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Are you part of the Smart Data Revolution?

Smart Data Revolution

Back in 2016, we entered a new industrial era: the digital revolution. Two years later, the buzz was all around the next technological trend – the big data revolution. Now, it’s all about smart data, machine learning, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things: the seamless communication between systems and the execution of data insight. 

Continue reading “Are you part of the Smart Data Revolution?”

BigChange appoints Richard Warley as Chairman

BigChange appoints Richard Warley as Chairman

BigChange, the revolutionary mobile workforce management platform, today announced that it has appointed Richard Warley as its new Chairman. The appointment follows a £100 million investment in BigChange by private equity firm Great Hill Partners to drive innovation, product development and expansion into new sectors and territories.

Richard brings almost 30 years of experience in investment banking, private equity and operational leadership roles at leading technology companies across Europe, Japan and North America to BigChange. He will support BigChange’s leadership team as the company accelerates its expansion plans in the UK and internationally.

Richard Warley comments:

“BigChange is an amazing company with a clear mission and purpose to drive growth and sustainability for its customers and community. It has already transformed the way that over 1,500 organisations manage their mobile workforces with its revolutionary technology platform that streamlines processes, eliminates unnecessary work and reduces the carbon footprint of mobile workforces.”

“With its significant new equity backing, BigChange is poised to accelerate investment in its platform, as well as international expansion. I am very excited to support BigChange’s visionary CEO, Martin Port, and the leadership team in realising the company’s purpose.”

Martin Port, BigChange founder and CEO, comments:

“Richard has a wealth of experience and expertise gained leading successful businesses internationally, and his advice and guidance will be invaluable to us as we look to take our transformative workforce management platform to more sectors, across a wider geography.”

BigChange’s field service management platform is used by 1,500 organisations in a wide range of sectors for job scheduling, customer invoicing and payments automation, mobile workforce management and client engagement. Clients include Sunbelt Rentals, Silentnight, Recycling Lives, HSS and EDF.

I want to create more millionaires than Microsoft

Martin Port Employee Millionaires

Have you heard the story about the guy who cleaned floors at Microsoft? He landed some share options, and then retired a multi-millionaire a decade later. Stories like that, showing the way that truly great companies reward the contribution of loyal employees, have always resonated with me.

I have been passionate about employee ownership for years. For me, giving your team a stake in the business is the ultimate way to grow faster, deliver a better service, and maintain an incredible company culture. The “John Lewis” model hit headlines after the financial crisis, when the government was trying to encourage the private sector to embrace a more inclusive stakeholder model. At that time, BigChange had already created its own employee ownership scheme.

Over the years, the scheme has grown and grown. Initially, just the management team had a slice of the company. Now, all my longstanding colleagues have a stake in the business, either through shares or via our “exit bonus” scheme. The minimum stake is worth £5,000 and I intend to deliver a 10x return on that investment within the next three to five years.

A lot of the team received an exit bonus during our last round of fundraising. This was a huge boost to morale when the UK was in the grip of lockdown and pandemic uncertainty. One colleague made 30x his investment when Great Hill Partners came on board. It makes me so proud to be able to reward everyone’s hard work, positivity and brilliant ideas, using our success to create holiday funds, home deposits and nest eggs for my incredible colleagues.

As an entrepreneur running a fast-growth business, you have to stay focused on three things: the hiring and retention of talent; the preservation of company culture; and innovation in all its forms across the business. When you have an engaged and incentivised workforce, these three things become that much easier to achieve. I hope that everyone who works at BigChange sees that everything they do to contribute to the company’s success ultimately translates into real value for them, way beyond their monthly pay cheque.

According to McKinsey, the global consultancy, creating an engaged company culture improves performance by between 30% and 79%[1]. I am biased, but I definitely feel like the team here performs at a consistently high level. I am in awe of the talent I see at BigChange every day. Here, no one suffers from tunnel vision. Teams help other teams across the business because their wins are to everyone’s benefit.

Employee-owned businesses also typically do much better than their peers during times of crisis. Research by Cass business school found that during the last recession, employee-owned businesses had a higher rate of sales growth and job creation than companies in conventional ownership[2]. A government paper also found that businesses which offer employee ownership are also much better at long-term thinking, making decisions for the enduring health of the company and avoiding short-termism[3].

It is my ambition to follow in the footsteps of technology greats like Microsoft, helping to give true financial independence to the people who drive our growth and prosperity. And we are well on our way. In the two months since we received investment from our new backers, BigChange’s £100m valuation is up by 10%. All credit to GHP who understood and supported our employee ownership structure from day one.

I now own 23% of the business, and GHP owns over 60%, the balance is owned by the BigChange team. If we hit £1bn in enterprise value, some of these people will become very wealthy indeed. In 10 years’ time, I hope to have created many millionaires. We all work hard here at BigChange but we all do it because we’re more than just a faceless organisation; we’re a family. We’re a team. We’re all united by the same common goals and dreams. That makes us unstoppable.

BigChange Technology Helps Millane Contract Services Keep on Top of Workforce Health and Safety

Millane Contract Service employee holding a BigChange mobile device

Millane Contract Services is using BigChange mobile workforce technology to bolster workforce health and safety. The cloud-based, 5-in-1-system BigChange is being used to monitor driver behaviour, complete on-site risk assessments and ensure the company’s maintenance engineers are free from COVID symptoms and ready for work.

The BigChange system is also helping the multi-discipline building, roofing and maintenance company automate communications between staff, management and customers, which in turn is boosting job completion rates, speeding invoicing and improving cashflow across the Essex-based business.

Stephen Rickwood, Maintenance Manager at Millane Contract Services commented:

“Driven by the Board, we initially looked at BigChange last year.”

“At the time trade was impacted by the lockdown, as many of our customers are in the retail and hospitality sectors, so in a way that gave us breathing space to look at better ways of working and what’s important to our business.”

Rickwood continued:

“The main drivers for implementing BigChange were workforce wellbeing and business preparedness.”

“BigChange will help us ensure our workforce is happy, safe and well, and that our business is as ready as it can be for whatever the future throws at us as we return to the new normal.”

A family run business headquartered in Basildon, Essex, Millane offers a national service, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The maintenance division, comprising a nationwide team of field-based service engineers supported by contract managers and a dedicated helpdesk team, provides both planned and reactive maintenance for brands such as Pizza Express, The Range, Cosy Club and The Entertainer.  

BigChange provides a single platform CRM, Job Scheduling, Mobile App, Vehicle Tracking and Online Portal. Using the system, Millane has introduced a range of ‘start of shift’ checks for each remote worker ensuring they are ready to work and free of COVID symptoms. Vehicle and equipment checks are also in place and BigChange is being used by management to improve driver behaviour with alerts for idling, speeding and harsh braking, for example. The BigChange mobile app, can also be used to prompt engineers to complete on-site risk assessments and access previously completed method statements.

Rickwood concluded:

“Although our initial focus was our workforce and ensuring the business was ready to bounce back after lockdown, we know BigChange has so much more to offer.”

“We are excited to explore the full potential of BigChange and build on the processes and benefits already in place.”

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