Category: Leadership

People often assume that I am a disruptor and rule-breaker because I’m an entrepreneur. But here’s the thing: I have a huge amount of respect for rules, and have always seen the value in process and order.

Rules exist for a reason. They are put in place for the benefit or safety of customers, and to protect companies and their employees. I was reminded of this recently, when I visited a hotel in the North East.

A member of staff brought out my bill to sign. I tried to explain that I observe the Sabbath, which means I couldn’t use a pen. She was having none of it. It took a lot of self-control to keep my temper but I asked to speak to the manager and eventually they agreed to waive my signature.

At first I found the whole episode infuriating but then I realised how easily scammers could abuse the excuse of the Sabbath to get out of paying their bill. Of course the staff were wary. Especially as the bar attendant hadn’t experienced this issue before and was unsure of the rules governing the Sabbath in Judaism.

At BigChange, we try to be as flexible as we can. When customers want something, we bend over backwards to accommodate them. But there are cases when we need to be intractable. For example, sometimes customers try to use our hardware without installing our software. We tell people till we’re blue in the face that they need to install our platform to ensure it’s safe, and running as it should be, but people love shortcuts, don’t they?

We now have a rule in place, which states that customers who fail to use our software will not be covered by our warranty on the hardware. It’s not been the most popular decision but it’s important to stand by the rules that matter.

Entrepreneurs may challenge the status quo and shake up traditional structures but that doesn’t mean we don’t respect the rules. You need to have rules and process if you are going to build an efficient organisation.

When I come up against a customer service wall in future, if I’m told that rules are rules, and there can be no exceptions, instead of losing my temper, I’m going to remember that it’s not the employee’s fault. They are just doing their job, and we, as customers, need to try and understand that. In this age of “the customer is always right”, this may be an unusual – even unpopular – perspective.

There should always be the option to escalate a grievance to the manager. And companies should be willing to revise rules if they are no longer fit for purpose or could be improved. But that’s no excuse to take it out on the member of staff who is just trying to follow company guidelines. Don’t shoot the messenger: there is usually a good reason you can’t get your way.

In the meantime, I’m looking forward to the introduction of fingerprint recognition in hotels that works without electricity!

Agree with me? Think I’m completely wrong? Let me know your opinion in the comments.

Martin Port
Founder & CEO

Technology is amazing, It can make us better people, help us complete tasks faster and more effectively, and has brought about incredible opportunities that would never have been possible a decade ago.

But it can also be poisonous.

This week, I’ve been talking to my wife, Amanda, about this contradiction. She is increasingly worried about the effect that too much technology – an overdose on smartphones and social media – has on young people. If you’re interested in what sparked our conversation, it’s this video by Simon Sinek on “The Millennial Question” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vudaAYx2IcE&feature=youtu.be

The statistics are quite shocking. Young people’s anxiety levels are going through the roof. Loneliness is a major concern. The younger generation seems to be getting more and more isolated.

I’ve started noticing some alarming trends in the workplace too. People always bring phones to meetings and are constantly distracted by new messages or social media posts. Team members tend not to pick up the phone and call clients; they want to do everything over email these days. They are increasingly sleep deprived because of staring at the “white light” device screens emit late at night. This not only creates stress, it also means that many people struggle to focus.

I’ve been in business for over 40 years, so I have seen the impact these trends are having over time. It worries me. So I’ve decided to do something about it.

Ban phones from meetings

I’m initiating a new campaign at BigChange to ban phones from meeting rooms. Unless someone on the team needs a device for note taking, or to demo an app update, all phones will be going into a box at the start of the meeting, and they will be returned at the end.

The world will not end if we are separated from our phones for an hour or so. I really want to encourage people to focus on the matter at hand during meetings, and to break the hold that devices seem to have on my team members. It’s like they’re physically attached to their smart phones.

Recognise that social media and phone use is an addiction

When we think of addiction, we think of gambling or alcohol but phones and social media can be just as problematic, and just as bad for our health. I was shocked to learn that getting “likes” and texts can give the brain a surge of dopamine, which is the brain’s “reward” chemical. If you don’t get your hit, it can cause a chemical imbalance, which manifests as depression and anxiety.

From now on, at BigChange, we want to recognise that too much technology can be damaging. I want to help educate my team about the importance of “unplugging” and having time away from devices each day. I’m looking at ways that we can use coaching and workshops to reduce our dependency on our phones.

I will be part of the change

I have to hold my hands up. I’m a big part of the problem here at BigChange. I often check my phone late at night and send emails at 2am. There is also a total lack of separation between the workday and our downtime, because we carry our emails and Whatsapp groups (that’s one I don’t do) with us wherever we go.

I thought that it didn’t matter when I sent emails as long as I made it clear that I didn’t expect an immediate response. But I understand now that it’s not that simple: when you see that nagging red bubble above your inbox, telling you there’s a new message, it’s hard to ignore.

I’m going to work hard to change my email habits so that I’m not contributing to my team’s work stress. I already take a phone break for 25 hours each Friday night / Saturday, because I observe the Sabbath, but I’m going to try and take a break from emailing through till the end of Sunday too.

This really is an urgent issue. I would like to start a movement and encourage more company bosses like me to help their people conquer technology addiction. Not just because employee productivity will soar if we look after our team members’ mental health and help them to focus at work, but because we risk damaging a whole generation of young people if we don’t act now. The phone was invented to encourage conversation but now it seems to kill it dead.

Let’s fight back.

Martin Port
Founder & CEO

As an entrepreneur, you face new and complex challenges all the time. But however hard you try, there’s just one problem that never goes away. How to consistently find enough brilliant people to meet the demands of a growing business…

I know this is an age-old problem but it’s one of my biggest sources of frustration right now. I don’t think there’s ever been a tougher time to recruit people. Unemployment is at a record low in this country; just 4pc of the population is out of work. That’s great but it also means that competition for staff is at an all-time high. No wonder wages are rising at their fastest rate for almost a decade right now.

I feel as though I’m personally responsible for a good chunk of that salary rise, by the way. Not because I’m paying over the odds for our people at BigChange but because of the sheer number of people who have applied for a job here, only to be offered an extraordinary pay rise by their current employer to keep them. Around 60pc of the people we try to bring on are lured back by an offer they can’t refuse: more money; a better job title; and very little extra work to do to earn it.

It takes a very special kind of person to leave a steady 9-5 at a big company to work at a fast-growth start-up like ours. I don’t sugarcoat it for prospective staff either. The hours can be long, and the role is always varied. We pay well and there are great perks, but if you just want to clock off early, this isn’t the place for you.

We need to recruit three or four people a month to meet the needs of this growing company. These roles are across the business, from customer services to sales, development to professional services. We’re even trying to recruit a HR director to help expedite all the other hiring we need to do (does this sound like you? Drop me a message).

Right now, we are spending around eight hours on each new prospect, which is a huge waste of time when they go back to their existing employer, who panics and promises them the earth.

I’m trying to work out how to solve this problem, and increase the proportion of candidates that turn into team members. So this is my new strategy. I’m going to throw money at the problem. If we don’t use an agency, which means we can raise our salary offers by 15-20%. We currently incentivise our team members to recommend new people by giving them £500 for each new hire. I’m raising this to £1,000. I’ve got a copywriter putting together a full-page job advertisement to run in the local paper. We need to be better at shouting about all the opportunities here: many of our people have gone from a starting salary to £50,000 within four years. That’s got to be attractive idea, right?

We have also started hiring more people than we need for certain roles, and opting for starters who are bit more junior or less experienced, and training them up in-house. I’m planning to start attending more job fairs, and using social media – like LinkedIn – to source great talent. We already give out a wave of share options to existing employees each year but perhaps that would be a sweetener for new starters too? Am I missing anything? If you have any ideas, I would be delighted to hear from you.

There are 90 people at BigChange right now. These people are my priority. I don’t want them to get stressed out and overworked because we can’t hire enough new team members. At the same time, you only want to employ the right people for the business. We don’t want people who are being forced out of their last job because of issues there. We want the people who are at the top of their game, and excited about the next chapter of their career.

Recruitment is a major challenge but I’ll tell you this: I’m not revising any of my growth plans for BigChange. We’re going to keep going, winning new business and punching above our weight in our sector. I just hope that we find the solution to our people challenges soon, or I’ll just have to start cloning the stars in my organisation… Actually, is that an option?

Martin Port
Founder & CEO

In business, as in life, there are always people who are resistant to change.

Now that I’m on my third business, I have realised that these obstinate individuals pose a real risk to the growth of an innovative company. They are far more dangerous than they may at first appear.

You know the kind of person I’m talking about:

“We’ve always done it this way and it works fine.”

“It can’t be done.”

“We’re too busy to try that.”

As a leader, it is my job to make sure that everyone in my team is pulling in the same direction, and that they are united by a common goal or dream. It is also my job to help my colleagues deal with blockers on the customer side. Here’s how you do it.

Spotting a blocker

If only this were easy. Unfortunately, blockers come in many guises. The most obvious is the “negative” blocker, who always finds a reason why something can’t be done. But there are also “silent” blockers, who hinder change simply by withholding an opinion or refusing to engage. “Agreeable” blockers are by far the trickiest customers to deal with. They will agree with your plan for change and even seem to be fully behind you… Then do all they can to block you behind the scenes.

Remember that blockers often think that they are indispensable to the business. Look out for arrogance or stubbornness. One common thread amongst blockers is that they refuse to be transparent about their role – they may be lax on paperwork or process, because they feel they are above these petty tasks. If they seem mistrustful of other departments, and are quick to criticise colleagues, that may reveal a tendency to block. If their idea of what constitutes their role is too narrow and intractable, that’s another dead giveaway.

Blockers rarely have original ideas, so ask your team to suggest innovations that could improve the company – or tweaks that would improve current processes. Individuals who consistently fail to contribute any new ideas may be blockers.

Avoid hiring a blocker

You can weed out blockers at the interview stage, if you know what you’re looking for. Ask prospective colleagues to tell you about a time they have effected change at their previous company. You want to gauge whether this individual is someone who gets excited about bringing new projects to life.

Ask how they have dealt with resistance from others – and make sure questions are open: nothing that can be answered with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

It’s great when you find a new member of the team that isn’t afraid to question the status quo – but be wary of people who are simply argumentative or intolerant. Body language can be revealing: arms folded, or sitting back in their seat? This could be evidence of a disengaged individual.

Can you rehabilitate a blocker?

Not every blocker is a true blocker at heart. You can’t change people’s nature but there are instances where someone who isn’t a blocker may behave like one. They may lack motivation, or need more responsibility.

One way to tackle a blocker in your midst is to give them an opportunity to talk about why they are frustrated in their role. Allow them to make their own suggestions for ways to improve performance. It may seem counter intuitive but sometimes, giving a blocker more control over the change – and incentivising them to be invested in its success – can help.

Some blockers are simply insecure and reluctant to let others shine in case it draws attention to their failings. Training that helps the blocker address gaps in their skillset can help. But it’s important to know when the case is hopeless. Watch out for individuals who say things like: “This place would never survive without me” or “What I say goes”.

Encourage new ideas

One way to ensure that you don’t start harbouring blockers in your organisation is to create an environment that encourages new ideas and collaboration. A great way to do this, according to one of my senior managers, is to hold regular problem-solving meetings that involve people from across different departments. By throwing people together in this way, they learn a new appreciation for the challenges and stresses faced by colleagues.

As a leader, we also have to guard against our own blocking tendencies: don’t let ‘no’ be your first thought when new ideas are presented. If someone suggests an idea that has been rejected before, take the time to explain why – but maintain an open mind. Maybe the situation has changed?

Blockers exist in almost every organisation. Don’t let them hold you back.

I’d love to hear your views and strategies for managing those who are resistant to change. Share your experience of dealing with blockers in the comments below.

Martin Port
Founder & CEO

I had a tough day last week. I received a critical email from a member of the team. It’s the only downside of having an “open-door” policy… people will genuinely tell you what they think!

The team member made a number of observations about how I could be a better boss. It’s never easy to hear people outline your flaws – especially when you don’t necessarily agree with them all.

One of the points was about how I show appreciation for a job well done. Whenever a member of the sales team signs up a new customer, I whoop and dance around the office. It’s something I’ve always done. “Why don’t you do that when a RoadCrew Customer Service or implementation member gets praise?” I was asked.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had to take criticism on the chin. Back when I was growing my last business, Masternaut, the economy turned. We made it through the 2008 banking crisis, but we needed to reduce headcount. Out of a team of 220, we had to lose 50 people. It was tough.

Needless to say, employees weren’t happy, and weren’t shy in telling me that morale was low and people had lost motivation. To try and tackle the issue, I brought in a neuro linguistic programming (NLP) expert, who worked wonders.

NLP helps you retrain your brain to aid communication and resolve conflict. I sometimes wonder if I should appoint a company doctor here, an expert to act as a middleman and hear gripes from both sides and help to resolve them – without me getting any critical emails. As much as I hate to admit it, I always learn a lot from criticism.

I don’t think I can stop dancing round the office when we make a sale. I’m like the Premiership footballer who gets carried away in the moment. You shout at the TV, asking, “Why did you lose control?!” The answer is passion. The adrenaline takes hold and I just want to dance. That same passion drives me when something goes wrong. It motivates me to solve every problem.

But that email showed me that I need to work on how we praise people who don’t work in sales. Many organisations struggle with the resentment between sales and the rest of the company. The sales team may get the orders in but everyone else has to deliver the work, yet they have the big salaries and nice holidays. Maybe we should buy a company sports car and let the Star of the Week drive it around… Could that work?

As an entrepreneur, people will always be your greatest strength, but they may also be your biggest weakness. We are all human. I’m trying to learn how to cope with criticism. I’ve learned that I can take anything as long as it’s delivered face to face. I can’t stand it over email. I’ve also learned that I need to be better at communicating some of the pressures that I face. Perhaps, employees will go easier on me if they know all the things I am juggling each day.

I emailed all my team asking them to arrange a 20-minute chat with me by booking a slot. There is nothing better than a face-to-face meeting. It is so much better than emails, telephone calls and second-hand conversations via other parties.

Let me know what you think and thank you for reading.

All the best

Visit my website

Martin Port
Founder & CEO

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

NOT EVERYTHING CAN BE MEASURED, BUT THAT DOESN’T STOP US TRYING. Data is the religion of 21st century business. Forget the false prophets of employee engagement, agility, tech or entrepreneurialism: numbers are what will get the board singing in the aisles.

To the faithful, data is nothing short of the irrefutable truth itself. Anything, from profit and performance through to wellbeing, can be reduced to an all-revealing number or chart. Those who can interpret them increasingly run the place. Those who can’t, to paraphrase W. Edwards Deming, are just people with opinions.

As with any religion, though, you will find the odd heretic. Renowned academic Clayton Christensen for instance recently warned MT about the dangers of using ratios to guide business strategy. Heaven forfend. You could almost hear the scandalised whispers in the City.

But what if the heretics have a point? Maybe measurements and targets are overrated. Maybe our obsession with KPIs is getting us in trouble.

‘Would you review a book based on the number of pages it has?’ Asks business performance consultant Chris Pearse. ‘It’s risible. You might want to know if it’s a 1500-page job that will keep you going all holiday, or if you’re spending a fortune on a ten-page coffee table book, but the whole raison d’etre of a book goes far beyond the physics of it. The same is true with any organisation.’

Pearse is quick to point out that, as a trained engineer, measurement is close to his heart. KPIs, he insists, are still fundamental to running a business, they’re just not sufficient. The problem is that we don’t seem to realise this fact.

‘I get cheesed off when people try to measure things that are palpably not measurable. A lot of companies purport to being able to measure employee engagement for example. You may say I’m being pedantic, but no you can’t measure it, you can assess it. To measure you need an absolute standard, such as a volt or an inch, that’s repeatable and that everyone understands. What’s the unit of measurement for engagement, a smiley face? It’s totally arbitrary.’

The distinction between measurement and assessment is an important one, because once we elevate something to data, we start basing decisions on it even when it goes against our better judgement.

This can lead to some unfortunate consequences because, in business as in quantum mechanics, observing something changes the thing being observed, and not always in a good way.

Measuring people against targets encourages gaming (think a car-park full of patients being kept in ambulances so the A&E department doesn’t flunk its waiting time targets) and short-term thinking. The nature of the stock market, for example, encourages short-termism in managers whose careers are dependent on meeting certain numbers.

‘It totally demeans the raison d’etre of the organisation and the real value they’re actually delivering to society and stakeholders. It’s insidious,’ says Pearse.

The way round this is to make sure firstly that we don’t measure things that can’t be measured and secondly that we accept that we can’t reduce business to a mechanics equation. The relevant working parts of an organisation – the employees, the customers, the investors and yes, even the boss – are human beings after all, and humans are unpredictable, emotional creatures.

It may just be that the best way to figure out whether your employees are engaged is not to perform psychometric tests but to talk to them. Stranger things have happened.

All this is a scary prospect for people who like hard facts and logic, and who dislike ambiguity. (Possibly because, as a school of academics led by Daniel Goleman suggests, we don’t make decisions based on reason at all, but on feelings which may or may not be affected by whether we believe a decision to be rational.)

It doesn’t mean, however, that we should abandon KPIs and metrics and apostasies from the church of data. What it does mean is that we should be open to the possibility that data doesn’t have all the answers. That way, you can respect quantifiable measures for what they are, while still keeping a place for good judgement.

Article by Adam Gale Read more at https://www.managementtoday.co.uk/kpis-enemy-good-leadership/leadership-lessons/article/1421348

Martin Port
Founder & CEO

Businesses are being urged to take more action on training and educating at-work drivers on the dangers of speeding to help make their fleets and local communities safer.

The call comes from Brake, the road safety charity, as it releases a new report showing that two in five (39%) of businesses don’t have a speed policy, either in the employee contract or handbook.

The report also found that 65% of companies with a speed policy don’t have one that applies to external contractors while a third of speed policies don’t apply to senior management.

Only a quarter of companies get involved with promoting speed awareness in their local communities, for example by supporting local training or education on speed.

And few companies are taking advantage of the full range of educational and training opportunities open to them, with only two in five asking questions relating to speed at recruitment or training during induction, and only three in ten providing additional training for drivers caught speeding

With excessive speed – either breaking the speed limit or driving too fast for the conditions – listed by the police in 27% of fatal crashes in the UK in 2013, Brake is urging all employers with staff who drive for work to implement policies and procedures to ensure their drivers are fully aware of the dangers of speeding.

Employers can access Brake’s expert guidance by ordering a copy of the report, which includes advice for companies, and becoming a member of Brake Professional at www.brakepro.org.

Dr Tom Fisher, Brake’s senior research and communication officer, said: “Our research shows that many companies can and should do more. This would help prevent the devastating impact of road death and injury, but also save companies money through reduced insurance premiums and improve their reputation within the community.”

Added by Natalie Middleton
Business Editor, Fleet World
Date: 15 Oct 2015 14:52

Martin Port
Founder & CEO

Lynx are a specialist family-owned building, repair and maintenance company based in Uxbridge.

They offer a fast response and first-class customer service to their ever-growing list of prestigious landlord and management clients, and maintain over 3,000 properties across the south of England.Lynx are a specialist family-owned building, repair and maintenance company based in Uxbridge. They offer a fast response and first-class customer service to their ever-growing list of prestigious landlord and management clients, and maintain over 3,000 properties across the south of England.

Founder & Managing Director of Lynx Maintenance, Chris Moseley, relates, “Our entire focus is on making service improvements. We recognised that the technology we used was not going to support the level of growth we are experiencing; we had a back office job-management system that was 10 years old, producing so much paper, and a separate vehicle tracking system that we used reactively.”

Lynx decided that they needed a Big Change. They wanted one system that could manage all aspects of their business, and they wanted a fully-developed, proven product that wouldn’t cost them a fortune.

Chris Moseley went on to say, “We were recommended to contact BigChange, who had developed a system that did everything we wanted straight out of the box. BigChange spent time with us ensuring that the implementation process and training of our Head Office and Engineering teams went smoothly.”

The BigChange JobWatch system has everything – built-in service management, customer relationship management, job scheduling, resource time management, health and safety, equipment and stock management, mobile apps, financial features (from quotation to invoicing, with integration to accounting software such as Sage) and vehicle tracking. JobWatch features intuitive reporting, including reporting on customer service and quality, business productivity, driver behaviour and risk management.

Chris recalls how “Implementing the system completely did away with paper in the office and in the field. We invoice instantly when a job is completed, and have seen our productivity and service levels hit new heights. This is just the beginning, as we believe that this technology will enable our company to grow without the cost and risk that goes with expansion. We look forward to celebrating 20 years in business next year, and the BigChange JobWatch system has given us exactly the tools we need to progress and grow our family business.”

Martin Port, CEO of BigChange commented, “We are delighted to have completed another successful implementation of JobWatch with Lynx Maintenance. JobWatch has revolutionised Lynx practices and processes, eliminated all paperwork and time consuming manual tasks.”

Martin Port
Founder & CEO

Entrepreneur Martin Port isto install 100,000 SmartWitnessin­vehicle CCTV cameras over the next three yearsin a bid to help clients reduce costly insurance claims.

The cameras will be installed in the vehicles of Mr Port’s BigChange customers and will provide companies with court admissible video footage. Mr Port has teamed up with SmartWitness in­vehicle CCTV cameras, which are highly rated by insurance companies, to add video functionality to his BigChange BigChange mobile workforce technology system. SmartWitness evidence allows insurance claims to be filed in record time, which significantly reduces costs. Insurers have found that just two per cent of incidents recorded on SmartWitness cameras result in disputed claims.

This is against an industry norm of 40 per cent for all motor claims. At the moment Leeds­based BigChange provides customers with tracking information about a driver’s harsh braking, acceleration and speed which is a powerful tool to enforce good driver behaviour, but video footage will transform the operation.

“In a lot of incidents involving near misses or an accident you get harsh braking and to have video proof of exactly what happened is absolutely vital,”

said Mr Port.

“You can protect the driver and it’s encrypted so it’s admissible in court.”

Mr Port said that a trial run with a client that has 100 vehicles saw 35 incidents and all were documented by video footage.

“The technology is very. Very good. It’s a powerful tool,” he added. BigChange has approaching 300 customers, including HSS, Silentnight and Morrison Utility Services, and services 5,000 vehicles. In just over two years sales have soared “We’re growing at 100 per cent a year. This year turnover will be just over £2m, up from £1.05m and the year before that we were at £300,000”

said Mr Port.

“We hope to fit 10,000 vehicles by the end of December 2016.”

The cameras will cost £199 each plus installation costs and the link to the system. Customers will receive a text when there has been unusual braking activity. Mr Port, 52, sold vehicle tracking firm Masternaut UK in 2009 for an estimated £20m, He sees it as essential that the next generation of telematics include court admissible video footage. SmartWitness will offer a fully integrated solution as part of BigChange’s BigChange’s JourneyWatch Vehicle Tracking and JobWatch All­-in­-One Mobile Workforce Management systems. The SmartWitness SVC 1080 will now be offered as standard with these systems. Camera events will be automatically logged and will enable management to know the exact time and location of any accidents or near­misses.

“Together with Smart Witness cameras, BigChange has a truly comprehensive risk management offering, protecting your business, your drivers and members of the public,”

said Mr Port.

“BigChange mobile workforce apps help companies to manage risk right across their operations. All customers have free use of a driver productivity app for android phones and tablets. It automates and enforces daily driver checks, can manage risk assessments and provides tailored de­briefs and driver feedback.”

He added that video footage is now a key part of any telematics offering. BigChange looked at a number of other solutions, but Mr Port said SmartWitness was the clear winner, based on specification, features, innovation, value, reliability, quality, support and price. JobWatch was launched by BigChange as a paperless way to plan, manage, 9/21/2015 Footage admissible in court thanks to special software schedule and track a mobile workforce.

Martin Port
Founder & CEO