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THE INSIGHTS PEOPLE INNOVATION PROVIDES CLIENTS WITH COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE & A GLIMPSE INTO THE FUTURE

Sam Whitear
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The Insights People, the global leader in kids’, parents and family market intelligence, announced major feature upgrades for their award-winning data portal and the company celebrates successful start to 2020 as demand and usage of platforms soars to record levels.

The portal is updating with more than 3,000,000 data points every week by surveying more than 3,000 children from 9 countries every week, or more than 150,000 a year, providing dynamic and comprehensive insight into the attitudes, behaviour, and consumption of children.

Using current design patterns, the real-time portal was written in a modern, industry-standard PHP Framework called Laravel. The platform utilises custom-built, modular Vue.js components for interactive elements, enabling The Insights People team to rapidly develop new features.

The new exciting developments to its real-time award-winning portal which provides users with enhanced ability to view, filter, interrogate and analyse the data to their own specific requirements. The developments which include Global View, Side by Side Analysis, Search, and the ability to build a snapshot of a brand’s audience, have received universal praise from users across the industry.

Glynn Hayward, Creative Director Complete Control comments,
“We find The Insights People portal really useful and the new developments are superb. This combined with the ability to speak to their expert team when we need support. And we also love how agile they are constantly updating the survey based on their knowledge and client feedback, meaning, for example, we can see how a new TV show is performing from its launch.”

The recent updates represent the start of an extensive period of innovation for the Manchester-based business, whose development team has significantly grown to a ten-strong team headed by CTO Dan Lucas and Chief Data & Information Officer Richard Craig, with the team in final beta testing of a predictive tool to predict future performance and trends, starting with the success of new films.

Dan Lucas, Chief Technical Officer The Insights People comments,
“The portal is unique because it was designed from the ground up to gain real-time data with game-changing insights of the future, taking into account simplicity, friendly interface, and usability – something that traditional market intelligence companies lack. Today our portal has over 240,000,000 datapoints from 200,000+ surveys taken and the team is now focussed on building a series of intuitive tools based on our experience and client feedback to put unique insights to them into the hands of every client. “

Since the new features were added to the portal, The Insights People usage has risen significantly with more than 650 active users using the portal multiple times a week.

BIG Partnership a recipe for success for Italy’s premier pasta brand

Sam Whitear
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Leading marketing and communications agency BIG Partnership has been appointed by premium pasta brand Le Stagioni d’Italia to support its launch into the UK market.

BIG will work alongside the Italian brand and its distribution partner Worldwide Food Associates (WWFA), to raise awareness of its range of pasta and rice products, as part of an integrated communications strategy.

Originally due to launch in the UK later this year, Le Stagioni d’Italia brought forward its UK entry to support demand for dried pasta products during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The consumer campaign, which will include media relations and organic and paid social media content, launched this month (May).

Now available in selected Sainsbury’s and Asda stores, Le Stagioni d’Italia products are made from 100 per cent Italian wheat, offering customers a choice of high-quality and sustainable products with full traceability from one of Italy’s top agricultural companies, Bonifiche Ferraresi.

The appointment follows a series of new consumer campaign wins with WWFA over the last 12 months, including Australian-based food developer Flavour Makers and its popular Street Kitchen and Passage Food brands.

Bryan Garvie, director at BIG Partnership, said: “Everyone loves pasta and our consumer and social teams are massive foodies, so we’re really excited to have the chance to work with Le Stagioni d’Italia.

“It’s an amazing product with a great story, so we had a great time pulling together our campaign ideas to help to establish the brand in the UK. And working with a premium pasta brand is all the excuse we needed to eat great food and open a bottle of nice wine to go with it.”.

The Le Stagioni d’Italia range of pasta includes traditional penne rigate, spaghetti, fusilli and rigatoni all available in 500g recyclable paper bags.

Customers can also buy the finest Italian Arborio and Carnaroli rice for risotto, as well as Le Stagioni’s signature Senatore Cappelli pasta range, which is made a with the ancient Senatore Cappelli wheat, only produced in small regions of Italy.

Alongside the products available in Asda and Sainsbury’s, shoppers can also find a range of additional Le Stagioni products on Amazon, including its wheat pasta range and Olio Evo – a unique extra virgin olive oil from the olive groves of the Bonifiche Ferraresi estate.

Lorenzo Fontana, Export Manager at Bonifiche Ferraresi – Le Stagioni d’Italia: “BIG Partnership’s experience in the food and drink sector was evident in the proposal that they presented to us, covering a comprehensive and creative strategy to support our UK launch. Our entry into the UK market has come earlier than expected but we hope that with the help of the BIG team, our British customers will fall in love with our pasta.”

BIG Partnership employs 120 people across PR, marketing, digital, design and events with offices in Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

Supermarkets and retailers set to gain £500 million in refunds but Rating experts slam VOA for “wasting public funds” in pursuing seven year long case.

Sam Whitear
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The Supreme Court has today handed down judgement and found in favour for major supermarkets* in the long running £500 million dispute concerning business rates and ATM machines. The decision has been welcomed by experts at Colliers International, the global real estate advisers and branded a “win for common sense”.

John Webber, head of business rates at Colliers, said, “This is a massive relief, not only for the supermarkets involved, but also for the consumers who need access to these machines. Many would have suffered if the judgement went the other way and retailers ripped the ATMs out of their stores, to save extra rates bills, denying many in the local community free access to cash.”

The Supreme Court’s ruling upheld the judgement of November 2018 in the Court of Appeal that ruled that ATMs located both inside and outside of stores should NOT be assessed for additional business rates on top of the normal store rates costs retailers are already facing.

Although the Court of Appeal refused the VOA permission to appeal against its decision, in May 2019, the Supreme Court overruled and allowed the VOA this right of appeal, a decision branded as a costly “nightmare” by Colliers at the time

This new Supreme Court decision has however finally knocked on the head the Government’s VOA (Valuation Office Agency) claim that all ATMs both inside and outside stores such be additionally assessed.

In terms of financials the decision is massive with Colliers estimating around £500 million has been at stake. Each ATM site would have attracted an average rates liability of around £4000. The refunds to the supermarkets should be in the region of £496 million.

This decision comes as a massive relief to the big retailers, particularly since the VOA must lift the stay on all of the appeals that have snarled up the system since the duration of the case. Colliers estimated that there are approximately 40,000 cases in the system concerned with ATM business rates issue.

John added: “This is overall a great result and we are delighted the courts saw sense. There was a real fear that if the VOA had been successful, not only would it have led to the ripping out of ATM machines but it would also  have opened up the floodgates to assess up to 400,000 vending operations which would have been calamitous for both retailers and those operators.

“Of course, the tragedy over all of this is the total waste of taxpayers’ money  in pursuing this unnecessary and unfair claim. The local authorities are unlikely to have accrued for this cost and at the end of the day it is ‘Joe Public’ who will suffer. Let’s hope the zealots at the VOA get back in the box and get on with dealing with the outstanding appeals instead of trying to take a swipe at the retail sector and the community at large.”

ENDS

*Sainsburys Supermarket Ltd, Sainsbury’s Bank Plc, Cardtronics Europe Limited, Tesco Stores Ltd, Co-Operative Group Limited v Chris Sykes and Others (Valuation Officers)

**This decision had overturned the ruling of the Upper Tribunal in January 2017 that made a distinction between ATMs inside a building and out and said that the sites of ATMs located within premises should not be assessed for business rates, but those ATM sites outside a shop or store should.

 

Current rate bills already paid by the large supermarkets

Supermarket No. hereditaments/properties Annual Rates Liability (Bill) 19/20 Estimate
Tesco 2800 £675 million
Sainsburys 1374 retail + 253 non-retail £496 million
Asda 642 stores £422million
Morrisons 498 stores £274 million

BrightHR invests £1 million in a cutting-edge new tool to help businesses get back to work

Sam Whitear
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BrightHR, the international HR software and employment law advice service, has made a £1 million investment in a cutting-edge new tool, the Back to Work Navigator, and financed a national advertising campaign to raise awareness of it.

The firm which was founded in 2015 and funded by award winning serial entrepreneur, Peter Done, has worked with channel agency We Are Boutique on the multi-channel campaign.

The campaign will educate business owners on how BrightHR can help them get their business back on its feet again, and it will appear on both linear Sky TV as well as Sky’s AdSmart.

The Back to Work Navigator gives employers one central hub to manage all their back to work processes, so they can reopen their business as quickly as possible. The tool lets employers change furlough statuses in seconds, set up staggered shift times, and send an in-app notification to employees telling them when the business will reopen.

As well as this, the tool comes with a complete content library of essential guidance. It covers managing health & safety, carrying out COVID-19 risk assessments, annual leave planning and restructuring processes. The library is filled with expertly-written guides, factsheets, templates, posters and checklists for business owners to read, download and share with their staff.

Alan Price, CEO at BrightHR, said:

“With the UK government announcing its plans to ease the lockdown earlier this week, businesses need to start preparing now to reopen. It’s important to note that this does not mean that everything suddenly returns to normal. There are health and safety guidelines to think about, rotas and staggered shift times to plan out, and furloughed paperwork to complete. And that’s where the BrightHR Back to Work Navigator can help.

“BrightHR is committed to supporting new and existing clients through this challenging time, and our significant investment of £1 million in the Back to Work Navigator tool and national advertising campaign shows this. Our new piece of software compliments BrightHR’s already established suite of tools, such as the Furlough Navigator and Shift and Rota Planner, and it will transform the way business owners manage their staff during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Simon Bollon, Managing Director of We Are Boutique, said:

“It’s been great to work with such a dynamic business that has the interests of small businesses at its heart. We responded to BrightHR’s brief with a multi-channel campaign that went live within weeks. It’s targeted specifically to raise awareness of the help and advice that’s available to business owners during these challenging times.”

People Matters HR celebrates two new collaborations

Sam Whitear
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People Matters HR have announced the launch of two new services through partnerships with two leading training providers.

The collaborations will enhance the Bury-based businesses’ award winning offering, to give even more practical help for businesses – which will help them to flourish and develop during the Coronavirus crisis – and beyond.

People Matters HR have added to their services:
IMPROVE online learning, which provides a wide range of online learning courses designed for SME businesses across a wide range of subject areas with over 40 courses currently available, and another 50 on their way. Businesses will find this invaluable in the current climate, particularly as furloughed staff are still allowed to do training courses.
WeThrive, an employee engagement tool, which assesses an organisation by which going beyond the traditional employee engagement survey. It’s cutting-edge software is designed to delve into the employees subconscious to uncover factors which are often hidden but lie at the root of common workplace issues. This enables line managers to take control of employee engagement with easy to read coaching plans, supporting resources and post survey action tracking.

Niel Cope, Managing Director of People Matters HR said:
“As part of our pledge to help our clients manage and develop their people, we are delighted to announce that we are partnering with IMPROVE and We Thrive to enhance our offering with a range of fantastic online resources.
“There’s no dispute that the way we work has changed dramatically over recent months. Through these partnerships we’re able to help our customers keep connected to their employees and keep their training up to date – even when people are social distancing.

Award-winning People Matters HR are one of the North West’s leading consultancies offering a fresh new approach to managing HR in the SME market. The company was founded in 2011 by Niel Cope, to provide businesses across the region with a bespoke, Director-level outsourced HR solution at a fraction of the cost, allowing customers to create strong leaders, engaged teams and a better ROI. The impressive client list includes: UAP Limited, Eventura, Rowe Hankins Ltd, Z-arts, WRPS and ASL.

The new services will complement the businesses Breathe’s accredited HR Partner Programme, which is designed for consultants looking to support their small to medium sized clients with HR software and streamline internal processes.

Steve Walker, CEO and founder of IMPROVE online learning platform said:

“Niel and his team at People Matters HR are great partners to IMPROVE online learning. Their innovation as an outsourced HR provider in adding online training to their portfolio and drive to take our unique microlearning platform to their customers makes them an excellent partner to work with”

Andrew Heath, CEO of WeThrive said:

“We are really excited to partner with PMHR – Niel and his team are ideal partners for us – they absolutely put people front and centre of everything they do. In the first few weeks of partnering we won two new clients both of whom have found the combination of WeThrive’s insights and Niel’s guidance and expertise transformational.”

Niel Cope, concluded:
“At People Matters HR, it’s our mission to transform our client’s businesses through award-winning consultancy services that increases their profits through combining outstanding innovative thinking with fantastic value. These new collaborations are a perfect example of this.”

Student trials delivery platform during crisis

Sam Whitear
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The lockdown of Manchester city centre in the wake of COVID-19 has turned into an opportunity for Alliance MBS student Mohammad Afridi to trial his on-demand delivery platform while also helping vulnerable people across the city.

The final year BSc Accounting student from India has spent the past couple of years researching and planning his peer to peer delivery platform DeliKart which aims to deliver any item across Manchester city centre direct to a customer’s door.

The idea first came to him when he once ran out of TV remote batteries on a cold, wintry evening in his flat and wondered why there wasn’t a home delivery service in the city centre for goods other than groceries and take-out food.

Pandemic

When the pandemic struck he quickly realised it was an opportunity to trial his business idea, strictly on a not-for-profit basis, by working with charities across the city to help deliver groceries to the elderly and those self-isolating so that they didn’t have to venture outside.

As he explains: “I had been researching the idea for a couple of years and had already built the website and a prototype of the basic app, so had the infrastructure I needed to see if it could work. I approached charities across the city including Human Relief Foundation, We Feel Good Club and FareShare which agreed to spread the word about our website and app and then let their volunteers act as couriers who could go out and buy the groceries and deliver them. I also enrolled student friends to help with making deliveries too.

“Because at the moment we are running it as not-for-profit we’ve deliberately not been taking any delivery fee from customers, although some people have still insisted on giving us a fee which we have simply been passing on to charity.

“At the end of the day this has not been about making money. Instead we’ve simply been using our model to help the people of Manchester during this difficult time. But it has been a testing ground for me to see if the model works, and I’ve been learning every day.”

Potential

Since the lockdown started in March DeliKart has now made more than 800 deliveries across the city centre, and Afridi sees huge potential in the future for a business like his which is typically built around making a profit via the delivery fee.

“Once I graduate this summer my plan is to apply for an entrepreneur visa which, if successful, will allow me to stay in the UK and launch the business with the team I have already put together, while I’ll then also look to secure external seed round investment to scale it up. I would like to thank my co-founder Mohammad Elsarraj and my tech team of Lewis and Nathan who have supported me and helped me in executing the plan.”
Afridi thinks in the future there will continue to be strong demand for the kind of service he is offering because the effects of this crisis are set to last for many years. “People will go out less for shopping and use apps and online services more and more to buy goods online and direct.”

He says the success of companies such as Postmates, a pioneer of on-demand delivery which now operates in thousands of US cities, shows the potential of the model. However Afridi stresses that the social mission of DeliKart will always remain important. “Our vision is to connect lives between strangers, where every member of the community can help each other, and that is something we have really seen during this crisis.”

New virtual workshops aim to help Greater Manchester SMEs strive and thrive

Sam Whitear
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WITH the UK now taking its first tentative steps away from lockdown and towards a new kind of normality, SMEs in Greater Manchester looking for a strategy to help them bounce back from COVID-19 can receive help from a new series of fully funded virtual workshops.

The Strive and Thrive workshops have been designed to help businesses deal with the immediate challenges of the situation but also to enable them to create a robust strategy for the long term so they can again thrive.

These workshops form part of the work being done to support SMEs in the Greater Manchester region by GC Business Growth Hub, part of The Growth Company and part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund. This work continues to be crucial as the region starts to move towards the recovery phase.

The six Strive and Thrive workshops will be run by specialist industry experts from the Hub and have been tailored specially for local SMEs and cover the following topics:

  • Strategy
  • Finance
  • Marketing Strategy
  • Digital Marketing
  • Leadership Through Challenging Times
  • Supply Chain

Issues that will be discussed include fundraising during a pandemic, how to use digital marketing tools, staff engagement and communication, health and wellbeing and understanding and exploiting the benefits of supply chain digitalisation.

The workshops are free to attend and in keeping with Government guidelines on social distancing, they will be delivered virtually in small groups of up to 12 people, while still encouraging peer to peer learning and the chance to engage with other business that are facing similar challenges.

Janine Smith, Head of Specialist Services for GC Business Growth Hub, said: “We’re now entering a crucial time for local businesses as they look at ways to safely get workers back to workplaces and find some new sense of normality. Our Strive and Thrive workshops will help with these processes, as well as discussing and decoding the latest Government guidance.

“The workshops will be led by expert Hub advisors, tailored to the needs of Greater Manchester SMEs and will be full of practical and implementable measures to protect against the impacts of COVID-19 and strategies to enable future growth as we reach the recovery phase. Whether it’s identifying funding opportunities or rebuilding supply chains, you will come out of the workshops ready to tackle your challenges and get ready to thrive again.”

The Strive and Thrive workshops will begin on the 19th May and there are a limited number of spaces available for eligible businesses to sign up for the subjects they feel will be of most benefit for them at the GC Business Growth Hub website.

Businesses looking to access specialist support can visit www.businessgrowthhub.com for more information about the organisation’s extensive range of services. This and other GC Business Growth Hub projects are part-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the GM Business Growth Hub project designed to help ambitious SME businesses achieve growth and increase employment in Greater Manchester. The Hub is also supported by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and Greater Manchester local authorities.

MICHELLE KEEGAN, DENISE VAN OUTEN AND FRIENDS JOIN ‘THE STRICTLY LOCKDOWN QUIZ’ IN SUPPORT OF MANCHESTER-BASED CHARITY

Sam Whitear
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SEASHELL TRUST looked to leading Manchester events company Make Events on Saturday to provide innovative fundraising in the current climate. With so many events being cancelled this year, meaning a drop in vital funds for the charity, the team at Seashell Trust have had to get creative with their fundraising and Make Events was the first port of call.

They lived up to their name by hosting a celeb-packed Strictly themed fundraising quiz over Zoom, pulled together in under a week. Make Events founder Holly Moore brainstormed the idea to raise funds for Seashell Trust – a charity which supports children and young adults with profound disabilities and additional communication needs.

The Strictly Lockdown quiz – hosted by TV presenter Gethin Jones – replaced the Trust’s Annual Ball, ‘Strictly Seashell’, which had to be cancelled following the Covid-19 outbreak.

Events supremo Holly managed to call on a host of famous faces, using her famous little black book of celebrities’ numbers to ensure the evening was strictly a success, raising more than £10,000 for the trust.

Famous names taking part were TV’s Vernon Kay, funnyman Justin Moorhouse, actor Kelvin Fletcher and guest appearances from TV stars Michelle Keegan, Gemma Atkinson and Samia Longchambon.

Also making a guest appearance was Strictly star Denise van Outen who encouraged viewers to dance along to a DJ set.

Senior Manager Rachel McCrystal from Seashell Trust said “We can’t thank Gethin and Holly Moore and her team enough for pulling together to deliver a fantastic virtual event to raise valuable funds for Seashell Trust, but also to bring our community of supporters together on what would have been our major fundraising event of the year.”

After the event, Gethin said: “Firstly I was blown away by how much we were able to raise for Seashell Trust by playing a quiz.

It says a lot about the generosity of people during these tough times. Through Make Events’ efforts it was also an insight into how company events might be run in the immediate future.”

Holly from Make Events, whose team has worked on the event for the last two years, added: “We were devastated when we had to cancel the event after the success of last year and after the team had worked so hard to make this year’s just as good.

In all my years in the industry I have never cancelled an event so I held a virtual meeting with the team and the Strictly Lockdown quiz was the result.

I was so happy when the Trust agreed we should go ahead with it and I cannot thank enough everyone who took part and donated.”

Strictly Seashell has been rescheduled to 20 March 2021.

Healthy Investment makes donation to local food bank as demand doubles during lockdown

Sam Whitear
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Healthy Investment, the mutually owned provider of savings and investments based in Bury, Greater Manchester, has donated £500 to Porch Boxes, a local food bank. The charity has seen demand for its crisis packs more than double since the beginning of the Covid-19 lockdown.

Healthy Investment is a friendly society that provides savings and investments to more than 110,000 members, who are also its owners. It traces its history back to the religiously inspired temperance movement of the early Nineteenth Century and has been an advocate of ethical investment for more than 180 years.

Porch Boxes operates from premises in Bury’s Radcliffe neighbourhood. It collects donations of non-perishable goods and toiletries which are distributed to vulnerable households around the borough by a range of partner organisations.

Peter Green, chief executive of Healthy Investment, said, “Food banks are feeling even more pressure on their resources as they try to meet the huge increase in demand for their services caused by the Coronavirus outbreak. Porch Boxes is a local charity we have supported in the past and we are pleased to be able to do so again at a time of such great need.

“Hopefully things will start to return to normal soon but until then we know that a lot of families in the communities around our office are struggling and need some extra help during these difficult times. Our members trust us to invest their money in an ethical way and I am sure they would also approve of us supporting such a worthy cause on their behalf.”

Julia Rowlands, chair of Porch Boxes, said, “We are extremely grateful to Healthy Investment for their generous donation, which comes at a time when there has been a huge increase in demand for our assistance. We have delivered more than 1,300 food parcels to the local community in the last six weeks alone, which is more than double the number we would usually expect to provide.”

Venditan Secure Payments Partnership with Fintech Firm Judopay

Sam Whitear
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Manchester based Venditan have announced a new partnership with leading mobile-first payment provider, Judopay. The move will see the eCommerce and retail software specialists integrate Judopay’s payment gateway solution into their retail trading platform, Venditan Commerce.

Working closely with big names such as Visa, Mastercard, Discover, Apple and Google, Judopay have become the market leader in mobile-first payments, with a solution designed to drive sales across desktops, smartphones and mobile apps and improve the customer payment experience.

The payment solution includes customisable checkouts, industry leading fraud prevention, and intelligent routing to allow for huge growth in transactions without a single point of failure.

Having launched a platform for native Mobile Apps in 2019, Venditan will also integrate Judopay’s mobile checkout solution into its App framework, as they roll out the solution in 2020.

Venditan Director John Coyne, said of the partnership, “We have been speaking with Judopay for a few months, and we are excited at what their solution can do for our Retail clients eCommerce conversion rate, especially via mobile. It’s a full end-to-end solution, with gateway and acquiring, giving our clients access to over 100 acquiring banks in 190 countries. We are about to embark on a business development campaign to promote our native mobile app solution, and Judopay will play a huge role in that as the payment provider.”

Adam Montgomery, Senior Partnerships Manager of Judopay added, “We’re delighted to partner with Venditan to offer our digital payments solution to their customers. We are really looking forward to helping drive their customers’ digital journey across both web and mobile and we will enhance the great work that they are already doing. We truly believe in their mission to help retailers thrive in this ever-changing environment.”

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