Two solicitors at Clough & Willis – the Bury and Bolton based law firm – are celebrating after successfully completing two of the legal profession’s main qualifications. The firm has also recruited a new paralegal.

Rhianna Bateson – who is an associate solicitor in the Private Client team – has successfully completed the Society of Trust and Estate Practioners (STEP) Diploma. The Diploma is a highly prestigious industry standard that develops a practical understanding of the law and the procedures involved in trust and estate administration, tax and accounting.
Each of the four modules – Administration of Trusts; Administration of Estates; Taxation of Trusts & Estates and Trust & Estate Accounting – required Rhianna to undertake individual rounds of six months of home study followed by written exams. Holding the STEP Diploma means Rhianna can help her clients in various ways including being able to provide detailed knowledge and advice on the most up-to-date issues affecting trusts and estates.

Sarah Greene, who is a solicitor in the Private Client team, has completed the Solicitors for the Elderly qualification. Solicitors for the Elderly is an independent organisation, made up of solicitors, barristers and legal executives who provide specialist legal advice to elderly and vulnerable people. Founded in 1999, it was the brainchild of a small group of lawyers who recognised that the UK’s ageing population was leading to an increasing number of enquiries from older clients. Today the organisation has more than 1,000 members nationwide.

Clough & Willis has also appointed Joshua Beattie as a paralegal in the Litigation team. Joshua will be working with the department’s senior team as well as shadowing colleagues in the Employment, Personal Injury and Dispute Resolution teams. He will also be studying for his Legal Practice Course part-time.

Lee Marston – managing partner at Clough & Willis – said: “As a firm, we strongly advocate nurturing and developing talent from within, so Rhianna and Sarah’s achievements are testament to that approach. We are also delighted to welcome Joshua to the team who, I’m sure, will add real value to the business and our clients over the coming years.”

BCN Group, an IT managed services and digital transformation company, has seen reported turnover increase 110% year on year in FY19/20.

The substantial growth saw turnover more than double from £11.3m in FY18/19 to £23.8m in FY19/20, with the impressive trajectory set to continue for FY20/21 with an expected turnover of £30m+.

While growth was enjoyed across the business, BCN Group’s “as a service” division posted the biggest increase with recurring revenue up 29% year on year.

Growth was driven by onboarding 64 new clients during the 12-month period, with BCN Group now providing services to more than 1,000 organisations and supporting more than 30,000 users in the UK.

The results include BCN Group’s acquisition of Polymorph Ltd in February and also reflects the first full year of contributions from its acquisition of Leeds-based Blue Logic in 2019.

Simon Kelf, CEO of BCN Group, said: “It has been an incredible year for BCN Group that has included a major acquisition and the onboarding of more than 60 new clients.

“We have ambitious growth plans and are delivering on these plans faster and more effectively than we could ever have wished for and are delighted with the growth we are seeing.

“Ultimately this is driven by our market-leading product and service offering, and the incredible talents and skills of our growing team of specialists and experts.

“While it has been a tough start to the current financial year, we have continued to grow rapidly since March and have been working more closely than ever before with our 1,000+ customers.

“This has not only helped them survive Covid and prepare for the “new normal” but it has put BCN Group in the driving seat to reach and surpass its own targets once again.

“I’d like to thank each and every member of the team for their dedication and passion, and to our partners for continuing to take advantage of our best in class product and service offering.”

Other highlights from the year include seven key appointments across technical, support and business development including Rob Davies joining as Group Sales and Marketing Director who has a wealth of knowledge and experience in Cloud Services.

BCN is now undertaking a further recruitment drive with fourteen roles open across finance, operations, project management, technical, support and business development.

To accommodate its growing workforce, BCN Group will move into new headquarters at the Manchester Green Business Park in September and also has offices in Leeds, Runcorn and Chorley.

Manchester data centre operator, TeleData, has reported 28% growth in recurring contract revenues during the first half of 2020, setting the firm on track to hit record revenues this year.

This has seen the company’s well established colocation services increase by 15%, while cloud revenue from both public and private cloud hosting solutions has grown 48%. The firm, which was traditionally a colocation provider but evolved to provide both colocation and cloud services in 2019, says that its cloud platform revenue now represents 16% of total recurring contract revenues.

The announcement comes on the back of a period of significant investment for the Wythenshawe based firm, which recently began work on a £2 Million expansion project which will increase the company’s data centre footprint by 7000ft2 and bring up to 200 server racks online to enhance their colocation offering.

TeleData also invested over £1.8 Million into resilience, energy efficiencies and cloud product development during 2019, expanding the business’s product portfolio and strengthening its proposition as a serious player in the data centre hosting and cloud services sector.

These investments are attracting not only new customers to TeleData, but also additional fibre providers which are investing heavily into the expansion of their own networks to deliver diverse solutions to network intensive clients hosted at the carrier neutral facility. This is increasing high capacity connectivity and dark fibre options for TeleData’s customers, boosting the company’s service offering and enabling TeleData to provide consistently resilient and competitive options for both cloud and colocation clients.

Commercial Director Matthew Edgley said: “It’s been positive to see that despite the many challenges 2020 has brought, our earlier investments into connectivity and capacity are starting to reap dividends. Covid19 brought significant hardship to a great many businesses, but as a result digital transformation has accelerated, driving the market forward as companies realise the benefits of a resilient, agile and scalable IT infrastructure.

“It’s our job now to continue to provide robust and reliable solutions for our clients, making additional investments into capacity and emerging technologies where required, to enable our customers to continue to run their businesses with peace of mind that their IT infrastructures are secure and business continuity is guaranteed.”

TeleData, which reported 40% growth in its cloud computing platform back in May, was also listed in this year’s GP Bullhound Northern Tech Awards Top 100 Fastest Growing technology companies and is Manchester’s only premium, independently owned data centre.

Founded in 2007, the firm provides colocation, cloud hosting, workplace recovery and data centre services to businesses across the UK.

Revive Management, an Altrincham-based fintech company specialising in billing and payment solutions, has today announced a projected jump in revenue growth from £3M to £4M in 2020, following the onboarding of 6 FTSE-size enterprises this year.

Following a successful H1 2020, the fintech company has also moved to 3,000 sq. ft. offices in Lindley Court in Altrincham, as they move forward with plans to increase to a 40-strong team with hires across internal technical development, product innovation and account management. The new office will also have scope for social distanced working, downtime and provide a great working environment.

The current workforce has already grown over the past 12 months, with additions including strategic hires in the management team, as well as recruiting staff remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The company delivers a digital collections solution, incorporating SMS, voice and email reminders for due and overdue bills. Revive’s communications platform delivers more than 2 million messages per day and is used by businesses serving more than 95% of the UK population.

The platform is used by multi-national organisations to deliver proactive payment solutions, overdue payment collection services and to gather customer feedback. This enables them to reduce costs associated with legacy methods while making it easier for customers.

Geoff Boudin, Sales Director at Revive, said: “Despite the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have achieved excellent results so far this year and we’re on track for a great 2021. This is all thanks to our growing team and our customers, and we’re looking forward to achieving further growth and bringing the benefits of our solution to more markets in the coming months and years.”