Martin Port, Author at Port Growth Partners

CEO’s Blog – Lend me your ears: how I made it in business, despite losing my hearing

Posted on 23 May 2018 by Martin Port

When I was 11 years old, my brother and I went for a hearing test at school. We got the results a few weeks later: my brother had failed the test.

He was asked to go back and take it again. But when he had his hearing checked the second time, he passed with no problems. It was only a long time later that I realised what must have happened. My brother is only a year younger than me, and our results had been mixed up; it was I who had failed that hearing test. Looking back, it’s not surprising that I always struggled in school. I found it really hard to concentrate in classes, and was always fiddling with my pen or distracted. I couldn’t hear what the teachers were saying but even I didn’t realise there was a problem. I just thought that it was normal to go into a sort of trance during lessons. Teachers were frustrated with me. They thought I couldn’t be bothered to try. At home, no one realised I was losing my hearing. My parents were often away and I was brought up by my grandparents. The one clue was that I used to listen to my music really loud. I had two massive speakers above my head, and another two on the sideboard, blaring out Michael Jackson or 10cc, or Earth, Wind & Fire. The noise used to drive my mum wild but it’s hardly unusual for a teenager to like loud music. It was only when I got married that I realised there was an issue. My wife saw that I was mishearing words or completely blanking out whole conversations. That’s when I finally went to see an ear, nose and throat specialist. I found out that I had lost 70% of my hearing, and would need to wear hearing aids. In some ways, it was a relief to know that I was hearing impaired because suddenly so many things began to make sense. I never felt sorry for myself – there are people much worse off than me. On the contrary, it made me even more determined to succeed. People are like cars – some can run forever, without breaking down once. Others need servicing all the time, and that’s me. I started working out ways to cope. In the workplace, it was always hard for me to focus. I found meetings especially hard. My wife advised me to start carrying a notebook and pen, and that revolutionised my work life. It forced me to keep my attention on what was being said – and to check if I hadn’t heard or understood anything. Even now, in this age of smartphone, you won’t catch me in a meeting without my trusty pad and pen. And I always take someone I trust in to meetings with me – usually Andrew, my managing director, who is a very good listener. It’s helpful to have another pair of ears in the room to catch anything I miss. I wear hearing aids., which comes with a unique set of challenges. There is a slight delay between words being spoken and reaching my ears. I also speak much more softly, because my own voice sounds loudest in my head. Travel is a nightmare because I can’t hear announcements. These challenges are frustrating but I have learned to deal with them. I don’t make a big point of telling people that I am hearing impaired. I just get on with it. If I miss something or someone is speaking quietly, I will say that I have a hearing problem and wear hearing aids. It means that if I need to ask them to repeat something, they know why. Most people start speaking a bit louder too, which is great. Except that the extra volume usually lasts for about two minutes and then they forget. Over time, my hearing has worsened but I’ve been very lucky – technology has come on leaps and bounds. I have 80pc hearing loss now but I wear Bluetooth-enabled hearing aids that are connected to a microphone hidden behind my tie. It means I can hear myself when I talk. It also means I can take phone calls direct to my hearing aid. People stop and stare when I do it, because they can’t see who I am talking to and think I’ve gone mad, which I rather enjoy… In business – and in life – I’ve always been very solution-orientated. If there’s a problem, I want to find a way to solve it. I tackled my hearing in the same way. My hearing problem has also made me very aware and accepting of other disabilities. We need to do more for people who are struggling with something they cannot control, whether it is a physical or learning disability. This is a cause that is close to my heart – I hope to talk more about this in a later post. For now, I’ll just say that any disability opens your mind to the world in ways that most people don’t see. As an entrepreneur there are many mountains to climb. My hearing loss was just another mountain, so I climbed it. My next mountain? Learning to lip-read.

Wish me luck.

All the best Martin

Martin Port
Founder & CEO

CEO’s Blog – BigChange June Motivational Monday welcomes – Bob Champion MBE is an English former jump jockey who won the 1981 Grand National on Aldaniti.

Posted on 18 May 2018 by Martin Port

Bob Champion MBE is an English former jump jockey who won the 1981 Grand National on Aldaniti.

His triumph was made into a film Champions, with John Hurt portraying Champion. The film is based on Champion’s book Champions Story, which he wrote with close friend and racing journalist and broadcaster Jonathan Powell. Champion was born in

Guisborough in the North Riding of Yorkshire. At the height of his career as a jockey, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer in July 1979. He was treated with an orchidectomy and with the chemotherapeutic drugs bleomycin, vinblastine and cisplatin, and also had an exploratory operation to identify cancer in his lymph nodes. His victory on Aldaniti was viewed by many as a great triumph, following his previous adversity. Their victory earned them that year’s BBC Sports Personality of the Year Team Award and was chosen as one of the 100 Greatest Sporting Moments by Channel 4 viewers in 2002. Other major races that Champion won during his career include the Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup and the Whitbread Trial Chase. He was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 1982 Queen’s Birthday Honours.

In 1983 he formed the Bob Champion Cancer Trust, which has raised millions of pounds for cancer research. He retired from training horses in 1999. He was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1981 when he was surprised, on his wedding day, by Eamonn Andrews. On 22 December 2011, Bob Champion received the Helen Rollason award as part of the 2011 BBC Sports Personality of the Year competition.

Martin Port
Founder & CEO

CEO’s Blog – Shop Floor Day – Let Martin take a closer look

Posted on 9 May 2018 by Martin Port

I’ve spent my entire life starting companies and building brands. One of the most important things I’ve learned is that the moment you get complacent, you’re in trouble.

It’s easy – especially when you find a bit of success – to stop thinking like an entrepreneur, and to rest on your laurels. But you have to fight complacency at every turn if you want to build something of true value.

This week, I’d like to share with you one of the ways that I make sure I never stop innovating, and keep moving the company – and myself – forwards. It’s a little strategy that I call my ‘shop floor days’.

As often as I can, I take myself out of the office and spend the day with one of my customers or prospective clients. No, I don’t mean I have a fancy lunch with the chief executive. I get up at 5am and go to a customer depot to spend the first half of the day riding around with their engineers, contractors or delivery drivers. Then around 2pm, I go and work in their offices, sitting with the people answering calls and making bookings.

The shop floor idea isn’t all mine. It was inspired by the time I spent working with GE, the American conglomerate, back when it was run by the visionary leader Jack Welch. Back then, GE leaders spent a lot of time analysing the way things were done. They were always looking for a way to make small but consistent improvements. The strategy is known as “six sigma” – you can find more about six sigma here: https://www.ge.com/sixsigma/sixsigstrategy.html

These shop floor days have had a profound effect on the businesses I have built, and have informed so much of the new products and features that I have created. This is how I find customer pain points, and learn how to solve huge technical challenges.

I build a rapport with the people I meet, and they share their experience of their job, and I take notes. It’s that simple.

You’d be surprised how easy it is to get customers to agree to a shop floor day. I’m treated like an extension of the company. The people I meet are always open and genuine – they don’t think I’m there to catch them out. They know I want to help, and that anything they say will be treated with absolute sensitivity.

One heating and plumbing customer had no racking units in their vans, so thousands of pounds worth of stock was just piled up in the back. Another bakery chain was sending drivers to stores at 2am to deliver fresh bread, but when I came along for the ride, I saw that drivers were being mobbed by homeless people who wanted yesterday’s leftovers. These kinds of issues are often unknown – or, worse, ignored by middle management. It took me speaking up about it to bring them to the attention of the top brass.

Over the last 15 years, I’ve done over 100 of these shop floor days, and they are among the most interesting and inspirational ways that I can spend my time. I have even branched out, and now spend the odd shop floor day with my own employees too, sitting with the team or out on the road with a member of our sales team or installation engineer.

Of course, my shop days help me to sell BigChange. I can explain how our technology would allow the driver / engineer to do away with all the paperwork lumped in the passenger seat, or how stock could be tagged so everyone knows where every part is at any time. For the bakery driver, who battles the homeless every morning, he is able to check into the system and reassure the company there have been no issues.

But my feedback also saves these companies money: we’ve helped remove unnecessary driving time, making workers much more efficient. Our booking service also helps them offer a much better customer service. People know exactly when someone is coming to deliver their washing machine, which means they’re not waiting in all day. These things add up, and have contributed to BigChange’s success.

Every business owner should take the time to get out of their office bubble and spend time with the people who use their product or service. No business is ever fully optimised; there is always room for improvement. See you next week, and good luck fighting complacency. It’s a battle we all must wage.

All the best

Martin Port
Founder & CEO

CEO’s Blog – The three customer service secrets to my success

Posted on 2 May 2018 by Martin Port

There’s a lot of advice out there for entrepreneurs. Every day there’s a new ‘21 ways to supercharge growth’ or ‘Four ways to be a better leader’.

I enjoy reading all the weird and wonderful tips but, in my experience, being successful just requires one thing: great customer service.

If your customers love you and value your business, every door opens. They buy more of your products or services. They reward you with long-term loyalty. You get more referrals – and word of mouth is the best customer acquisition tool because it’s meaningful (and free). Your reputation soars, which helps you recruit better employees, and attract investment. I could go on.

I’ve run all kinds of businesses over the years, and there have been three lessons that have ultimately helped me to be successful each and every time. It didn’t matter if I was creating a bakery, selling white goods, or building a bold new technology venture – I’ve always stuck to these three simple rules. I’d like to share those with you today.

Be the landlord

With any business, the founder should feel personally responsible for its success. Like a pub landlord who puts their name up above the door, you must take pride in your venture and never hide behind the organisation, even as it grows.

I see myself as personally responsible for everything that goes on at BigChange. My phone number is on the internet, and I take calls direct from customers at all times of the day or night all week, except the sabbath. If my customers experience any pain using our service, then I feel that pain too. I get copied in on all emails and I make sure that I’m involved until the issue is resolved.

Customer service goes beyond the customer; it’s about how you treat your own people. If I get an email in the night, and I don’t see that someone else has handled it, I’ll phone the driver or engineer back. Doesn’t matter if it’s 2am or 3am, I’ll phone and ask what I can do to help.

Some of the business leaders that I admire most have a similar strategy. It was a great shame when Dido Harding stepped down from TalkTalk, the telecoms business, following its cyber security issues. I remember when my mother had a problem with her TalkTalk internet service and I emailed Dido. She was genuinely interested in my mum, a woman in her seventies, and personally fixed the problem – even though TalkTalk had millions of customers at the time. Whatever she decides to do with her career, I’ll remember that interaction – that’s the power of great customer service.

Spend more than you think you should on customer service

From day one, in all of my businesses, I have invested in customer service. People have always called me mad: spending money on a department that wasn’t directly related to sales. But it’s always paid off for me.

At BigChange, we have at least one customer service representative for every 50 customers. We are creating a brand-new piece of technology, so we have always offered free webinar training and free support. We don’t even charge people to call us – we take on that cost.

Great entrepreneurs make it easy for their customers to get in touch. That means offering online, phone, and offline options. If one of our customers is really struggling with something, we will send a person over to their offices to help them resolve it face-to-face. I think it’s safe to say that’s a pretty unusual strategy for a software company.

When you spend on customer service, the return on investment is massive. We have really low customer churn – only 3% ever leave us. And some of those were due to company liquidations rather than cancellations.

Love your difficult customers

When you are building a business, you will come across difficult customers from time to time. They are never satisfied, and are always demanding more from you and your team. I’ve learned that a customer who is difficult at the outset of the relationship will often be difficult for the duration of the contract – that’s just the way it is. I should know: I’m a difficult customer myself and it takes one to know one. But the great thing about these people is that they help you to learn, and they drive your team to perform at a much higher standard.

If every customer was passive and no one gave you a hard time, how would your business improve? It’s better to be challenged: a customer service team learns a lot as a result of dealing with difficult customers – they often speak a lot of sense. Many of our customers have been with us for years, whereas some employees might be brand new, and could learn a lot from the customer’s insights.

It’s important to train your team to love tough customers. I take the time to explain that our customers come in all shapes and sizes. I like to use the analogy of the NHS. When a nurse is on the ward, some patients will complain that they haven’t been seen fast enough, others will apologise for taking up a bed. The ward is full of all sorts of people but the nurse has to make them all better, and make sure each patient leaves feeling they have received a good service.

I hope these customer service lessons will be as valuable to you as they have been to me. If you’ve got any great tips to add to the mix, please leave a comment. If you enjoy these posts, don’t forget to follow me to receive updates. See you soon for the next instalment…

All the best

Martin Port
Founder & CEO
Mobile : +44 7973 671779
Landline: +44 113 4571000 Ext 333

CEO’s Blog – The next chapter: a new life in America

Posted on 19 April 2018 by Martin Port

In my last post https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/life-teenage-entrepreneur-martin-port, I talked about my first experiences as a teenage entrepreneur, finding my way in the world.

But that was only the beginning.

I think that a real turning point in my life was when I decided to stop working for my father and start a new life in America.

I was 24 at the time, and yearning for my independence. I wanted a clean break, so moving to the United States, where no one knew me, seemed like a good idea.

Providence helped me get there. I had a contact over in Germany who had a speciality bakery business. He asked me to go with him to sell his bread in New York.

So there I was, living in a small apartment next to the bakery in New Jersey. This was the making of me. I learned to keep a clean apartment, iron my own shirts, and be completely independent. I came out from my dad’s shadow. He was such a character and a well-known businessman… it was a relief to be able to just be Martin, rather than Jeffrey’s son.

I used all my sales skills to build up that business, and I ended up selling speciality German bread to some of the world’s most famous hotels, including the Waldorf Astoria, Plaza Hotel and even the United Nations Dining Room.

Hard work really does pay off. This was the lesson I learned back then. This was also the time when I learned to survive on just four hours’ sleep a night. It’s incredible what you can achieve during those extra hours.

Three years later, in 1989, I decided to come home and start my own bread business. I launched Kroustie in Leeds, and started making gourmet bread. We grew and grew, until we were supplying bread, patisserie and cakes to restaurants, hotels and delicatessens all over Yorkshire.

These were the days when most people were eating those mass-produced, plastic-wrapped loaves of Mighty White. Imagine what people thought when they tasted our gourmet rye and pumpernickel loaf? It went down a storm.

That business never went bust but it didn’t make much money either. I used to get up at midnight and work 18-hour days. It was relentless. But I just couldn’t get the right kind of scale into the business. I decided to sell Kroustie in 1998.

My BigChange came in 2002, I bought some hardware from a French firm and launched Masternaut, which helped customers with fleets to track vehicles. Masternaut became one of the fastest-growing businesses in the UK and a market leader. Then, five years ago, I started over again when I launched BigChange, which is an all-singing, all-dancing mobile workforce app and job management tool.

I’ve told the story of my early experiences as an entrepreneur to show others what can be achieved with a bit of determination.

Imagine you want to get a table at your favourite restaurant. You head there and see a queue going around the block. The manager says there are no tables. What do you do? I would always get the table. If someone says it’s impossible, I make it possible. Once this happens a few times it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I’m a strange mixture of optimist and realist. I always think my ideas will fail, which forces me to work three times harder. That attitude keeps my feet on the ground. But I’m also really good at celebrating successes and appreciating the little wins.

Next week, I’ll share three most valuable lessons I’ve learned in business.

See you then.

All the best

Martin Port
Founder & CEO

CEO’s Blog – Life as a teenage entrepreneur

Posted on 16 April 2018 by Martin Port

Both my mother and father worked day and night when I was a kid. People sometimes ask where my work ethic comes from, and it’s from them, 100%.

From the age of 10, I would be with them, travelling all over the UK. My dad ran an auction business, and we’d be in Glasgow one day, London the next. My mum worked as the cashier. It was a true family business.

Dad would put an advert in the Evening Standard, offering TVs for £5, fan heaters for 50p, and so on. Up to 1,000 people would come to these auctions, and bid for the goods. That was my introduction to the world of business: seeing my dad up on the rostrum, commanding the audience. He was a great showman.

My dad let me have a go selling a few lots. It was late in the day, so there were fewer people left in the room. I remember getting up on the rostrum, and learning the patter: “If you miss this, you will miss your way home…”

This is how I learned the basics about business: buy, sell, make a profit. It was also how I learned to be a salesman. At 14, I started my first business. My best friend and I bought a printing machine for £500 from Exchange and Mart, the old classifieds magazine. We bought some card and some pens and offered to print promotional flyers and goods for small businesses. We used to hop on the train and go to Leeds, Sheffield, Blackpool – all over, trying to convince restaurants and shops to buy from us.

We got some orders, came home, and tried to print the things. For people who don’t remember these old machines, you put the type into the jig, and the machine would warm up, the type would hit the foil, and the words would be stamped onto the card. But our machine was faulty from the start. The type would just melt onto the jig. It was a complete con. This was my first experience of what entrepreneurs now call “a barrier to growth”. It was also the moment I knew for sure that I was a salesman and not a manufacturer.

Instead, we took the orders to a printing company and had them made. The customers never knew about the faulty machine, which we eventually managed to sell back to the manufacturer. We ran that business for almost a year. We even had our own little office in Leeds. But the money wasn’t great and it wasn’t a business we could scale.

I left school when I was 15 and started working Saturdays at an upmarket menswear shop called Cecil Gee. Next, I moved to a high-end jewellery shop. Then I was a blue coat on the shop floor at Comet, the old electricals chain. All of these early experiences helped me to understand the customer, anticipate what they needed, and work out the best way to solve their problems.

That’s when I began working with my father full-time. This was during the Thatcher era, when imports were starting to flood into the UK and factories were stuck with loads of stock they couldn’t sell. Interest rates were as high as 15% in those days so companies would sell £500,000 worth of stock for £100,000 just to get some cash back in the business. This is where I learned the power of market forces, and how the economy can work with you or against you.

I learned a lot of entrepreneurial lessons in my early teens that stood me in good stead for the rest of my life. But it’s remarkable how often we have to remind ourselves to follow the basics. ‘Buy at one price and sell for a profit’ seems obvious, but when you have a new business, you often undervalue your services just to get the deal. I’m grateful to my parents for giving me an education in business from such an early age. I feel like it’s always been in my blood.

In my next post, I’ll talk about how I ended up going to America, and starting up my bread business – the first company I successfully sold. But for now, I would be grateful if anyone would share stories about being a teenage entrepreneur. What were the first lessons you learned in business? Did you have entrepreneurial parents, like mine, or did you learn everything for yourself?

Martin Port
Founder & CEO

CEO’s Blog – BigChange – Record First Quarter 2018

Posted on 14 April 2018 by Martin Port

Record quarter for BigChange. We are delighted to announce a record quarter for the company.

In the first three months of 2018, BigChange secured £4m in new contract wins, beating our previous record of £3m. We have won 50 new customers during the period and also generated significant repeat and renewal orders from our base of 700 customers.

Accelerated Growth

We are forecasting £11m turnover for the current financial year, based on our current growth trajectory. We will increase our customer base to 900 companies by the end of 2018. This will take our total number of subscribers to 23,000.

A diverse Customer base

BigChange has become a major player in the Transport, Service and Construction industries, as well as the Public Sector. Our customer base currently spans as many as 40 different sectors. On average, we deliver a return on investment of £15 for every pound spent.

The Technology

Our proprietary technology, JobWatch, is used for sales and marketing, customer relationship management, operations (including stock and asset management), contract management and smart scheduling of jobs and appointments. Our powerful back-office app allows customers to streamline their operations and go paperless.

Our Vision

We will give our customers the tools to grow and collaborate with other ambitious companies. Through our network, customers will use JobWatch to find partners, work together on projects, extend their geographic reach and outsource jobs. With JobWatch, you can track the appointments, jobs, deliveries and collections in real time, providing true control and transparency. We believe we have created the Uber of job scheduling and service collaboration.

Shop Floor Days

Big thanks to all our existing customers, who have supported us over the last five years. At BigChange, we make a point of spending time on the road with our clients’ engineers and drivers, finding their pain points, offering pro-tips, and taking product-insight back to the office. In the last three months, I have held Shop Floor days with a number of customers, which I have delivered invaluable insights. I’m grateful to all involved.

BigChange People

Our team have worked tirelessly to support our incredible growth. We now employ over 70 people between the UK and France. We strengthened our leadership team with the appointment of Andrew Scully as Managing Director, Mike Buck as Operations Director, Charlie Bartfield as Sales Director, Alex Epstein as Chief Marketing Officer and Matt Ashworth as Deputy Chief Technology Officer. We also promoted many team members and introduced lots of new talent to the company. All our employees are BS7858-certified.

Expansion Overseas

We are excited about opening our offices in Ireland and the United States. We’ll share more on these exciting developments as they happen.

Latest BigChange platform Developments

Our Lab Development Team has been hard at work developing new features, such as Collaboration, where two separate companies can work together to fulfil jobs. The tool enables companies to divide the task of booking and scheduling jobs, health and safety, and workflow management, all under their own bespoke templates. We also launched our new on-demand booking app and built new solutions for sales automation and consignment tracking.

Quality & Data Management

Our team has been working hard on achieving ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 including General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) developing all the features in readiness for this important new legislation.

Industry Workshop

Our first workshop for the Plumbing and Heating Industry was a great success, and we will announce further dates for the other industry sectors that we work with.

Awards

We won the Northern Star Award 2018 sponsored by GP Bullhound and Tech North. We were chosen by Tech City UK to feature in the Future Fast 50 technology companies to watch. We were also racked the 11th fastest growing Tech Company in the North and Scotland.

Exhibitions

We look forward to seeing you at the following expos during the next three months: Commercial Vehicle Show 2018 24th to 26th April, NEC Birmingham. Field Service Management Expo 2018 19th to 21st June, London Excel & Housing 2018 26th to 28th June, Manchester Central.

Watch Nic Hamilton race in the Renault Clio Cup this weekend 7th and 8th April

We have two pairs of tickets available to watch Nic Hamilton (brother of Lewis) race this weekend at Brands Hatch in rounds 1 and 2 of the Renault Clio Cup. If you would like to attend, please email your details to [email protected] now! We have tickets for the whole race season, and we’ll be in touch soon with information on how you can apply for tickets for the other rounds.

Motivational Monday

So far this year, we have welcomed Toyah Wilcox, Holocaust Survivor Arek Hersh, Children’s Charity The Kirsty Club and our Brand Ambassador Nicolas Hamilton. This month we have lined up Fabrice Muamba former Bolton and England player to speak about his past and how he dealt with his BigChange after his heart stopped beating for 78 minutes during a football match at Tottenham Hotspurs.

Corporate Social Responsibility CSR

We are proud to have expanded the network of charities supported by BigChange. We now donate to more than 10 organisations. We also are Corporate Members of Business In The Community, Brake and Transaid. I have personally visited Zambia with Transaid and saw for myself the incredible work done on the ground fighting malaria in Serenje with Mothers and Children and the Driver Training School in Lusaka.

Martin Port
Founder & CEO

CEO’s Blog – There’s a lot of nonsense out there about what it takes to be an entrepreneur and build a thriving business.

Posted on 5 April 2018 by Martin Port

This is problematic. It sells a lie to the brave people who take the plunge. They are deceived on so many counts: how easy it is to raise money/how quickly you can make a profit/the effort it takes/the toll it takes on your personal life.

I’m in my fifties now, and have started doing a lot of mentoring and events with start-up founders. Many of the people I meet had a rude awakening when they quit their jobs to go it alone.

No one told them about the sleepless nights, the family struggles, the chancers and snake oil salesmen you meet along the way. Not to mention all the weight you pile on when you don’t have time to exercise or eat properly.

Don’t get me wrong. There are some amazing and honest people telling incredible stories about the life of a business owner but I think there should be more. And you know what they say: if you want something done, you need to do it yourself.

I’ve decided to start posting regularly about my world – the highs and the lows. This won’t be polished or high-minded stuff. It will be a warts-and-all account. But I will make sure someone checks my grammar and punctuation because I’m not so good with letters. Dyslexia diagnosis in my day wasn’t the well-oiled machine it is now. Maybe that’s what I’ve got, who knows? At least I’ve always been good with numbers.

I like to think that my perspective is a bit unusual because I’m not like everyone else. I’m on my third successful business. I’ve lost 70% of my hearing, which has posed some real challenges in my life. I’m outspoken about my Jewish faith. I’ve made every mistake in the book and I’m old and wise enough now to know what I could have done differently. I’ve also learned many of my lessons about leadership and entrepreneurship from some very unusual places…

If this sounds like it could be up your street, please follow me. I welcome all your comments and thoughts. I’d particularly like it if any budding entrepreneurs out there would like to ask me any questions. I’m still very much in the thick of building my business, BigChange, which is now five years old, but I will try and find the time to answer as many as I can.

For now, happy Passover. I’ve been eating a lot of celery at my desk this week. Check back soon for my first post.

All the best

Martin Port
Founder & CEO

CEO’s Blog – BigChange signs £4m connectivity deal with Wireless Logic Group

Posted on 4 April 2018 by Martin Port

A ground-breaking technology deal has seen Leeds-based BigChange confirm a five-year commitment to IoT connectivity provider Wireless Logic Group worth initially in excess of £1.5m with a projected value towards £4m by 2020.

BigChange provides a paperless way to plan, manage, schedule and track any mobile workforce with a seamless solution for managing the entire operation from quote all the way through to invoice. As a 5-in-one Mobile Workforce Management platform, it combines a customer booking app, cloud-based back-office CRM and job scheduling, a rich mobile app for the driver or engineer combined with real-time vehicle tracking – easy and intuitive to use, customise and implement.

A fundamental component to the BigChange platform is its ability to communicate in real-time, sending and receiving mission-critical data securely. This is achieved through Wireless Logic’s private infrastructure overlay across the cellular networks, delivering a tailored 3G/4G solution for BigChange mobile devices UK-wide. The deal signed between both organisations will see a shared commitment to roll out an additional 40,000 subscriptions with an expected turnover in excess of £40m by 2020. Today, clients include HSS Tool Hire, Silentnight Beds, Morrison Utility Services and Sheffield City Council.

Commenting on behalf of BigChange Apps, Martin Port – Founder and CEO said: “As a relatively fledgling player in the mobile workforce solutions market, our growth has been dramatic. Working with partners like Wireless Logic Group give us the confidence to deliver an unrivalled end-to-end connected platform with built-in resilience and value. In demonstrating our commitment to them, we look to the future with confidence as we seek out further UK opportunities and develop more openings overseas, particularly within the lucrative US-based market.”

Speaking on behalf of Wireless Logic Group, Oliver Tucker – Co-founder and Group CEO said: “Our partnership with Martin and his team has followed on from working alongside him at his previous organisation – Masternaut. In just five years, our journey with BigChange has seen the full implementation of the Wireless Logic connectivity platform with double digit growth year on year. BigChange’s approach to the market is to fill a much-needed gap for flexible and rapid deployment mobile workforce management tools. Our experience in tailoring connectivity and infrastructure solutions is helping the BigChange team to develop highly competitive connected eco-systems with innovation and customer focus at the heart. This is significant business for us at Wireless Logic and we are excited about the huge potential as the application is rolled out to further countries. Already we are trialing a number of global cellular solutions which will form part of a one-stop secure connectivity platform for BigChange’s customer base.”

About Wireless Logic Group

Europe’s leading independent M2M (Machine to Machine) and IoT (Internet of Things) platform provider, Wireless Logic Group works with thousands of application providers, systems integrators and enterprises delivering a portfolio of services including tailored management platforms, private network infrastructure and specialist mobile, satellite, fixed line and low power wireless area network (LPWAN) connectivity. All services are supported by a team of multi-disciplined personnel including technology development, consultancy and client management.

Founded in 1999 by CEO Oliver Tucker and CSO Philip Cole, Wireless Logic is backed by CVC Capital Partners (www.cvc.com). The organisation’s European headquarters are located in Hurley, Berkshire UK with country offices in Denmark, France, Germany and Spain.

For more information, visit www.wirelesslogic.com

About BigChange

BigChange by name, BigChange by nature! BigChange is an established force in mobile workforce management, offering a system that transforms the way companies manage their mobile operations. JobWatch from BigChange is the paperless way to plan, manage, schedule and track any mobile workforce. This powerful all-in-one Mobile Workforce Management platform combines back office software, mobile apps, fleet management and real-time vehicle tracking in one simple to use system. Using JobWatch, customers can manage their entire operation, from quote all the way through to invoice.

For more information, visit www.bigchange.com

Martin Port
Founder & CEO

CEO’s Blog – Transaid -Transforming lives through safe, available, and sustainable transport

Posted on 4 April 2018 by Martin Port

At the end of March, four long-term supporters of Transaid embarked on a self-funded trip to Zambia to visit our projects, meet our partners and learn more about what Transaid is doing to transform lives through safe, available and sustainable transport.

Mike Daly, Transaid Ambassador and Clipper Non-Executive Director; Chris Dolby, Head of Talent development at XPO Logistics; Martin Port, Founder and CEO of BigChange; and Alan Thornton, Commercial Director of W H Malcolm, were joined by Freelance Journalist Ian Norwell, and were welcomed to Zambia by Transaid’s Chief Executive, Caroline Barber, Corporate Partnerships Officer, Jade Ashby, and Project Manager, Victor Simfukwe.

Martin Port explained the rationale of organising such a trip: “BigChange are a corporate partner of Transaid and as part of our close ties with the charity I decided I wanted to view all the great work the organisation does to save lives in Zambia.”

Together, the group made the 14 hour round trip from Lusaka to Serenje, where Transaid is working alongside a consortium of partners and the Zambian Ministry of Health to tackle severe malaria in children aged under six years old, by improving access to a new World Health Organisation (WHO) approved drug, rectal artesunate (RAS).

In Serenje, the group were able to meet with a range of stakeholders: the District Health Management Team, local health facility staff, community health volunteers, emergency transport scheme (bicycle ambulance) riders, traditional leaders, and community members, including families whose children have survived severe malaria thanks to timely access to RAS and the injectable form of artesunate.

“It was truly humbling, touching and extremely powerful to see the impact that the work is having on the people living in very remote and hard to reach communities,” commented Chris Dolby.

On returning to Lusaka, the group were introduced to Transaid’s road safety and professional driver training programme, delivered in partnership with the Industrial Training Centre (ITC). Here, they were invited to celebrate the formal handover of a training vehicle, donated by W H Malcolm, alongside all ITC staff, board members, students, trainers and the Zambian Ministry.

“W H Malcolm is delighted to be able to donate a truck to the ITC. Personally, I have been overwhelmed by the response from everyone at the ITC and feel privileged that this vehicle will have a positive impact on road safety in Zambia, reducing the number of incidents on the roads.”

Transaid’s corporate partners are crucial to our work. Without their support, whether that is financial, the donation of vehicles, the secondment of staff overseas or providing guidance, Transaid would struggle to achieve everything it does. We are delighted that some of our supporters were able to see our work on the ground.

Martin Port
Founder & CEO