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Drover vehicle subscription launches in Manchester

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10/08/2018

Drover vehicle subscription launches in Manchester

Drover, the UK’s very first online Netflix style subscription service for cars, has launched in Manchester offering drivers in the area a new way to get a car.

Drover enables customers to pay a monthly online subscription for a vehicle that includes a car, insurance, breakdown cover, servicing and maintenance, road tax and discounted fuel costs at selected fuel partners. Recognising that consumers’ lifestyles are more agile than ever, Drover is offering a genuine alternative for those who may be reluctant to purchase a car outright or who don’t want to commit to a costly, long-term finance plan.

In addition, through its all-inclusive pricing, Drover aims to be completely transparent with customers about costs so they know exactly what they’re signing up for upfront and don’t get stung further down the line. Furthermore, the all-inclusive pricing, which starts at £300 per month, means that the stress and hassle of organising insurance, MOT checks and dealing with breakdowns are all ticked off in advance.

Felix Leuschner, Founder & CEO of Drover, said: “We know that an increasing amount of consumers don’t hold owning a car in the same regard that previous generations did, and many prefer a more flexible option that is suited to their ever-changing lifestyle. Despite this, the car purchase space has seen very little innovation in the past few decades and hasn’t moved accordingly. As such, it’s clear to see there is a clear gap and that the current options for car ownership are dated.

At the same time, the subscription market has seen a 100% growth rate every year for the last in the last five years¹because of its emphasis on personalisation and flexibility – companies like Netflix and Class Pass, for example, have seen huge success because they’ve recognised that ultimately, consumers want freedom.

We’re taking the same methodology and applying it to the automotive industry to show that a car doesn’t have to be a huge upfront investment or a stressful long-term commitment and to give consumers an alternative that’s suited for the 21st century. “

By signing up on the Drover website, consumers are able to subscribe to a monthly plan where they can select a vehicle and mileage package to suit them. A range of brands are available to choose from, and customers can either opt for a monthly rolling contract or can commit for a specific time period, which is debited from their bank account each month. Once subscribed, customers can arrange to use their vehicle to be delivered to them by their local car dealer, which typically takes 48 hours.

Initially launching in 2016 for Uber drivers, Drover has already seen rapid growth and success and decided to enter the consumer retail market in February 2018 through a phased launch in London. Since then, Drover has 2,000 active drivers on the platform and has handled over 20,000 bookings.

Continued growth for Join the Dots with £6.41m six-month revenue

Blog

Sam Whitear

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10/08/2018

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Continued growth for Join the Dots with £6.41m six-month revenue

Manchester-headquartered global consumer insight agency, Join the Dots, has released its latest financial figures which show the business generating a revenue of £6.41m in the first six months of 2018 and a 12.7 per cent growth on the same period of 2017.

The figures demonstrate the continued growth of the company which celebrates its 20^th year of business this year. Despite experiencing a slower Q1 in 2018 while the company completed its restructure, Q2 quickly gained momentum for the business and has historically been a positive performance indicator for Q3 and Q4.

Commenting on the latest financials, CEO of Join the Dots, Quentin Ashby, said: “Our first half of the year has been a period of encouraging growth in a tough economic climate; we have expanded our team internationally with Mallory Salerno who joined our New York office in May as business development director and in the UK we welcomed Phil Jones as non-executive director in June. These appointments cement our commitment and investment in growing the business’ reach and ensuring we can continue to produce innovative work for both new and existing clients.

“We remain confident in the company’s performance in 2018 and continue to invest in delivering high quality services to our clients and a great place to work for our staff.”

Face for Business celebrates fifth anniversary with the answering of its 750,000th phone call

Blog

Sam Whitear

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10/08/2018

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Face for Business celebrates fifth anniversary with the answering of its 750,000th phone call

North West-based, Face for Business, is celebrating its fifth year in business, with the answering of its 750,000^th phone call and launch of a new bespoke mobile app.

Founded by husband and wife, Andy and Marie MacGregor, Face for Business makes life easier, for businesses of all sizes, through its personal and cost-effective telephone answering services.

Face for Business provides PA and reception call answering services to hundreds of businesses throughout the UK, from a variety of sectors, and answers, on average, 1,200 calls a day.

Being ISO 9001 accredited, its core team of 20 Lancashire based staff, are highly trained and enthusiastic, handling calls from a wide range of industries, including finance, construction, accountancy and professional services, to name but a few.

To coincide with its fifth anniversary, the company has launched a mobile application, allowing clients to have even better access to their calls and messages as well as having the ability to contact their PA easier. As well as being able to access all calls and messages via their desktop client portal, they can now access all the same functions via their phone.

Andy MacGregor, co-owner, said, “Innovation is at the heart of everything we do, therefore it is appropriate that, on our fifth anniversary, we launch a bespoke mobile application to complement our call handling services.

“Additionally, the answering of our 750,000th client phone call represents a significant milestone for us and demonstrates the marvellous level of growth we have achieved in a relatively short period of time.

“We deliver a personal and tailored call handling service to organisations, both large and small, across the UK, taking the pressure off them and allowing them to focus on delivering their key priorities.

“I would like to thank all of our staff for their hard work, day in and day out, over the past five years. Without their commitment and loyalty, we couldn’t deliver such a consistently high level of service to each of our valued clients.”

Kellogg’s hires new director of UK sales

Appointments

Sam Whitear

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10/08/2018

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Kellogg’s hires new director of UK sales

Kellogg’s has appointed a new UK senior sales director as it seeks to drive sales across its cereal and snacks portfolio.

Chris Silcock will report directly to Oli Morton, managing director for Kellogg’s UK & Ireland, and will join the senior leadership team in the UK.

Silcock joins from Coca Cola European Partners where in his role as grocery channel director he helped the business add more retail value growth in 2017 than any other soft drinks manufacturer (+£80m retail sales) and he also led the development and implementation of a new pack and promotional strategy in response to the Government’s soft drinks tax.

In a career spanning various FMCG categories and channels, Silcock has also held roles at Coca Cola Enterprises as a field sales director and worked for Asda Walmart for 13 years in a number of different roles, including as Impulse grocery category director.

Silcock has a BSc in Management Sciences from UMIST, now The University of Manchester.

He will be based at Kellogg’s new HQ in MediaCityUK from Mid-September.

The appointment follows former senior sales director Oli Morton’s appointment to managing director of the UK and Ireland business. Morton announced a complete overhaul of the company’s cereals at the end of last year. This included reformulation of cereals aimed at children to reduce sugar while maintaining taste.

Oli Morton said: “Chris is a great leader and we are delighted to welcome him to our leadership team to run our commercial agenda with our trade partners across the UK. His experience at Coco Cola European Partners helping the company navigate the nutrition debate will also be extremely valuable to Kellogg’s as we continue our health and wellbeing leadership journey.”

AKA NORTH on board with Transport for Greater Manchester as new media planning and buying agency

Blog

Sam Whitear

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09/08/2018

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AKA NORTH on board with Transport for Greater Manchester as new media planning and buying agency

AKA NORTH has announced it has won a major tender to become the media planning and buying agency for Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM), to promote awareness of core services and support a sustainability strategy for Greater Manchester’s transport network.

AKA NORTH will be responsible for generating brand awareness and delivering a modal shift to sustainable transport modes. It will also support TfGM’s environmental and sustainability initiatives through multi-platform media campaigns and experiential activities, improving customer engagement and enhancing travellers’ experiences throughout Greater Manchester.

AKA NORTH won the contract as part of a comprehensive and competitive tender process. The initial two-year deal, with an option for a further two years, is a significant partnership opportunity and comes on the back of a series of recent client wins for AKA NORTH, including Great Exhibition of the North and National Museums of the Royal Navy.

Mike Mellor, head of commercial and marketing for TfGM, said: “We’re very excited to be working with AKA NORTH as our new media agency partner. They combine the best of two worlds – local insights and knowledge as a Manchester-based company alongside their access to the considerable resources of the wider AKA Group. Throughout the tender process they showed us a range of creative campaign ideas to highlight their understanding of audience behaviour along with their technical knowledge to enhance our brand across traditional and digital platforms.”

Mike continued: “We aim to make the city region a cleaner, greener, and healthier place to live, work, and play in. And we firmly believe that with AKA NORTH’s help we’ll be able to encourage the public to travel sustainably. The agency joins our organisation at a key time as we increase our role in the devolution agenda and build awareness of our growing profile amongst residents and visitors into the area.”

“We’re delighted and proud to partner with TfGM as its new media agency,” added Gillian Thomson-Woolley, managing director AKA NORTH and Scotland. “With over 5.6 million journeys made using Greater Manchester’s transport network each day, AKA NORTH will be responsible for connecting TfGM to a huge audience. We’ll ensure we deliver our blend of impactful media planning alongside our gold-standard client service to deliver a clear return on investment for TfGM.”

Fletchers celebrates £6m business wins and doubles Eccles base

Energy

Sam Whitear

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09/08/2018

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Fletchers celebrates £6m business wins and doubles Eccles base

Fletchers Engineering is celebrating £6m of new business and is doubling the size of its Eccles operation.

The engineering solutions company has been appointed by Morrisons Utility Services, to provide service installations for a new battery storage facility in Roosecote, Barrow. The facility, being built for Centrica, will be one of the largest in the UK. Fletchers is delivering stainless steel pipework services, steelwork & prefabricated service modules.

In addition, the team will be providing steelworks, access platforms and cooling systems for two large data centres in the South of England, while closer to home at MediaCity, the company is carrying out an upgrade to a new energy efficient heating system at Victoria Building for Peel.

Finally, retained client David Lloyd has confirmed that Fletchers will be expanding its remit by managing the maintenance of all of its Northern leisure centres on a three-year contract.

Steve Fletcher, MD, commented: “It has been a hugely successful 2018 so far and we are delighted to be working with such high-profile and interesting clients. To help manage the additional work, we have acquired an 18,000 sq ft warehouse close to our current base – we will be looking to expand our 140 strong team and add a new fleet of vehicles in the coming months.”

Buckleigh & Williams Group completes acquisition of Manchester Staff Ltd

Blog

Sam Whitear

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09/08/2018

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Buckleigh & Williams Group completes acquisition of Manchester Staff Ltd

Buckleigh & Williams Group, today announced it has completed its acquisition of Manchester Staff Ltd, a vibrant up-and-coming recruitment firm. With Manchester Staff Ltd now part of Buckleigh & Williams, the consultancy will be able to leverage significant levels of resources, resulting in vastly improved time-to-hire rates, and market leading talent search capabilities.

Manchester Staff Ltd, founded in 2016 by Dino Georgiou, already provides a high-quality recruitment service to office-based sectors such as sales; marketing; HR; finance; and office support. As the name suggests, the company works exclusively with businesses in the Greater Manchester region, and focuses on securing local talent for local jobs.

Dino Georgiou commented: “I am delighted to have formed a strategic partnership with Buckleigh & Williams. We have joint vision of delivering significant growth for Manchester Staff and I look forward to working together with Ian and Alex to achieve our objective. Combining a local brand, dedicated to delivering jobs for the people of Manchester, with the resources and talent available at Buckleigh & Williams, we will possess the means to propel Manchester Staff Ltd to the highest levels of service and efficiency.”

Manchester Staff Ltd has seen steady growth over the last twelve months and has laid strong foundations for future success by developing key relationships with local Manchester businesses. Buckleigh & Williams recognized the potential of the recruitment brand and were able to strike a deal and add the business to their portfolio, providing significant resources and capital.

Ian Buckley, Director of Buckleigh & Williams commented: “We are delighted to have acquired a majority stake in an up-and-coming business like Manchester Staff. We are proud Mancunians and have ambitious plans to re-invest some of the profits back into local community projects. We have a plan in place to fully support this business with the resources it needs to become a local recruitment powerhouse, and contribute to this great city.”

With immediate effect, Manchester Staff Ltd has re-located to the Buckleigh & Williams HQ at Deanway Technology Building 2, Wilmslow Road, Cheshire where it will be primed for rapid expansion with new recruits ready to join the team in September 2018.

Alex Platt, Director of Buckleigh & Williams commented: “Diversifying into new markets is a key growth strategy for us as a business. We feel Manchester Staff Ltd is the right company to invest in and has the potential to achieve our growth targets. To achieve this we will bring specialist recruitment techniques normally utilized in high-end markets such as IT, construction and engineering, to the office support sectors. Our recruitment capabilities here at Buckleigh & Williams are of the highest standard, and we will integrate our processes and technologies to Manchester Staff seamlessly to deliver results.”

Brabners names Mind as its charity partner for 2018/19

CSR

Sam Whitear

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09/08/2018

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Brabners names Mind as its charity partner for 2018/19

Independent legal practice Brabners, which has a base in Manchester, has named mental health charity Mind as its chosen charity partner for 2018/19 and has kicked off its fundraising target by raising £5,000 from its annual Charity Challenge.

The Charity Challenge took place in the Lake District and is the firm’s first major fundraising initiative of the year.

It saw teams of employees, clients, friends and family race against each other in a series of gruelling challenges. From kayaking more than a mile and a half around Derwentwater lake to cycling up to 37 miles through the Buttermere Valley. This route saw teams climb more than 4,000ft as they cycled the Honister and Whinlatter passes, before participants hiked a further 3,800ft as they ended the challenge with a nine mile fell walk through Outerside, Craig Hill and Sand Hill.

Mind promotes the understanding of mental health issues and provides advice and support to the thousands of people across the UK who need it. This event is just one of many that Brabners’ dedicated charity committee has planned to support Mind and will be followed by a number of sponsored challenges to help the firm beat its annual fundraising target of £25,000. This includes partner Phil Steele running 5km every day for six months.

Lachlan Nisbet, head of the firm’s charity committee, said: “Mind does a tremendous job of providing thousands of individuals across the country, both young and old, with expert support and guidance around mental health issues. We’re extremely proud that the money we’ve raised will provide Mind with the vital funding it needs to carry on supporting those who need its help the most, and we’re looking forward to continuing our support as we work together to raise awareness of such an important cause.”

Sandra Gilbert at Wirral Mind added: “One in four people are affected by mental health issues, so the work we do to encourage open conversation is more important than ever. Events like this not only help us to raise awareness about such an important issue, they ensure the money raised will allow us to continue to provide services to people experiencing distress.

“It’s really encouraging to see firms such as Brabners championing mental health awareness and we hope to see many more follow in their footsteps.”

Over the last 10 years Brabners has raised more than £250,000 for charities including Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Marie Curie, Help for Heroes, Macmillan Cancer Support, Crisis and Guide Dogs UK.

Globe-trotting Manchester firm eyes expansion as demand soars for ethical animal tourism

Blog

Sam Whitear

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08/08/2018

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Globe-trotting Manchester firm eyes expansion as demand soars for ethical animal tourism

Manchester-based Global Spirit Animals In Tourism Limited is predicting further growth as holidaymakers around the world pay closer attention to the welfare of animals at international tourist resorts.

Global Spirit, the specialist animal welfare auditor, was launched by experienced professional Hayley Lynagh in 2015 after she developed a comprehensive, peer reviewed audit process for the travel and tourism industry.

A growing portfolio of tour operators, cruise lines, ground operators and suppliers use the robust audit process she developed which measures the quality of their ‘animal footprint’ against established industry welfare criteria.

Clients include Thomas Cook Group, Virgin Holidays, Carnival and Buffalo Tours.

The business is on target to achieve a £150,000 turnover by the end of this year and on track for £500,000 by 2020 thanks to a clutch of new contracts.

In total, the company has audited over 100 facilities in more than 20 different countries including Mexico, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Cuba, USA and the Dominican Republic.

The company expects to announce a series of new transatlantic deals with USA based clients which will come to fruition in 2019 and stimulate new jobs at its Manchester city centre headquarters on Deansgate.

Hayley Lynagh, director of Global Spirit, said: “Tourists from all around the world are paying an increasing level of attention to the welfare of animals at resorts and using it as a major consideration in their choice of activity.

“We are continuing to see the industry as a whole place animal welfare increasingly higher on their agenda as they recognise the important role travel and tourism has to play in raising standards and bring about global change.

“By measuring their excursions against increasingly complex, internationally recognised criteria, and being transparent with customers they are able to offer assurance to people who are increasingly passionate about the welfare of animals.

“Making positive changes post audit is fundamental and we provide individualised reports which include an overview of the facility alongside detailed improvement recommendations where minimum requirements have not been met.

“We are proud to be a Manchester-based business playing a positive role in driving up animal welfare standards across the world.”

Why it is crucial to understand the challenges of Resilience in Digital Environments

Blog

Sam Whitear

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08/08/2018

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Why it is crucial to understand the challenges of Resilience in Digital Environments

Shearwater Group plc., who has a base in Preston, has partnered with the Institute for Strategy, Resilience & Security (ISRS) at University College London (UCL) to release a ground-breaking digital resilience focused White Paper. The Paper is entitled Digital Resilience – Understanding the Challenges of Resilience in Digital Environments and it explains why it is crucial to understand the challenges of Resilience at a Senior Management/Boardroom level.

The Paper highlights seven key messages for Senior Executives:

1. Digital resilience is about the resilience of your organisation and its business processes in an all-pervasive digital environment, not the resilience of your IT function. Organisations must acquire a dynamic state of continual evolution and learning and the capability to use new challenges not merely to rebound but to bounce forward – crises become pointers towards opportunity and catalysts for evolution.

2. Digital resilience is one of the most valuable long-term properties of your organisation and it must be managed at senior leadership level, and understood throughout the entire organisation, as both a business and a technical matter. It must not be conflated with cybersecurity or disaster recovery. It defines your capabilities for forward evolution and survival in the light of a changing environment, through the successful implementation of an evolving business strategy.

3. The core business processes of most firms and 100% of digitally native businesses are now entirely dependent upon digital technology. Reversionary modes of operation, for example, switching to processes that are less dependent upon technology, are often no longer possible in the event of disruption or failure. If your assessment is that significant digital disruption may disable your core business processes, then digital resilience has become tantamount to business resilience.

4. Digital resilience is about opportunity and risk in equal measure, with new technologies generate novel modes of both resilience and irresilience. Equally a failure to adopt new technology that delivers superior customer value leads to poor competitiveness versus more nimble rivals is a resilience issue as a determinant of business survival or failure.

5. More secure does not mean more resilient. While a less secure technology solution may pose access vulnerabilities, a more secure solution may introduce flawed assumptions, irresilient processes or lead to catastrophic business inflexibility. Any new digital infrastructure must therefore be assessed in terms of its overall impact on business resilience, both in terms of opportunity and risk.

6. The networked interactions of processes, people and technologies generate complex non-deterministic, emergent and unforeseen resilience vulnerabilities. In a fully connected environment, the more tightly coupled, rapid, and efficient digital processes are during normal operation, the more disruption poses a threat and the greater the risk that cascading failure will render core processes inoperable.

7. Digital resilience requires a fundamental shift in how you manage both risk and opportunity. Traditional models of atomised risk mitigation and impact analysis are no longer sufficient. Digital resilience must be assessed in terms of combinations of long-tail effects and capabilities to anticipate, respond, learn and evolve appropriately to shifts in a hyper-networked digital environment. Digital resilience thinking ensures that the entire organisation is considered and challenged in the light of enabling and balancing growth, evolutionary change and security needs appropriately.

Commenting on the report, The Rt Hon. Lord Reid of Cardowan Executive Chairman, ISRS said: “Since its foundation, ISRS has focused on addressing complex, existential challenges within government, business and the public sector.

“Today we are witnessing an inexorable and accelerating shift towards a pervasively interlinked world of systems and supply chains that touch virtually every aspect of our lives. Goods, services, people, organisations and information are becoming globally interconnected and accessible in ways that were previously unimaginable. We are merely at the start of this digital journey − emergent fields such as machine learning and quantum computing will advance, combine and be applied in ways that will render today’s technologies as antiquated as a manual typewriter.

“Immersion in this digital environment presents organisations with the strategic imperative to generate value and take advantage of an unparalleled abundance of new opportunities. Yet increased reliance and the expectation of continuous availability come at a price, predicating operations on the assumption that underlying systems will always be present and functional.

“This white paper attempts to draw out some of the most important issues of both opportunity and risk and illustrates the need for consideration of digital resilience at the most senior levels. I believe that there has never been a more important time to do so.”

Added Michael “Mo” Stevens CEO, Shearwater Group PLC:

“In 2016, Shearwater Group agreed its transformation strategy to build a leading UK based digital resilience group. This forward-thinking strategy was designed to address the complexities and challenges of the future that enterprises will need to meet if they are to survive, evolve and succeed in the expanding global digital business environment.
We see that many enterprises have yet to move beyond a traditional, defensive “lock-down” approach to corporate perimeters, or to embrace the ongoing viability and vitality of their enterprise within the context of customers, suppliers and partners.

“Cyber security has at last been elevated to the boardroom, however, business resilience remains poorly understood, with digital resilience in particular, seen only as a property of the strength of an IT system’s security.

“This traditional approach fails to recognise digital resilience as an enabler of today’s entrepreneurial and fast-moving digital business environment, and the resultant competitive advantage it brings. Digital resilience is the very foundation of the modern business and should be recognised as the most valuable long-term property of an organisation.

“We are delighted to have supported the development of this white paper by ISRS, which sets out a framework for the challenges of a new generation of leadership thinking in the digital environment. As we stay abreast of the ever-changing digital business environment, we look forward to building on the frameworks, challenges and questions presented and to participating in many further discussions with the business community that we serve.”

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