WEST CORNWALL PASTY COMPANY

West Cornwall Pasty Co. Ltd was a £25million turnover national food retailer with 58 outlets and continues to be the largest specialist retailer of pasties, along with snacks and drinks, in the UK.

The owners and founders were looking to exit the business and understood that preparing the business both financially and operationally for sale was going to add substantial value to the shareholders.

The operational and financial systems and processes that supported the 58 outlets required a complete overhaul and the ability to provide stakeholders with the transparency and management information they needed to run the business effectively as part of the Board of Directors. Significant contributions were also made to all other aspects of the business’s branding, positioning, product offering, pricing and supplier negotiation – margins, for example, were improved by 8%.

LOBSTER PICTURES

Lobster Pictures Ltd designs, builds and manages high-quality cameras and software for remote site monitoring and time-lapse photography. The company’s innovative products let client organisations view, share and document any site – from anywhere in real time. It can offer its clients low-cost but high-quality time-lapse cameras or constantly monitored, off-grid cameras anywhere in the world.

The business sought and was provided with a detailed business and financial plan for growth, in addition to a thorough review of the financial and operational controls of the business.

ATLAS PROJECT TEAM

ATLAS Project Team Ltd is a specialist care organisation that provides dedicated rehabilitation to those with severe learning difficulties and associated behavioural problems. The expert and professional nature of their team allows them to take on individuals with dispositions deemed too challenging by other care establishments. Established in 1989, ATLAS has built a substantial business upon its reputation for excellence, and now operates 15 residential care homes across the south of England.

The ATLAS team contacted Bluestone360 when it became clear that they needed to significantly improve their financial management, management information and financial planning. They also sought a ‘fresh pair of eyes’ in a number of other areas of the business including its branding and web presence.

For those of you who are looking for a cash injection to boost your business or bring a new idea into fruition, you may well be interested in the news that a £5 million European match-funded business development scheme is due to open this autumn.

The scheme will make a 50% investment grant towards projects that will help you exploit your competitive advantage and grow your business! It is likely to be highly competitive, seeking a high level of return for the Cornish economy, and only the very best project proposals will attract this investment support.

The scheme presents an exciting opportunity for Cornish business but, with the planned closure of Business Link in November 2011, advice on how to best attract these funds will be in short supply.

If you consider your business to be a suitable candidate, we can draw on 25 years of combined experience of European Funded business development to help support you in your application for this funding and give you real ‘first mover’ advantage.

We can develop the financial plans that support your overall business strategy, whilst delivering an understanding of business that shows how, instead of being a burden, finance can become a driver that moves your organisation onwards and upwards. Simply give us a call to arrange a no-obligation consultation.

We know that the words ‘Business and Finance’ can be seen as somewhat generic and ambiguous but, in all fairness, they have to be. The term is an umbrella that covers a whole host of services and we wouldn’t want to pigeonhole ourselves by being too specific. As is true with all our offerings, the way we respond to your business’s needs is completely dependent upon your individual circumstances.

The first thing we recommend is for you to take a look at your business. How does it compare with your original vision? It may already be successful and have real value but it’s always good to ask yourself if it is what you’d hoped it would be. It can be easy to find yourself working in the business, rather than on it, which is where vital time and energy can get swallowed, preventing you from achieving your ultimate objectives.

It’s important to remind yourself that you’ve got your business to where it is today, so the skills and resources you need to generate success are not lacking – they are just perhaps not being maximised. Getting back into the driver’s seat is fundamental to getting back on track towards your original vision.

Essentially, we work with you to help you gain financial control and a better understanding of your business and ensure you maintain it. The major benefit of using an external organisation to assess your company’s infrastructure is that you will be offered a professional, objective viewpoint and realistic improvement and development options, without the information being clouded by internal politics or concerns about change.

Bluestone360 Business & Finance offers hands-on, proactive business and financial management services – we like to think that we act as a ‘venture catalyst’. We advise both entrepreneurial owner-managed businesses and start-ups, as well as small and mid-size businesses across all sectors looking for an involved, creative and enabling partnership that will help ‘get business going’. The range of services are tailored and integrated to suit each opportunity but cover:

• Business Modeling & Planning
• Business Analysis
• Financing & Fund Raising
• Financial Management
• Business Management Systems
• Business Turnaround
• Growth Management & Exit

We like to think of ourselves as entrepreneurs as well as professionals in our own field, and look to work with like-minded people with good ideas. We have no typical client, but what they tend to have in common is a desire to grow and develop their business and a dedication to making the changes necessary.

Well aware that the idea of fundamental business and financial change can be complex and daunting, we always offer to meet with you for an initial chat, with no obligation, so that we can determine which parts of our offer would be most valuable to you.

Whether or not to submerge your business into the pond of social networking can be a tricky decision to make; there will always be arguments for and against it. Although it is an instantaneous and influential medium through which many now choose to communicate, we can still argue that, 10 years ago, before anyone had even uttered the words ‘Facebook’ or ‘Twitter’, the business world was ticking over just fine. But the flip side of the coin is that such a statement can be made about any modern technological creation. Sooner or later we find ourselves unable to avoid these new fads that often start replacing what we were accustomed to using in the past!

Yet, while social networking is still not ‘essential’ to brand or business growth, it’s important to ask why you’re doing it and what it will tangibly achieve for your business. It takes time, sometimes money, and can do you more harm than good should you do it wrong! Some brands completely lend themselves to a Facebook page, Twitter account, or a YouTube channel as a regular means of audience engagement; others don’t. The important thing is to have a plan. An objective. A desirable outcome. A good strategy by which you’ll achieve what you want. Tweeting for tweet’s sake can otherwise just turn into a desperate attempt at sales, humour or delivering office trivialities about which nobody actually cares.

And just because you’re not updating a Facebook page every day doesn’t mean you can’t utilise those sites at all! Using them for advertising purposes might be much more fruitful.

If you’re stuck in a rut or sitting on the fence when it comes to social networking, why not pop in and meet our digital team? We can lay out all the possibilities and have a chat about a crafting a promotion, campaign, or strategy for you – we might just be able to uncover the ways it could be great, or not so great, for your business!

Mobile applications or ‘apps’, as they are known to the everyday technology enthusiast, have stormed the globe since the smartphone and tablet market exploded. As with all new technology sensations, we recognise the app market as one that is only going to grow so, naturally, we wanted to get involved and add another string to our already industriously strung bow!

Our digital team has been busy getting versed in the art of app creation and were thrilled to recently produce one for the world’s largest medical technology company, Medtronic. The app was designed for Apple’s iPad and provided Medtronic’s sales team with an easy way to display and interactively engage with multiple presentations. For them, it was a huge and revolutionary step forward; we were delighted to be a part of that.

The main reason we are excited about our offering of app production is that the possibilities are simply endless. You might struggle to find an app solution for your business but, we assure you, we can help you find one. If you have an idea, even if it’s not a clear one, come and have a chat with our creatives and throw some concepts onto the table. We will, too. Then the next step will be bringing it to life.

The digital marketplace is flooded with companies claiming they can do it all – SEO to email marketing, website design to intranets, social media campaigns to iPhone app design – and, like us, they probably can! But think how many emails or DM pieces you get from companies who ram down your throat the opinion that you must be on Twitter, sit at the top of Google listings, and give a facelift to your old-fashioned website in a shameless attempt to sell what they’re offering. Quite a few, we would imagine.

At Bluestone360 we like to do things a little differently. We don’t believe you should blog, tweet, ‘Facebook’, advertise online and create an app just because you can, or you feel like you should. Quite often, the result won’t be anything like you imagined. Questions need to be asked, such as: ‘is this the best way to reach my target audience?’ And that’s where we come in.

It is a given that we can provide you with all things digital so, in order to do it properly, we spend time discovering how your business works and what you want to achieve. We tend to get the ball rolling by holding a Digital DNA meeting between members of our team and yours – this process extracts the digital objectives of your business and helps to establish all the key information about your brand. Considering all this information, we create a strategy which will outline the most effective ways to communicate your message, on brand, and reach your desired audience – and this certainly won’t mean exhausting every digital channel! It might be a beautiful new website, possibly an online advertising campaign, or perhaps even a consumer-driven social media promotion, but we assure you, the creations will truly be right for your business needs.

What do we mean by the Plymouth Offer? Quite simply the unique, emotional and benefit related selling points that will make our city memorable, desirable and compelling to its residents and the rest of the world.

Let’s start with the end in mind. Plymouth will represent everything that’s great about the South West. Plymouth people will be proud to say they live here. People from all over the country and the rest of the world will understand what Plymouth’s unique offer represents and see it as a must visit, must live in, must learn in, must work in and must play in city. Plymouth will be a place to build new and grow existing business.

To achieve the above, we need to develop a Plymouth Offer that we can use to help the city compete for its share of wealth and talent. It must be able to recruit the best people, attract more visitors, investments and events and create pride and self belief amongst its people and businesses.

The Offer is a promise of value; it embodies the things we want to achieve not just a logo and a tag line. It will reflect the reality of the city. A promise that must match the reality if Plymouth wants to achieve its Local Strategic Partnership Vision:

By 2020 Plymouth will be recognised as one of Europe’s finest, most vibrant waterfront cities, where an outstanding quality of life is enjoyed by everyone and all can be healthy, wealthy and wise.

It needs a Plymouth Offer that has vision for the future: we need to set certain ‘goals’, to be the UK’s centre of expertise for the marine sector, ‘The City of Devon and Cornwall’, the next silicon valley, the most desirable UK city to live in, have the number one UK University, be recognised world wide as a tourist destination and a city of creativity and culture, and only then will it be one of Europe’s finest and most vibrant waterfront cities. Once we have evolved the Plymouth Offer, we can then use it to market our city.  Every report and perception study says the same thing; we need to market our selves in a professional and joined up way.

Other cities have already created their offer and have been marketing themselves for a number of years, including Glasgow with the tag line ‘Scotland with style’. They launched their offer back in 2004 and have increased its annual hotel occupancy level from 68.8% to 75.3%. Tourist expenditure has also increased by £62 million and the website traffic has increased by 190%. Convention bookings increased by 8% to £148 million, conference hotel bookings secured a gross sales increase of 25% taking them to 3 million; this represents 1.1 million bed nights and expenditure of £129 million. Finally 31% of the UK target audience of 10 million were more likely to visit Glasgow as a result of brand advertising.

Plymouth needs to get its act together if it wants to start catching up. We have the expertise within this city to do this and things have changed on the ground, we have lots to market ourselves on. We all need to be agents of spreading the Plymouth Offer but we need to know what the Plymouth Offer is first. We live in a beautiful city with in an amazing natural location between the sea and a national park we just need to let other people know what we now have. We need to change the perception of an old naval port and dockyard to a thriving university city which has the potential to become a city of creativity and with the right connectivity our location can become an advantage not a disadvantage. The economy has changed from one of manufacturing to one of ideas; this is Plymouth’s opportunity to become great again.

Mervyn Orchard – Director

Knowing what’s around the next corner is a gift I’m sure we all wish we had. Every business we work with spends days, weeks and months planning for what might be, could be and should be. It’s a task tainted with uncertainty and caution since the economic crisis began. A crisis arguably created by bankers who chose to completely ignore what was around their next corner.

Bluestone360 certainly can’t claim to have the gift of clairvoyance, but we have developed some engaging tools to expose the issues that face brands and prepare them for the future. Our strategy mapping and DNA processes receive huge praise from the clients we use them with to influence change.

Change is something that none of us can avoid. Companies are always either growing or shrinking, be it daily or annually. The decisions we make to effect change have a massive impact on our employees, suppliers, customers and, ultimately, the bottom line. It’s a subject we take very seriously, particularly when it comes to the critical role communications play within it – from marketing and people to finance and operations. They are all completely dependent on brilliant communication between and to our stakeholders.

Essentially although we all face a frightening few years of trading ahead, spending time trying to anticipate and address those challenges will determine the difference between the winners and the losers. We are actively engaged with most of our clients, making good use of this uncertain time by preparing and executing plans that are focused on out-thinking the competition rather than out-spending them. Let’s talk if this idea appeals to you.

Ian Gunningham - Director

We’ve had some great news. After a rigorous tendering process, we successfully became one of only two agencies that were chosen from 37 high profile national agencies to be the South West Regional Development Agency’s strategic marketing consultants.

It’s an achievement we’re all incredibly proud of.  It also reflected some of the less visible aspects of what we’re able to offer our clients. Without defined strategic focus, even the most imaginative creative solutions can fail to deliver. While we take great pride in our creative work and the ideas we offer, we understand that effective brands are built on strong strategic foundations and clear business objectives.

Our strategic team has helped businesses for over 21 years. We understand bottom-line performance is crucial to the success of any business. With our proven strategic methods and tools, we can not only help to keep focus on the correct markets and provide stand out from the competition, but also provide detailed, time-lined tactical marketing strategies that will offer return on investment. Our processes make it easier to achieve brand and business objectives. Recommendations can include anything from brand proposition, brand strategy, strategic marketing plans, internal communications, people and leadership development as well as above and below the line communication plans.

With our broad range of experience, we’re perfectly positioned to look at a brand and business objectively and suggest what others may find difficult to say. If it’s in the interest of your business, we believe in straight talking and acting as a catalyst for improved change.

Recently, this strategic experience has been used to deliver a national brand positioning for Danepak that will soon be implemented across all their touch points including a national TV advertising campaign.

Steve Kyffin – Director