6


news S LO


Mailing Services 0118 941 0101


Mailing Services 0118 941 0101


LO Take your message to new customers and use colour to www.solo -uk.com.solo-uk.com Unit 3 Marcus Close, R eading , RG30 4EB Unit 3 Marcus Close, Reading, RG30 4EB


ake your message to new customers and use colour to make an impression. Make your message personal and send it to the people your own data identifies as more likely to respond.


make an impression. Make your message personal and send it to the people your own data identifies as more likely to respond.


Call us now to find out how Direct Mail can work for your business. Call us now to find out how Direct Mail can work for your business. European Electronique building on success


Following another very successful trading year, European Electronique has made new team appointments to enable the company to continue driving further achievements within the education market.


Within the first six months of this fiscal year, the company won a significant number of new tenders, several of which were with high profile Academy Trusts and Federations, including the Learning Schools Trust contract and further academies within Academies Enterprise Trust, United Learning Trust and the recent significant win of the ARK Schools framework.


Furthermore, it succeeded in winning seven new free schools,


several academy and UTC projects, the most notable being; Holland Park School (one of the most successful secondary schools in the UK), St Teilo’s High School (the Pathfinder Project for 21st Century Schools in Wales) and Reading UTC (co- sponsored by Microsoft and Cisco).


Additionally, the company expanded its managed services market share, adding to an extensive array of existing contracts, with wins at Alton College and Derby Moor College. European Electronique’s very successful team was further strengthened by the appointment of Mike Brown, as director of the strategic bids team, in June 2012. Brown has worked within the IT


market place for more than thirty years and for the past ten years has been directly engaged within the education sector, working for XMA.


Brown brings to the company a wealth of experience and takes responsibility for the running of European Electronique’s bid team, including the bid process and commercial management of major education projects. He will also maintain high-level relationships with the company’s strategic customers and related business partners.


European Electronique has also appointed James Penny, as the company’s education solutions director, to further advance its


extensive solution offering to academy federations and schools.


Penny brings a unique mix of educational, technical and commercial expertise to the organisation. After 15 years of successful teaching experience, he moved to IBM to work on a global research project called Reinventing Education, which focused on how education systems can make systemic change that drives up performance. Penny also worked for IBM across EMEA in a commercial role, and has built two successful education clouds for large groups of schools, most recently for the Harris Federation. This new appointment will take effect from January 2013.


New investment in SME clusters announced


The UK’s innovation agency, the Technology Strategy Board (www. innovateuk.org), will invest up to a further £6 million in new Launchpad competitions in the next six months to accelerate the development of existing clusters of innovative high-growth SMEs around the UK. One such cluster is being built around Harwell, near Oxford.


The move builds on the success of the £1.25m investment in London’s media and technology hub Tech City in 2011. The competition attracted over 200 applications from SMEs to work in the digital space in Shoreditch, London, gaining an additional £1.5m of private-sector funding towards 13 projects now at various stages of completion.


Business secretary Vince Cable said: “The Launchpad initiative is an important driver of innovation. The three new competitions will focus on high-tech sectors where Britain already has the competitive advantage and a


www.businessmag.co.uk


world-class research base. The investment will help our most innovative SMEs develop new products and services and expand their businesses.”


The Space and Satellite Technology Launchpad will build on the growing cluster at Harwell, linking to related centres of excellence in the UK.


Iain Gray, chief executive of the TSB, said: “This is part of an ongoing programme that will explore cluster support in different areas of the economy, where the UK has world-class capabilities and vibrant developing sectors. Particular examples are in motorsports, offshore renewable energy and in healthcare, such as biosciences or digital health technologies.”


Launchpad competitions not only provide SMEs with base funding for R&D projects but support business growth through connections with mentors and expert advisers in the cluster as well as increasing access to the investor community.


THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – DECEMBER 12/JANUARY 13


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60