news 9 Shareleague Thames Valley Presented by in association with Business T H E M A G A Z I N E
The InterContinental Hotels Group, one of the world’s major hotel companies with its headquarters near Gerrards Cross, saw its share price leap 17% during May to head the table of the region’s largest companies.
Its Holiday Inn Express brand is leading the British Isles growth. The group announced the signing of three new sites – in Grimsby, Dublin and Middlesbrough – for what it terms a priority market. it also announced an expansion into Germany with new Holiday Inn hotels at Dresden (144 rooms) and Hamburg (285 rooms) opening later this year.
KBC Advanced Technologies, the Walton-on-Thames group offering software and consulting services for designing, operating and managing hydrocarbon
processing facilities, headed the section for smaller companies with a 12% rise. Earlier this year the group announced an expansion of its Middle East and North Africa business, where it has been assisting major national and international oil and gas companies with operational excellence for many decades. Chairman Ian Godden relocated to Abu Dhabi to oversee this major growth programme building on its existing base in Bahrain.
Star performance was in the sub-£50m turnover section where Odiham-based Egdon Resources rose 22% after moving on the radars of the big players hoping to stake their claim in the nascent UK shale gas industry. AIM-quoted Egdon is an established oil and gas exploration and production business.
Large (over £1 billion) Closing price
30/04/14
ICTL.HTLS.GP. SERCO GROUP
ULTRA ELECTRONICS HDG. MICRO FOCUS INTL. DIXONS RETAIL ELECTROCOMP.
GLAXOSMITHKLINE
INTL.CONS.AIRL.GP.(CDI) WOLSELEY
VODAFONE GROUP
2,018.00 340.10
1,696.00 775.00 44.98
290.50
1,632.00 404.10
3,421.00 223.95
Closing price 30/05/14
2,355.00 371.60
1,850.00 837.50 48.50
286.10
1,601.00 393.60
3,325.00 209.50
Medium (£250 million to £1 billion) Closing price
ANITE KOFAX SDL
GENUS SHANKS GROUP
BIG YELLOW GROUP XP POWER (DI) GALLIFORD TRY VITEC GROUP RWS HOLDINGS
30/04/14 82.25
444.75 301.25
1,014.00 101.75 514.00
1,640.00 1,188.00 617.50 919.50
KBC ADVANCED TECHS. RM
ECKOH MCBRIDE
LATHAM(JAMES) VISLINK
VERNALIS SINCLAIR PHARMA
30/04/14 117.00 138.50 38.75 98.25
457.50 47.13 33.75 30.75
ACCESSO TECHNOLOGY GROUP 597.25 TISSUE REGENIX GROUP
27.13
Sub £50 million Closing price
EGDON RESOURCES
OXFORD TECHNOLOGY 2 VCT ZINCOX RESOURCES CARDIFF PROPERTY PIPEHAWK STARVEST ANGLE
CORAC GROUP SOPHEON
JOHN LEWIS OF HUNGERFORD
30/04/14 21.63 11.50 10.63
950.00 4.88 6.25
87.00 8.25
89.50 2.50
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – JULY/AUGUST 2014
Closing price 30/05/14 93.25
481.25 323.00
1,070.00 107.00 499.60
1,565.00 1,130.00 580.00 859.50
Small (£50 million to £250 million) Closing price
Closing price 30/05/14 131.50 152.50 42.25
103.50 477.50 44.75 32.00 29.13
540.00 20.25
Closing price 30/05/14 26.38 13.00 11.88
1,050.00 5.38 5.63
76.50 7.25
76.50 2.10
Change in share price 17% 9% 9% 8% 8%
-2% -2% -3% -3% -6%
Change in share price 13% 8% 7% 6% 5%
-3% -5% -5% -6% -7%
Change in share price 12% 10% 9% 5% 4%
-5% -5% -5%
-10% -25%
Change in share price 22% 13% 12% 11% 10%
-10% -12% -12% -15% -16%
university news
Gloria Moss, professor of management and marketing at Buckinghamshire New University
Gender design research needs to ‘move on apace’
Gloria Moss, professor of management and marketing at Buckinghamshire New University, has warned that organisations need to act on new findings emerging around gender influence on design and marketing to ensure they gain a competitive advantage.
Prof Moss is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), with a PhD in Diversity and Marketing, and has advised major companies on how to harness human factors to optimise design and marketing.
Her research reveals that much design is configured to appeal to the male decision-makers in organisations but that it is women who are, in fact, the main consumers.
Prof Moss, who is also a visiting professor at ESG Management School in Paris, says she is concerned that firms and organisations are losing a potential avenue to success by not focusing on evidence suggesting key systematic differences in men and women’s preferences.
She said: “There was no research at all in the 1990s when I started to look at the impact of gender on the designs that men and women create and prefer.
“I set about filling the gaps and believe the findings, backed up by research in Holland and the US, are nothing short of revolutionary.
“The research reveals that much design currently
www.businessmag.co.uk
directed at women, whether it is supermarkets, web design, graphics or product design, is designed by men so more likely to appeal to those who create it than to the women who consume it.
“My findings show that preferences are maximised where designs are produced by those of the same gender as the end-user or purchaser.
“There is a new science of perception underpinning our understanding of what men and women like, and I believe firms which take notice of this will see a boost in sales and profitability.
“My research shows that people pay more attention to visuals that they like and companies taking this into account could see profits go up by as much as 50%. It is a very significant area to consider.”
Prof Moss carries out in-house workshops on her research and has published 70 journal articles and conference papers. She is also the author of Gender, Design and Marketing (2009), Profiting from Diversity (2010), Lessons on Profiting from Diversity (2012), and Why men like straight lines and women like polka dots, which is soon to be published.
Details: 01494-522141
gloria.moss@
bucks.ac.uk www.bucks.ac.uk
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