Best of British - March 2022 - Business Reporter

Best of British – March 2022

Why seeing carbon as a usable resource could be key to reducing its emissions

UK companies are leading the charge in combating climate change

According to the Coalition of Negative Emissions (CNE), a gigatonne – or 1 billion tonnes – of CO₂ needs to be removed from the atmosphere globally by 2025 to keep global warming within the Paris Agreement target of 1.5°C – and more than one billion tonnes per year thereafter.

Given that 42 gigatonnes of greenhouse gases were emitted in 2020, a year when most of human activity accelerating climate change came to a grinding halt due to Covid, this hardly seems ambitious enough. And considering that the current pipeline of carbon capture projects – whether industrial or natural (such as afforestation) – are only likely to remove 150 million tonnes, the obstacles are formidable.

It stands to reason, then, that more and greater action is needed. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) – where CO₂ is removed either from the air or from flue gases emitted by power plants and then placed in mostly offshore geological sites, such as oil and gas fields – doesn’t get rid of CO₂, it just stores it. Yet it’s currently the most widely used technique of decarbonising the atmosphere until commercially viable carbon utilisation (CCU) technologies that permanently capture it become more widely available.

Established in 2009, Carbon Clean, for example, had removed 1.4 million metric tonnes of CO₂from 44 facilities across the globe by the end of 2021, to be either sequestered or re-used in the food and drink industry in its purer form.

What makes the London-based company stand out among the more than 20 fully operational CCS projects globally is its modular nature and the low cost of its off-the-shelf system.

The take-up of decarbonisation technology is very much dependent on the price of carbon – that is, the amount of money CO₂ emitters have to pay to offset the detrimental impact they make on the environment.

News of this price soaring to £74-80 per tonne in early February 2022, for example, was great for CCUS technology, as that price range would make a good business case for investing in decreasing emissions on-site rather than offsetting them by purchasing allowances. The optimal price of CCS was estimated at $62-125 (£47-94) per tonne by the International Energy Agency, and Carbon Clean is currently aiming for bringing down this cost further, to £30 per tonne, using its proprietary carbon removal technology.

The other area where Carbon Clean is having an edge is size. As CCUS technology is overwhelmingly retrofitted into existing plants, the size of the equipment can be a considerable barrier to adoption, and Carbon Clean claims its CO₂ capture system only takes up one-tenth of the space similar solutions do.

From zero to negative emissions

Strategically, though, the goal is to turn the carbon we capture into durable, recyclable materials such as plastic or minerals rather than just store it to deal with later. Kent-based O.C.O. Technology (former Carbon8 Systems) has invented a commercially viable process for manufacturing a building material that also permanently captures CO₂.

The manufacturing of building materials such as steel, cement and glass accounts for more than 10 per cent of the emissions of the construction industry, which is itself responsible for almost 40 per cent of the man-made CO₂ in the Earth’s atmosphere.

Given that different types of waste – cement dust, steel slag or paper ash – react naturally with CO₂, O.C.O. Technology has developed an accelerated method of carbonising these wastes, blending them with binders and fillers to form an aggregate.

Manufactured limestone (M-LS), the end-product of this patented process, has already attained an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) – an independently verified certificate assessing the environmental impact of a product through its full lifecycle, including raw material supply, transport and manufacturing.

This certificate also recognises the fact that the process of manufacturing M-LS captures more CO₂ than is emitted during its production and is, therefore, carbon negative.

O.C.O. has three plants in the UK and is now also expanding into foreign markets in Europe (Spain and France) and Asia. In January this year, O.C.O. also conducted successful trials with a Japanese supplier of water treatment systems, giving the CCU company a foothold in the Energy from Waste (EfW) market.

The partnership also gives O.C.O. an opportunity to hone its technology so it can capture CO₂ from flue gases that have a lower concentration of CO₂ – a technologically and financially more challenging task.

Other innovative businesses could follow these pioneering developments to extend the range of available offerings. Although the high carbon price that was working in the favour of CCUS has been slashed as a result of the war in Ukraine, given the growing interest in sustainable solutions and government schemes designed to support the sector, this is bound to become a highly lucrative market in the near future.

Zita Goldman

Zita Goldman covers digital transformation with a focus on demystifying digital technologies and showing how they fit into a broader sectoral, macroeconomic, legislative and societal context. She has a passion for connecting the dots of current business and financial news and explaining inconsistencies, for giving hype a reality check and looking behind buzzwords for fresh meaning.

A solar power station in space? Here’s how it would work – and the benefits it could bring

The UK government is reportedly considering a £16 billion proposal to build a solar power station in space.

Yes, you read that right. Space-based solar power is one of the technologies to feature in the government’s Net Zero Innovation Portfolio. It has been identified as a potential solution, alongside others, to enable the UK to achieve net zero by 2050.

But how would a solar power station in space work? What are the advantages and drawbacks to this technology?

Space-based solar power involves collecting solar energy in space and transferring it to Earth. While the idea itself is not new, recent technological advances have made this prospect more achievable.

The space-based solar power system involves a solar power satellite – an enormous spacecraft equipped with solar panels. These panels generate electricity, which is then wirelessly transmitted to Earth through high-frequency radio waves. A ground antenna, called a rectenna, is used to convert the radio waves into electricity, which is then delivered to the power grid.

A space-based solar power station in orbit is illuminated by the Sun 24 hours a day and could therefore generate electricity continuously. This represents an advantage over terrestrial solar power systems (systems on Earth), which can produce electricity only during the day and depend on the weather.

With global energy demand projected to increase by nearly 50 per cent by 2050, space-based solar power could be key to helping meet the growing demand on the world’s energy sector and tackling global temperature rise.

Some challenges

A space-based solar power station is based on a modular design, where a large number of solar modules are assembled by robots in orbit. Transporting all these elements into space is difficult, costly, and will take a toll on the environment.

The weight of solar panels was identified as an early challenge. But this has been addressed through the development of ultra-light solar cells (a solar panel comprises smaller solar cells).

Space-based solar power is deemed to be technically feasible primarily because of advances in key technologies, including lightweight solar cells, wireless power transmission and space robotics.

Importantly, assembling even just one space-based solar power station will require many space shuttle launches. Although space-based solar power is designed to reduce carbon emissions in the long run, there are significant emissions associated with space launches, as well as costs.

Space shuttles are not currently reusable, though companies like Space X are working on changing this. Being able to reuse launch systems would significantly reduce the overall cost of space-based solar power.

If we manage to successfully build a space-based solar power station, its operation faces several practical challenges, too. Solar panels could be damaged by space debris. Further, panels in space are not shielded by Earth’s atmosphere. Being exposed to more intense solar radiation means they will degrade faster than those on Earth, which will reduce the power they are able to generate.

The efficiency of wireless power transmission is another issue. Transmitting energy across large distances – in this case from a solar satellite in space to the ground – is difficult. Based on the current technology, only a small fraction of collected solar energy would reach the Earth.

Pilot projects are already underway

The Space Solar Power Project in the US is developing high-efficiency solar cells as well as a conversion and transmission system optimised for use in space. The US Naval Research Laboratory tested a solar module and power conversion system in space in 2020. Meanwhile, China has announced progress on their Bishan space solar energy station, with the aim to have a functioning system by 2035.

In the UK, a £17 billion space-based solar power development is deemed to be a viable concept based on the recent Frazer-Nash Consultancy report. The project is expected to start with small trials, leading to an operational solar power station in 2040.

The solar power satellite would be 1.7km in diameter, weighing around 2,000 tonnes. The terrestrial antenna takes up a lot of space – roughly 6.7km by 13km. Given the use of land across the UK, it’s more likely to be placed offshore.

This satellite would deliver 2GW of power to the UK. While this is a substantial amount of power, it is a small contribution to the UK’s generation capacity, which is around 76GW.

With extremely high initial costs and slow return on investment, the project would need substantial governmental resources as well as investments from private companies.

But as technology advances, the cost of space launch and manufacturing will steadily decrease. And the scale of the project will allow for mass manufacturing, which should drive the cost down somewhat.

Whether space-based solar power can help us meet net zero by 2050 remains to be seen. Other technologies, like diverse and flexible energy storage, hydrogen and growth in renewable energy systems are better understood and can be more readily applied.

Despite the challenges, space-based solar power is a precursor for exciting research and development opportunities. In the future, the technology is likely to play an important role in the global energy supply.

Jovana Radulovic, Head of School of Mechanical and Design Engineering, University of Portsmouth

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Revolutionising rental

By sticking to its key values and not following the crowd, McNicoll Vehicle Hire has built itself up from a local daily rental company to the key supplier of cars and vans in Scotland

In 2006, McNicoll Vehicle Hire was acquired from the founder Dick McNicoll. The business consisted of a mixture of 22 old cars and vans and was a well-known brand in Linlithgow, West Lothian, supplying the local community with daily rental hires. Since the acquisition, the business has grown from strength to strength with the focus being on providing a platinum, friendly service to its customers. In 2014, the business acquired Edinburgh’s Condor Self Drive, another well-established local company with the same values as McNicoll. It then opened its third site in Newtongrange, Midlothian, to further increase its coverage and strengthen its hold on daily rentals in central Scotland.

Over the years, the business model has grown to include commercial companies looking for longer-term hires. By offering the same quality of vehicles as national companies and implementing the levels of service that were provided to local customers, it soon became the go-to company for short-, medium- and long-term hires in the region.

In 2019, it opened its fourth depot and first key commercial facility in Livingston, just off the M8 motorway connecting Edinburgh and Glasgow. It employed staff with experience within the commercial hire sector to help grow this side of the business, and in 2021, it added a further commercial site in Newbridge, Edinburgh, to help it grow in line with its goals.

Today, it claims it is the key player in vehicle hire in central Scotland for daily rentals and commercial hire. It is rated number one for vehicle hire on booking.com and prides itself on giving customers a quality of service unprecedented in the tourism car rental market. Due to the phenomenal number of satisfied customers leaving reviews, it has a ‘Superb’ rating on the site.

In its commercial business, McNicoll has secured key contracts with large blue-chip organisations and, with a fleet of 1,500 vehicles, provides a sole supply deal to companies throughout the UK.

As a business, it always sticks to its values and ensures all customers receive a platinum service, whether they want to hire one vehicle for a day or 100 vehicles on hire for a four-year contract. This has been a key driver in organic growth over the years, with the company doing things the McNicoll way and not following the crowd.

When Covid-19 and lockdown hit in March 2020, the company worked rapidly to put the business in its strongest position before giving back to its customers. It stopped all charges on customer vehicles and allowed customers to keep the vehicles throughout the pandemic, taking a massive financial hit. This ensured customers didn’t have any costs while their businesses were closed and that when they were ready to trade again, they had vehicles at their disposal. It further cemented McNicoll’s relationships with its customers and created a stream of new customers who heard about their way of operating.

Since 2020, its ‘on hire’ rate has grown by 170 per cent, and over the past three years, it has enjoyed a 77 per cent increase in its turnover. It has allowed the company to grow its staffing levels and improve its structure.

2022 brings new challenges with the well-publicised shortage of vehicles in the marketplace, but due to the brand’s calculated foresight, it has gathered a large number of vehicles over the past 12/18 months while limiting disposals. This has allowed McNicoll to support its current customers’ needs while also having enough excess stock to supply the summer tourism car market and hit commercial growth targets for 2022.

David Stewart, Managing Director of McNicoll, said: “With rising inflation really affecting individuals and businesses, we will continue to look at our business every day to minimise the impact on our customers and provide them with the service they expect.”

For further information, visit mcnicollvehiclehire.co.uk

INDUSTRY VIEW FROM MCNICOLL VEHICLE HIRE

Why your digital product strategy is now your business strategy

David Wynne, CEO and founder, Red Badger

If someone told you they were heading into town to open a bank account, you’d probably raise an eyebrow. What was commonplace a couple of years ago now seems onerous when you can open an account in 10 minutes from your phone.

The customer experience is now almost universally digital-first – regardless of market or industry. Digital products are no longer an IT function that serves the business. They are the business. Your digital product strategy is now your business strategy.

Becoming a digital product organisation

Treating digital products as a primary business driver is a profound shift in mindset – one that requires cultural, organisational and capability change.

Unlike traditional IT projects that have a start and end date, a product is never done; it evolves with the customer and the market to deliver enduring value. Your products, and therefore organisation, are structured around uninterrupted value streams that directly connect the people responsible for delivering the products with the customer.

Teams are given the support and freedom to deliver digital solutions that truly differentiate the business. And, crucially, success is not measured by activities, timelines and budgets but by customer outcomes and business results.

The core challenges facing blue chips

While making this shift to product thinking is a business priority – in 2019, 85 per cent of organisations were adopting, or planning to adopt, a product-centric approach – the shift isn’t easy when you consider the size, scale and complexity of enterprises.

They face three core challenges:

Delivering a product that customers actually want and competitors aren’t delivering
Building a platform that enables their products to be reliably, safely and consistently delivered
Creating the digital capability to build and maintain products and platforms (the fight for talent is real)

Securing and retaining top talent

To make up ground on the digital natives, blue chips must attract top talent to build their digital capability.

The best product people take pride in their work. They jump out of the bed to work on products that directly delight customers (internal and external) and make a real business impact. They don’t want – or need – to work in an environment that doesn’t embrace a progressive product mindset or that makes it unnecessarily hard to be successful.

Digital native companies don’t hire 1,000 engineers for one project and then disband them at the end. They invest in lifelong teams dedicated to continuously optimising their area of the customer experience.

Experience matters

The blue chips we know and love are already digital product businesses (whether they realise it or not). There is an enormous opportunity for those who embrace this dynamic and take urgent action to transform themselves.

An experienced pioneering team, with deep technical pedigree and product design, can guide and accelerate this journey. This team understands the enterprise beast, derisking the big decisions to build the foundations to be successful over the next decade.

Crucially, they can help you iteratively deliver value from day one, not at the end of a three-year transformational programme. Given what’s at stake, there’s no time to waste.

For more information please click here.

INDUSTRY VIEW FROM RED BADGER

Making the most of travel after the pandemic

Now that the pandemic is receding, people are starting to holiday abroad once again. And while it’s natural to have worries about travel overseas, it’s important for most of us to make up for lost time and have something to dream about.

As travel restrictions ease, Dan Salmon, Travel Advisor of the Year and founder of the specialist luxury travel agency Never a Wasted Journey, shares some of his insights on how to create a holiday with the wow factor.

Plan for pleasure

Half the pleasure of holiday travel is in the anticipation: deciding where to go and what to do. The world is opening up again and while some places still remain off limits for travellers, there are plenty of wonderful options to consider. So don’t decide where you will go on impulse.

Your first trip after two years of lockdown should be special. Plan your destination carefully, listing out the merits of each place and perhaps using a “mood board” with cut outs of all your favourite activities and places to help you decide what you want to do best of all. And if you are stuck for inspiration, just get in touch with me – I’d be happy to share my ideas.

When you have a short list of options, do your homework. Not all resorts are coming out of the pandemic in the same way. Some may still be largely shut. Others will be in the middle of refurbishment. In addition, people are rushing to book holidays at the moment. So if you want some peace, it may be a good idea to avoid the most popular places and select destinations that are overlooked, perhaps a little further away from big resort hubs and cities.

Get guidance on what things are really like “on the ground” at the moment. A good travel agent will advise you on the current situation, as well as updating you on the latest restrictions and travel requirements. An agent like me can save you time and frustration, while also introducing you to new experiences that will leave you lost for words.

Get well organised

When you have decided where you are going, why not create a detailed itinerary of what you want to see and do? You don’t have to follow it, but it’s good to know what options are open to you. Sometimes you may want to chill out but there will be nothing worse than feeling that you haven’t made the most of those precious days away. And have back up plans in case a sudden incident means that you can’t do exactly what you were planning.

This is where a good agent who offers a concierge service can be invaluable. Use them to help with booking restaurants (especially for your first night), spa treatments, excursions and unique activities that you might find difficult to book locally through traditional routes.

Don’t forget the practical side of planning either. Depending on where you are headed, there can be some complicated health requirements. You will probably need proof that you don’t have Covid and for some countries proof that you have been vaccinated (the NHS app is fine, but a paper version of your vaccination status is a very handy back up), and possibly other documentation too such as location information or insurance documents. Also don’t forget spare masks, hand wipes, water…Military grade planning, especially when you have young children with you, means an anxiety-free trip.

Use your travel agent to help with this. They should be able to provide you with checklists and even walk you through them to make sure that everything is in order. A good agent will make things as easy as possibly for you, guiding you on the protocols and etiquette, and managing all the logistics on your behalf.

Plan for memories

You will probably want to have plenty of happy memories when you come back and it can be a great idea, as well as a lot of fun, to practise making those memories. If you are into photography or video, then experiment with some new techniques you can use on holiday. If it’s food and wine, then research beforehand so that you can look out for the things you want to try. And take a notebook to record your impressions, so that you revisit the experiences you had when you get back home.

A holiday diary, especially for younger children, can be an enjoyable activity in the evening (“Draw a picture of your favourite thing today”) and then they, and you, will have something to look back on in years to come. Or encourage children to collect “scraps” – tickets, fliers, receipts, labels, postcards – for a project for when you get back: again a great way of revisiting memories.

Relax

Things may be a little different for travellers over the next few months. So build into your expectations some delays at borders and elsewhere. Make sure you have things to keep you interested while you are hanging around; a kindle, a Nintendo switch, a spare battery for the phone…

Don’t panic. It’s pretty safe to travel once again. Surfaces are always germy but not a particular threat for Covid. And anyway you will have remembered to take hand sanitiser won’t you! (To be honest, that’s not a bad call in normal times – far too many holidays are ruined by upset stomachs and clean hands will prevent a lot of this).

And remember, the most important thing is to relax when you are away. A little bit of planning and some practical advice from a specialist travel consultant and you will be set fair for a wonderful time. Enjoy it!

To make sure that you never waste a journey, call Dan 01245 469 771 or email him on reservations@neverawastedjourney.com

INDUSTRY VIEW FROM NEVER A WASTED JOURNEY

Optimising returns from peer-to-peer investments

Peer-to-peer (P2P) investments involve individuals lending money to other individuals or businesses. While this may sound fairly niche, the sector – worth $85 billion in 2020 – is predicted to grow sevenfold by 2028, to a global value of $578 billion each year. It’s growing fast, because P2P lending can offer much higher returns than traditional investments.

However, these are often an expression of the increased risk P2P investments carry. For example, when you lend to other consumers these loans might be unsecured, which means that if the borrower can’t (or won’t) repay you, there isn’t much you can do about it.

And even if you are lending to a small business where the loan is secured against company assets (such as equipment), or the assets of the directors, it may be very hard to get your money back if the company defaults on the loan.

So how can investors who want to optimise the returns they make from P2P investments do so, while at the same time reducing the risk they are exposed to?

Why P2P property loans?

A well-established way of optimising returns from P2P investments, while at the same time moderating risk, is to invest in property developments.

As well as higher interest rates, P2P property loans offer lower risks because loans can be secured (generally with first or second legal charges) against the value of the property. This means that if the borrower can’t pay you back, the property can be sold to repay your loan.

P2P platforms offer additional risk management opportunities by allowing investors to choose whether to invest in a single property development or spread their investments across several properties.

Spreading investments across different properties is a strategy which reduces risks, although, because it requires a little extra administration, it will generally come with slightly reduced interest rates. This is a little like investing in a stock market fund rather than individual shares: if you split your money across multiple borrowers you have negligible risk of a major loss.

Another benefit of P2P property investments is liquidity, or the ability to get your money back when you want it. Generally, lenders agree to lend money for a fixed period. This means their money is tied up and inaccessible while the loan is running. However, because property loans are attractive, many P2P investment platforms offer a secondary market where investors can sell their loans on to other parties.

But is it safe?

There are many different shades of P2P lender. Some of the larger ones may be inflexible or expensive for the investor to use, while smaller ones may be badly run or undercapitalised. But the top concern for most investors will be whether their investment is safe.

The key is to look for quality of operations. Kitemarks such as quality certifications (for example, ISO 9000) are useful indicators, as are industry awards and even reviews: unhappy investors are sure to make their feelings known on sites such as TrustPilot.

The platform should also make its approach to cyber-security and risk management clear on its website, and it should be able to describe a strong underwriting process that means bad risks don’t make it onto the platform. In addition, one of the most important things that underpins quality is the expertise of the senior management.

Introducing Kuflink

One P2P investment platform that is worth checking out is Kuflink. Established in 2016 by a team of experienced property investment managers, Kuflink offers the chance to invest in loans secured against UK property and achieve average returns for lenders of over 6 per cent, and as high as 7.2 per cent. *

Kuflink takes a multi-layered approach to managing loan risk which includes property valuation, risk assessment and final sign-off by a loans committee. Each loan is monitored on a daily basis and loan management is rigorous, with a 30-day default rule. This compares favourably with the 180-day rule employed by the FCA and means that if a borrower fails to pay its monthly interest charge, Kuflink will take action after 30 days.

Another innovative safety feature is that loans are paid out to the borrower net of any interest charges: in other words, interest for the period of the loan is paid up-front. Even if borrowers have to wait longer than expected to get their capital repaid (perhaps because the property developer goes out of business), they still have access to their interest payments on time.

Kuflink has never made a loss on an investment and proves its faith in its investments system by investing alongside its lenders.

No investments can ever be totally risk-free. But P2P lending against property is an excellent way of reducing investment risk. And on Kuflink’s innovative digital platform, investors can be confident in the knowledge that the investments offered have been chosen carefully and that all loans are proactively monitored, meaning that returns are as high as possible. This combination of tightly managed risk and optimised returns is a very desirable investment opportunity.

*Capital is at risk and Kuflink is not protected by the FSCS. Past returns should not be used as a guide to future performance. Securing investments against UK property does not guarantee that your investments will be repaid and returns may be delayed. Tax rules apply to IF ISAs and SIPPs and may be subject to change. Kuflink does not offer any financial or tax advice in relation to the investment opportunities that it promotes. Please read our risk statement for full details.

To explore more about P2P property lending, visit https://www.kuflink.com

INDUSTRY VIEW FROM KUFLINK

Marketing in the ‘now economy’

James “JT” Turner, Founder & President, Delineate; Ben Leet, CEO, Delineate

“Half of my advertising is wasted, I just don’t know which half,” department store pioneer John Wanamaker is reputed to have once said. And although the world looks very different today, his assessment has continued to hold true for modern marketers.

Great challenges await in the future. Consumers are buying products with a thumb swipe, expecting them on their doorstep within days, hours or even minutes. This is blurring the lines across retail, advertising and brand positioning, making advertising harder to execute and even harder to measure. We are in the consumer era of “now”.

The problem of ‘now’

Marketing tools need to be able to provide reach across multiple channels, often at a single point in time. This transmedia approach of interconnected campaigns has seen new marketing tech (martech) platforms move to the centre of the marketer’s suite of tools, with campaign decisions needing to be made in real time to maximise audience attention and spend. Short-term sales targets drive the need for immediate decisions, which means a need for immediate data. This has led to an increasing reliance on social media and search data to provide answers – even if those answers aren’t accurate.

When good enough is not good enough

Data collected from search engines and social media have a part to play in measurement. Simple social metrics provide marketers with a surface level of brand engagement and audience response to social media posts and campaigns, while social listening technology allows marketers to better understand consumer sentiment around a brand. But these fast solutions come with large caveats.

With heavy reliance on search and social for a broader view of the world, marketers face two main problems – a lack of context, and little in the way of quality control. Many automated tools can find words and associated phrases that help determine sentiment, but this is often confined to a single post relating to a brand or product. It does not place that post in the wider context of an individual’s worldview, beliefs or habits.

And, with the rise of privacy laws, creating an accurate picture of a consumer becomes even more challenging. Consumers who were once accessible via the digital trail they left for marketers to follow are now using private browsing, turning off tracking features on their mobile devices, and are protected by laws governing information gathering tools such as cookies.

Revolutionising market research surveys

Surveys bring expansion and context to the marketing measurement toolkit, showing marketers the iceberg beneath the waterline. They provide a wider understanding of why people do what they do, so they can be influenced. Unlike passive social media monitoring, survey research is active: it helps brands drive real change, which can only be done by understanding how decisions are made, and the causal pathways that drive behaviour.

Market research surveys have historically had a reputation for being slow and disconnected, often used in isolation to answer a particular business question. This world does still exist, but it’s steadily being replaced by daily, actionable survey data, made available in modern data structures and tools from our Delineate Proximity™ platform.

An answer to the measurement and attribution problem

Launched in 2021, the Delineate Proximity™ platform measures advertising campaigns as they happen, across all media channels and touchpoints. It uses daily surveys for a representative view of the world, with data streamed directly into a client’s data lake, so it can be connected to other real-time data for attribution modelling, in-flight adjustments and creative optimisation.

For those worried about that wasted 50 per cent of advertising spend, Delineate Proximity™ offers the solution. Brands using our platform are saving 25 per cent of their overall advertising spend. Get in touch here to talk to us about our revolutionary approach.

Join the research revolution! Learn more at delineate.ai

INDUSTRY VIEW BY DELINEATE

Digital transformation does not start with technology

A staggering percentage of digital transformations provide meagre returns for their organisations. Where does the blame lie and what can be done to ensure the best chances of success?

Perhaps you are reading this and thinking, “I know exactly how to embed digital across my business” or you have just embarked on a transformation and are extremely confident of success.

Sadly, the cold reality is that the vast majority of organisations fail to realise the benefit from digital transformation.

To flip the odds, organisations must understand that no technology offers a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution – a crucial reality often overlooked in favour of speed or assumed convenience. Simply automating a bad process does not fix its underlying issues.

The first step is to understand where value can be generated – this will help identify the right technologies for the organisation to deliver and sustain excellent outcomes, whether that is increased production, improved revenues or growth in new markets.

Our firm defines digital value transformation as the process of leveraging the right digital technologies to achieve high performance that delivers and sustains excellent outcomes (revenue, growth or operational results).

Finding the value

Perceptions of value vary greatly and there is an industry-wide misconception around why organisations need technology.

Not every business will require the same solution, and none should leap into action until they have fully defined their needs. This is easier said than done for organisations bombarded by vendor promises of the ‘perfect solution’ and media pronouncements of new advancements that will cure all ills.

To make your organisation a success story, do less and do it really, really well. Simplify technology by first clearly defining the tangible benefits to the organisation. Begin with a focus on understanding the root causes of operational inefficiencies and key cost drivers and how to better serve consumers to generate higher margins and capture greater market share. Only then can you determine the right technology that is fit for purpose to optimise across cost levers while improving processes and customer experience.

To get a clearer picture, engage the frontline – those who are doing the doing, every day – to understand their pain points and end-user needs. This critical first step is key to thoroughly evaluating how, and if, vendor promises will deliver to both organisational and customer needs.

Further, it lays the foundation towards building the organisational alignment needed to drive change as understanding needs and selecting value-focused technology is only the first phase of the transformation journey. The next phase, integrating new solutions effectively into established operations, is often the greatest challenge.

Talent and culture, not technology

If an organisation would rather take the path of least resistance, it may feel that the latest technology is a silver bullet – that it can somehow implement a digital process without the necessary initial pangs of change.

It cannot. Undertaking a digital transformation is about talent and culture, not just technology.

All too often, technology is implemented before procedures and processes are fully aligned to realise maximum value, if altered at all. For example, a sophisticated AI-enabled reporting tool is implemented, but the information output follows the legacy process of exporting to an Excel worksheet and manually emailing to a manager; or an advanced customer management tool with chatbots is rolled out but the information gleaned from interactions with customers is not fed back to operational teams to drive improvements.

Successfully embedding your new technology requires processes to be adapted and behaviours changed. Typically, this requires new procedures and adjusted targets, as well as intensive team training to ensure they can adopt and sustain the new technology to its full extent.

In our experience, the most successful digital transformations have begun with thorough introspection to gain understanding. To the outside world, their success may look easy. In reality, their ‘seamless’ transformation required a layered and comprehensive approach, ensuring the right steps were taken, at the right time, toward the right application of technology.

Today, industries that best weather disruption in terms of short-term liquidity, and that maintain a largely positive outlook on future profitability, are the ones that have the largest means to successfully digitise their organisations.

While prospects for success can seem daunting, organisations that successfully transform, and then continuously improve, will be built on technology solutions that generate value, are fit for purpose and are powered by forward-thinking leadership and an inspired frontline.

Partners in Performance is currently enhancing its research on the importance of digital transformations to organisations. To receive industry-wide results, including emerging challenges, insights and best practices, take part in our Digital Value Transformation Survey

By Ali-Reza Moschtaghi (London) and Juan Ferrara (New York), Partners in Performance

INDUSTRY VIEW FROM PARTNERS IN PERFORMANCE

The tech that helps keep your employees safe and uphold your duty of care

Naz Dossa, CEO, Peoplesafe

Peoplesafe is an industry-leading, technology-led employee safety specialist which uses IoT devices and smartphone applications to supply cutting-edge safety services to the public and private sectors.

Regardless of whether employees are in high or low risk situations, Peoplesafe’s products and services provide employers with the means to not only meet their duty of care obligations but surpass them. By providing a safety feature that can be accessed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, staff benefit from the service whether they are on or off duty.

Technology-based solutions and services

Whether an employer needs technology to keep workers safe from harm or just to safeguard their wellbeing, Peoplesafe has a solution. Available products range from discreet SOS alarms with fall detection, GPS tracking and two-way audio, to the Peoplesafe app, which transforms a smartphone into a personal safety device.

And with public-facing workers facing increased incidents of verbal or physical abuse, Peoplesafe’s body-worn cameras act as a deterrent, and work to de-escalate a situation before anyone gets hurt.

The company has also recently launched its own mass notification service, Peoplesafe Alert, which is designed for instant communication with employees in a crisis (such as a natural disaster or terror attack). It allows organisations to send and track mass safety messages to thousands of employees simultaneously, overriding phones set to silent or do not disturb. It also has geofencing capabilities, allowing an employer to communicate with those in a certain location.

Peoplesafe’s Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC)

Peoplesafe’s fully accredited ARC is certified to the highest industry standards. It is operated by highly trained, experienced staff who are experts at handling crisis situations and alerts.

The ARC is there to support an employee at any point where they feel their safety is compromised. Whether experiencing verbal or physical abuse or suffering a slip, trip or fall, they can activate their device and gain instant access to a call handler at the ARC. Via the two-way audio capability, the call handler will be able to speak to the user and assess the situation. Where necessary, we can bypass the 999 service using our Unique Reference Numbers (URNs) to speak directly to localised police control rooms, saving valuable time in an emergency.

The ARC handles over half a million calls per year and deals with more than 600 incidents. As well as having priority access to emergency services, which has saved lives, our service has the potential to deflate a heated situation or find help for a fallen worker, thus reducing the volume of calls to the UK’s 999 emergency service.

It is important to note that the two-way audio devices and GPS tracking services are only engaged when the user presses the SOS button. Employees are never tracked or listened to unless the alarm is raised.

Peoplesafe’s customers

Peoplesafe helps to protect over 170,000 employees across a number of well-known organisations from the NHS and police forces to the Ministry of Justice, DEFRA, HMRC and the Forestry Commission. The company also counts private sector organisations such as Yorkshire Water, Taylor Wimpey and Engie among its client base.

Naz Dossa, CEO of Peoplesafe, said: “Employee trends have changed dramatically over the past 18 months, with a huge increase in the number of staff working alone either at home or in a socially distanced environment.

“This means that employers face new challenges in their duty of care, which is where Peoplesafe can supply up-to-the-minute technology-based solutions that provide security and peace of mind.

“We pride ourselves on putting people at the heart of safety. Using tech-enabled end-to-end services that are driven by safety security systems is the best way to keep our workforces safe, no matter whether they are working or in their personal time.”

Book a free consultation at safe.peoplesafe.co.uk/best-of-british

INDUSTRY VIEW FROM PEOPLESAFE

Priority Digital Health: The future of digital healthcare

Alison Meadows, Joint Founder & CEO, Priority Digital Health and John Dibb, Joint Founder & CEO, Priority Digital Health

If public health departments and local councils are to hit their health and wellbeing targets, they need to embrace digital. Part of this must include a platform such as Priority Digital Health’s Priority Platform.

Why? Because using this digital solution, they can help hard-to-reach communities, and flexibility scale up to the levels that they need to support the relevant locations.

All this can be gained without having to find more resources, more money and more expertise.

The future is interoperability, flexibility, and whole-body health services all in one place – that’s why the future is the Priority Platform.

Who is Priority Digital Health?

Priority Digital Health (PDH) is a Cambridge-based organisation specialising in digital health solutions.

PDH build digital solutions which empower better self-management and service-management of patients’ health and wellbeing. They ensure people get the help and support they need, swiftly, whilst remaining true to their ’Tell Your Story Once’ mantra.

PDH’s speciality is disease prevention; their background is in changing behaviour, and their focus is cost-saving and service efficiencies – but not at the expense of user experience.

They have three main products: The Priority Platform (customisable case management software); Diabetes Book & Learn (connecting people with Diabetes to the right education); and AmaraHealth™ (a whole-body health and wellbeing app).

What is the Priority Platform?

The Priority Platform was created by Priority Digital Health, a Cambridge-based organisation specialising in digital health solutions.

The Priority Platform is a case management system that acts as a digital portal for all patient information, vaccinations, prescriptions, appointments, interactions, goals and encounters within healthcare settings. This includes wellbeing services, GPs and social prescribing organisations.

Anyone internally or externally involved with a patient’s care can be connected via one centralised system.

Patients can self-refer, record their own health and wellbeing metrics, and manage their own data. Naturally, this increases ownership and accountability while generating greater efficiencies and savings for the service providers.

Delivering interoperability for all

Interoperability isn’t at the core of many digital health services. Most platforms solve one problem and require a new platform when another problem arises.

This is costly, timely, complicated – and usability suffers.

But the Priority Digital Health Priority Platform has interoperability at its core.

Already accessible to over seven million UK residents, the Priority Platform is fully interoperable and can be connected to all the major GP clinical systems such as Vision and TPP.

Award-winning service modules

One of the most unique features of the Priority Platform is that there’s one login for one platform, but many different modules within that platform which deliver different services. As a result, it’s easily customised for each service and every local pathway.

The platform hosts a multitude of award-winning service modules. These support a range of NHS, public health and community services. This includes social prescribing, booking, volunteering, goal-setting, lifestyle services (such as smoking and weight management) and workplace health services.

Customers may acquire a singular module and then decide they need more. PDH’s flexible approach allows them to make that happen quickly, without the obstacle of an entirely new platform.

Security is non-negotiable

Their platform has been designed with security at its core:

Hosted within the Health & Social Care Network (HSCN)
All servers are hosted in the UK
Each user has a dedicated login using OWASP/2FA-recommended levels of security
Working with ETHOS Consulting, their platform has received clinical risk-management standard DCB0129 (mandatory under the Health and Social care Act 2012)
Accredited by NHS DSP Toolkit
ISO 27001 assessed
Cyber Essentials certified
Registered with the ICO, ZA286500

One app, complete wellness

Priority Digital Health is bringing a new product to market. It’s whole-body health like you’ve never seen before, that encourages patients to delete their countless health and wellbeing apps and replace them with AmaraHealth™.

Why? Because AmaraHealth™ enables people to simplify their use of health apps by streamlining them into one. Using the AmaraHealth™ app, users will be able to track all areas of their health and wellbeing. From physical fitness to mood, every aspect of a patient’s health can be tracked manually or via a connected wearable.

Users will be empowered to achieve and sustain whole-body health, with access to their unique wellbeing score, personalised analytics and specialist courses, videos and articles.

Just like the Priority Platform, AmaraHealth™will empower individuals to take control of their health and wellbeing, helping to alleviate the pressure on healthcare professionals and services.

If the future is in favour of interconnectivity and ease for both patients and healthcare systems, then it’ll be in favour of digital solutions such as the Priority Platform and AmaraHealth™ too.

Request a demo for the Priority Platform and/or AmaraHealth™ today

INDUSTRY VIEW FROM PRIORITY DIGITAL HEALTH

Microalgae is nature’s ‘green gold’: our pioneering project to feed the world more sustainably

As a young child in the mid-1960s, my days were spent living an idyllic rural life on a dairy farm in the village of Lewdown in the heart of Devon. I recall many happy days exploring the glorious countryside, living a life in balance with nature and the environment – or at least, that’s how it felt.

But I also remember the ever-present slurry pit full of manure down at the end of our cowshed. It wasn’t fenced off, and my mum would remind me on regular occasions that to stray too close could mean death by drowning in what was, in essence, an enormous vat of smelly cow pats. As a five-year-old, I stayed well clear.

What we didn’t know then was that this pit of farm manure posed not only a hazard to me, but to our environment. Manure, which is often returned to the land as a nutrient fertiliser without consideration of its wider impacts, releases greenhouse gases including methane, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide, and other harmful nitrogenous gases such as ammonia. It can also lead to nitrogen-rich run-off into water courses, polluting rivers, lakes and coastlines – with knock-on effects on fish mortality and tourism.

In short, what I thought was an idyllic childhood, living on a farm in balance with nature, wasn’t quite that. Subsequently, as a bioscientist, I’ve spent much of my life researching microorganisms that can help maintain a healthy planet. Nearly 60 years later, I find myself leading a pioneering Europe-wide project dedicated to transforming potentially harmful waste into something positive. In the process, we can help to build a “circular economy” that regenerates nature and keeps materials in circulation. And at the centre of this work are some remarkable microscopic organisms – our “green gold”.

Jewels of nature

We all know how important trees are in terms of sequestering carbon, yet we tend to overlook the two-thirds of our planet that is covered by water. Our seas and oceans are filled with organisms that are equally vital to the Earth’s life cycles, yet because they are individually less visible to the naked eye than land plants, we largely ignore them.

Microalgae – not to be confused with macroalgae (seaweeds) – are massively abundant in our seas, freshwater lakes and rivers. These tiny organisms are important “primary producers” on our planet, acting as biomass factories. They use sunlight through the process of photosynthesis to convert inorganic molecules (carbon dioxide, nutrients and water) into proteins, fats and carbohydrates, plus a host of other organic compounds that help them grow and survive. These tiny microorganisms support all life in our oceans and, with their high turnover rates, contribute to around 50 per cent of the planet’s primary production.

There are literally hundreds of thousands of species of microalgae. A commonly occurring group are the diatoms, of which there are an estimated 20,000 species. With beautifully intricate, snowflake-like cell walls made of glass, diatoms are true jewels of nature. Another common group are the coccolithophores, covered in elaborate, frisbee-like calcium carbonate chalk plates. During the Cretaceous period, which ended 66 million years ago, enormous blooms of coccolithophores formed the white cliffs of Dover.

As microalgae do not have roots, leaves and stems, they can use carbon dioxide and nutrients more efficiently than land plants, enabling them to grow more rapidly. They can be relatively easily cultivated and harvested to produce biomass crops (“algaculture”) which can be used as food or for bioenergy. Algal biomass also contains a wide range of useful molecules that can be used in bioplastics, biofuel, health products, cosmetics and food ingredients.

My growing appreciation of these fascinating microorganisms, with their amazing ability to grow on waste nutrients and produce something useful, inspired me to want to help address the twin global challenges of sustainability and environmental protection. Using nature’s “green gold” to clean up waste nutrients while also producing sustainable feeds and other products seemed to me a no-brainer.

Back in the 70s, I recall my A-level biology teacher, Mr Montague, introducing us to the carbon and nitrogen cycles and explaining how important the balance of each of these cycles is to life on our planet. I even remember him talking about the greenhouse effect and temperature rise. But we didn’t realise back then just how severe the threat of carbon dioxide-related climate change was – or how nitrogen would emerge as a major contributor to the complex environmental challenges we face today.

Towards a circular economy

To have any hope of meeting our global climate change targets and achieving a sustainable equilibrium, we need to work towards a circular economy that eliminates waste and pollution, keeps materials in circulation and regenerates nature. This must replace our existing linear “use and discard” model which has led to unbalanced nutrient cycles.

In response to this, farmers, the food industry and waste-water companies are increasingly turning to anaerobic digestion (AD) to process their waste. AD is a natural process in which bacteria in large tanks called digestors feed on organic waste – sewage, food waste, farm manure and other agricultural waste – to produce a biogas, rich in carbon and hydrogen, that can be captured and used to generate renewable electricity and heat.

The nitrogen component of the organic waste is retained in a thick liquid called digestate, which can be returned to the land by farmers as a naturally produced fertiliser – preferable to synthetic fertilisers produced using energy-intensive and CO₂-emitting processes. However, as the AD industry has expanded, so the increased production and returning of digestate to the land poses a risk of nutrient pollution.

As a result, many areas in the United Kingdom and Europe are now restricted by the Nitrate Directive and nitrate vulnerable zone (NVZ) legislation, introduced to prevent pollution through excessive use of nitrogen returned to the land. Currently, 55 per cent of land in England is designated an NVZ, while the entirety of Wales is in the process of becoming another such zone.

One way of overcoming this regulatory challenge is through the use of microalgae. And so, in 2017, our Europe-wide, circular economy project called ALG-AD was born. The ultimate goal is to convert nitrogen that poses a risk to the environment into microalgae that can be used in sustainable animal feed, replacing existing, highly resource-intensive sources of feed in the process. Using funding from the INTERREG North-West Europe programme, Swansea University partnered with ten other organisations throughout north-west Europe – a densely populated and intensely agricultural area that is particularly vulnerable to nitrate pollution of groundwater. The whole of Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark are also already designated NVZs.

By recycling unwanted nitrogen into something useful, we can prevent it escaping into the atmosphere and into waterways, thereby reducing pollution to both land and atmosphere. The microalgae naturally convert the nitrogen into protein and other nutritional molecules which can be used back in the food chain. Five years on from the project’s launch, we have already shown that such a circular economy solution is workable on an industrial scale.

A new source of protein

The projected growth of the planet’s population over the next half-century means global food production is expected to increase by at least 50 per cent. We are also all being encouraged to reduce consumption of meat protein to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation. New sources of protein are therefore a top priority, and microalgae are strong contenders. Companies such as Nestlé are already researching microalgae as an alternative source of protein, both as animal feed and food for humans.

While the microalgal production industry is still in its infancy, the ability to produce a new source of protein without the issues associated with meat and soya is very attractive. Furthermore, being able to cultivate microalgae close to where they will be used by farmers in animal feed offers another distinct advantage.

A big challenge for our European project has been to test this technology for development at full working scale. We have therefore worked directly with the AD industry as it processes food and farm waste, providing us with industrially produced nitrogen (in digestate) to cultivate our microalgae.

In the UK, just 30 miles from the Devon farm on which I lived as a child, we have built a pilot “algae-AD” facility at an AD company sited next to Langage Dairy Farm. Langage-AD has the capacity to process 20,000 tonnes of food waste a year, producing biomethane that generates heat and electricity. We were provided with a large, heated greenhouse situated right next to where the waste is processed. This was the ideal location for our “algal photobioreactor”, a series of vertical see-through tubes in which microalgae are grown in an aqueous medium containing nutrients that are exposed to both daylight and artificial light.

Two sister photobioreactor facilities have been built in Brittany in France and Ghent in Belgium. All partners have undertaken in-depth studies to determine how to best process the digestate and optimise nutrient uptake. Too much and we found that our microalgae didn’t like it; too little and not much happened.

Promisingly, we have found that microalgae grown on digestate are richer in protein compared with microalgae grown on more typically-used inorganic nutrients, with protein levels reaching up to around 80 per cent of the total biomass produced. This is well over double the amount of protein contained in meat and soya products. In a world where there is an increasing protein shortage and alternatives to meat are sought, this is a real bonus.

Currently, around 75 per cent of the world’s soya crop is used as a source of protein in animal feed. As with beef production, soya production has come under scrutiny for its role in deforestation, particularly in Brazil and Argentina. In addition, the transportation of soya across the globe generates a huge carbon footprint. To top it all, transporting soya to high agricultural areas disturbs the global balance of nitrogen, leading to “nutrient hotspots” and an increase in NVZs.

Our studies have confirmed the potential of microalgae as a protein source to supplement and replace soya protein. However, the scale of microalgal cultivation is currently not big enough to make a significant impact on soya markets. Therefore, our real-life feed trial experiments have so far concentrated on testing microalgae as a food supplement, to improve the health of piglets and of fish. But we know that the market for algae-based animal feed and ingredients is set to grow rapidly.

Rolling out these novel biotechnologies

To date in the UK, we have focused on two commonly occurring freshwater species of green microalgae, Chlorella vulgaris and Scenedesmus obliquus (both from the division Chlorophyta). Both species contain good levels of proteins and a host of molecules with beneficial properties for health, which we are still exploring.

But yet another amazing thing about microalgae is their diversity. There are tens of thousands of other species with a breathtaking variety of form and function, still waiting to be explored.

Now, supported by the groundwork of our research, it is up to pioneering businesses, regulators and investors to work together to enable the roll-out of these novel biotechnologies more widely. As we move to a society and economy more circular than linear, which uses its waste while preventing environmental contamination, it seems that microalgae will become more familiar to us all in one form or another.

Our project has already demonstrated that microalgae have strong potential in helping reduce food security-related issues such as land scarcity, climate change and inefficient and unsustainable fertiliser usage, as well as associated nutrient leakage and water pollution. In so doing, they can be used to raise environmental standards in Europe and throughout the world. Indeed, our work supports the recently announced European Green Deal, promoting the circular economy and protection of nature, and the new Common Agricultural Policy with its strong emphasis on environment-friendly farming practices and agro-ecology.

However, it is still relatively early days. As with any waste-related technology, legislation and regulation needs to be carefully considered. For now, the simplest way forward is to use anaerobically digested vegetable-based waste rather than animal-based waste, thereby eliminating the possibility of any animal waste or animal contamination passing back into the food chain.

We would also like to further increase the uptake of digestate into the algae and, like any new and developing technology, we need to balance up the cost and overall environmental benefits. To achieve this, we are gathering results from across the partnership and consolidating our data for use in life cycle analysis. This will also enable interested farmers, food producers and other industries to decide if the technology is for them, and what they might best achieve according to their particular needs.

Another way microalgae can be used to help in agriculture is as biostimulants – natural products that, when applied in small quantities, enhance nutrition uptake and improve stress tolerance, thus reducing the need for chemical fertilisers. We are also delving further into the many other valuable components within microalgal cells, including molecules that have benefits as human and animal immune modulators, anti-inflammatories and antivirals. The full benefits of microalgae to produce new products are just waiting to be reaped.

Ironically, throughout my working life, I didn’t exactly heed the advice of my mum all those years ago, to stay away from the dangerous mix of nutrients that was brewing in the manure pit at the end of our cowshed. But I would like to think, in not doing so, that I have been part of a revolution in the way we regard and treat waste, ensuring that the valuable nutrients in cow manure and other organic waste can increasingly be used for the benefit of us, and our planet.

Carole Anne Llewellyn, Professor in Applied Aquatic Bioscience, Swansea University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

How the way we eat has changed the demand for fresh produce

The demand for local food is everywhere. It’s gone from a foodie movement to an established mainstream idea. Sourcing fresh, local ingredients is a rapidly growing trend: we see it featured on restaurant menus and in an increasing demand from our school, office and event customers.

Part of the reason is that people are more environmentally conscious and they want to know where their food comes from. Plus, as we know, fresh produce tastes so much better!

This has translated into chefs celebrating seasonality and, where they can, supporting local farmers and growers. Chefs need to follow food trends and know what’s in season. Adding greater seasonality to their menus and educating diners about a featured ingredient, or the dish itself, is often now a big part of the job.

To do this, they need to follow the agricultural harvest calendar, which tells them when fruits and vegetables are at their peak flavour and ripeness. They need to know where ingredients come from, be conscious about the number of deliveries they place, and try to reduce their food miles and packaging waste.

It’s been an exciting time for British growers. They have very much come to the foreground over the past decade. Once it was largely just the chef or the dish that was celebrated but today accolades go out to fresh produce and the farms themselves.

How has County Supplies adapted to meet today’s changing needs?

Both County Supplies and the industry as a whole have changed significantly over the years.

We’re seeing new farming innovations and the adoption of greener growing techniques surface. And this is set to continue. More people now follow vegetarian or vegan diets, and we’re eating a wider variety of fruit and vegetables. As a result, we now stock more than 2,000 kinds of fruits, vegetables, dairy, frozen and dry goods – supplying more than 500 customers.

We’ve always loved British produce – there is nothing quite like a fresh British strawberry – so it’s great that the demand for locally sourced produce has increased.

With our 24/7 operation, the cauliflower you bought from us today was more than likely in the ground less than 24 hours ago.

Fresh is best

Our aim is to deliver the best fresh produce in a sustainable way, never more so than today.

We try to work with the best British and international growers. We’re proud to be British Retail Consortium, Red Tractor and Leaf accredited, working with growers who live up to high standards of sustainable farming.

And today, not all produce has to look perfect – we supply surplus or ’wonky’ fruit and vegetables that would otherwise be destined for landfill or left to rot in the field.

We pay extra-close attention to how our produce is delivered – our vehicles are fully refrigerated with full Garmin temperature and delivery tracking.

We hope the trend for more sustainable, locally based produce will continue. Climate change is obviously a worry and hopefully we’re not too late in correcting it.

No doubt farmers will have to adapt their growing techniques to more variable weather patterns. This may mean we eat more of what’s in season and will have less of the all-year availability luxury we do today.

However, we hope to be serving a larger customer base, supplying the best in British and international produce 20 years from now.

For more information visit countysupplies.com.

By Robert Hurren, MD, County Supplies

INDUSTRY VIEW FROM COUNTY SUPPLIES

Small but mighty: how UK SMEs continue to go global

The early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic gave us a rare insight into the creative ways in which businesses adapted to the pressures, and saw plenty of examples of positive disruption that reshaped the way we do business. Small businesses in particular showed huge dynamism in facing the challenges. In fact, over the last two years, despite the challenges of Brexit, we’ve seen exports from UK SMEs grow. For other businesses considering spreading their wings, there are a few lessons worth considering…

Consider how global markets have changed in response to Covid-19

In the UK a lot of attention has been given to the decline of the High Street, and the impact that had on pushing businesses to develop their domestic e-commerce offerings. For businesses looking to grow their exports in 2022, it’s equally important to consider how shopping habits have changed across the world. For example, retail culture in the Middle East was heavily centered on shopping malls, while e-commerce was far less mature than in some other markets. But the closure of malls in locations such as Dubai meant that e-commerce suddenly grew dramatically. This creates an opportunity for UK businesses, where previously a physical presence in the Middle East would have been cost prohibitive.

Likewise, there are certain goods that we might not have contemplated buying online two years ago, such as wallpaper or certain health and wellbeing products. But Covid-19 has forced a change in behaviour, and as a result created a totally new route to market.

Keep an open mind about which markets to target

Adapting to trading outside of the single market has brought its challenges, but this experience has prepared businesses that were previously only trading with the EU for trade with the broadest possible range of markets. While trading with countries such as India might have seemed daunting before, businesses should have the confidence that their experiences over the past 12 months have equipped them with the skills and knowledge to navigate different customs requirements. Working with an expert partner such as DHL Express can provide an additional layer of advice to manage the individual requirements of each new market, as well as insight into which markets offer the richest opportunities.

Spread your risk with a presence in more than one country

If businesses have learned one thing from the pandemic, it’s to be prepared for change and challenges. To manage any risks associated with overseas trade, it’s sensible not to put all your eggs in one basket. The more markets a business is operating in, the smaller the ups and downs will seem – for example, when exchange rates or economic outlooks differ for a particular country. For smaller SMEs it’s worth considering selling internationally via a marketplace to begin with. Doing so gives access to many markets as well as the protection of upfront payments. As a business grows and gains knowledge and confidence with international trade, launching their own e-commerce site won’t seem so daunting.

Make your commitment to sustainability clear

Finally, as sustainability continues to be high on the agenda for consumers, being clear not just about your ambitions but also your actions will be key to growing and retaining the customer base. Research shows that 88 per cent of customers are more likely to be loyal to a company which supports environmental issues^[1], and 74 per cent of customers say a company’s sustainability practices matter more than they did a year ago^[2]. With this in mind, there is an opportunity for businesses to offer more sustainable shipping options, such as DHL’s Go Green service.

Selling internationally is a major opportunity for growth, but SMEs shouldn’t try to do it all or do it alone. It’s important to take a step back and get expert advice to supplement your own knowledge. At DHL Express, we support our customers every day in preparing shipping documentation and clearing goods through customs, as well as providing tools to calculate duty and tax prior to moving goods across borders. We also guide customers on how to increase their international customer base by following the recommendations in our e-commerce and sustainability health checks. This all gives businesses the knowledge, control and opportunities to be successful internationally.

By Ian Wilson, Chief Executive Officer UK&I, DHL Express

^[1] Cone

^[2] Salesforce, 2019

INDUSTRY VIEW FROM DHL EXPRESS

Peer-to-peer lending as part of a diversified portfolio

Diversification is important for any investor. By spreading investments across different types of financial instruments, industries and businesses investors can build a portfolio of assets that react differently to changes in market conditions. This reduces risk while maintaining opportunities for high returns over the medium and long term.

Peer-to-peer investing

Peer to peer (P2P) investing is a significant part of any diversification strategy. Also known as “social lending” or “crowd lending”, it involves individuals lending directly to other individuals or businesses, using websites to find opportunities rather than having to go through a middleman in the form of a financial institution.

With P2P lending, the investors benefit in several ways. Crucially, they tend to get higher returns. Because they are using innovative digital platforms, costs are lower, and the websites frequently take lower fees than traditional financial institutions. In addition, investors benefit from added flexibility, as using an online platform makes it simple to decide what to lend on and how far to spread your risk.

There is also a human element. Many individuals like knowing who they’re lending money to and why they need the money. Sometimes there can be a social element to participating in P2P investments with lenders discussing their experiences and sharing their opinions about what might make good investments.

Because of these benefits, P2P investment is expanding rapidly. The global P2P lending market was valued at $68 billion in 2019, and is projected to reach over $550 billion by 2027, an annual growth rate of 30 per cent.

Property as a peer-to-peer investment opportunity

One type of P2P investment is particularly attractive: property. This is because loans can be secured against tangible assets – the property against which the loan is being made. Much P2P lending is largely unsecured, but when the lender has the security of a physical asset the risk is greatly reduced.

One company that is having a major influence on the property P2P market is Kuflink. Founded in 2011 and led by Narinder Khattoare, Kuflink has offered an online P2P platform since 2016 and the team of 32 currently manages a loan portfolio of over $200 million.

Kuflink, which is regulated by the FCA, provide loans to commercial and residential property developers for three to 18 months. While offering lenders attractive returns of up to 7.2 per cent (at the time of writing), Kuflink’s focus is on reducing risk for its investors in a number of ways.*

Firstly, loans are secured against property assets with first or second legal charges, with a maximum of around 70 per cent of loan to developed asset value. Secondly, loans include interest and management charges, which effectively means interest is collected up front. Thirdly, Kuflink operates a rigorous due diligence process, where the creditworthiness of loan applicants is assessed in a number of ways.

Credit checks are of course conducted. But the property is also valued professionally, the lending risk assessed, and the loan priced accordingly. A separate credit committee makes the final decision whether to offer the lending opportunity to Kuflink’s investors. Once made, the loan is monitored daily.

And if things do appear to be going wrong, Kuflink uses a 30-day default rule, compared with the far longer, riskier, 180-day default rule demanded by the FCA. However, because of these rigorous processes, things rarely do go wrong, and Kuflink demonstrates its confidence in the loans it offers by co-investing up to 5 per cent alongside its lenders.

The digital difference

Innovative P2P companies such as Kuflink are different. Because they are so efficient, they can offer better returns than traditional banks. And they provide the flexibility to spread investments across different types of property simply and quickly, with investment amounts starting from only £100.

These benefits are powered largely by digital technology. But digital on its own is not sufficient. The team that set up Kuflink was highly experienced with property investments before founding their P2P venture. It is this deep knowledge of the market coupled with their understanding of what drives investors that has resulted in success – they have never lost money on an investment.

Of course, there is no such thing as a totally risk-free investment. But P2P property lending is a major opportunity for people who are happy with managed risk levels and want an enhanced investment return. And Kuflink, where you can invest in exciting individual projects, secured on UK property, from just £100, is an excellent place to start.

*Capital is at risk and Kuflink is not protected by the FSCS. Past returns should not be used as a guide to future performance. Securing investments against UK property does not guarantee that your investments will be repaid and returns may be delayed. Tax rules apply to IF ISAs and SIPPs and may be subject to change. Kuflink does not offer any financial or tax advice in relation to the investment opportunities that it promotes. Please read our risk statement for full details.

To explore more about P2P property lending, visit https://www.kuflink.com

INDUSTRY VIEW FROM KUFLINK

Smooth operators: end-to-end operations management in the heart of London

By Gary Sullivan OBE, Chairman at Wilson James, Neil Carter, Estate Director at Broadgate, Gemma Quirke, Chief Operations Officer at Wilson James, Biju Chudasama, Chief Technology Officer at Wilson James

As the largest pedestrianised neighbourhood in central London, Broadgate is a unique commercial, office and retail space in the heart of the nation’s capital. Wilson James provides its expert security services to keep occupants and visitors safe, while its construction logistics and technology divisions assist in the sustainable development of new parts of the Broadgate estate.

Broadgate has to be kept secure at all times of the day. The Wilson James team operating there consists of 282 officers who perform a variety of tasks within buildings and across the many public spaces throughout the estate, such as the areas between buildings, car parks, access routes and service roads. These individuals take on front- and back-of-house roles, ‘meet and greet’ and helping the public with wayfinding, with 32 patrolling officers in the public spaces supported by a dedicated control room based on the estate and managed by Wilson James.

Tarquin Halse is the account director for Broadgate at Wilson James and has been instrumental in addressing the logistical challenge that keeping Broadgate secure presents. He says, “Our security officers are all highly trained with excellent interpersonal skills, so we know that our people on the ground can carry out their duties to the highest standards. Interacting with the public is a vital part of the job, but that never comes before the core function of immediately deterring, detecting, denying, delaying and responding to any threat.”

Wilson James’ activities at Broadgate go beyond the supply of its specialist security services. There is a constant programme of building and refurbishment activity going on across the estate, so the company’s construction logistics division is also fully utilised to optimise this aspect of the overall operation.

“The numerous challenges presented by the coronavirus pandemic were unprecedented and they required quick thinking and fast responses,” says Broadgate’s Neil Carter. “This was only achievable by working closely with our partners and Wilson James provided an exemplary level of service throughout this most testing of times.

“I feel that our relationship is now stronger having gone through the experience together. Wilson James offers us flexibility and scalability and can respond quickly to our changing needs and requirements. It is committed to helping maintain Broadgate’s position as a world-class destination and has initiated a variety of processes, such as six-weekly technology refresh reviews and a dedicated trainer to help building managers and occupants drive sustainable practices. I’m looking forward to working together as we move into the post-pandemic world to further improve our operational effectiveness.”

Visit wilsonjames.co.uk to learn more about how Wilson James is ready to enable your operational success

INDUSTRY VIEW FROM WILSON JAMES

Key ways to eradicate siloed operations for good

Stephen Mamelok, Managing Director Unifii; Myles Molloy, Director, Unifii

Siloed working occurs when teams and departments aren’t communicating effectively. We’ve seen these disconnections in the private, public and even the charitable sectors: silos can be found among all services and specialisms, including finance, HR, IT, customer service, marketing and sales.

Silos create obstacles in how your data moves through your enterprise. They can reinforce an “us vs them” culture that is damaging to businesses and can impact morale, ultimately breeding division. Working in this way limits leaders strategically and reduces transparency, which is why removing silos should be a key priority.

But how do you spot a silo? This checklist will help you identify them.

Do you communicate clearly with those you work with and who work for you?
Do internal workflow processes work seamlessly?
Does your work arrive when expected, without the need to chase others?
Is there good reporting on progress, projects and milestones?
Do you have a complete picture of organisational performance?

If the answer to any – or all – of these is no, then you’re likely to be working in a silo.

Before you can eradicate them, you need to have an idea of what an effective organisation is based on. Sketch out a vision of what a healthy and harmonious organisation looks like, and where you might currently be going wrong.

Here are three ways to succeed in eradicating siloed operations.

1.Create an “us and us” culture

From the boardroom to the backroom, everyone must embrace and embody your strategy. Without a defined roadmap, teams and departments are free to plot their courses and can veer off in different directions, with potentially disastrous results.

Siloed working can create an “us vs them” culture. To fix this, you need to identify innovators and encourage communication. Instead of assuming they have the answers, leaders need to encourage their employees to have their say, working collaboratively to define business objectives and develop a shared strategy. Such an approach ensures all staff feel involved and empowered on the journey, and more likely to remain with you for longer too. Collaboration establishes expectations and increases accountability – this means more organisational buy-in. Business change may be led from the top, but it’s delivered by those at all levels.

“If people don’t know change is coming then people are never going to be buying into it. So let’s tell people early, tell them often, get them excited about the fact that the business is going through change, that people are investing in the business.”

Myles Molloy, Director at Unifii

2. Develop cross-departmental processes that power collaboration

According to the most recent Institute of Internal Communications survey, 51 per cent of communicators believe that communication with employees has become worse during the pandemic. Separate processes, systems and reporting can create a damaging data disconnect that leaves leaders without the complete picture.

The answer? Introducing cross-departmental processes. In a functional business, all departments must work together. Information needs to flow seamlessly, with individuals and teams having all the data at their disposal to do their jobs effectively.

Identify cross-departmental processes and map out the typical tasks, detailing interactions and information flows. This will help you develop vital insights into the inputs and outputs of each process, the individuals involved, informational flows and interdependencies. Behind every process should be a related performance. By creating a clear set of operational activities designed for current ways of working, you can develop targeted KPIs and reportable metrics. Cross-departmental processes reduces strategic disconnect, which boosts business productivity and morale. It provides the direction and drive enterprises need to break free from silos.

3. Build on the benefits with an enterprise workflow platform

Siloed operations can prevent transparency and reduce or even remove visibility across the enterprise for performance reporting, target setting and trend analysis. A lack of an overarching strategy can lead to a reactive approach to business management that means you’re always dealing with disasters.

How can this be eradicated? By introducing an enterprise workflow platform. An enterprise workflow platform is a single system that unifies an organisation. Everyone has access, and everyone experiences the benefits. Enterprise workflow platforms automate and improve business processes. Through a single point of access, all teams and departments get a complete view of each workflow, as well as understanding upcoming milestones and being able to track low-level details if necessary. By replacing multiple management processes with a single system, you reduce the number of integration points and technical complexity.

“Service management is a crucial part of every organisation. It runs their processes, it runs their people and it helps companies glue together.”

Stephen Mamelok, Managing Director at Unifii

Strategically deployed workflow platforms are simpler to use, cheaper to maintain and much more effective for running your organisation. A centralised workflow platform increases trust and improves transparency: it’s central to enhancing communication and powering collaboration that’s critical to eliminating siloed working.

Break free from silos and build a better business

Successful businesses make tackling silos a strategic priority. Using new technology aligned to tried and tested strategies, leaders can create systems and processes and establish priorities that improve collaboration and integration. The inefficient transfer of information between teams and departments is one of the most unmistakable signs you’re struggling with silos. But there are other tell-tale signs, including inter-departmental battles and empire building. Breaking down silos sounds simple, but you’re doing more than changing processes; you’re changing people. To truly succeed, you need to create a hunger for change and instil a culture that can achieve it.

Strategic clarity is vital during times of rapid change and upheaval. Those businesses that have a strong strategy and supportive organisational culture are better able to deal with the challenges they face. Organisational silos aren’t inevitable, and they’re not irreversible. Using these three tried and tested methods, you can improve data flow, transform processes and engage your staff.

Book a strategy session with Unifii to help deliver amazing transformations for your business.

INDUSTRY VIEW FROM UNIFII

How RPO can boost your recruitment strategy

Louise Shaw, Director of Resourcing Transformation, Omni RMS; and Mike Sixsmith, Director of Client Solutions, Omni RMS

Businesses are currently experiencing the toughest market for recruitment in decades.

As they look to recover and grow out of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a huge surge in demand for hiring. At the same time, for many people, attitudes to work have changed, with an even greater focus on achieving a healthy work-life balance. Add to this the fact that as a result of the pandemic more than 600,000 people have left the jobs market pre-retirement, and you have the perfect storm for employers. Not only are they struggling to attract employees who can help to grow the business again after two years of economic uncertainty, but many are struggling to retain those they hire.

For many organisations, their teams are not equipped to manage everything that needs to be done with the current models of in-house HR and recruitment, and there’s an increasing trend towards working with recruitment outsourcing organisations.

Here, we discuss how businesses can overcome challenges in their recruitment and retention strategies with Louise Shaw and Mike Sixsmith from Omni Resource Management Solutions – the UK’s leading independent provider of resourcing transformation consultancy and recruitment process outsourcing (RPO). RPO is the process of outsourcing your recruitment function to an external partner, such as Omni, either in part or in full.

Louise and Mike highlight that companies may outsource their hiring, as it fundamentally makes perfect business sense: an RPO provides organisations with a level of expertise and flexibility that they may struggle to develop internally, as Omni can assist with the ‘heavy lifting’, from attraction and assessment to the onboarding of new starters.

The Omni team works with organisations to complement their internal functions, providing them with recruitment professionals who are embedded into their business until the requirement is no longer present. In our video, Mike highlights the ‘plug and play’ nature of an RPO and the scalability that the model provides.

Most companies consider how outsourcing can add value to how they currently operate, using an organisation such as Omni to support specific projects where internal recruitment teams are unable to cope with the increase in demand at short notice or to manage more transactional elements of the recruitment process.

To explain the success of Omni’s RPO solution, Mike and Louise share an insightful case study, where they have worked to save a financial services organisation more than £1 million by reducing agency fees and their time to hire to just 30 days, by working with them to recruit more than 600 people on their behalf.

They share how Omni has worked with the organisation to improve their employer brand, develop a new careers site and create a standardised assessment framework to increase candidate attraction and commitment, highlighting the real value an RPO can bring to a company’s operations.

Mike and Louise also provide tactical advice on what businesses can change today to resolve challenges in their business’ hiring, from investing time to understanding their people, assessing the application process and training hiring managers.

Finally, we explore the future of hiring and retention as the competition for talent looks to remain high. Mike explains the winners in these challenges will be the organisations that apply the same level of rigour and scrutiny to their recruitment strategy as they do to their sales strategy, and the losers will be those that drag their heels and are slow to react.

Don’t let hiring and retention negatively impact your business growth and bottom line. Find out more about how Omni can help you to overcome your challenges by visiting omnirms.com

INDUSTRY VIEW FROM OMNI RMS

How Rolls Royce is pioneering power for the future

Dave Gordon, Senior Vice President UK Business, Rolls-Royce Defence

Amber Waters, Future Programmes Engineer, Rolls-Royce Defence

Niall Barker, Digital Engineer, Rolls-Royce Defence

Jake Thompson, Head of Innovation Products and Service

Rolls-Royce has a mission to innovate efficient and sustainable power solutions to meet customer operational requirements and to protect our planet, secure our world and explore our universe.

The defence business has recently launched its Pioneers of Power campaign, which explores defence growth opportunities outside of the traditional gas turbine and services market. The Pioneers of Power project also explores how Rolls-Royce can contribute to wider objectives such as sustainability, space electrification, and the development of digital technologies.

Sustainability is one of the main pillars of the Pioneers of Power campaign. Across Rolls-Royce there is a drive to accelerate efforts to be net-zero across all operations – and it is on track to reach that goal. One of the company’s primary defence sites in Bristol in the UK is set to achieve net-zero status in 2022. Additionally, the company has committed to reaching net-zero across our whole value chain by 2050.

Rolls-Royce also has a leading role to play in the investment in, and development of, critical technologies that accelerate progress towards a net-zero future for customers. For a power and propulsion company, that means focusing research on electrification, on synthetic aviation fuels (SAF), on microgrid technology, on novel power sources, and the ongoing improvement in reducing fuel consumption in our current products.

Another important pillar of the Pioneers of Power campaign is space exploration. Rolls-Royce is looking at the development of safe and reliable power to enable this: it is the only company in the world with a singular focus on creating mechanical, electrical and nuclear power solutions that will be essential in tackling the challenges of the future. Space is one such challenging and growing sector in which Rolls-Royce believes power, propulsion and thermal management will play a significant role, and as such it is drawing on its existing world-leading engineering pedigree, developed over the past 60 years through the design and manufacture of power for both the Royal Navy’s submarine fleet and civilian power applications.

Underpinning much of what Rolls-Royce aims to achieve through the Pioneers of Power campaign is the development of digital technologies, and we are innovating at every stage of the lifecycle by equipping our world-class engineers with industry-leading digital tools.

This is being done through designing and training in the VR environment, developing AI Computer Vision to aid inspection and introducing asset tracking. Rolls-Royce is also developing cutting-edge design tools and inspection capability, and introducing 3D-printed components into future power systems that improve performance and development time.

Find out how Rolls-Royce is pioneering the power to protect at www.rolls-royce.com

INDUSTRY VIEW FROM ROLLS ROYCE

Future cities could be 3D printed – using concrete made with recycled glass

3D printed concrete may lead to a shift in architecture and construction. Because it can be used to produce new shapes and forms that current technologies struggle with, it may change the centuries-old processes and procedures that are still used to construct buildings, resulting in lower costs and saved time.

However, concrete has a significant environmental impact. Vast quantities of natural sand are currently used to meet the world’s insatiable appetite for concrete, at great cost to the environment. In general, the construction industry struggles with sustainability. It creates around 35 per cent of all landfill waste globally.

Our new research suggests a way to curb this impact. We have trialled using recycled glass as a component of concrete for 3D printing.

Concrete is made of a mix of cement, water, and aggregates such as sand. We trialled replacing up to 100 per cent of the aggregate in the mix with glass. Simply put, glass is produced from sand, is easy to recycle, and can be used to make concrete without any complex processing.

Demand from the construction industry could also help ensure glass is recycled. In 2018 in the US only a quarter of glass was recycled, with more than half going to landfill.

Building better

We used brown soda-lime beverage glass obtained from a local recycling company. The glass bottles were first crushed using a crushing machine and then the crushed pieces were washed, dried, milled, and sieved. The resulting particles were smaller than a millimetre square.

The crushed glass was then used to make concrete in the same way that sand would be. We used this concrete to 3D print wall elements and prefabricated building blocks that could be fitted together to make a whole building.

The thermal conductivity of soda-lime glass – the most common type of glass, which you find in windows and bottles – is more than three times lower than that of quartz aggregate, which is used extensively in concrete. This means that concrete containing recycled glass has better insulation properties. They could substantially decrease the costs required for cooling or heating during summer or winter.

Improving sustainability

We also made other changes to the concrete mixture in order to make it more sustainable as a building material, including replacing some of the Portland cement with limestone powder.

Portland cement is a key component of concrete, used to bind the other ingredients together into a mix that will harden. However, the production of ordinary Portland cement leads to the release of significant amounts of carbon dioxide as well as other greenhouse gases. The cement production industry accounts for around 8 per cent of all carbon dioxide emissions in the environment.

Limestone is less hazardous and has less environmental impact during the its production process than Portland cement. It can be used instead of ordinary Portland cement in concrete for 3D printing without a reduction in the quality of the printing mixture.

We also added lightweight fillers, made from tiny hollow thermoplastic spheres, to reduce the density of the concrete. This changed the thermal conductivity of the concrete, reducing it by up to 40 per cent when compared with other concrete used for 3D printing. This further improved the insulation properties of the concrete, and reduced the amount of raw material required.

Using 3D printing technology, we can simply develop a wall structure on a computer, convert it to simple code and send it to a 3D printer to be constructed. 3D printers can operate for 24 hours a day, decrease the amount of waste produced, as well as increase the safety of construction workers.

Our research shows that an ultra-lightweight, well insulated 3D building is possible – something that could be a vital step on our mission towards net zero.

Seyed Ghaffar, Associate Professor in Civil Engineering and Environmental Materials, Brunel University London; Mehdi Chougan, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow, Brunel University London, and Pawel Sikora, Associate professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering, West Pomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.