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HWYE finals won by inspiring duo


Nick Coleman and Udhi Silva, founders of Aylesbury-based company Medical Supermarket, have won the 2015 Haines Watts Young Entrepreneur of the Year competition


The finals, held in Reading, were attended by finalists picked by judges from each of the Haines Watts’ offices around the Thames Valley and they covered very different disciplines.


It was a close-fought competition and the other finalists were: Georgina Bullen – representing the Reading region with Team Insight; Mark Rose – representing the Farnborough, Basingstoke and Godalming region with Boosh365; Marc Ayres – representing the Oxford region with BookMarc and Julianne Ponan – representing the Slough region with Creative Nature.


Overall winners Coleman and Silva, who represented the High Wycombe region, started Medical Supermarket in 2010. It offers customers everything a healthcare organisation would need to buy at up to 50% off the RRP online. It has also branched out to supply a ‘one-stop-shop’ to other businesses, selling stationery and cleaning items to sectors such as hotels and shops, as well as hospitals and GP surgeries.


Georgina Bullen’s Team Insight delivers unique team-building and visual-impairment awareness training for companies and


educational establishments. It focuses on the paralympic sport of goalball, as well as other blindfolded activities, run by paralympians.


Boosh365, founded by Mark Rose, is an independent specialist IT & Telecommunications service provider for businesses. Products include business broadband, mobiles, landline and cloud- related IT.


Marc Ayres’ company BookMarc provides creative solutions over a number of design disciplines including print materials, responsive CMS websites, bespoke email and landing page campaigns, video promotions, online advertising, social media campaigns and UX & UI consultancy.


Creative Nature is run by Julianne Ponan and is a forward-thinking superfood company providing powders, wholefoods and snacks, ethically sourced from all around the world.


Guest judges at the event were Simon Biltcliffe who founded and is MD of Webmart, a world- leader in print management, and David Murray, founder, MD and publisher of The Business Magazine. Chairman of the


HWYE finalists, judges and speakers with winners Udhi Silva and Nick Coleman


judges, Kapil Davda, was joined by Haines Watts’ Adrian Williams, Simon Garrett, Jane Gregory and Jane Wills.


After the ‘Dragon’s Den’ style finalist presentations, entrepreneurs Simon Biltcliffe and Sean Taylor (co-founder of Content Guru, Redwood Technologies and Radius Communications), spoke to the candidates about their business experiences and gave some useful advice.


The finalists all received a year of free mentoring with Haines Watts partners as part of their prize, along with cheques for £250. Coleman and Silva of Medical Supermarket received an additional £500 of prize money as overall winners.


Davda said: “The standard was very high again this year and this made the judges' job extremely


difficult. All the finalists presented confidently and had very successful businesses, some with turnovers in the millions already.”


For further details on Haines Watts Young Entrepreneur competition: www.hwye.co.uk


For further information about Haines Watts visit the website.


Details: www.hwca.com


www.medical-supermarket.com www.boosh365.com www.bookmarc.co.uk www.creativenaturesuperfoods.com www.team-insight.co.uk


Service sector pulls away as manufacturers fear downturn


As the prospects of the UK services and manufacturing industries continue to diverge, the Government’s plans to rebalance the UK economy are increasingly at risk, according to the latest Business Trends Report by accountants and business advisers BDO LLP.


BDO’s Optimism Index – which predicts growth six months ahead – remains above its long-term trend at 101.9, indicating that UK businesses expect their order books to


continue to grow strongly. However, this is driven by the buoyant services sector, masking serious concerns among manufacturers.


Manufacturers’ optimism is deep in negative territory at 90.2, showing that manufacturers are gloomy about the future. In contrast, the services sector is expecting rapid growth, with optimism scores well above the trend at 104.2.


Short-term economic THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – DECEMBER 15/JANUARY 16


prospects – as predicted by BDO’s Output Index – are more positive, with all sectors expecting strong growth and output over the next three months. The BDO Output sub-indices sit at a healthy 103.8 and 103.9 for manufacturing and services respectively.


The contrast between the manufacturers’ Output Index – which reflects actual experience of order intake – and the Optimism Index –


which reflects judgements as to how orders will develop – is stark. It seems that the UK’s makers fear a sudden contraction as we go into 2016, even if trading remains strong today.


These trends could see the UK economy become even more unbalanced as sluggish manufacturing growth becomes entrenched and the UK becomes even more reliant on the service sector for growth.


www.businessmag.co.uk


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