Tag Archives: business expansion

Business Expansion, Business News, FInance

Swansea Building Society expands Business Development team in England to drive strategic growth

In a move to boost its footprint in key English markets, Swansea Building Society has announced the expansion of its England Business Development Management (BDM) team. The enhanced team will focus on strengthening partnerships with mortgage intermediaries and supporting the Society’s growth objectives across England.

This expansion includes the promotion of Martin Lewis to Area Manager, England, along with the appointment of Jennet James as BDM, and two assistants, Lisa Lunness and Alex Hemingway. Together, this team will bring increased support and dedicated service to brokers and advisers across England.

Martin Lewis, who has been with Swansea Building Society since November 2012, has taken on the role of Area Manager, England. His new role will see him lead the intermediary help desk team based at the Society’s Head Office, supporting mortgage advisers and brokers across England. Prior to this promotion, Lewis was instrumental in developing the Society’s South East Wales business, leveraging his 13 years of experience in the intermediary mortgage industry with Stroud & Swindon Building Society (now Coventry Building Society), NatWest, and National & Provincial Building Society (now Santander).

Lewis’s new responsibilities include managing the BDM team in England. Part of his focus will be on supporting and expanding key relationships with mortgage networks and clubs, identified as crucial growth areas for the Society.

Jennet James joined Swansea Building Society in November 2018, starting in the mortgage processing department. She was promoted to Manager’s Assistant in May 2019, working closely with the East Wales Area Manager, Richard Miles, to oversee mortgage applications from inception to completion. With 30 years of experience in the banking industry, including roles in underwriting, mortgage advising, and branch management primarily with Halifax, James brings extensive knowledge and expertise to her new position as Business Development Manager, England.

Manager’s Assistant, Lisa Lunness, has been with Swansea Building Society for over ten years. Her background in financial services began in 2002 with roles at Bradford and Bingley, HSBC, and the Principality Building Society. Her broad experience in financial services enhances the Society’s commitment to providing high-quality, hands-on support for each mortgage case.

Alex Hemingway joined Swansea Building Society in March 2022. With a law degree and extensive experience in conveyancing, wills and probate, and family law at Peter Lynn and Partners, and Graham Evans and Partners, Hemingway transitioned to financial services as a mortgage administrator with the Mortgage Advice Bureau before joining the Society.

The expanded team reflects Swansea Building Society’s commitment to its “manual underwriting” approach, where each mortgage application is considered on its individual merits. The new team will work to further develop relationships with mortgage networks and clubs across England, ensuring brokers and advisers receive tailored support aligned with the Society’s ethos of exceptional customer service.

Martin Lewis, Area Manager, England, Swansea Building Society, said:

“This team expansion signals our dedication to providing accessible and personalised support to mortgage advisers across England. With Jennet, Lisa, and Alex bringing a wealth of experience and knowledge, we’re well-positioned to support our clients and strengthen our presence in key markets.”

Founded in 1923, Swansea Building Society is committed to delivering quality, customer-focused financial products and services to communities across South & West Wales and England. With a focus on traditional values and a hands-on approach to mortgage underwriting, the Society continues to support local communities while expanding its reach.

Business, Business Expansion, Business News, FInance

Sturgess Mortgage Solutions relocates to bigger office in Gorseinon amid rising client demand

In response to rising client demand and substantial growth, Sturgess Mortgage Solutions, a leading mortgage and financial advice firm, is pleased to announce the relocation of its headquarters to a spacious, high-profile office on Gorseinon High Street.

The new office, which offers twice the space of the firm’s previous location, provides a central high-street presence and reflects Sturgess Mortgage Solutions’ dedication to accessible, community-focused service. The expanded facilities will enhance the client experience, solidifying the firm’s commitment to Gorseinon and the greater Swansea region.

The Gorseinon office will serve as home to a team of four experienced advisers, supported by newly appointed Office Manager, Donna Hughes-Cook. With over 30 years of expertise in the property industry, particularly in the New Build sector, Donna will lead sales progression, ensuring seamless transactions and the continued high standard of client care that has become a Sturgess hallmark.

Founded by local entrepreneur Shaun Sturgess just three years ago, Sturgess Mortgage Solutions has quickly risen as a trusted, client-first provider of mortgage and financial advice. Shaun, an experienced mortgage adviser and property consultant, started the firm to offer bespoke advice with a deep understanding of the local market. In 2023, the firm was awarded Mortgage Broker of the Year – South Wales in the Welsh Enterprise Awards. Sturgess Mortgage Solutions has also received further recognition this year, winning the 2024 Mortgage Broker of the Year and Client Advisory awards for South Wales in the Welsh Enterprise Awards, underscoring its commitment to excellence in both service and client relationships.

Shaun Sturgess, Managing Director of Sturgess Mortgage Solutions, said:

“Our new Gorseinon office is an important step forward for Sturgess Mortgage Solutions. This space allows us to serve more clients in an enhanced setting and is a testament to our commitment to Gorseinon’s growth and vitality. We look forward to continuing our mission of providing trusted financial advice to clients here and across the Swansea area.”

This strategic move marks an exciting chapter for Sturgess Mortgage Solutions, strengthening its role as a pillar in the local community and enhancing its capacity to serve clients with personalised, expert advice. The new office is open and welcoming clients seeking guidance for their mortgage and financial needs in a convenient, welcoming space.

News

Essex-based mental health institute expands its therapeutic training into India

The BWRT Institute has expanded its ground-breaking mental health therapy training into India.

Brain Working Recursive Therapy (BWRT®) was created in 2011 by Essex-based Terence Watts, a psychotherapist and Fellow with the Royal Society of Medicine.

BWRT is based in neuroscience and is designed to get a fast and permanent fix from issues such as anxiety, phobias, fears, anxiety, depression, addiction, trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

BWRT training in India is now available both online and face-to-face classroom training and is open to all Indian therapists, counsellors, doctors, psychiatrists, psychotherapists and special educators and is provided by leading psychotherapist, Sumedha Bhise, based in Bangalore.

BWRT works by ‘freezing’ unwanted patterns and behaviour and creating new neural pathways with a more positive response which is chosen by the individual.

It’s a powerful style of working that can often dissolve problems in less than four sessions. Because of the rapid nature of the therapy, there are huge potential savings for health care. Patients can be treated faster, in fewer sessions, which can cut waiting lists.

In 2013 Watts started teaching BWRT to psychotherapists worldwide. Ten years on and BWRT has accredited mentors offering training in South Africa, US, Australia, Denmark, New Zealand, Albania and now India with Bulgaria opening soon.

Sumedha Bhise, Psychotherapist and BWRT Accredited Mentor and Trainer says, “I’m excited to bring BWRT to India. I have been a certified therapist since 1998 and deeply involved in the world of BWRT since 2015. As a BWRT Mentor and Trainer, I’m certified in all levels of BWRT, and have a deep familiarity with all aspects of this amazing therapy.”

Terence Watts, Founder of The BWRT Institute says, “BWRT is fast becoming the therapy of choice for doctors, psychiatrists, psychotherapists around the world because of how quickly and effectively it works to address the clients’ needs. Sumedha is a well-respected psychotherapist and I’m delighted that she is now training therapists in India.”

 

News

North West business park grows occupier portfolio

Birchwood Park, the North West’s largest out-of-town business destination, is further establishing itself as a leading hub for businesses across the region after welcoming a range of new organisations to the park in the first half of 2022 – as demand for small suite space remains strong.

With the intake of small suite office space buoyant, more than 8,000 sq. ft had already been snapped up across the first six months of the year alone, making Birchwood Park the new home to 16 occupiers spanning a variety of different sectors.

In addition, 34 businesses have committed to remain part of the coveted Birchwood Park community after agreeing to lease renewals on small suites in the same time period, which equates to a combined space of over 13,500 sq. ft retained by current occupiers.

Birchwood Park continues to grow its diverse portfolio of small and medium sized enterprises. Medical communications company Simplifying Science®, school software provider October Resolutions, trade union Prospect, leading health and safety practice PM Connections and recruitment provider LivRecruit, are among the new wave of occupiers to have joined the park in 2022.

In addition to demand from the SME marketplace, Birchwood Park also secured two significant lettings for larger office space within Chadwick House, which houses more than 40 organisations.

Martin O’Rourke, Commercial Director at Birchwood Park, comments: “Despite the ongoing economic uncertainty that has followed the fallout from the pandemic, many SME organisations have re-evaluated what their office space does for them. With Birchwood Park having purpose-built facilities, services and amenities, we are thrilled that more organisations have chosen to join our thriving business community here in the heart of the North West.

“As our occupier portfolio continues to grow in 2022, we are seeing a wide variety of regional, national and international organisations relocating operations to Birchwood Park. It is evident that the hard work to accommodate the needs of businesses no matter their sector is now paying off, and Warrington is now establishing itself alongside major cities such as Liverpool and Manchester as a major business hub in the North of England.”

Work at the park is continuously ongoing to evolve the park’s office and warehouse offering, meeting with all occupier demands. In June, construction work began on a new speculative industrial development, which is set to bring 161,000 sq ft of warehouse space to the region, once completed in the first quarter of 2023.

Linda Welsby, Leasing Manager at Birchwood Park who specialises in small suites lettings, commented: “Following on from the continued growth of Birchwood Park over the past six months, it is clear that our commitment to creating a culture and community to support small businesses is paying off.

“The park’s future is underpinned by our ability to continue to create innovative, flexible and productive office spaces capable to change size and scale for smaller businesses to thrive and grow. No matter the sector, industry or size, Birchwood Park has the expertise, facilities, and services to meet with the requirements of any ambitious SME.

“With continual interest for flexible contracts and the ready-to-let space, going forward we anticipate seeing organisations of all sizes look to relocate and take full advantage of everything Birchwood Park has to offer.”

News

Global expansion as Get Ahead welcomes first international franchisee in Australia

Virtual outsourcing agency Get Ahead is delighted to welcome its first international franchisee. Taryn Wynne will be running the Get Ahead Australia & New Zealand headquarters from her Sydney base.

Taryn has over 25 years of experience in a variety of business sectors. She is a qualified cost and management accountant with experience in several industries including consumer products, IT services, agriculture, hospitality and family businesses. Most recently, she was a Head of Finance and Shared Services in the Construction industry, before taking the leap to start her own business.

“I was introduced to Rebecca Newenham at Get Ahead by a mutual friend,” Taryn says. “I had already recognised the need to help small businesses in Australia and began working on how I could use my business expertise to make a difference. I appreciate how there are just not enough hours in the day for all the “noise” that goes with owning a business. I am also amazed daily by the people I meet who have the most fantastic skills but who don’t have a channel to use them as they don’t want a big corporate job. I aimed to join those two forces together and after speaking with Rebecca I realised that Get Ahead aligned exactly with that. Partnering with Get Ahead enabled me to benefit from an already established brand and launch into my home territory of Australia & New Zealand.”

Despite being on other sides of the world, Rebecca and Taryn soon realised that they have much in common. Both are passionate about supporting small businesses and empowering skilled freelancers to access flexible work. Rebecca says, “It’s been a pleasure welcoming new UK franchisees over the past few years, but I was aware that there were global opportunities for our business too. When a friend introduced me to Taryn, it felt like a great fit. I know our business is in safe hands with Taryn running our Australian Head Office. We are now actively looking for new franchisees to run different territories across Australia and New Zealand, as well as talented virtual experts to join her team.”

“Virtual assistants were already a well-known concept in Australia, even before Covid-19,” Taryn adds. “Many businesses are well aware of the value of outsourcing. Though there are also still people trying to do everything themselves as they think outsourcing is too expensive. I have been busy networking on and off-line to raise awareness of Get Ahead and the seamless service we can offer local businesses, as well as building my local team. I am committed to keeping our team of virtual experts local and not using offshore VAs. There are so many talented people right here in Australia. My role is to connect them with the right clients so that they can both achieve success.”

2021 is shaping up to be a milestone year for Get Ahead. Alongside welcoming the first international franchisee, the business has welcomed new franchisees in England and been shortlisted in several national awards, including the HSBC British Franchise Awards 2021. Rebecca concludes, “I continue to be amazed by the tenacity and enthusiasm of my franchisees and I thoroughly enjoy mentoring them all. With regional directors in Berkshire & North Hants, East Midlands, Leeds, Oxford, Suffolk & Essex, Surrey, West London, Wirral & Cheshire West, York and Harrogate, we are well equipped to provide effective outsourced services to businesses across the UK. I am excited about this first step of our global journey and looking forward to supporting Taryn as she develops Get Ahead in Australia & New Zealand over the next few months.”

News, North of England

Female Entrepreneur Beats the Pandemic Odds by Growing Business By 30%

As many businesses have suffered greatly from the fall out of Covid-19, the world’s first geospatial marketer and Yorkshire resident, Elaine Ball has announced the successful growth of her business, Elaine Ball Ltd – a dedicated business & marketing consultancy for the global Geospatial industry, delivering business, sales, and marketing consulting services through workshops, consultancy, training, and execution.

Expecting to be impacted negatively by the pandemic, Elaine has in fact seen revenue grow by 30% and staff increase by 25% over the past 12 months.

In 2013, Elaine invested £60,000 of her own savings to launch Elaine Ball Ltd, hiring seasoned professionals from the field to bolster team experience and skill – an investment that has paid off eight years later.

The company has experienced a period of rapid expansion, particularly with the launch of its Get Kids into Survey recruitment campaign, designed to introduce and educate the younger generation to the relatively unknown world of surveying and encourage them to consider it as a possible career path. 

Elaine Ball Ltd has also now formally launched the all-new global Geospatial Marketing Academy (GMA). This is an online programme for survey companies and equipment manufacturers/resellers, helping them to get clear on their transformations and bring a client-driven marketing approach in house. 

Elaine comments:

“It’s fantastic that the business has gone from strength to strength and we’re turning over more revenue than we ever have before. I truly believe this is down to the passion behind and intent of the team, focused on raising the standards of sales and marketing within the Geospatial industry.”

“The pandemic hasn’t deterred our mission at all – in fact, it may have helped. As strange as that may sound, the industry as a whole is very behind in terms of techniques, for instance many of them haven’t been using digital marketing techniques. Lockdown forced many geospatial companies online for the first time, which was necessary and long overdue!”

News, North of England

Yorkshire business marks incredible growth as it expands its C-Suite

Yorkshire-based business & mindset coaching agency, Social Cactus, has announced the appointment of Chris Fawcett as Partner and CFO, taking the business to a team of nine.

Leeds-born Chris (31), Founder of Chris Fawcett Coaching, has also taken on the role of Head Coach. The Master Practitioner of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), Time Line Therapy and Hypnosis will be working 1:1 with newer business owners, helping them with business and mindset coaching as they grow their own coaching and service-based businesses.

Amy Crumpton, Founder of Social Cactus, who is also a certified NLP practitioner and practitioner of Time Line Therapy said of the appointment: “I am so excited to share this amazing news. Chris is a super-talented coach and is the perfect person to help our clients to start their businesses off on the right foot – after building his own coaching business to 5-figure months in less than two years.”

Chris added: “The response so far has been incredible. The programme we have established for new business owners, Magnetic 1:1 Coaching is already at capacity and we have a waiting list for the next intake” Due to the popularity of our coaching programmes, we have recently appointed two new coaches to support the growth of the business and the ever-increasing demand for coaching.

The announcement comes shortly after the agency hit £500,000 in sales in the past year, supporting record numbers of clients, and continued with their work in the Cactus Foundation.

Amy and Chris are establishing the Foundation together to “provide ambitious entrepreneurs in underprivileged communities around the world with the resources, training and development they need to start their own businesses. By doing this, it will create a positive impact for the entrepreneurs themselves, their families, and their communities as a whole”.

The Cactus Foundation will be supporting causes close to their hearts too, which so far includes plans for the building of an animal shelter for the charity ‘Rescued Paws’ in Spain and improving education, and delivering small business coaching in South America.

Background Screening, EU, News

Sterling pushes forward with European expansion

With a growing demand for local language capability as part of a global background check experience, Sterling, the leader in employee screening services, is expanding its international operations by opening a European base in Wroclaw, Poland.

While initial plans to open a physical office were delayed by COVID-19, Sterling remained resilient and hired its first employees in Poland virtually in mid-May. Since then, the business has successfully onboarded and trained all new starters to be fully operational despite the challenges posed by COVID-19.

The company’s decision to open an office in Poland was conceived as a result of extensive analysis, as well as discussions with clients where fulfilment in local languages was in high demand. This prompted Sterling to conduct a search to identify a base for a European office that could serve a multitude of markets.

After whittling down locations, Sterling selected Wroclaw, Poland, due to the country ranking highly for several criteria, with easy transport links from its UK headquarters in Swansea, and the vast array of linguistic skills available in the country. The Poland team are already serving customers and is set to quickly scale from five to 40 staff, serving 13 languages in Europe.

Steve Smith, MD of Sterling, commented on the move, stating:

“Last summer, we conducted a client advisory board meeting where businesses shared what their perception of a truly multi-lingual experience looked like. While there are great levels of language fulfilment in areas such as form-filling software, truly regional local language capabilities are far rarer. We’ve had multilingual proficiencies from our HQ in Swansea – but this move will allow our approach to flourish.”

“We are delighted with how well we have been able to get operations up-and-running in the midst of a chaotic last couple of months. All of our staff in Wroclaw are now fully operational and serving our clients, saving them time, money, and providing a more complete, holistic experience for anyone screened in these regions.”

Kate Ellis, VP EMEA Operations at Sterling, commented:

“The increasing globalised nature of business and society at large calls for a far more tailored approach when conducting crucial business processes like background checks – perhaps even more so with the rise in remote, fluid workforces that has been accelerated by recent events.”

“By ensuring there is local language expertise on the ground in Poland, Sterling will be able to take its customer fulfilment to the next level – and ultimately reduce risk for clients and candidates. We are delighted with our results so far and the speed with which staff have been trained and onboarded during COVID-19.”

“From our company analysis of our Swansea operation and business in Asia, local language capability has been shown time and again to have vastly better results. Going forward, we will also be able to offer great opportunities to our internal staff, and continue to hone our expertise. I’m truly looking forward to developing our operations further in Wroclaw to better serve our customers.”

Business Advice, Technology

How to manage the tension between autonomy and control in growing organisations

Gary Blower, Solutions Architect, Clearvision, discusses how to manage the tech challenges that often accompany business expansion and growth.

As organisations scale it’s inevitable that internal tensions develop as some groups push for autonomy and self-governance, while others push for control and consolidation. With control and consolidation, you get the benefits of cost savings, centralised management and compliance – but if an organisation consolidates too much, they can find that corporate tools and standards can lead to a lack of flexibility, ultimately resulting in reduced innovation.

Enterprising departments rebel, sidestepping corporate policy to do their own thing to tailor their product and ways of working to better meet customer demand. This leads to shadow IT. But then what happens when these autonomous groups need to collaborate, or cannot bear the costs of managing their own estate?

Organisations address these competing needs in a variety of ways including consolidated, federated and hybrid approaches. Each model has its strengths and weaknesses, and each leads to constraints, complexity, and the overheads of operation.

Project management tools

While the dilemma of how to address competing needs is universal across the software estate, it’s particularly acute in the domain of productivity tools like the Atlassian stack and in particular Jira, one of the most popular project management tools for software teams who need to organise and track their work.

The Consolidated approach

The simplest way to manage a Jira estate is to have a single consolidated instance. This provides centralised administrative features, interoperability, high availability and consolidated performance. This is the least complicated approach, providing simplicity in both licensing and infrastructure. So far so good.

However, while on paper a consolidated approach may be the simplest to operate and manage (and indeed according to research the vast majority of enterprises believe that all of their users can operate from a single consolidated environment), within a short space of time the majority will end up with more than two instances of the same tool, immediately creating a federated environment.

As with many products with a low price point and practical value, Jira often starts in a single team and then spreads throughout an organisation, with new teams spinning up their own server. A company can also find itself managing several instances through a merger or acquisition, or different departments within a company may run their own IT organisation, leading to parallel Jira systems.

The federated approach

While many organisations find themselves operating a federated environment unintentionally, federation also provides a number of distinct benefits that a consolidated approach lacks:

• Greater flexibility: In a large enterprise, different business units may tailor Jira in a multitude of ways. For instance, an HR department might use Jira Service Desk and a number of Atlassian Marketplace apps to provide an enterprise service management portal for the organisation. Where different departments need specific configurations or Atlassian Marketplace apps, it does not make sense to license Marketplace apps across the entire enterprise when only one business unit uses it. In addition, business units may want the flexibility of their own Jira colours and branding, data segregation, or customisation for other business requirements.

• Mitigates operational risk: Large centralised instances require additional hardware scaling, take longer to upgrade and may have more impact in the event of an incident. Mitigating a large and monolithic central instance by having a federated model decreases operational risk, performance and load impact.

• Enables public and private instances: Within Jira it is possible to make content exclusively accessible to identified groups through permission schemes and user groups. Many customers however (including Atlassian), prefer to run internal content on a separate instance inside the firewall. A dedicated instance is then set up to host external content, making it accessible to both customers and partners. It’s common to use Atlassian Cloud or hosted solutions in Azure or AWS for public Jira Service Desk and Confluence knowledge bases while having Jira Software development teams on their own dedicated instance potentially behind a firewall.

• Meets compliance and legal limitations: Legal concerns such as data privacy laws, jurisdiction over servers or compliance, may lead to a decision to have dedicated servers in separate jurisdictions for specific Jira projects.

The Hybrid approach

A hybrid solution is another approach to counteract the limitations of a consolidated model. In this model, a centralised instance is responsible for supporting the majority of workers, providing economies of scale, performance and the resilience that these users demand. Users with complex needs then run on federated instances which support their particular department or programme of work.

Whichever approach is used, organisations need to find the right balance of autonomy and control, yet still allow for innovation to help the business not only operate efficiently but also innovate and grow. They also need to understand which approach is best for their business, and they need the resources to efficiently manage their chosen environment.

Managed service solutions can help

With all this complexity companies may consider managed services as being out of reach, or that they would be forced into a one-size-fits-all straitjacket limiting innovation. But in fact, today’s advanced managed solution providers offer flexible and value-add expertise that support all three models – whether that be consolidated, federated or hybrid environments – allowing organisations the freedom to manage their Jira estate how they want.

For example, with a managed service solution federated instances can take advantage of SaaS solutions such as our ClearHost and Atlassian Cloud to bring them into service quickly without over-burdening IT departments by employing short-term administration services. These can also include our Clearvision consultants and ClearHub contractors who can help configure the platform and provide ongoing strategic support. Training can also be provided covering the full software development lifecycle, collaboration strategies, project management and more. Whichever model you choose, our consultants and associates are on hand to work with you through the migration and beyond.

Balancing autonomy and control is the number one concern of growing businesses today. With a managed service solution you can now give this challenge your full attention rather than being constantly pulled away to build and operate all the underlying technology.