Member News

East-Anglia-based Alan Boswell Group has reported further expansion this month, following the launch of its new business, Alan Boswell Risk Management.

The move brings three new faces to the group and enhances the range of business insurance services available to clients, helping them to comply with the law and avoid disruption to their business.

Two new engineering surveyors, Gary Murphy and Terry Hammond, and a risk management administrator, Shannon Waters, join risk management advisers John Neil and Gavin Dearsley, to provide a comprehensive suite of services.

With a wealth of experience across a range of industries, Terry and Gary have significant mechanical knowledge and are qualified to carry out essential engineering inspections. Both are able to perform Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations (LOLER), PSSR and LEV statutory inspections, as well as offer general advice and inspections under The Provision of Use and Work Equipment Regulations (PUWER).

By using one company to advise on insurance, provide risk management advice and carry out inspections, businesses can rely on Alan Boswell Group to coordinate the whole process.

Says Risk Management Adviser John Neil: “Routine engineering inspections are vital to minimising the risks our clients may face. While these are a legal requirement, they also keep the working environment safe and reduce the chances of disruption, thereby reducing their chances of an insurance claim. Our services are already proving popular and we are currently in the process of recruiting a third risk management adviser to meet with demand!”

Group MD Chris Gibbs comments: “We’re always looking to enhance the range of services available to our clients. As such, the expansion of our Risk Management business to include engineering inspection was a natural move. Now our clients don’t need to juggle different companies for insurance, risk management and inspections – they can get a complete package from us, safe in the knowledge they’ll receive the same quality service they’d expect from any part of the Alan Boswell Group.”

The expansion follows the group’s acquisition of Cambridge-based S-Tech Insurance Services Ltd in November last year, bringing the company’s total headcount to in excess of 300 people.

To find out more about Alan Boswell Risk Management, visit www.alanboswell.com/risk or call 01603 967900.

Hatch Brenner LLP, the Norwich-based Solicitors, has appointed Caroline Billings to the Partnership within the Private Client team, effective from 1 April 2017.

An expert Private Client Solicitor, Caroline brings the total number of Partners in the Theatre Street-based firm to six, including Managing Partner Dawn Parkes.

Dawn Parkes commented: “We are delighted to welcome Caroline to the Partnership. We all look forward to working with her as the firm continues to grow. Caroline is a very popular member of the team amongst our colleagues, clients and contacts and I’m sure everyone who has worked with her will wish her well in her new position.”

Caroline added: “I am very much looking forward to taking on my new role within Hatch Brenner. As well as continuing with my client work, it will allow me to get involved in new areas of the business. It is an exciting time for the firm as we look to build the practice using new technologies and building new working relationships with contacts in the city and beyond. I welcome the new challenge and am excited to get started!”

Having studied at Hull University and completing her LPC at the College of Law, York, Caroline qualified as a Solicitor in 2004 and joined Hatch Brenner in 2009. She specialises in Wills, Probate, Tax, Trusts and Elderly Client issues. She has been a full member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners since 2007.  

Her additional work outside of her day-to-day client caseload includes running free legal advice sessions for Age UK Norfolk. She is an active member of the networking scene in Norwich, regularly attending and speaking at events including for the Chamber of Commerce, Law Society and Thrive networking. Outside of work, her broad interests range from playing and umpiring netball to paragliding.

BLM chooses Tiger Eye as iManage support partner

Norwich-based IT firm Tiger Eye Consulting are delighted to announce they have won the support contract from 1st March 2017 to support BLM with their iManage software solution.

BLM, a leading insurance and risk law specialist with 13 offices across the UK and over 1600 staff, has a strong remit of both national and international work, acting for a breadth of international organisations and handling high profile multijurisdictional cases.

The iManage software suite forms a key part of their IT strategy and Tiger Eye are now working closely with the IT team at BLM, led by Abby Ewen, to look at infrastructure, upgrade and mobility projects in 2017 to support staff with their key technology requirements.

Darren Broughton, Head of IT at BLM, explained, “We’re going through a significant period of change in our systems and infrastructure, and we need technical support partners who are able to understand the issues including and beyond the DMS. Dave Wilson and Matt Cleverdon’s combined experience in the sector gives us that confidence.”

The unique combination of expertise at Tiger Eye, with Directors Dave Wilson’s two decades of experience of iManage solutions, and Matt Cleverdon’s long career both as an IT Director inside law firms and as a subject matter expert at HP, gave BLM the confidence that Tiger Eye would deliver the level of expertise and customer service they required.

Dave comments, “We’re already enjoying working with BLM, and are looking forward to a long and fruitful partnership.”

About Tiger Eye

Tiger Eye is a niche IT consultancy, specialising in Work Product Management, and an EMEA Partner of iManage, DocsCorp, Mimecast and Microsoft, implementing cutting-edge IT solutions across Europe. We focus on providing high calibre consultancy from an experienced, senior team, working in close partnership to plan bespoke solutions that meet all our customers’ business needs, and provide expert technical support and customised development solutions to our iManage customers.

For more information please contact:

Cerys Burcher, Strategic Programme Manager, Tiger Eye Consulting Ltd.

01603 293509, cerysb@tigereyeconsulting.com,  www.tigereyeconsulting.com

We’ve designed a tasty new website for Hiltfields, a high quality food products manufacturer. Our brief was to redesign the website to promote their range of food expertise more effectively and increase online enquiries.

The client is very satisfied with the results, especially with lots of new website enquiries. You can see the brand new site at www.hiltfields.com

Bigfork

Intelligent Website Design

01603 513 080

www.bigfork.co.uk

We here at Naked Element are very pleased to announce that Emma Gooderham is our new Commercial Director. Having previously supported other software companies to grow and develop through marketing strategies, sales plans and identifying potential new clients, she is the ideal person to guide Naked Element in our own growth. As a Fellow of the Institute of Directors, as well as one of only a handful of Chartered Directors in the county, she is well placed to add her expertise to our Norwich-based tech company.   After consulting for us back in 2015 it was clear that Emma and Naked Element were a good fit, as she loves what we do and how we do it! “Naked Element develops software to solve business problems through a variety of innovative ways – automating business processes, developing applications that talk to each other, share information and monitor performance. They even create new digital products and services” Emma explains “But it’s also the way in which Naked Element works that makes them different. Using an agile approach to development projects, working closely with clients to demonstrate software and get feedback regularly throughout the project, they can adapt as they progress. It really is a client-centred approach and these are the reasons I love Naked Element and am so pleased to join!”   Having worked with every type of company from start-ups to big financial businesses, Emma will use her years of experience and business acumen to identify and really engage with prospective clients, as well as develop a long term strategy for growth.   If you have a software project on your ‘to do’ list for 2017, why not contact Emma directly?   Email her at emma.gooderham@nakedelement.co.uk Call her on +44 (0) 1603 383458, or +44 (0) 7900 603703   Or you can just connect with her on LinkedIn and she will get in touch with you!

Norfolk Community Foundation is currently helping to deliver a grants scheme for local businesses wanting to grow.

Norwich 4 New Enterprise (N4NE) grants programme is a scheme that has the support of a number of local organisations who make up the decision making panel including Aviva, Mills & Reeve, Norfolk County Council and Norwich City Council.

Up to £5,000 per grant is available for existing organisations based in Norwich, Broadland or South Norfolk, with at least 12 months trading accounts and employing up to 10 people. The panel would like to see evidence of 50% match funding towards the total cost. The funding must be used to support business growth, which will either create at least one new job or demonstrate that the business has growth potential within 12 months. The grant can be used to develop new products or services, procure professional services, undertake training and skills development, the acquisition of capital equipment, refurbishment of premises or the purchase of equipment or machinery.

You can find out more, including how to apply here: www.norfolkfoundation.com/funds/norwich-4-new-enterprise/  

For an informal discussion, contact Anna Douglas, director of marketing and development at Norfolk Community Foundation on 01603 623958.

Photocredit: Antony Kelly

Norwich’s MIGSOLV enables tech firm to launch high-performance 2-hour disaster recovery service

Tech company Core DataCloud is today launching a high-performance cloud-based data backup and disaster recovery service run from the ultra-secure Norwich data centre operated by Norfolk Chamber Gold Patron MIGSOLV.

The new service is aimed at mid-market companies. It provides competitively-priced data backup and high-performance disaster recovery – enabling customers to get their systems fully up and running within two hours. It is based on specialised hardware from Nimble Storage.

Core DataCloud has already had IT systems within MIGSOLV’s Gatehouse data centre in Norwich for two years. The company is now extending its presence within the Gatehouse to deliver the new service.

Sharad Saggar, Core DataCloud’s CEO, explains: “Launching this service is a major step forward for us – enabling us to offer value for money backup and extremely fast, effective disaster recovery.”

Saggar continues: “Every organisation should know exactly how and where its data is being stored. Simply hoping it’s safe somewhere ‘in the cloud’ isn’t good enough, as a cloud service is only as reliable as the hardware and data centre that support it. We’ve selected Nimble’s hardware as the most flexible, scalable and cost-effective platform. And MIGSOLV’s data centre was an obvious choice as one of the most secure in the country, outside London and backed by an agile, customer-friendly team”.

David Manning, Managing Director of MIGSOLV, comments: “We’re proud that our data centre and bandwidth services are playing their part in enabling Core DataCloud to launch its new services. The company is already a valued customer and it’s a great testament to our relationship that it’s expanding its footprint within our facility to support this new development.”

Core DataCloud is an ISO 27001-accredited managed IT services provider which was founded in 1998. It specialises in providing UK and European organisations with backup, disaster recovery and cloud storage services. For more, see www.coredatacloud.com.

MIGSOLV provides IT colocation from its ultra-secure Gatehouse data centre in Norwich. It provides flexible rack space to public bodies and companies from small organisations to large enterprises, backed by an IT migration service and comprehensive, round-the-clock support. See www.migsolv.com.

Nimble Storage, with revenues exceeding $300 million, was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in California. It has more than 10,000 customers in over 50 countries and more than 1,000 employees. The company says its storage systems allow its customers to access data 10 times faster and protect five times more apps than competitor systems. See www.nimblestorage.com.

For more media information, interviews or images, please contact: Tariq Khwaja from TK Associates on: tariq.khwaja@tk-associates.com T: 01932 224 212

We are thrilled to announce that we are now working in association with Vaccoda Design with Radiant Kitchens, based in Enfield in North London; providing a multitude of different kitchens, designs and improvements to homes across London. Radiant Kitchens approached us through their development team as they needed search engine optimisation (SEO) work for their website.

In the past few months they have required a degree of work to ensure their site is found for potential clients and customers making relevant searches online. With a set budget in place for the coming months, Radiant Kitchens have been seeking a way to make their money go further and with a strong SEO strategy in place have already seen a number of improvements to their website, leading to increases in site traffic.

With their website using the very search engine-friendly WordPress content management system (CMS), it has been a seamless, getting their website up to speed and ensuring that Google and other search engines are able to better crawl their site.

Initially embarking upon cleaning up their existing site and making sure that the current offerings in their site are as SEO-friendly as possible, we have seen improvements to their site speed, internal link structure and have improved the user experience and user journeys for their website.

From the outset, we ensured that all pages on their site, including product pages, landing pages and their homepage and about us pages were ordered and organised to guide users through a journey; leading them to the point of contact or sale. This was achieved by making the offerings and information on site pages clearer and more prominent. By ensuring that contact information is appropriately placed and easily seen and making sure the focus of each page is clear, users are more inclined to enquire about their products and offerings.

We have cleaned up all of the meta data on the Radiant Kitchens website to make sure than all meta keywords are removed (as they are part of very outdated SEO practices) and that all meta titles and descriptions are fully optimised; taking target keywords into account and adhering to the strict character limits of search engines, whilst getting the brand’s message across to customers and prospective clients alike. By making sure all of their meta data is optimised has meant that their position and visibility as well as message have been greatly improved across search engines.

We have also applied alt-texts to all of the images on the Radiant Kitchens website. This ensures that Google and other search engines can ‘read’ the images and rank the pages appropriately. In addition it has allowed the site to see images of products ranked on Google Image Search, providing increased visibility.

We are in the process of implementing a comprehensive content strategy for Radiant Kitchens, to provide bespoke pages of content around each of their services, their areas covered and their range of products and we look forward to furthering our progress and our ongoing relationship with the team at Radiant Kitchens.

Finance Apprentice, Adam Newton and Director, Elizabeth Claxton, from Rostrons Accountants were asked by AAT (the UK’s leading qualifications and membership body for voactional accountants) to discuss their apprenticeship experiences.

Adam’s story highlights how difficult it can be for school leavers to secure the right opportunity and the benefits of working within a skilled and tight-knit team. Elizabeth discusses the challenge of finding and linking up with a high calibre apprentice provider. 

Click to read more from the AAT web site:

 https://www.aatcomment.org.uk/how-to-find-and-succeed-in-an-apprenticeship/

When Sabah Meddings, former EDP Business features writer, researched the top 100 EDP businesses, she found that as few as 74 of the 526 board members were female and a startling 57 firms had male only boards. The benefits of having female representation on boards have been widely discussed and interestingly none of the FTSE 100 companies have male only boards. For Norfolk to keep pace with the rest of the country and respond to the growth opportunities in our region, we need to create opportunities for women at the highest level.

The concept of “We Can” emerged after talking with women in leadership roles in the region and reading about the EDP research.  At Rostrons, we were becoming increasingly aware of the absence of a female forum at a top level to share ideas and experiences and to provide a support for future female talent in Norfolk.

Led by 3 female directors, at Rostrons we feel both privileged to have the opportunity to work at a senior level and motivated and responsible for supporting other women achieve their career ambitions. Historically some senior women have been criticised for “pulling up the drawbridge” once they have made it themselves. We believe that if you nurture and support your region, ultimately you and your business will develop and grow too. 

Looking to our professional contacts and client base as a start point, we assembled a group of successful women to see if there was an appetite to create a forum or group and identify what we might all wish to gain from it. Our plans and thoughts were deliberately embryonic. We wanted the future steps to be shaped by those who joined us.

Our first meeting took place in November and as a group of 12, we represented some of the region’s top professional services firms and pressure groups. We quickly realised that as well as identifying a need for action, we had also linked up with a group of women similarly as motivated and excited about doing something to make a difference. At that initial meeting we agreed that to make a change, we needed to be action orientated and there were two key areas where we should focus on first:

·         Creating a network to advertise and gain support for women to achieve target board positions in Norfolk

·         Harnessing the wealth of skills within our group to offer an unparalleled mentoring opportunity for aspiring women.

Since then we have grown our support base as other high profile women in the region have become involved and our next steps are to organise a working session to translate ideas into action.

Naked Marketing was honoured to be involved in the 10th National Apprenticeship Week this March by volunteering to take part in mock interviews at Develop.

The purpose of the week is to encourage more people to choose apprenticeships as a fast-track to a great career. We sent Jodie along to interview students for a graphic design role which required a highly motivated individual with creative flair, good computer skills and a strong knowledge of the industry standard design software.

Jodie interviewed five students in total with 95% of them finding the process very useful and half of them said they would strongly consider an apprenticeship as their preferred progression following education. That sounds like great feedback in our eyes! Jodie comments: “We all know job interviews can be incredibly scary, especially to those yet to step into the world of employment. To be able to help the students learn and gain the skills required was a great privileged.”

Ellis, one of the students taking part commented: “I felt nervous going into the interview, but once I got into the interview and starting talking to Jodie it became more easier to be myself and to come out of my shell. The experience was great and I really enjoyed It. Overall, the interview has given me an insight into what an interview is like and has helped me for when I will have an interview for a job one day.”

Develop is a not-for-profit organisation which delivers a comprehensive range of education and training programmes across the Eastern region for young people from ages 14-19.

We love to welcome back clients.