Business Achievers Awards finals today!

It is B-day today. The business achievers winners will be announced today.

The Ulster Bank Business Achievers Awards are all about celebrating the success of businesses from across the island. The roll-call of previous winners contains some very impressive names, and we’ll be adding to that list at this years Ulster Bank Business Achievers Awards Final 2014 this Thursday 4th Dec. This year, ahead of our final we went back and visited one of our previous National Winners. These businesses have gone on to do some phenomenal work over the past few years. Take a look at what winning the award meant to them and how the business have benefited since.

Irish yoghurts

 

The benefits; 2 major new contracts in Europe on the back of winning the Business Achievers Awards

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This post was originally published here - http://www.smallbusinesscan.com/business-achievers-awards-finals-today/ on thinkbusiness

Business Achievers Awards final 4 December II

Only one day to go before the final.

The Ulster Bank Business Achievers Awards are all about celebrating the success of businesses from across the island. The roll-call of previous winners contains some very impressive names, and we’ll be adding to that list at this years Ulster Bank Business Achievers Awards Final 2014 this Thursday 4th Dec. This year, ahead of our final we went back and visited one of our previous National Winners. These businesses have gone on to do some phenomenal work over the past few years. Take a look at what winning the award meant to them and how the business have benefited since.

Tayto Park

Tayto Park took the title of Best Business Start Up at our National Final last year.

The benefit of winning the Business Achievers Awards for Tayto was the publicity and the morale boost for staff.

The post Business Achievers Awards final 4 December II appeared first on Small Business Can.

This post was originally published here - http://www.smallbusinesscan.com/business-achievers-awards-final-4-december-ii/ on thinkbusiness

Business Achievers Awards Final this 4th of December

Impressive previous winners

The Ulster Bank Business Achievers Awards are all about celebrating the success of businesses from across the island. The roll-call of previous winners contains some very impressive names, and we’ll be adding to that list at this years Ulster Bank Business Achievers Awards Final 2014 this Thursday 4th Dec. This year, ahead of our final we went back and visited one of our previous National Winners. These businesses have gone on to do some phenomenal work over the past few years. Take a look at what winning the award meant to them and how the business have benefited since.

Galway Clinic

Have a look at how Galway Clinic is doing.  Galway Clinic took the title of Best Service Business at our National Final in 2010.

Galway Clinic saw winning the Business Achievers Awards as an opportunity to celebrate, to reflect and to get independent advice and last but not least as good promotion of the business.

The post Business Achievers Awards Final this 4th of December appeared first on Small Business Can.

This post was originally published here - http://www.smallbusinesscan.com/business-achievers-awards-final-this-4th-of-december/ on thinkbusiness

CARLOW-BASED MAVEN TM TAKES ON GLOBAL PLAYERS FOR MAJOR AWARDS

Maven TM, a leading B2B telemarketing and lead generation agency to the technology industry, has been shortlisted for two major industry awards.

The Carlow-based company is in competition for the Best Small or Growing Contract/Shared Services Centre and also Best Customer Acquisition or Sales Campaign categories for the 2014 Irish Contact Centre & Shared Services Awards.

The awards ceremony – organised by CCMA (the Contact Centre Management Association) – will take place on Saturday, 15th November in the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel, Burlington Road, Dublin 4.

Competition is fierce as Maven TM is up against such major companies as Dell, UPC, eBay, Sky Ireland, Paddy Power, Vodafone and AA Ireland.

“We are thrilled and proud to be short-listed for these awards which are a very big event in our industry”, said Mr Mark Cradock, Managing Director, Maven TM, adding: “It is an acknowledgement that we are doing things right at Maven TM and making real pogress.”

Set up by Mark Cradock in 2011, Maven TM has been built largely on self-funding without external investors and has achieved strong results, growing to over 30 staff and building an impressive client base of over 60 leading technology companies across eight countries.

Providing its services in 12 languages, Maven TM finds and qualifies, through data analysis, digital marketing, social media and targetted telemarketing activities, new sales opportunities for its clients, boosting their sales revenue.

Only recently, Maven TM announced an expansion of its international business with funding support from Government through Enterprise Ireland which included the creation of eight new jobs in its Carlow office in the areas of Operations, HR, Training and Project Management.

Find out more about Maven TM on www.maventm.com.

 

 

 

 

The post CARLOW-BASED MAVEN TM TAKES ON GLOBAL PLAYERS FOR MAJOR AWARDS appeared first on Small Business Can.

This post was originally published here - http://www.smallbusinesscan.com/carlow-based-maven-tm-takes-global-players-major-awards/ on thinkbusiness

The profiles of the Ulster finalist of the business achievers

Find below the profiles of the the business achievers Ulster finals. They now go for the big prizes at the final on 4 December. Which one is your favourite? Tweet us @smallBC, #businessachievers

Business Start Up: Arklu (Donegal)

Arklu is a children’s entertainment company, specialising in dolls. Having launched their doll brand Lottie in August 2012 they are now selling in 30 countries via a network of 16 distribution partners. The character is being developed through a series of books and through animation. Lottie is described as “a wholesome alternative doll based on a nine year old child” who “does not wear make-up, jewellery or high heels”.

Small Business: Cornerstone Automation Systems (Londonderry)

Established in 2001, the company now employs 60 people in a 70,000 sq. ft. facility in Campsie.

It manufactures and integrates a full line of cutting edge product handling systems for manufacturers and distributors. Automation systems include shipping systems, in-motion scales, sortation, box opening, order picking, receiving systems, dispensing systems, print and apply systems, robotics as well as necessary software and controls to integrate.

Established SME: BA Kitchen Components (Cookstown)

Established in 1990 by Brian McCracken, BA Components has grown steadily to become a major manufacturer of kitchen, bedroom, bathroom doors and accessories.

Its  customer base ranges from small UK retailers to large kitchen, wholesale, furniture, DIY manufacturers, contractors and retailers throughout the UK, Europe and  Asia Pacific.

The headquarters are based in an 80,000 square foot factory in Cookstown with a workforce of 95.

 International Business: Almac (Craigavon)

Headquartered in Craigavon, Almac is an established contract development and manufacturing organisation providing an extensive range of integrated services to over 600 companies globally within the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors. Services include state-of-the-art drug discovery, world leading cancer diagnostics, research and development, manufacture of active pharmaceutical ingredients, formulation development and the support of global clinical trials. Today the global organisation employs over 3,500 staff in a diverse range of activities

 Social Enterprise: Employers for Childcare Charitable Group (Lisburn)

EFCG encompasses a registered charity and two Social Enterprises, Employers For Childcare Vouchers (EFCV) and Employers For Childcare Solutions (EFCS). The aim of the charity is “to make it easier for parents with dependent children to get into work and to stay in work”.

 Food and Drink: Avondale Foods (Craigavon)

Established in 1965, Avondale Foods the family-run company is located just outside Lurgan on Chestnut Farm. Avondale initially grew and sold vegetables before moving focus to research and development and subsequently diversified into vegetable processing. With products supplied under own label and Country Kitchen brands, the company supplies most major supermarkets.

 Agri Business: SlurryKat (Waringstown)

Slurrykat specialises in the design and engineering of the very latest cutting edge, world class agricultural machinery. It is at the forefront of technological innovation and is currently exporting over 140 different products to more than 20 countries worldwide. A global brand Slurrykat is now widely accepted as the trendsetter and market leader in slurry management systems.

 Women Led Business: Moy Park (Craigavon)

Moy Park is headed by Janet McCollum who was appointed Chief Executive in January 2014.

The company offers a range of fresh, high quality and locally farmed poultry and complementary convenience food products to all the leading retail and food service customers in the UK and Europe. As Northern Ireland’s largest private sector company it employs 12,000 people with 14 main sites in the UK, Ireland France and the Netherlands, accompanying mills and hatcheries and 800 farms in its supply chain.

Special Recognition Award: Vita Liberata (Doagh)

Vita Liberata is a luxury self-tan and skincare brand and its products are sold in 24 countries worldwide. Vita Liberata is recognised as the world’s most advanced non-toxic, organic tanning brand. Founded in 2003 by the current CEO Alyson Hogg to offer innovative skincare that truly delivered, in 2007 Alyson saw a gap in the marketplace for a luxury self-tan with skincare benefits combined, suiting the needs of women on the go.

The post The profiles of the Ulster finalist of the business achievers appeared first on Small Business Can.

This post was originally published here - http://www.smallbusinesscan.com/profiles-ulster-finalist-business-achievers/ on thinkbusiness

Quality Design: Manufacturing Collaboration for Impressive Teamwork

If you are a believer in the philosophy that many hands make light work, teamwork should be right up there on your list of priorities.

Collaboration is often a successful ingredient in getting results within your business and this will the show itself in producing better results through impressive teamwork.

Here is a look at some of the ways that you can boost the quality aspect of your manufacturing process by pulling everyone together and working successfully as a team.

Success you can measure

Team performance is measured in a number of ways and manufacturing companies such as midlake.com are one of a good number of organizations who understand the importance of collaboration throughout the manufacturing process.

Encourage workers within a team to look out for each other whilst still striving individually to produce the highest level of output. Also avoid assigning blame to a single worker when there is a breakdown in the line of production.

You should measure success in terms of a team performance and then look to reward accordingly when the group achieves targets through their strong alliance, even if they are working on specific tasks with the group.

Learn from the past

Another positive way to create a good level of teamwork is to study peers and previously successful projects.

It often inspires employees to learn from those that have been there before them and how they previously attained success and reached their targets. It can also be a great idea to bring in previous leaders or inspirational figures who have moved on to other achievements, as a way of motivating your current team to reach these same peaks.

Balancing rewards

When it comes to manufacturing, there is often a thin line between suppressing creativity and trying to reduce costly errors in the production line.

You need to devise a system that tries to avoid the negative aspects that comes from punishing failure and concentrate on rewarding a successful uplift in output, without avoiding any safety issues that need addressing.

This is indeed a tricky balancing act to get right. But if you aim to find a suitable middle ground that incentivizes employees but keeps their performance within strict safety levels, your business should prosper.

Process and product are equally important

It is essential that you don’t let the pursuit of maximum output outweigh the need for safety at any time.

Make sure that workers are fully drilled on the need for rigorous safety procedures and that they have access to all the documents and training needed for them to be compliant in this respect.

This is particularly vital when a new worker is introduced into the team. When this happens, they have the potential to raise the risk profile and may end up endangering their own safety and that of their co-workers.

Process and product are of equal importance and for everyone’s safety and re-assurance, this is a message that has to be understood and acted upon at all times.

It also has to be instilled into any new team member, so they truly get the sense from day one, that they are joining a business and a group of workers who believe in the importance of teamwork.

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Linked Finance; Curious Wines expands

Michael Kane is a friend of Smallbusinesscan. He and his brother are looking to raise 30K through Linked Finance. They are already at 75%. You should have a look.

Cork wine company Curious Wines run by brothers Mike Kane and Matt Kane, one of the first wine companies in Ireland to use the web and social media to get business, are innovating again. The brothers are expanding their business by opening a wine warehouse and retail space in Naas, just off the M7 as a foothold into the greater South Dublin area. However, rather than relying on the banks to finance the expansion, it was apparent they had the necessary funding right at their finger-tips – through their own customers.

No more cajoling

“We needed an additional €30,000 of financing but instead of jumping through hoops by having to educate, prod and cajole a bank manager, we went to the people who understand and believe in our business: our customers, our friends.” stated MD Michael Kane.

Curious Wines are one of many businesses in Ireland using new forms of financing, based on peer-to-peer lending or crowd-funding. Here they’re using LinkedFinance, where individuals get to bid “micro” loans at rates that suit them. When enough people bid the loan becomes an auction, with the loan fulfilled at the lowest rates bid. Where Curious have struck gold again is in offering the loan to their customers first.

“We’ve never seen such an enthusiastic response to a loan on our platform.” commented Marc Rafferty of LinkedFinance. “Normally we would experience 20-30% loan fulfilment in the first week of a loan being offered. With Curious it was 75%, and at rates we haven’t seen before.”

Rafferty continued: “Curious Wines has embraced Linked Finance as a way to raise finance to expand their Irish business in the ultimate fashion. By engaging with their own customers, they have driven the speed of the fulfilment, and driven down the rate at which people are prepared to invest in them. Not only are they receiving the finance they need to grow, they’re turning their current customers into lenders and advocates for their business and they’ve also publicised their wine business to the thousands of lenders supporting Irish SMEs on LinkedFinance.com. Now that’s what we call a real alternative to the banks!” continued Rafferty.

The loan auction ends on Tuesday 24th June and details can be read here: https://www.linkedfinance.com/business-loans/investment/borrower/loan?id=1564

Would you get €30,000 from your bank in a week?

Matthew Kane, Curious Wines’ Operations Manager who will run the Naas location: “We’re blown away that in just a week we’re at 75% of our €30,000 loan without pushing it that hard. We sent an email to our newsletter list and put up a few tweets and our friends and supporters spread the news via word of mouth. It’s a total endorsement of what we’re doing by our own customers.”

Curious Wines are of the view that new direct to public financing models are a future that SMEs need to consider.

Michael Kane MD: “Despite all the fancy advertising saying banks are lending money, they’re still far too conservative, we would urge many SMEs that are looking for financing to investigate LinkedFinance as an options. These could be the credit unions, the community coop banks of the 21st century”

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