although we focus on the quality of our facilities, we know that the most important things that make our customers really feel at home, are having a good circle of friends, connections with like-minded neighbours and a sense of belonging.

As we all get older, many people start to struggle with aspects of their family home such as managing the stairs, organising repairs and maintenance, or staying on top of garden maintenance. I think a lot of people also want to future-proof their retirement.  Many of our homeowners are fit and healthy but feel reassured knowing that help is on hand if they ever need it, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It also gives peace of mind to their families.

When required, we can put in place optional personal care packages for everything from short-term support after an operation, to more regular, long-term tailored personal care. Our on-site teams work with a local care partner to find the best solution to suit each individual.

What made you move into the business?

Prior to joining Adlington Retirement Living in 2017, I worked in the NHS as a hospital doctor specialising in anaesthetics. I’d never planned to join the family business and wanted to do something different, unrelated to property, which is why I went into medicine.

Working as a doctor was in many ways a wonderful career. When it goes well you can have such a profoundly positive impact upon someone’s life. I was however beginning to find the NHS a dehumanising environment in which to work and decided that a change was needed.

Joining the family business was too good an opportunity to overlook. It afforded me the chance to work with my dad with whom I have a great relationship. It also gives me a high degree of autonomy and the ability to change things where I see improvements can be made.

Fundamentally though, the main reason for joining Adlington was that I see the development of Integrated Retirement Communities as a life-changing product for our customers. The huge difference it can make to a homeowner’s life is a great reason to go to work in the morning.

What are your brand values?

Our core brand values are to be:

COLLABORATIVE: Collaboration is at the heart of our organisation. For our customers and for their families. With our business partners and for all our employees.

EMPATHETIC: We care deeply about the challenges associated with growing old and strive to provide a safe, secure and happy environment for all our homeowners.

PROGRESSIVE: We constantly refine, adapt and invest in our build and interior design solutions to deliver high quality homes and create welcoming retirement communities.

OPEN: Building on the family values of our founding partners, we promote a culture of openness and a considerate work ethic, through transparent communication at every level.

Is team culture integral to your business?

Organisational culture is integral to the success of any business. We have always been a family business and at the heart of our culture is trying to be fair and decent to our customers and team. We have incredibly low staff turnover because we pay well and give our staff a high degree of autonomy and ownership of their work.

The challenge we face is that we are now approaching a headcount of 300 and this makes keeping the feel of a small family business a huge challenge, particularly with many of the sales, operational and construction teams working nationwide.

Having the senior management team fully bought into the core values that define our business helps us to continue to provide an interesting and worthwhile place to work for our team.

If team culture is integral to your business, what do you do to go the extra mile to to show your team you appreciate them?

Fundamentally we do our utmost to treat everyone fairly and as we would wish to be treated. I think one of the key factors is that we do not have an HR department. HR decisions are made by the board directors and often by me, to ensure that all situations are looked at fairly and holistically not simply by following a policy.

We have an incredibly flexible working policy for our office-based staff and do our utmost to be flexible in allowing people to work in a manner that fits their lives. We also pay the team well.

An often-overlooked element of culture is paying suppliers and subcontractors on time. Some in the construction industry have a poor reputation for not paying suppliers on time. We pay on time and don’t use retentions with our subcontractors. This means we have decent relationships with our supply chain, and we can ask them for a favour when required, as they can of us.

We have a well defined wellbeing program that ensures a happy and healthy team. As part of that, we have several fully trained Mental Health First Aiders and a qualified in-house trainer delivering regular Mental Health Awareness courses.

Regular funded social events are arranged together with the promotion of healthy living activities such as a cycle to work initiative, charity fun runs, healthy eating club and walking competitions.

Our in-house Management Company Adlington Management Services (AMS) has a very comprehensive and in-depth training programme and each of our retirement community’s links with local authorities to provide mental capacity and safeguarding training for the benefit of our homeowners.

In terms of your messaging do you think you talk directly to your consumers in a clear fashion?

Education on Integrated Retirement Communities (IRCs) is at the forefront of our media interviews and marketing campaigns so that older people understand the choice of housing available to them. We regularly interview homeowners and share their stories through our own channels and the wider media.

IRCs are a relatively new concept in the UK, unlike the US, Canada and New Zealand, where they are well established. In the UK, there’s confusion around the difference between an IRC and a care home. Sadly, people often think of an ‘old people’s home’ when they imagine a retirement community.

Many people live in accommodation which becomes increasingly less appropriate for them in later life, as their health and social needs change. This often leads to a crisis point where they are forced to move because home is no longer safe, following a fall or illness.

IRCs offer people a way to retain their independence for as long as possible, choosing where they want to live with the safety net of care options being readily available if they are needed in the future. They also keep older people engaged with wider society which is key to tackling loneliness and isolation in later years.

Our advertising campaigns are clear and concise, with full transparency of information on our website. As members of the Associated Retirement Community Operators (ARCO), which is a body representing operators of IRCs, we undertake a thorough annual review of all our marketing communications, as well as the service levels at each of our communities.

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

The current economic conditions are very challenging for the real estate sector. Our costs to build and borrow money have both risen steeply and we are currently in a tricky sales environment. Thankfully our product is close to unique in the UK and genuinely life changing for our homeowners and as such demand remains strong.

We have very much shared the pain with our potential customers. We have increased prices and accepted a lower margin on the development. However, as a business our focus is very much on the long income generated so this hasn’t hugely impacted our business plan.

Is tech playing a much larger part in your day-to-day running of your company?

Our design and development team use the leading software in the industry with all projects designed in REVIT. It’s fantastic and makes it much easier for the Senior Management team to review each new development.

However, on the operational side we are relatively low tech. We believe in first class hospitality and customer service. I am approached by tech companies constantly however what they are offering is usually expensive and not of huge value and would ultimately drive-up costs too much.

Our customers are tech savvy and all own smartphones, iPads etc. so the last thing they want is us providing an added layer of complexity with inferior tech. As a community develops, WhatsApp groups, Facebook communities etc. naturally develop as they do in any new group. The tech available to the general public has never been better and our communities benefit hugely from this.

What is your attitude to your competitors?

Interestingly, we rarely encounter significant competition. There are several really high-quality IRC developers in the UK. However, there are far more towns to go at than there are developers. On the odd occasion where we have local competition it can actually be beneficial. When a strong competitor enters the market, they often educate the local population about retirement communities, making our sales process easier. We at Adlington embrace healthy competition as it contributes to market awareness and ultimately facilitates sales.

The growth potential in this sector is immense. We are driven by the positive impact we can create. Moreover, the sector offers significant financial opportunities, making it a lucrative venture. With such a combination of social importance, profitability, and tremendous growth potential, we are excited about the future possibilities.

As members of ARCO, I maintain good relationships with the leaders of our competitors as we are of the view a collegiate sector is far preferable to an adversarial operating environment as experienced in so many sectors.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?

I never set out to be a businessperson and indeed by becoming a doctor took active steps against it. However, circumstances change, and I have found myself in a wonderful role as CEO of Adlington.

In my view the most important thing is to find something that is personally fulfilling to you. We are all motivated by hugely different things, so the key is to find an industry that ticks the boxes you need it to tick to have a happy and worthwhile career.

It can be a lonely and pressured place to be as the lead decision maker of the business. What do you do to relax, recharge and hone your focus?

I have three small children who keep me busy. Whether they relax, recharge and hone my focus is debatable.

What is your company’s eco strategy?

The UK has a huge shortfall of housing and as such new homes need to be built. However, construction as an industry is inherently poor from an environmental perspective. This is a dichotomy with which I am constantly wrestling.

The positive environmental impact of our communities is that our homeowners almost all move from a home with at least two, often three or four unused bedrooms. They then move into a much smaller home which is well built, well insulated and much more efficient to run. This process frees up a large property for a family to move into and provides our homeowners with a beautiful home and community.

We also do an excellent job of looking after our homeowners and as such their hospital visits, GP appointments etc., decrease. Healthcare has an enormous carbon footprint so by decreasing its use we also help.

Finally living as part of a community is much more efficient. For example, there is a chef who cooks in the restaurant, shared trips into town, carers don’t have to drive between jobs. These benefits also drastically decrease the carbon footprint generated by our homeowners.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

The three things I hope to have place in the next 12 months are land, land and land. The land and planning environment is incredibly challenging, and we are on the lookout for more sites.

We will look anywhere in England and need to be able to build retirement communities with 60 plus apartments on the site so if you’ve got good quality land to sell in affluent market towns or areas of cities please get in touch.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Dr Ed Gladman, CEO Adlington Retirement Living

Fresh thinking from the man aiming to start a care revolution

Amrit Dhaliwal is the Chief Executive of young and growing homecare provider Walfinch, which today has 26 franchisee managing directors delivering care to hundreds of clients across the country. He’s known for his creative thinking and new approaches, often addressed in leadership columns in the care and franchise press and at conferences. He takes time to share his Secrets of Success with Business Matters …

What is your USP?

The most fundamental is the Mum Test. When deciding what care is best, we always ask ourselves: ‘Would I like this for my own mum?’” We also use it when making many other decisions, and in recruiting franchisees and carers. It’s easy to remember, and it keeps the focus always on the people receiving care – the most important people in the care sector.

What is the main problem you solve for your customers?

We provide peace of mind for people receiving care and their loved ones. Simply said – but it takes huge commitment, teamwork and dedication to achieve.

What made you start your business?

After owning two successful hospitality businesses in my 20s, I became a franchisee of another homecare brand. It taught me a lot – not least that franchising for homecare in the UK was broken. I needed to fix that problem, so I went on to create the Walfinch homecare franchise. In homecare you can literally combine doing good with building a thriving business – but the sector needs a thorough overhaul, and I want Walfinch to be instrumental in that.

What are your brand values?

We believe in integrity, excellence and teamwork. But we have a fourth, equally important value: fun. I have always felt that I want my workplace to be a fun place to work – and I firmly believe that fun is for carers too! Making work fun makes clients lives more fun, and it aids carer retention.

Do your values define your decision-making process?

Our values inform everything we do, including client care, and how we treat our carers. They help us make better decisions and take better actions daily. In the care sector values must be more than aspirations.

Is team culture integral to your business and how do you show your team you appreciate them?

Team culture is vital in care. We do surveys, like WorkBuzz, of our franchisees and then act on the findings. We do the same in each of our branches with carers and clients.  We also offer our franchisees meetings and conferences so we all contribute views to improve the business. Our franchisees consult their care teams, so their views are always taken into account.

Do you talk directly to your consumers clearly?

Yes! Our pricing is clear and transparent. It’s all wrapped in an hourly rate – there’s no booking fees to add on, for instance. With Walfinch there’s no small print – something we see a lot of in the care industry.

Many care companies also use care sector jargon that the general public don’t understand, but Walfinch avoids that. We also don’t patronise people or reduce them to stereotypes in our communications. Too often people are referred to as ‘the elderly’ or ‘the vulnerable’ as if they were all the same.  We talk to and about them as individuals. Everyone is different.

What about inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass rises on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty?

We don’t set hourly care rates centrally –they are set by individual franchisees. Clearly inflation and interest rates put pressure on them to put their rates up.

In the care sector that’s not easy, because we deal with people, not commodities, but you can vary rates, so for instance, rates for new clients are higher than for long-standing ones. Our franchisees balance this for themselves very well.

Rates for private care are far more realistic than (often uneconomic) rates offered by local authorities, so franchisees can vary the mix of private and local authority care to balance their income – but they shouldn’t have to! Local authorities should be funded by the Government to allow them to pay fair rates.

How often do you assess the data you pull in and address your KPIs and why?

At Walfinch we use ‘The Metrics Method’. It tells each person in Walfinch if they have had a successful day. It’s broken down to every role – even quality and compliance is measurable.

We collect statistics so we can see which activities most increase revenues, making it easier for franchisees to set priorities and all of us to monitor our KPIs. For instance, we can tell our franchisees the average number of candidates they have to interview before a carer is taken on.

As the franchisor, we can see the average number of prospective franchisee leads required to recruit a franchisee. We can also monitor the performance of  individual franchisees and step in with help to prevent small issues growing – a win for everyone. We use customised software for this and it’s available to our franchisees, which makes the Walfinch franchise more attractive.

Is tech playing a larger part in your day-to-day running of your company?

We use technology to keep in touch with our carers, clients and their families. Carers record details of their visits, including any client physical or mental health concerns, medications given, and other relevant details on an app, so we can monitor each client’s wellbeing, and nominated family members can access the records, which gives them peace of mind and alerts them immediately to any issues.

We also offer the Care Friends app to all our franchisees. This allows staff to suggest friends as possible candidates for carer jobs, with rewards if the candidate is employed. Personal recommendations result in more and high-quality appointments, and boost recruitment and retention.

What is your attitude to your competitors?

At present demand for care is vast so there is enough business to go round. However, there is competition recruit carers. At Walfinch our franchisees strive to offer carers ever-better working conditions, not just to beat the competition but because carers who feel valued deliver better client care.

But we aim higher too. We believe that care providers must work together to rescue the reputation of the care sector as an industry that doesn’t value its workforce, to become one that provides the working conditions and career paths that professionals enjoy.

Care providers must be willing to share ideas. I share the methods we use, and I hope our competitors are willing to share theirs too.

What do you do to relax, recharge and hone your focus?

I’m an exercise nut. I’ve been weight training for years, though it’s not so easy to keep daily gym times now I’m a dad of two. Dadding takes up a lot of time! I also like to do serious walking, which means I can also catch up on phone calls. My wife and I like to try out new restaurants and foods, and we’ll travel across the country for something special.

Do you believe in the 12-week work method or do you make much longer planning strategies?

My thoughts are always focussed on the BHAG – big hairy audacious goal. I have a ten-year plan, which I break down into three-year, one-year and 12-week plans – so I plan for the long term.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

In the next 12 months, we plan to:

• Introduce a carer support program. At present this is a statutory requirement for carers doing end-of-life care, but we think it should be available to all carers.
• Set up a franchise advisory council, involving all Walfinch franchisees.
• Focus our internal compliance, so a strong majority of franchisees meet CQC outstanding standards

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Amrit Dhaliwal, CEO, Walfinch

The reason why you can sip on your favourite drink anywhere in the world is right here ….

Exporting anything, especially alcohol, can be bureaucratic and logistically complicated. With over 20 years of experience in the beverage and logistics industries, Sovereign Beverage Company is able to export their suppliers’ premium products to customers around the world, safely, efficiently, and profitably. David spends some time with Business Matters and explains his secrets of success and how he ensures that their client’s products are in safe hands.

What is your USP?

We are the UK’s premium drinks exporting company and have access to markets in every corner of the globe, supported with full service technology which makes the ordering process as simple as possible.

This means we are able to assist companies that are looking to export from anywhere in the world. Our customer-centric philosophy means that we are ready and able to oversee the transport of our customers’ products every step of the way and reduce the complexity and mitigate the risks associated with importing and exporting beverages.

What made you start your business – did you want to rock the status quo, was it a challenge or a gap in the marketplace that you could fill? 

My real ‘aha’ moment came in 2006 when I was working as an account director and I was meeting with a brewery representative. An offhand conversation led to the birth of Sovereign Beverage Company. It was thanks to this conversation that I realised that the brewery in question had an untapped route for sales in the form of global export, but they had no infrastructure and the risk was too high for them to do it for themselves. So after talking to many breweries and importers, I saw that there was a huge gap between product availability and global demand, as the breweries lacked the supply chain knowledge, time and other resources to manage their exports.

Two years later in 2008 – during a recession no less – we launched Sovereign Beverage Company and we’ve never looked back!

What are your brand values?

We believe the customer comes first. We pride ourselves on offering our clients and partners a premium quality service at a competitive price. In addition, we are always looking to evolve and innovate our product offering and service provision.

Do your values define your decision-making process?

Of course. At SBC, we are dedicated to making importing-exporting effortless and building a strong rapport with our customers and suppliers alike so that we can put their needs front and centre. Our mission is simple, we are here to help all of our clients maximise sales growth and help reduce as much of the complexity and risk as possible.

Is team culture integral to your business? 

From the get-go, we’ve always taken team spirit and culture seriously at SBC, but over the past two years, we’ve had to examine what we mean by ‘culture’ as we’ve shifted our workforce to fully remote working. Our bricks and mortar offices are in Blackburn, Lancashire, but our team works remotely and so we’ve had to work hard during the transition to remote working on fostering that team spirit that you have with physical interactions. This has meant we have been committed to creating ways of replicating that camaraderie you can miss when you no longer have physical interactions among people.

We have regular video meetings, so everyone involved with the business has a clear focus and access to support channels should they need help and assistance. We’ve also conducted several remote social events – quizzes, get-togethers and drinks events. It’s safe to say those water cooler moments haven’t been lacking even though we work remotely!

As team culture is integral to your business, what do you do to go the extra mile to show your team you appreciate them?

We find as many ways as possible to do this – we regularly review pay and incentives and whenever we can we promote from within. We also put the team through training and CPD where possible, encouraging suggestions from each team member as to what would be the most beneficial. For example, our leadership team has all recently been offered business mentoring, and when we brought on a new cider supplier, the sales team were all put through cider product training.

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

Looking ahead, we think higher interest rates are unfortunately here to stay. We are seeing increases coming through from our suppliers, and while we don’t benefit from those price increases, we are having to pass them on to our customers. It’s a global situation and our customers are understanding. As the products we export are premium, we do anticipate that the end customer might look to budget by downgrading the brands they choose, however we haven’t yet seen that happen in practice. Where we see price drops (which do happen with changes in export logistics and packaging), we also pass these directly on to our customers. We also seek to support our customers in other ways, for instance with point-of-sale assets such as barware, glassware, and signage.

How often do you assess the data you pull in and address your KPIs and why?

We review our data weekly, quarterly, bi-annually and annually.

The sales team meets for weekly video calls so they all have a clear focus and we can ensure they both understand their KPIs and are on target to meet them, plus offering the support they need to do so.

We have quarterly reviews with each member of the business, from operations to admin to sales, so they are always aware of their performance, areas of success and opportunities for improvement. The leadership team also meets monthly to sense-check the current business objectives and achievements against the wider company vision and goals.

As a strategy we try not to have too many KPIs. There are five key areas which we really monitor and review constantly, and if they need to be altered we can do so in good time.

Is tech playing a much larger part in the day-to-day running of your company?

Tech touches every part of our day to day business, as a UK exporter dealing with customers in over 60 countries we’ve managed to leverage the current technology stack to help streamline and improve efficiency in every facet of our business.  After our current system was implemented, we managed to reduce the manpower on order processing by 66% and back office functions by 33% due to a slicker end to end order process utilising a single system.

The introduction of video conferencing tools has reduced our commuting, global travel and subsequent carbon footprint.  These tools have improved the customer service and account management we can offer whilst keeping a lid on potentially expensive communication bills to all four corners of the globe.   The reduction in international travel and day to day commuting cannot be underestimated.

Reporting and Business Intelligence reporting now form the kernel of our day to functions and all business activities feed from this information.  It better powers our decision making processes ensuring we do the right things to keep us heading towards our goals.

All in all, this has resulted in a streamlined, agile workforce and business that can work from anywhere in the world.  This opens up the job market to a broader set of candidates thus allowing us to recruit better on top of the benefits already highlighted.

What is your attitude to your competitors?

We welcome competition. Competition keeps us on our toes and ensures we are offering our customers the premium service they deserve. We also know that we are the best out there!

Do you believe in the 12-week work method or do you make much longer planning strategies? 

We all start with a vision, and it’s key to break that down into bite-size chunks. Two years ago I announced that it was a goal of SBC to export 100,000 hectolitres a year – and I think the team initially thought I was going batty! However, when we set a five year target on that goal, and then broke it down into an annual budget and then quarterly KPIs, it became much more realistic and achievable, and we are already more than halfway to achieving that goal.

For me as a business owner it’s key to have that long term vision and strategy, but for the team and review purposes, the 12-week work method is ideal – short sprints rather than long marathons.

It can be a lonely and pressured place to be as the lead decision-maker of the business. What do you do to relax, recharge and hone your focus?

I like to focus on my physical health, travel, and humanitarian work, combining all three where possible!

I’ve recently returned from South America where I joined a four-day charity cycle ride with The Truants Foundation, part of raising a targeted £300,000.

I ensure I take time to relax, usually with some form of exercise! The area I live in is stunning, and so I get out for a walk or a cycle daily, which allows me to focus on my mindset and positivity, as well as giving me a clear head and keeping me fit! I spend a lot of time in the Lake District for the same reason, trying to see more of the UK while indulging in my hobby.

In terms of honing my focus, I make sure I have consistent time to work on the business, as I’ve built a supportive team which has freed me up to do so. I also work regularly with a business mentor, zooming out of the day-to-day and focusing on the overall vision.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

Firstly, we are always focusing on strengthening our team, as people are key to the success of our business. We look at a combination of self development, personal development, and business development, and my personal ethos is that every single person in the company, myself included, should be able to take two steps forward within their role. I intend to support the entire company with that through upskilling, additional training, and expansion. Though we have just grown the sales and operations teams, we want to further expand the sales team and also start building a product and marketing team.

Secondly, our year-on-year export operations have recently grown by over 20%. Over the next 1-2 years we hope to build on that growth. We currently sell 55,000 hectolitres of product annually, and our goal is to increase that to 100,000HL by 2025. We plan to drive that through our existing suppliers and bring on some new suppliers in key categories. We know that 80% of our customers can take on additional lines, so we will focus on increasing their listings over the next couple of years.

Thirdly, we are currently focused on beer and cider, but in response to demand, we are considering adding health drinks and non-alcoholic beverages to our product portfolio over the next year. For instance, we are now looking to expand our product range to include alcohol-free beer and cider to meet the demands of our customers in the Middle East region. The growth of low/no products is huge and we intend to support our customers with the development of this category.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: David Davies, Founder and MD of Sovereign Beverage Company

Providing dedicated tech talent and instant solutions to businesses

As a global provider of remote, dedicated development teams and R&D centres to clients across various industries, Mobilunity bridges the gap between ideas and making concepts happen.

CEO, Cyril Samovskiy shares his Secrets of Success with Business Matters.

What service does Mobilunity provide and how does it work?

We offer a nearshoring service that provides dedicated development teams to clients across various industries and technology stacks, including Insurtech, Fintech, IoT, Embedded software, and more. With access to a talent pool of over 200,000 Ukrainian software engineers –  not counting our capacities in other Eastern European countries – each team member we provide is exclusively dedicated to our clients’ projects and has no other commitments to other projects, ensuring full focus. Our clients benefit from outstanding development capabilities, team size and structure flexibility, lower costs, and complete control over their development teams.

What problems does your company solve?

We address a critical challenge that businesses face regarding their tech talent needs, both in the long-term and short-term, whether in a specific technological stack or a specialised business domain. The core problem we solve for our clients revolves around their inability, and at times, their intentional choice not to solve these challenges internally.

The root of this challenge often stems from limitations within the local labour market. These constraints could manifest as extended recruitment agency timelines to find and place the right candidate or the necessity of engaging particular talents for a very brief duration.

To tackle this, our solutions are designed to be adaptable. We provide options for establishing technology teams in nearshore locations or within the UK, working collaboratively as part of a client’s in-house team, or maintaining an outsourced relationship with us as the vendor. This flexibility ensures that our clients can tailor our services precisely to their unique needs, whether they require long-term support or short-term specialised expertise.

What type of businesses do you work with?

Fortunately, we have a very diverse list of clients – from early stage startups that have just a few co-founders on board, to well-established corporations operating globally, with a 10,000+ headcount. However, we find it is the startups that have some form of advanced technology supporting their business concept  that align most closely with  our own mindset. Typically such clients are fast decision makers, they aim to leverage the most contemporary technology, and they have a big idea behind their plans. Our capacity to empower such businesses and show an immediate impact stands slightly above other types of client organisations.

What is your USP?

We work in a very competitive industry, so standing out requires clear differentiation. With our primary focus being on remote technology team services, we like referring to the ‘3Rs’ of successful remote team setup: Recruiting, Retention and Relationships. These three priorities, or USPs, guide our operations and streamline our proposals, ensuring our proposal is short, sharp, clear and well differentiated.

What are your company values? Have you ever had them challenged and if so, how have you dealt with it?

As we have grown and developed, our values have evolved. We tend not to focus on our past achievements because both the business environment and our clients are evolving rapidly. Therefore, we must also evolve to meet these changing demands.

After Covid, we continued growing fast, introducing new and more diverse business models into our offering. Right  now we work to the following company values. These define what we are, what you may expect from us, and what we will be once and if you work with us:

• Transparency. Having 40+ clients from 10+ countries, we basically operate with a set of 40+ processes. We pride ourselves in the ability to effectively manage that, and without transparency being a first requirement to how we operate (with the client, with our tech teams, with our employees and partners) we would not be capable of being where we are now. As such, transparency lies in every significant process we have in place.
• Growth. Related to both our clients, and to our own staff, we basically exist to make everything that we touch grow. This defines the types of clients that mostly come to us – the main driving factor they have in mind is their intent to grow (whether that’s to grow fast, grow stable, or grow to where the company would not have been without us).
• Flexibility. While this was always a focus for us, recent years in business have highlighted the importance of flexibility. Financial crises, growth and drop in demand, new regulations in the digital world, pandemia with its “all remote” setups, and war in Ukraine – these all prove this value is a fundamental essence for our business and our models to be sustainable and have a future.

How do you ensure that you recruit a team that reflects your company values?

Given that recruiting is one of our core offerings, we naturally place a special emphasis on how we recruit for our own company. Our 13 years of experience have taught us valuable lessons, and we’ve identified rules and practices that have proven effective during this time. They are:

• A big chunk of our best people grew up in our company, from the very entry level roles to the highest existent positions where they are now.
• A mix of “self-grown” and “external” key people ensures our Company grows in a way we expect.
• In the long run, soft skills take precedence over hard skills. While hard skills alone may suffice for short-term engagements, it’s the soft skills that enable individuals to manage and leverage those hard skills effectively over time.

While you may not see our values in these three basic tips, if we overlay our business values onto these guidelines, they align more harmoniously. As we continue to grow, we must balance our immediate need for top-notch professionals and our strategic goal of cultivating a talent pool for the future. Our company-wide recruiting strategy essentially outlines how we intend to achieve this alignment and ensure the successful ‘3+3’ match between skills and values.

Are you happy to offer a hybrid working model of home / office post covid?

A big part of our service offering is  tech talent from all over the world remotely. Thus, we would not be honest with ourselves and our clients if we were not big fans of this model. Only 10% of our own staff show up to the office on a periodical basis. We do not demand it, for most roles, and we do not expect it, anymore. Instead, we learned how to remain effective; we traded some of the meetings to asynchronous channels of communication; and we invested heavily into the skill of proper goal setting, performance management and professional development. Why on Earth would we confine ourselves to the traditional office-only model when we’ve gained a competitive edge in the labour market? We possess skills that are in high demand, and we offer these skills as a service to our many clients who are eager to gain a similar advantage.

Any finance or cash-flow tips for new businesses starting out?

I won’t be too unique in these – a successful business starts with sufficient funding, a plan to generate revenue and hope that things will go more or less as they were planned. I myself dislike the idea of bringing in someone else’s money into something you yourself can build and/or fund, though I know many businesses (our clients inclusive) who were capable of building something great and huge purely because they were smart enough to attract the right external investment. I’ve also witnessed instances where entrepreneurs, in their pursuit of rapid growth and the necessary funding to achieve it, ended up losing sight of their original dream company and their personal motivation to work within it.

That said, my advice would be to carefully weigh up the necessity of external investments when starting your business. While external funding can make some aspects easier, it often comes with its own set of challenges that you might not have encountered if you were self-funding your startup.

If you could ask one thing of the government to change for businesses, what would it be?

If I could request one change from the government to benefit businesses, it would be to facilitate the seamless integration of global talent into local businesses. I understand that not every business needs this, but I’m specifically referring to those enterprises designed to grow on a global scale and compete with international players. The current limitations on working with a global talent pool put local businesses, especially startups, at a significant disadvantage. As long as a candidate’s location remains a major factor in shaping HR strategies for businesses, this constraint will continue to hinder the potential for innovation, efficiency, and the globalisation of these companies.

It’s important to note though that there are other aspects to these constraints, and while I acknowledge one here, I recognise that there may be additional dimensions to consider.

What’s your attitude towards your competitors?

We respect and learn from each other, I know for a fact they look at us and do the same. I am good friends with slightly smaller and slightly bigger companies in our domain, and we meet 2-3 times a year to exchange  news and observations, while understanding the information we share might empower our counterpart.

There are 3-5 quite big players and there are 2-3 very dynamically growing companies that permanently stay on our radar. I would not be able to name any that I think beats us in our niche markets, but of course every company has their own strengths and weaknesses, and knowing them helps us become a better vendor to our clients, and win the battles for the client on the presale stage.

Do you have any tips for managing suppliers or customers effectively?

As a service provider, we could write a book on what to do and what not to do with suppliers. In our industry specifically, we recommend following a few principles that make the supplier choice easier and more streamlined:

• Size does matter. Your vendor’s size should be a match to your project size or else too many risks arise.
• Transparency ensures delivery. The more your supplier and vendor knows in terms of what you expect, how you need it, and why – the higher the chances of you getting what you’re seeking. You do not want your vendor to be guessing what’s on your mind.
• While building relationships requires resources, if you aim to establish enduring partnerships with your vendors, there’s no alternative but to invest in building and nurturing these relationships.

In terms of our customers, things are simpler, as our business grows when they grow. Not a tip, rather a fact. Meaning that we are so lucky to be in a business whereby we do not need to choose whose side to play.

Any thoughts on the future of your company and your dreams?

During our 13 year business journey, we’ve encountered various shifts in direction and have contemplated where our path may lead in the future. This experience reinforces our belief in maintaining our core competencies- HR and technology – as the foundation for our future endeavours as a company.

I am confident we will be able to open the world of remote talent to more and more global and local businesses, offering wider and deeper expertise within the fields of tech teams foundation, management and performance.

My dreams for the business’ future are closely linked to global economic growth and prosperity. I firmly believe that as technology takes on more fundamental tasks trusted by humanity, the role of technology should be to assist humans rather than exert undue control. This shift will create a growing demand for the services we provide to our clients, as we genuinely believe our offerings contribute to making the world a better place.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Cyril Samovskiy, CEO of Mobilunity

Connecting people to their audiences is no mean feat …

Founded by his father in the 1970s, Bailie Group has grown from being a group of printing and publishing companies, into a group of agencies and consultancies providing a range of communications-related services including digital, insight, training, cyber security and PR.

They work on projects which enable people to report crime online, help the UK transport system to operate more effectively, connect people with social services, develop coaching and mentoring skills within the armed forces, and provide content channels for industries, including the automotive sector.

While each of the businesses operates independently, they are all united by a collective mission to make a positive difference in society. Fergus takes time out of his busy schedule to share his Secrets of Success and his overarching aim to improve people’s lives by sharing knowledge.

What type of businesses do you work with?

Each of the six operating companies within Bailie Group has its own unique proposition, so the kinds of organisations we work with are really varied.

Making up the commercial fabric of the Group, there’s a strategic change enablement agency, behavioural research organisation, automotive PR and communications agency, media website for the automotive sector, defence and cyber security consultancy, and telecommunications-industry training specialist.

As such, we work with a breadth of clients, including the NHS, Bank of England, Ministry of Defence, British Army, Cabinet Office, Transport for London, global car manufacturers, and every police force in England and Wales.

What problem does your company solve?

We help customers create, gather, distribute, and maximise the value of content and data.
To achieve that, our purpose is to invest in the people and ideas that make a positive difference, to our teams, our communities, and our clients.

We work on projects which keep people safer, help the UK transport system move effectively, connect citizens with social services in their local area, provide content channels for core industries, and get equipment to the front line so it’s safe to use.

Our Group mission is to create an entrepreneurial organisation of collaborative specialists. The companies are empowered to utilise technology and expert knowledge to create solutions which enable our customers to maximise their potential through intelligent use of information, content, and data.

What is your USP?

We are an independent family-run organisation that can deliver — in an agile way — services that are traditionally offered by big corporate organisations. And as a Group, we take a long-term view and put our clients first.

What are your company values? Have you ever had them challenged and if so how have you dealt with it?

At Bailie Group, we don’t have a single set of values — as each of the six operating companies have their own — but we have a philosophy. ‘Doing the right thing’ is our overriding message — if you act in a way that customers and staff would deem fair, that decision can’t be criticised.

Additionally, we have a guiding principle that helps us with decision-making — what’s best for the boat? We take out personalities, ego, and emotions, and say what the best thing for the boat is, as it exists today.

Each of the businesses within the Group has its own culture and value set but is consistent with this Group philosophy — and this hasn’t been challenged.

Also, while many investment companies in private equity have a need for short-term growth, we’ve been around since 1970 and take a long-term view — doing what’s best, and fair, in the long run.

How do you ensure that you recruit a team that reflects your company values?

Ensuring the right cultural fit is important for us, as we’re very much a people-oriented company. And while I get involved in the recruitment of executive hires across the Group, for technical roles, it’s my philosophy that the senior teams within each of the operating companies are experts in what they do and are best placed to understand and identify the skill sets and personalities that will work within their existing teams.  Skills are important, but attitude and personality are critical, and we need people who will integrate and share the company values. It’s then a case of introducing them to the role and wider Group strategy.

It’s very much a company-led approach with support at Group level. As such, we have a centralised people team that helps to ensure we have a consistent approach to recruitment as well as a diverse range of talent across the organisation.

Are you happy to offer a hybrid working model of home/office post-covid?

Yes. I mentioned in an earlier question that it’s Bailie Group’s collective mission to make a positive difference in society, and this also applies to our staff and the culture of our organisation. As such, we believe it’s important to empower colleagues to have the flexibility to choose where and when they work.

Do you have any tips for managing suppliers and customers effectively?

Relationships that are contractually dominated are problematic from day one. The best ones are where you and your suppliers are working towards a shared strategic role. It’s also key that there is transparency of what your organisation is trying to achieve and that you’re not prescriptive of how to get there — the spirit of openness and honesty will generate the best ideas.

It’s also crucial to realise, and accept, that no relationship is problem free. You have a shared responsibility for problem solving and there should be no apportioning of blame — appreciating everyone is doing a good job and working together is the bedrock of any successful business relationship.

Any finance or cash-flow tips for new businesses starting out?

Most new businesses don’t fail because the idea isn’t good or its people aren’t talented and committed, but because they run out of money. Therefore, my number one tip is to guard money carefully. The more capital you get in at the start, the more you can protect and help your business to grow. Following that, be cautious with how you use it, too.

If you could ask one thing of the government to change for businesses what would it be?
To provide businesses with the long-term clarity they need on corporate infrastructure. The current electoral cycle rewards short-term decision making, and this is a personal bug-bear of mine as politicians are incentivised with the wrong type of behaviour.

The Government and UK’s companies need to sit down together and have conversations about what organisations need for long-term investment and planning, and this needs to become a cross-party agreement.

What is your attitude towards your competitors?
No matter the industry you’re in, it’s important to view competition as a good thing. It is often the thing that drives everyone to improve and creates choices for consumers. It’s also a cornerstone of learning — I welcome conversations with other business leaders, as this offers the chance to share ideas and inspire one another.

Any thoughts on the future of your company and your dreams?
For me, I’d love to continue the family dynamic well into the future — seeing the firm as part of the Bailie family for generations to come. And I feel privileged to have the role of shepherding the company through to the next generation.

Also, my thoughts and dreams are that the Group should continue to leave a legacy. One that shows how we’ve made a positive difference to the communities in which we work — whether that’s revolutionising the way policing is delivered, keeping the UK safer by working with the armed forces, or social work. If we continue to add value to the communities we serve, then we’re doing something right.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Fergus Bailie CEO of Bailie Group

Kubair believes in helping teams to unlearn old, and develop new, behaviours to inspire new capabilities

As a coach and mentor, Kubair enables this and nurtures a customer-centric, creative team mindset and culture through his company: Agilitea. And with that, entire teams are better placed to reach their true potential.

Hearing Kubair’s story is inspirational and beautiful in its honesty. He says ‘To go the extra mile for others we must first walk the hardest mile ourselves first.’ Anyone who is in business knows this to be true. I really hope you enjoy his story as he shares with you his Secrets of Success …

What is your USP

My journey and experiences gained along the way, and how I bring them to my coaching, training and mentoring engagements to better facilitate my client’s in their journey. From tech-startups, those that worked and those that didn’t, from my time as an intrapreneur in a fast growing scale up, to my socio-political activism. I bring all of that to being a people centric agile coach, trainer and mentor.

What made you start your business – did you want to rock the status quo, was it a challenge or a gap in the marketplace that you could fill?

From the age of 20 I have been leading or co-creating businesses, from importing and wholesale of garments to market traders in London to my tech-startups. I have been able to identify gaps in the market and co-create opportunities to address them from a young age. On occasions successfully on some it’s been costly lessons learned.

In 2010, following the murder of my brother by extremists in Pakistan, I decided to take a break from all my ventures to focus on a very different journey.

I sold a very successful business I had built from scratch in the UK, and I turned my off-shore development centre into an employee owned cooperative, completely divested of all commercial responsibilities. I set about co-founding a not-for-profit project – Peace Through Prosperity – with my wife, with the aim of using education to empower people from marginalised communities who were vulnerable to radicalisation in countries such as Pakistan.

At that time building digital products and chasing EBITDA targets seemed like a futile exercise in the face of a real existential threat.

In 2014 my exit money ran out but I had the good fortune of being headhunted to help establish high performance teams in Acquia’s professional services practise in EMEA. Having been an agile practitioner since the late 1990s, which direction to take it in was a no-brainer!

By 2018 I had achieved the targets and outcomes I’d agreed with the VP of professional services so I decided to move on and develop a consultancy based on what I had learned and taught over the years. Thus Agilitea was born.

I set up Agilitea as a vehicle for me to contract, and within a couple of years my customers convinced me to scale the business and build a team of trusted agile change makers to help them scale impact in their teams and culture. Having said that, we intend to remain a small and nimble boutique consultancy by design.

What are your brand values?

Being human.

Do your values define your decision-making process?

They are inseparable. Our decisions impact ourselves and others, I do my best to ensure my decisions have a positive outcome and a lasting impact on and for myself and all others it’s ripples may reach.

Is team culture integral to your business?

Absolutely. Change is a tribe sport! And as agents of change our own team culture matters most! A culture where concepts can be freely aired, challenged, cooked and validated or invalidated enables innovation and creativity. Without which the best one could produce is commodity!

If team culture is integral to your business, what do you do to go the extra mile to show your team you appreciate them?

To go the extra mile for others we must first walk the hardest mile ourselves first. That’s to be a good human being, to first get oneself in a place where one has the courage to have open conversations, whilst being respectful of others, with focus on one’s own commitment to everyone’s collective continuous improvement. Once you get close to that, the extra mile becomes part of the journey, not extra.

In terms of your messaging do you think you talk directly to your consumers in a clear fashion?

Personally I strive to be authentic, for those who know me, know I call it as I see it, respectfully, and make time and focus on listening. For me that is clear communication, as for messaging about our services, approach and vision, we could always improve!

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

Inflation and interest rates. Between Putin’s war, Kwasi Kwarteng’s libertarian experimentation, China’s flexing, Greenbacks’ bizarre comeback, BRICS expansion with their own reserve currency, the global economy is a disaster at the moment. It would make for incredible theatre if people weren’t the extras suffering in the background!

My Customers are B2B, mostly large enterprises. I ascribe a value for my time, capabilities, experiences and potential to catalyse desired impact, as do my clients, and if prevailing conditions mean our service rates need to be adjusted to afford ourselves and our team members the standard of living we’re are accustomed to, then yes, we would pass it on transparently to our customers.

Do the BCG, Delloittes, and McKinseys of the world offer discounts during cyclical downturns? Boutique consultancies are no different, and should not think or be treated differently.

Having said all of that, my clients know a sizable chunk of Agilitea’s income gets invested in Peace Through Prosperity’s projects in marginalised and conflict affected communities in Yemen,  Pakistan and Egypt. In these countries we run mini-MBA programmes to enable marginalised communities to work their way out of poverty and become better microentrepreneurs. In 2023 we plan to expand to a new region that will need its own investment.

How often do you assess the data you pull in and address your KPIs and why?

As often as is value-adding to do so and no more.

Is tech playing a much larger part in your day-to-day running of your company?

It’s all tech! We mostly interact from behind a screen post March 2020, from contracting to collaboration, it’s all tech enabled working.

What is your attitude to your competitors?

We live in a connected and interdependent world, my competition is part of my world and at best it enables me to scale rapidly through partnerships, at worst it makes me look even better! Our competition and peers keep us sharp and creative, we learn from each other and drive disruption and innovation in industries and if we’re lucky they or we might inspire them to drive innovation and disruption in society too.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?

When launching any enterprise, commercial or social, the key question to ask is why? Why am I creating this business? Who is it for? Do they need it? Does it help people get a job done in a better, more effective way? You need to know a product will be economically sustainable.

It can be a lonely and pressured place to be as the lead decision maker of the business. What do you do to relax, recharge, and hone your focus?

My passion is social transformation, and cross pollinating what I continue to learn about enterprise transformation to enable people to transform their lives, their business, their family and communities. I focus very much on my charitable work at Peace Through Prosperity. I also have a passion for politics, and no weekend is complete without coaching my son and his team’ Titans’ in their little league soccer club!

Do you believe in the 12-week work method, or do you make much longer planning strategies? 

It’s a method based on Lean Thinking that calls for focus and creates outcomes in shorter time frames. It’s an agile approach! I am a framework agnostic agile practitioner. I believe in principles, values and experimentation with frameworks and practices.

What is essential is to develop, nurture and evolve capabilities, behaviours and ways of working that enable individuals, teams and businesses to achieve their purpose, regardless of what the future brings.

What is your company’s eco strategy?

We are a remote-first company, however we do recognise and value the need to have face to face interactions, good old styled hand shakes, high fives and hugs!  We take a value-based approach to travel, be it for clients on sites or our all-hands, and limit our footprint as much as possible.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

If ‘hope’ is what we’re going for then three things we all would greatly benefit from in the next 12 months  are negotiated peace in Ukraine, Energy stability in Europe and UK rejoining the EU.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Kubair Shirazee, Agilitea

Ensuring websites create conversion rich opportunities is just one of RapidSpike’s three core offerings

A tech entrepreneur for more than 20 years, Gav Winter has previously founded two major technology consultancies, Gav is an award-winning entrepreneur and leader, and an expert in high-growth strategy. Today he is CEO of next-generation website monitoring company, RapidSpike.

RapidSpike is a next-generation website monitoring platform revolutionising website reliability, performance, and security. As the only solution to capture these three critical aspects of website health, the result is continually optimised customer journeys, greater website resilience, and more conversions – crucial for high-volume businesses transacting online.

Gav takes time out of his busy schedule to share his secrets of success with Business Matters …

What type of businesses do you work with?

The nature of what we do means we can work with pretty much any brand that has online-critical processes – from retail, travel, and gaming to healthcare, policing, and government.

What problem does your company solve?

The web is open 24 hours a day, every day of the year and organisations need to maximise performance, reliability, accessibility, and security if they’re going to lead from the front, enhance the customer experience, and develop genuine brand loyalty.

As such, more than simply website uptime needs to be monitored for businesses to be successful online and create conversion-rich opportunities in today’s digital-first world. Customers now expect websites to perform at a more sophisticated level than ever before.

If you fail, customers will find somewhere else to fulfil what they’re looking for. In today’s world, even marginal gains of 0.1% faster speeds can represent millions of pounds of extra revenue for the UK’s largest brands.

What is your USP?

It must be the depth of data and insight we can provide. RapidSpike knows what it’s good at – and we start in our lane, but it do it really, really well. Let’s face it, websites are rich with just about every statistic under the sun, but we extract the relevant information and understand how to convert it into tangible areas for improvement.

What are your company values? Have you ever had them challenged and if so how have you dealt with it?

Underpinning the company is a sense of responsiveness. It doesn’t matter what time of day it is, how big or small the client, or the relative size of the problem, we must be responsive as people, colleagues, partners, and a platform – it’s fundamental to the success of our business.

I wouldn’t say I’ve had them challenged as such, because people join RapidSpike to help our customers do business better. It’s something we’re all incredibly passionate about, and we were all a part of outlining what it is RapidSpike stands for – which I think is important to the long-term future of our organisation.

How do you ensure that you recruit a team that reflects your company values?

For me, it’s about having a willingness to learn, a ‘can-do’ work ethic and a positive mindset. We’re incredibly honest from the very first interaction with a colleague – as we believe alignment works both ways.

An initial telephone interview acts as more of a temperature check, before we conduct the ’16 personalities test’ to see if the candidate’s personality and skills fit the role we’re looking for – as we’re keen to find differences within the team.

Only once we’re sure of a personality and skillset match would we move to an interview. Even then, we start the conversation by encouraging candidates to forget the nerves and not try to answer a question if they don’t know it – as they can learn. Instead, we’d rather spend the time figuring out if we’d both like to work alongside each other.

Are you happy to offer a hybrid working model of home/office post-covid?

We’re completely flexible. Arguably, I’d say we were ‘digital first’ with the only stipulation being that we meet, face-to-face, for collaborative sessions when needed. While there are no rules on the time spent in the office, as a team, there’s an appetite to introduce two set ‘people work’ days per week, whereby we meet somewhere as a team – be it HQ, a coffee shop, or even in a park.

Do you have any tips for managing suppliers and customers effectively?

I think it boils down to three simple but fundamental things, communication, responsiveness, and continuous improvement. Caring what other people think makes a big difference.

If you could ask one thing of the government to change for businesses what would it be?

Create a ThinkTank which brings together actual business leaders from across the UK at varying stages of their careers. Personally, I believe it would be helpful if MPs had experience in the areas they are given to manage too – it shouldn’t simply be the ‘old boys’ club’.

What is your attitude towards your competitors?

They’re a source of inspiration. You can pick up a lot from competitors, and we shouldn’t be ashamed to admit that. Not only can they feed you with ideas, but you can learn from their mistakes too.

Any thoughts on the future of your company and your dreams?

We’re very much focused on growth. Of course, we have many of the same worries as other organisations across the country, with the rising cost of doing business – but it creates an opportunity too, because people want to future-proof their digital real estate. We’re working hard to raise further investment, but for now at least, we’re sustainable as we are.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: RapidSpike CEO, Gav Winter

Employing staff in other countries is incredibly challenging, enter Teamed …

Antony Vallee founded Teamed to simplify the process of building teams – no matter where they are based in the world. Through their own legal entities and global infrastructure, they manage all HR, Compliance, Payroll, and Tax matters for remote talent anywhere in the world. Today their fully distributed team is helping businesses hire top talent across 75+ countries, empowering companies and employees to embrace the benefits and opportunities that come with global employment.

Combining automation and human expertise, they aim to provide both employees and employers with the best experience. No mean feat! Antony takes some time to share his story with Business Matters …

What type of businesses do you work with?

Businesses that put the employee at the forefront of their hiring processes choose to work with Teamed.

Imagine this: you are being relocated from the United States to Spain. You would have plenty of questions about changes in holiday allowances, sick pay, and tax. Your new contract could also mean there are alterations in your salary, notice period, and benefits — and not having someone to talk through what these changes mean for you could be incredibly frustrating and cause a damaging relationship with your employer.

At Teamed, we ensure both employees and employers are aligned, have all the information they need, and most importantly have a point of contact they can go to with any queries they may have. We onboard all new employees virtually over a conference call and will provide ongoing support throughout their employment.

By combining this service-led approach with best-of-breed technology to automate processes,  we are able to provide the best experiences for employees and employers across the globe.

What is your USP?

Teamed is democratising global employment opportunities by making it easier than ever to hire, pay and fully support a global workforce. We’re building a market-leading experience for employers and employees by combining our unique technology with human expertise.

• 100% compliant. Hire talent anywhere in the world with full compliance guaranteed.
• Speed: Hire and onboard talent within hours, not weeks.
• 100% customer retention. We’re a service-led solution you can count on.

What are your company values? Have you ever had them challenged and if so how have you dealt with it?

We’ve stayed true to our values since Teamed was founded in 2020. We have a remote, globally distributed team that works together to achieve our joint mission to enable anyone, anywhere, to access exciting career opportunities, addressing the growing demand for remote working.

Break down barriers: We act to make opportunities equally accessible, so that those with skills and ambition are not held back. Merit should be rewarded equally across boundaries.

Do what’s right: No shortcuts. No short wins. Just a solid commitment to do right by each other, and by each and every customer we serve. Because the best reputations are those that precede you.

Here today, here tomorrow: Being an owner-managed business means we’re in it for the long term. We know our success depends on being accountable, responsible and performance-obsessed.

Show backbone: We choose the courageous route to success. Sometimes that means saying no and stepping away, while staying true to our pursuit of socially responsible success. When it’s right to, we step up.

Good can always be better: Creativity is in our genes. So is the quest for constant innovation and improvement. Every day is another chance for us to be the best at what we do.

How do you ensure that you recruit a team that reflects your company values?

We hire global teams that are empowered to work when, where, and how they want. We currently employ people across 8 countries and we plan to expand our global footprint as we continue to increase our headcount in 2023.

Our values are clearly communicated to all employees and candidates and equity, diversity, and inclusion is embedded into our recruitment process.

I firmly believe that building a team that reflects the values of the company is the foundation for success, as it ensures that everyone is working towards a common goal and operating with a shared set of principles.

Are you happy to offer a hybrid working model of home/office post-covid?

One of my top priorities is empowering our employees to work in the way that best enables them to achieve optimal outcomes. I believe that when people are given the freedom and support to do their best work, amazing things can happen.

Teamed has a remote-first environment. In today’s world, more and more people are looking for flexible work arrangements that allow them to balance their professional and personal lives. By embracing a remote-first approach, we are able to attract top talent from all over the world and create a more diverse and inclusive workforce. It also allows our team members to work from wherever they feel most comfortable and productive, which can help them achieve better work-life balance and overall well-being.

Of course, we also recognise that remote work isn’t for everyone, and we have co-working resources  in place to ensure that everyone has the support and environment they need to be successful, no matter where they are located. But overall, I believe that a remote-first environment is essential for building a strong, innovative, and resilient team that can adapt to change and succeed in today’s fast-paced business world.

Do you have any tips for managing suppliers and customers effectively?

A service-led approach that is complemented by technology is at the core of everything we do. By putting the needs of our end users at the centre, we are able to create a more personalised and seamless experience that meets their unique needs and preferences.

This approach not only helps us to differentiate ourselves from our competitors, but it also leads to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty. Additionally, when we combine this service-led approach with the right technology, we are able to create even greater efficiencies and value for our customers. For example, by using automation and data analytics, we can better understand our customers’ needs and tailor our services to meet those needs in real time.

Overall, I believe that a service-led approach that is complemented by technology is essential for building strong, long-term relationships with our end users and driving the success of our company.

If you could ask one thing of the government to change for businesses what would it be?

As we transition from remote working to work-from-anywhere, we would like governments around the world to embrace the new world of working by easing the regulations around working visas and tax rules.

It is positive to see some countries with a lack of work opportunities facilitating regulations around remote working. This can bring an enormous amount of value so all their regions remain populated with employed people paying their taxes and spending locally.

What is your attitude towards your competitors?

While some of our competitors have prioritised rapid growth over everything else, we at Teamed know that this approach can come at the cost of customer satisfaction. That’s why we currently boast 100% customer retention and, as we scale, we remain laser-focused on keeping the needs and preferences of our customers front and centre.

Dealing with global payroll can be complex and it is essential that any concerns or questions are promptly and effectively addressed. Paying multiple employees in multiple currencies with different exchange rates, personalised bonuses, annual leave, and commission structures can be challenging— and are not always easily modified with the self-service model some competitors offer. By providing a service-led approach that is complemented by technology, Teamed puts the customer at the centre, so employees and employers receive the highest quality support and guidance.

By doing so, we are able to create a better, more personalised experience for our employees and employers and build strong, long-term relationships. This customer-centric approach sets us apart in the market and positions us for sustainable, long-term success.

Any thoughts on the future of your company and your dreams?

We’re changing the world of work. We believe that everyone should have access to equal career opportunities, no matter where they live. That’s why Teamed’s mission is to enable anyone, anywhere, to access the best career opportunities, addressing the growing demand for remote working.

Our recent £2.5M seed round investment will empower Teamed to accelerate the development of global operations, advance its unique technology, and fund a recruitment drive for senior roles. In addition, it will allow Teamed to continue to deliver a market-leading customer experience and keep the company on track to achieve a predicted five-fold growth in 2023.

We look forward to pushing ahead with our plans to accelerate our growth and begin executing our ambitious product roadmap to build a new, more democratic, world of work.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Antony Vallee, Co-Founder and CEO – Teamed

Alleviating loneliness and connecting the elderly to carers quickly in their area is now possible

Lots of us live further away from our elderly parents and are not able to ‘pop in’ as often. Looking to fill that gap and prvent loneliness and worry on eithr side, Verity Batchelor has filled the gap with her platform: Good Life Sorted.

What is your USP?

We have used tech to create a unique platform that connects elderly, vulnerable people with Helpers in their area. We vet and train those Helpers, who then provide company and support to the customer. It’s not medical care or personal care, it’s helping with household tasks like shopping and light chores – providing companionship and support.

What is the main problem you solve for your customers?

We alleviate loneliness, helping older or vulnerable people stay in their own homes longer.

What made you start your business – did you want to rock the status quo, was it a challenge or a gap in the marketplace that you could fill?

My co-founder Constantine’s grandmother was able to live independently, in her own home in a small Greek village, well into her late 90’s – thanks to neighbours popping in on a daily basis. We recognised that this is not always the case for people in the UK and that there was a genuine need to provide support that was not personal care but more about mental health: simply chatting, providing support, taking someone out for a walk, helping with things around the house.

What are Good Life Sorted’s brand values?

Empowerment, Reassurance, Respect, A bespoke approach, Positive energy.

Do your values define your decision-making process?

Yes, absolutely. At every stage of the business, we come back to these values to ensure that the people we hire, the training we provide, the tech we develop, delivers on them.

Is team culture integral to Good Life Sorted?

Yes, especially as our ‘team’ is dotted all over the place: we operate in several regions and the Helpers, once set up with their own profiles on the site, are self-employed – they set up their own hours and pay. They do still need support and to embody the Good Life Sorted values and standards.

If team culture is integral to your business, what do you do to go the extra mile to show your team you appreciate them?

It’s mostly that support – both online and in person. The Helpers have chosen to do this role because they want to make a positive difference in their community, as well as earning an income and working with flexibility. However they still need support, so we provide a very thorough onboarding process, regular training opportunities and face to face get togethers so that they can provide support to one another. This is an emotive business, the Helpers are naturally caring people (that’s why they do it), and they do get close to their customers.

In terms of your messaging, do you think you talk directly to your consumers in a clear fashion?

Yes. This is vital – we are a tech business but our customers are not always tech-savvy, so we keep the platform simple, easy to use and focused, being clear on our offering without being patronising. The Helpers all use an app which again is very clear and has been designed as simple to use – mostly because we don’t want this to take up too much time, it’s all about efficiency and enabling the Helpers to spend more time with their customers.

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

The Helpers set their own hourly rates, so they are in charge of their income. Many of them have maintained the same rates, but some have increased them a little to cover rising travel costs.

How often do you assess the data you pull in and address your KPIs and why?

All the time – we’re a data driven business. The data is assessed weekly and if needed, our tactics are adapted to maximise every opportunity.

Is tech playing a much larger part in your day-to-day running of your company?

It’s always been the largest part of it! Constantine and I met at Amazon, we both come from tech backgrounds and our goal has always been to use tech to solve a human problem.

What is your attitude to your competitors?

We don’t really have any direct competitors as we’re inventing a new category. Our model is quite unique in that we are not providing medical or personal care, but instead companionship and support provided by local Helpers. Of course, anyone else working in the care industry is given our full respect. It’s an emotive and important area.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in business?

Don’t be afraid. Not everyone will love your idea, but if you feel it’s a good one, go for it and don’t be put off by the people who cannot see your vision. Go for it!

It can be a lonely and pressured place to be as the lead decision maker of the business. What do you do to relax, recharge and hone your focus?

I’m not the lead decision maker, I share that pleasure with my co-founder Constantine – I’d recommend that approach to anyone, as if you find the right person to set up with, it is a joy: you bring together your different skills, outlooks and provide each other with support from the get-go. But of course, I still need to recharge and refocus! I spend time with my family, I love travel and I’ve just started Yoga which I love.

Do you believe in the 12 week work method or do you make much longer planning strategies? 

We use strategies of varying length – cycles vary according to what you are planning. We have a long-term plan, a three-year vision, then monthly and weekly planners.  As a nimble digital business, we need to flex a lot. Individuals in the team are responsible for their own planning and we encourage that autonomy.

What is your company’s eco strategy?

We don’t come into the office unless needed for meetings and the tech has been created to connect our Helpers to customers near them, in order to reduce travel as much as possible. The very nature of our business is all about being local.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

We want to grow into other regions – we are mostly in the Southeast at the moment, so we want to expand rapidly across the UK as there is a real need for our provision and we are being approached by families and social workers all the time. We’re going to invest in new tech, develop the platform further and use the data even more effectively. Finally, we’d like to raise awareness of our customers’ needs more. Loneliness is a huge issue in our country and our elderly deserve a bit better. There are more than 2 million people in England over the age of 75 living alone, according to Age UK – and having someone local who can be relied upon is vital.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Verity Batchelder, co-founder, Good Life Sorted

Everyone is paid the same amount at Tandem and it works. Intrigued?

Tandem Collective is a community-led marketing agency, specialising in campaigns for the book publishing and film industries. They work closely with book, film and TV lovers on Instagram and TikTok to create immersive, unique content which is delivered directly into the communities that others are trying to reach.

Founder, Naomi Bacon takes some time from her busy schedule to share her journey in the hope that will inspire Business Matters’ readers …

What are Tandem’s USPs?

Most marketing agencies talk about being experts in community growth but they don’t have their own community around them, which feels disingenuous. We have built our entire offering around putting the community first, delivering what they want and need.

Our flat structure has made the headlines; we are all paid the same, including me. For me, the true meaning of inclusivity is that everyone is valued equally; we all have different skill sets and we are all of value. This promotes loyalty and roots out people that are self-serving or competitive in the wrong ways – that’s not what Tandem is. We are all ambitious and driven, but that’s channeled into our work rather than individual status or comparison within the company.

I recruit people without specific marketing experience; I don’t want them bringing learned behaviours from the industry, good or bad, because my team – who come from a huge variety of different professional and life backgrounds – have such a sense of multiperspectivity. They all love books, that’s how we found each other, and we operate as a hive mind – nobody owns an idea, we form them together, and that collective of different perspectives is what produces our creative and fresh ideas.

What is the main problem Tandem solves for your customers?

Resource – There simply wasn’t an agency serving the publishing industry.

Having been in-house, I was trying to work with mismatched budgets and agencies delivering proposals which weren’t relevant or right for the publishing industry. We are the only company offering this kind of service to the publishing industry, which is why we are growing so quickly globally, and we pride ourselves on offering an affordable option which understands the resource restrictions and the community to which we are marketing. Clients often comment on the creativity and enthusiasm of our team- they almost seem surprised!

What made you start Tandem? – did you want to rock the status quo, was it a challenge or a gap in the marketplace that you could fill?

I found 9-5 corporate structure difficult in so many ways – I’m up at 5am, I like to be active and get going in the mornings, not wait until 9am. I found the rigidity very claustrophobic, and that impacted negatively upon my creativity. I also had serious family issues which needed my attention and energy, and it was not possible to juggle and progress within a corporate job while giving those issues the attention they needed. When I set up on my own, I didn’t have to go anywhere, I could still do the work I love to a high standard but I could also be present with the people I love and be there for them.

That filters down now to the whole team- life happens and we all have the space, flexibility and support to navigate that while still doing our best work. Of course we are all going to be more creative and do better work if we can go for walks, hike up mountains, hang out on the beach, spend time with our families. I don’t have to answer to anyone’s stuctures of what a work day should look like; we enjoy an incredible balance.

What are your brand values?

Courage, compassion and connection.

Courage is not about not having fear, it’s about how you deal with that fear. Starting the business was a courageous act – the most terrifying and most rewarding thing I’ve ever done – and it’s the same with every new campaign. We take leaps and we trust ourselves to do so.

Compassion – understanding that everyone is an individual, work is not a be all and end all, but that it can bring so much joy. Our team is diverse – people from all walks of life, with neurodiversity, health conditions, disabilities, differing family situations, our own challenges. And that leads me to our final value; connection.

Our connection with clients, community and team members is everything; it has to be meaningful and genuine. I wanted to create a team that would feel like a found family, and I have. We genuinely love each other and don’t have to perform or wear professional masks around each other. We treat our clients like human beings – we don’t do ‘super corporate’ – we want them to enjoy and have fun working with us, and that builds respect too; we don’t mistreat each other.

Do your values define your decision-making process?

Absolutely. They’re in everything I do.

Is team culture integral to your business?

It’s everything. We run a yearly retreat in Italy, we get together for Christmas, we travel to co-work with each other – as a fully remote team it’s crucial to have meaningful, in-person connection whenever we can. There’s no forced fun, just genuine downtime together – relaxing on the beach, eating gelato, reading together, having a laugh. We have a zero-alcohol policy at all our gatherings. We have people in recovery on the team and we’ve all seen what happens when too much alcohol is involved in work situations in our prior jobs; we have an amazing time without it and taking booze off the table – literally – makes everyone feel much more comfortable. If a boss or company feels that free booze or the occasional free pizza on a Friday is the way to their employees’ hearts, they’re missing the point and misunderstanding those individuals.

What do you do to go the extra mile to show your team you appreciate them?

Along with the retreats and residential gatherings I run for the team, which are bigger gestures of appreciation, we have daily shows of gratitude and friendship. We each send out a ‘Thursday thank you’ to someone we’re feeling grateful for – privately rather than publicly. We have regular ‘friend chats’ where we carve out time to talk out what’s going on in our lives outside of Tandem, and we have such close friendships within the company which makes the culture quite effortless; we all enjoy being there, and it shows.

In terms of your messaging do you think you talk directly to your consumers in a clear fashion?

Yes, but also in an affectionate, familial way – we don’t do corporate chat. We voicenote, we have a laugh, we remove the jargon and pomp, and we don’t ‘gatekeep’; I was voicenoting a long-standing member of our community last night, just to check in, no agenda. I am very transparent with the community about the running of the company, which I think people appreciate.

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

We increased 10% across all services, year on year, but remain very affordable. This price increase was necessary as we have had a substantial decrease in our  profit margins due to the effects of inflation on our costs. The majority of our profits are reinvested in the company to finance current and future campaigns. We are highly dependent on this capital as we have no debt and have no plans to acquire any.

How often do you assess the data you pull in and address your KPIs and why?

On a monthly basis I sit with the data, but in saying that, I have never had a rigid business plan;  which contributes to the success of Tandem. I look at the data but I just do the job as it presents itself. I hate the terms ‘targets’ and ‘KPI’s – sometimes you feel pressured to pull a target out of a hat, then if you don’t meet it, you feel like it’s a measure of your capability when it isn’t.

The KPIs that matter to me are values-based; do I have a happy, healthy team? Are we enjoying what we do? Do our clients keep coming back to us? Because when those things are in place, the numbers are great. If not, I go back to Connection; how can we better connect to improve things?

Is tech playing a much larger part in your day-to-day running of Tandem?

Our company is totally online, so we are very reliant on social media platforms, but we keep things quite simple. We are using platforms like Discord, but we try to limit the number of apps and platforms that our community need in order to engage with us; we want to encourage a balance our quality online offering with encouraging meaningful offline time.

What is your attitude to your competitors?

Competitor analysis is a huge thing for some but it’s not something I think about – firstly we don’t really have any competitors, as nobody else does what we do, and secondly I try very hard not to compare myself or this company to any other individuals or companies. I focus on our objectives, goals and successes – my brain switches off when I hear someone gloating about turnover, because it’s just not my focus. Profit doesn’t tell the full story of that company and the humans within it. It all comes back to our values; they are what matter to me.

It can be a lonely and pressured place to be as the lead decision maker of the business. What do you do to relax, recharge and hone your focus?

Nearly all decisions are made as a collective, so it’s either the entire team or the project managers and I making a final call on something together. I relax and recharge by climbing – I often work from a climbing wall – doing yoga, cycling, hiking, sitting on the beach. I start my day very early with an hour of meditation, reading, some Duolingo; anything peaceful that sets me up for the day. That sacred hour is very important. My lifestyle and environment encourages that way of recharging – I chase the sun, and right now I’m in Cape Town. I don’t work Fridays, none of the team do – we read, get inspired and recharge ourselves.

Do you believe in the 12 week work method or do you make much longer planning strategies?

We do have longer term goals but we work primarily in quarters, so shorter sprints – it helps us to focus on the here and now, which is why our business plan is so flexible.

What is your company’s eco strategy?

We all work remotely online, so our footprint is very small, but we used to print resources for our community and clients – now we provide all of those resources digitally to minimise our impact further. We also work with local businesses and small businesses for send-out items to minimise postage impact.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

I want to set up local pods in territories where affordable solutions haven’t – until now – been available, including India, South Africa, and smaller territories across Europe. We already have a strong presence in Italy and Spain, but I’d like to see definite expansion into Germany and France, I want to invest in individuals within those communities. I also want to develop our film and theatre offering, and we are making exciting plans in that area. Apart from that, I want things to continue as they are – a strong, happy team; creative projects rolling in; enthusiastic clients – a lifestyle business that I’m proud to be a part of.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Naomi Bacon, Founder of Tandem Collective

Disrupting a marketplace and becoming an enabler for SME growth – hats off to John Cheney …

Workbooks is a cloud-based SaaS CRM platform that helps growing companies run their business and engage more effectively with customers. They offer affordable solutions for SMEs. They have a price point that is typically 50-70% lower than other CRM providers like Salesforce or Microsoft, so they’re enabling businesses to scale in a realistic and manageable way.

John Cheney, CEO, talks to Business Matters and shares his story …

What made you start Workbooks? Did you want to rock the status quo, was it a challenge or a gap in the marketplace that you could fill?    

Before Workbooks, I founded a cloud-based email security business. As we grew, like many SMEs, we invested in various IT systems: we used Salesforce as our platform for sales, but then a separate platform for marketing automation, finance, customer services, and so on. Running a business using many different systems adds unnecessary complexity and is expensive. So, I saw an opportunity to develop a CRM and business applications platform primarily for mid-sized companies like ours.

The aim was to allow companies to build better businesses and remove the burden of managing multiple, siloed solutions. Along with traditional CRM, I wanted Workbooks to provide tools such as order processing and customer support that could join up the customer-facing side of the business and easily integrate with accounting systems.

So that was the vision: to create a business application platform for growing companies that couldn’t necessarily afford enterprise applications but needed more capability than simple and disjointed accounting, marketing, or sales tools.

What is Workbooks’ USP?

Aside from the CRM service, we also offer a Shared Success approach to new projects, which is a selling point unique to Workbooks. Many companies take a technology-first approach to choosing the right CRM, but that can be a fast track to failure. Instead, companies should start by identifying the business outcomes they want to achieve in order to identify functional goals.

Our Shared Success approach helps businesses define and prioritise their business outcomes, understand their requirements for CRM, and set clear expectations for implementing it. We invest in the success of our customers’ CRM projects in three ways:

1. We help customers to understand what they need from CRM software to achieve their business goals with a co-funded workshop.
2. We co-fund implementation to give customers a made-to-measure CRM for an off-the-shelf price.
3. We offer a co-funded customer success programme so customers can future-proof their business processes with a CRM that grows with them.

What is the main problem you solve for your customers?

Our CRM platform helps SMEs grow revenue, enhance customer experience, reduce operational costs, and improve decision-making by joining up the entire business. Our core CRM services extend beyond sales, marketing, and customer services to include marketing automation, event management, order management and fulfilment, invoicing, and supplier management functionalities for SMEs. We work consultatively with businesses to deliver a CRM and workflow that addresses their unique challenges. In doing so, we’re proud to say we have been rated number one for customer satisfaction by G2 for the past six years.

What are your brand values?

Our customers’ success is our success – which starts with our customers as individuals. Our overarching approach is to focus on the people we work with, and how we can help them be better at what they do. Business success will follow.

Do your values define your decision making process?

When helping a customer with their CRM implementation, it’s very important to us that the individuals we’re working with understand it. We’re willing to invest the time into ensuring they are using the tools successfully, because we know, long term, if they’re successful, they’ll continue to invest in the Workbooks platform.

Is team culture integral to your business?

I think team culture needs to be integral to any business. We have our five company values on the wall at Workbooks HQ. The most important is ‘customer first’, which is about how we, as a business, make sure we deliver the outcomes our customers are expecting. The others are: ‘committed’, ‘creative’, ‘identify opportunities and problems’, and ‘competitive’ – we like to win! But all of these company values rely on us working well as a team.

If team culture is integral to your business, what do you do to go the extra mile to show your team you appreciate them?

We have a sixth unofficial company value, which is cake. It’s important to celebrate milestones together, whether that’s winning a big deal or a birthday. We also have quarterly ‘town halls’, where I’ll provide a business update to the entire company, and as part of that process, we recognise the achievements of key individuals. We call them our Workbooks heroes.

In terms of your messaging do you think you talk directly to your consumers in a clear fashion?

Being honest, talking directly to our prospects in a clear fashion isn’t always easy. We have a diverse customer base, and we need to communicate clearly to everyone, from manufacturing to professional services firms. We are working on it, but even then, each business will have slightly different needs. What’s most important is that we understand them.

What’s your take on inflation and interest rates – are you going to pass that on to your customers or let your margins take a hit and reward customer loyalty in these tougher times?

Many of our customers are already protected because they have signed a multi-year contract with us. The price of the product remains the same during that contract period, regardless of what goes on with our public list price.

More than 75% of our customers are on multi-year contracts, so there hasn’t been any price inflation in their Workbooks licenses. However, costs are always reassessed at renewal time, and pricing may need to be adapted to inflation.

How often do you assess the data you pull in and address your KPIs and why?

I have a set of dashboards displaying data from across the business that I look at every day. We use the data to continually review and assess our performance against KPIs. We look at top-line revenue, sales performance, customer satisfaction, customer health, customer retention rates, and then key financial metrics, like billings and cash flow.

We use this data to measure our budget performance. How are we doing against where we thought we were going to be? Do we have any customer-related issues that need resolving? This last one is a particularly important part of what we do with the data daily – we want to identify potential issues for customers as early as possible and understand the reasons for them.

Is tech playing a much larger part in your day-to-day running of your company?

We make incremental and continual improvements to our technology stack, and, like many businesses, we use some technologies like video conferencing tools far more than we used to. On the whole though, technology has always played an important part in the day-to-day running of our business.

What is your attitude to your competitors?

I am grateful to our competitors. I think they add real value to us. Our largest competitors, like Salesforce, have helped create the market we operate in, and it’s against them that we can differentiate our services.

It can be a lonely and pressured place to be as the lead decision maker of the business. What do you do to relax, recharge and hone your focus?

I like cooking, and I enjoy a glass of wine. Sometimes at the same time. Preferably at the same time, actually.

Do you believe in the 12 week work method or do you make much longer planning strategies? 

The short answer is yes, I believe in the 12 week work method. However, this is actually one of three things we do at Workbooks. At a high level, we have a three year business plan, which is more strategic; a 12 month financial plan, which is much more detailed and includes budgets and KPIs; and then a three month plan, which focuses on our more immediate objectives and what we are trying to deliver.

What is Workbooks’ eco strategy?

We are taking steps to reduce our carbon footprint where we can. For example, we partake in the Cycle to Work Scheme and are just about to introduce an electric car scheme. The electric car points are being installed at our offices as we speak. We are also looking at ways to run our business in a more environmentally friendly manner. For example, we are working with our suppliers to reduce the power consumption of our hardware.

What three things do you hope to have in place within the next 12 months?

International expansion is a key focus for us moving forward. In 2018, we opened an office in Connecticut to support our growth in North America, where we recently won our biggest contract to date. Within the next 12 months, we hope to grow our team in America by another five people.

We also have plans to open a third office, which will be in Europe, and we are looking to launch a new product to help our customers manage projects more effectively.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: John Cheney, CEO of Workbooks

Upskilling tech teams in meaningful, productive sessions that actually work.

The idea for Skiller Whale came from the pain that Hywel and his co-founder, Dave, experienced first hand as software engineers, and tech leaders in fast-growth environments.

Both were getting frustrated to find that a huge amount of their time was spent finding and filling the gaps in knowledge that our teams weren’t aware that they had. After trying all the usual suspects – video libraries, content subscriptions – they saw no real skill improvement. 

Realising that upskilling tech teams was consistently one of the biggest headaches CTOs and Heads of Engineering face, they knew that if they could solve this problem it would be transformative for the industry.

Enter Skiller Whale …

What products or services do you provide?

Skiller Whale provides Deep Coaching for companies with ambitious tech strategies. This means personalised, live, expert-led, micro-coaching sessions in small groups, focused on specific tech skills required by the team.

What type of businesses do you work with?

Start-ups, scale-ups, large tech companies. Really, anyone who is tech-first and ambitious in what they want to achieve.

We currently work with a number of scale-up Fintechs and Unicorns, such as Omnipresent, Wagestream, Gousto, Drizly and PensionBee.

What is your USP?

Traditionally, if you want affordable learning, you have to get access to generic content for self-study (low engagement, low impact). On the other hand, if you want high-impact learning, you have to dedicate a week or more of intensive time for expensive ‘bespoke training’.

With Skiller Whale, we created a third way: teams get the impact of live, intensive coaching, at a pace and price that’s affordable and sustainable. With the subscription model, it’s low stakes to try for a month and cancel or pause if it’s not working for you.

In developing our approach, we tried many things that failed. But some things worked, and we kept exploring and refining those. Eventually, we realised that 4 criteria had emerged as foundational to tech coaching effectiveness.

• Diagnostic – it must be relevant to each individual’s knowledge – what they don’t know, and what they need to know.
• Expert-led – it must be challenging, with feedback – this means it needs to be led live by a domain expert.
• Experiential – it must be hands on learning, not just theoretical or passive
• Problem-based – it must have scenarios with real-world application, not just ‘hello world’ or foobar.

These rather obligingly spell out ‘DEEP’, which with its aquatic connotations felt like the perfect term for our company!

We got some help with this structure from our third co-founder, Hayley, who previously ran a company developing skill matrices for organisations like HSBC and Microsoft. By the time we’d defined Deep Coaching, we collectively realised that the criteria echoed our experiences at the university we all attended (and where two of us met) – Cambridge.

In the Oxbridge model, learning is led in small groups by domain experts. However, at university everyone is assumed to have the same pathway. This certainly isn’t the case once you’re working, so the diagnostic element is key to our approach being relevant for mid-career folks.

No individual element of what we do (DEEP) is new, but the combination is unique.

Our view is that if we can get the learning experience right, then we’ll solve the rest of the scaling as we grow. We have a 94% completion rate (compare that with 12.5% median MOOC completion), and 99% of learners give our coaching 4 or 5 stars, so we think we’re doing something right.

What are your company values? Have you ever had them challenged and if so how have you dealt with it?

Openness is our most important value, and we’ve defined it as enabling openness through gratitude. Many organisations expect openness, but don’t create the conditions to make it possible. It must be easy to give bad news. It must be acknowledged that it’s hard to give negative feedback, not just hard to receive it. Psychological safety is a must have.

Rationality has been challenged as a word that has been used as a weapon against women. We considered changing the word, but couldn’t find another that fitted our meaning better, so we continue to use it but with the explicit acknowledgement that it has been weaponised, but our meaning of it is that everyone can follow the steps of each decision and understand (not necessarily agree with) how we arrived somewhere. It’s also worth noting that we do not believe that rationality is the antithesis of emotion. Sometimes the most rational thing to do is to prioritise the emotional impact of a decision.

How do you ensure that you recruit a team that reflects your company values?

We’re very clear about our values internally and externally; and we want them to be reflected by everyone in the company, that is why we take hiring seriously.

The recruitment process provides a really great opportunity to not only discuss our values but embody them right the way through the candidate experience. We are open and transparent about our salary banding with all advertised roles, our approach to flexible working and our commitments to improving diversity within the tech industry.

We make a point to deliver feedback to any candidate who applies and we ensure that values based questions are woven within the process, rather than simply the traditional competency approach.

Any finance or cash-flow tips for new businesses starting out?

Prioritise revenue over capital. Early revenue is the strongest signal you can get that your idea might be successful. It’s a sign that you’re doing something valuable, bottom-up. Investment is a sign that your market exists top-down, and that you can describe it compellingly to investors – that’s a weaker signal for long-term success.

Sell early – sell earlier than you think you possibly can. From the start, our vision for Skiller Whale was a remote-first, technology-driven coaching environment – slick, integrated into our user’s workday without friction. But the first version our customers paid for, had none of that – it was me travelling across London to the offices of our customers, sliding pieces of paper across the table in a stuffy meeting room, looking over their shoulders and answering questions. I’d probably spent less than 10 working days on the business at that point. Not only did we get revenue sooner, but we were able to experiment and iterate much sooner. I think that approach is why we were able to invent a new learning model, and it’s why our users love us so much – everything about our service came directly from watching users experience it.

If you could ask one thing of the government to change for businesses what would it be?

Modernise and simplify – allow for more integrations (like Making Tax Digital – that’s a great start). I tried to read the rules on taxable and non-taxable benefits recently, and they don’t reflect a modern world where people are increasingly working from home, part-time, and changing jobs every couple of years.

Each new form we’re required to submit, each new field on a tax return, each new scheme to apply for, is an extra burden for an innovative, growing company. The more admin and bureaucracy there is around the running of a company, the less time we have to work on the company itself – and ensuring we’re compliant becomes a real burden, expensive in terms of money and time.

What is your attitude towards your competitors?

Right now, we don’t have direct competitors. However, there is a lot of content out there and a lot of providers of traditional e-learning for tech skills. We think it’s great that there’s so much available, and that so much of it is free! But our view is that it’s like a gym membership – go whenever you want, do whatever you want (and probably don’t). Our brand of coaching is like a personal trainer focused on getting a team ready to win a league. It’s just a completely different thing with different goals. Personal trainers don’t think gyms should be abolished, but they probably also don’t think they are enough.

Any thoughts on the future of your company and your dreams?

We’re always keeping up with the changing tech landscape and responding to the needs of our customers. On our roadmap, we are expanding our offering beyond language-specific coaching to broader topics such as writing clean code; data modelling, as well as soft skills such as pair programming and time management.

Beyond that, we will be expanding to other skill domains beyond tech. Watch this space.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Hywel Carver, co-founder and CEO, Skiller Whale

We are all aware that oceans are the lifeline of our planet.

When Adam Root first started out mapping all the ways plastic enters the ocean, he found that the largest proportion by a nautical mile is microplastic. After researching what was being done about it it transpired that the answer was: very little. Once microplastics get into waterways and the ocean it’s technically very difficult to remove. Keen to help solve this issue, he invented Gulp.

Gulp is a sustainable solution to stopping microplastic pollution that empowers people to make a real difference. It’s the first highly efficient microplastic filter that can be retrofitted to existing washing machines without the use of disposable cartridges or replaceable components.

Adam took five minutes out of his day to speak to Business Matters about his journey and business beliefs.

What products or services do you provide?

Matter is an innovation company pioneering technology solutions for capturing, harvesting and recycling microplastics. Our mission is to stop microplastic pollution at source. We have developed an innovative filtration product – Gulp – that captures microplastics produced by washing machines. Gulp is the first highly efficient microplastic filter that can be retrofitted to washing machines creating zero additional waste for the entire life cycle. (Find out more at gulp.online)

As well as producing a product for existing washing machines, we are also engaged with multinational domestic appliance manufacturers to integrate the technology into washing machines to meet legislative requirements in France from 2025 and being developed internationally.

Our technology is scalable, and we are developing our filtration technology to address microplastic emissions on a commercial and industrial scale. This includes, for example, wastewater treatment plants and textile production factories.

Yet, to fully solve the global issue of microplastics in the environment, we are also developing solutions to turn microplastic fully circular. This enables us to harvest those microplastics and other micropollutants captured by our products to create valuable resources for new products in the circular economy. We are currently leading a number of live research projects to find sustainable methods and applications for recycling microfibres from our laundry to create a closed loop system.

What problem does your company solve?

60% of all textiles are now made from plastic fibres, which get washed into our waterways, damaging the environment and ending up in our food chain. In the UK alone there’s 24 million homes each producing on average a gram of microplastic every single wash. That works out to approximately 14-16 tonnes a day of plastic going down the drain and into our ocean. Our mission at Matter is to create long-term solutions for one of the biggest challenges of our time and stop microplastic pollution at its source.

How do you ensure that you recruit a team that reflects your company values?

Culture is really important to us at Matter. Our company values are embedded into everything we do, and those are the values we look for in potential applicants. Everyone that works at Matter shares the same passion – we want to drive change and make a positive impact on our planet.

Candidates are assessed on competency for the role and their values – and they need to meet both criteria to be considered for the role. We also include a group activity – such as a team lunch – to make everyone feel part of the process and understand how the applicant interacts with the rest of the team.

The bit between an offer and starting is also really important. We stay in touch, invite them along to our socials and by the time they start they already feel part of the team!

If you could ask one thing of the government to change for businesses what would it be?

Legislative action is fundamental to deliver the scale of change needed to stop microplastic pollution. As more countries look to follow France’s lead of implementing legislation for microplastic filters to be fitted into washing machines, we are campaigning for the Microplastic Filter (Washing Machines) Bill with APPG. The bill proposes all new domestic and commercial washing machines in the UK to be fitted with a microplastic filter by 2025. The bill is currently entering its second hearing stage and we hope to see this drive change at the scale that is required to stop plastic pollution from laundry.

Read more:
Secrets of Success: Adam Root, Founder of Gulp at Matter