- Six superb mid-sized UK businesses
- Combined sales: £120.5m
- Combined ebitda: £28.3m
- 1,400 jobs (inc seasonal)
- Collectively doing business in some 183 countries
Brainjuicer
Launched in 1999 on the principle that traditional market research is “uninspiring” and “fundamentally wrong”, Brainjuicer today is a £21m-turnover (ebitda £2.8m) business with 160 employees and 11 offices worldwide. Led by “chief juicer” and founder John Kearon, it’s conducted research in 62 countries, and is expanding fast in Asia and South America. Even after ten-plus years in business, and far from the largest market research agency, BrainJuicer unapologetically strives to be among the best and to change the face of research globally. Ambitious aspirations include: “becoming a top ten MR agency, tenacious commitment to delivering value to clients, commitment to serial innovation and the validation of game-changing methodologies, unblinking willingness to acknowledge and support even those who might be competitors (as long as they raise the bar for market research as a whole), willingness to try and even to fail in order to succeed.” Big, bold goals from a serious contender for Company of the Year.Brand Learning
Formed by top-notch corporate marketers Andy Bird and Mhairi McEwan in 2000, Brand Learning describes itself as “an SME operating like a baby multinational”. The founders’ original mission was “to transform the way companies approached marketing capability development and to establish a business with leading-edge world-class credentials in this field”; today the £13.5m-turnover (ebitda £3.3m) business has grown revenue and profit every year since 2000 (19 per cent in revenue and 16 per cent in profit in 2011), surviving three recessions. Its launch clients included Diageo, Unilever and Barclays, and today the firm has more than 100 world-class clients. Brand Learning recently opened an international office in New York with an ambition to double in scale in five years through international expansion and innovation. Another great example of the UK exporting its intellectual capital.Cupid
Gritit
Gritit was co-founded by Alastair Kight and Jason Petsch in 2004 as the UK’s first nationwide gritting and snow clearance specialist, working for both the public and private sectors. In doing so, it created a “Winter Risk Management” sector for the first time, providing a nationwide, consistent, reliable and accountable service as well as delivering previously unheard-of standards. On the back of investment in technology and new contract wins, latest-year turnover rose to £7.8m, with ebitda rising, too. In 2010, the firm invested £300,000 in NIMBUS, its software technology that monitors weather conditions and its own vehicles, ensuring that it meet customer demand whenever it’s required. This is a seriously ambitious business, aiming for 1,600 new contracts in the next three years and global leadership in its sector. Currently with just 2.3 per cent of the UK market, once again we see a Company of the Year candidates with ambitions at home and well beyond.UKFast
UKFast has experienced phenomenal growth since it was founded by Lawrence and Gail Jones 13 years ago. Founded as a result of their disappointment in the quality of hosting when they tried to set up an online gallery, today UKFast is a £16m-turnover business, showing an ebitda contribution of £5m. It has done so without faltering from its original goal: to deliver a service in the technology sector with outstanding customer service at its core. UKFast is passionate about looking after its team and maintaining a family ethos despite growing significantly year on year. Its focus on looking for characteristics rather than skills and promoting a supportive and empowered attitude among its team has allowed it to boast the likes of Virgin, Funky Pigeon and Eazyfone among its client base. As for ambition, UKFast is the only managed hosting company to build its own data centre facilities, and aims to be the UK’s largest provider of co-location space by 2020.Tracsis
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