Last week we were thrilled to win the Internship Provider of the Year award at the Plymouth University’s Vice-Chancellor’s Enterprise Awards held on Plymouth Hoe.

We were recognised for our creation of the Bluestone360 Academy – the initiative specifically launched to create opportunities for graduates. It sought to attract the best young design and digital talents in the region, offering university leavers the opportunity to gain valuable work experience, working on live projects, within our offices in Royal William Yard. We employed six graduates overall.

Mervyn went along to the ceremony and brought us back the award and accompanying certificate, which are now sitting proudly in our display cabinet.

The lovely lot at Cornish country club China Fleet recently appointed us to produce a new website for them – design it, build it, write it and generally make it beautiful. With several different departments and a huge range of offerings to fairly represent, we had our work cut out – but we got there, and the site is now up and running.

Both our team and theirs are chuffed with the outcome! We hope this is the start of a solid relationship and great things to come. Take a peek at www.china-fleet.co.uk.

For the third time – and second year in a row – we are delighted to have been nominated for a coveted Gramia Award by the Grocer magazine (although the event has now been renamed and is known as the Marketing, Advertising and PR, or MAP, awards). It’s for our creation of the most recent Ginsters website and its associated Man Plea campaign.

The awards themselves will be held in London’s Savoy hotel at the beginning of November and we’re up against the likes of Listerine and Walkers in the online category, so our fingers are crossed!

Watch this space. We’ll keep you posted…

“Finance is at the heart of any business, and so having a complete, accurate and timely understanding of the key numbers is a vital step towards the continuing success and development. What’s almost more important is that business owners and managers have a real understanding and clear visibility of the key drivers of their business; that relatively small number of not necessarily financial measures that reveal what really makes a business tick – sometimes a fresh pair of eyes is all it takes. All of this of course needs measuring against a detailed operational and financial plan which reflects the strategic course that’s been set.

“I’m genuinely fascinated by businesses; by their variety, by the intellectual challenges they present, by their personalities and that of their owners and managers, and by the challenge of finding ways to add real value.”

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.



“As Head of Digital it is my job to ensure that all our digital work creates impact and serves a relevant purpose. Having worked and grown my knowledge in this area for the best part of 16 years, my role sees me working on all sorts – from web development to creating digital communication strategies that will elevate brand perception. I love seeing the work we produce truly make a difference to our clients’ brands and ultimately provide a good return on investment!”

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.