Big Interview

MD Nick Scott saw 95 per cent of business at his Worcester-based travel firm disappear at the start of the pandemic. Turnover was about to reach £35 million, “and then it was like someone turned the tap off.” All the hopes and dreams built up over 30 years of independent family trading looked set to be dashed. Thankfully, business confidence is picking up again, although there are lingering concerns over the latest COVID variant. However, Nick’s natural ebullience shines through. “It’s a bit of a sucker punch,” he concedes, “but we’ll carry on regardless because everything that made us a great company in 2019 still applies today. “The four core pillars of our business are travel, accommodation, venue sourcing and our in-house IT provision which is unique to our industry. I believe we offer the best service in the industry backed up the best in the industry. “Perhaps I didn’t appreciate the strength of our business before. You think that things are normal --- until they’re not! We’ve learned a lot of hard lessons along the way, but I think we are going to bounce out of this in quite a good place.” This rebound in confidence is partly down to the huge success of their flagship user management system, AMBER. This is turn came hot on the heels of a major contract win with the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) to handle all the travel and training needs for its apprentices around the country. Nick explains: “CITB wanted a centralised database to co-ordinate all aspects of training and accommodation bookings for their 1500 students. “AMBER basically revolutionised how they look after their apprentices, managing hundreds of courses across 30 colleges. In fact, it has saved so much in time and money that CITB have been able to streamline their whole administration process, and they have a new scheme called ‘Travel to Train’ that they want us to facilitate.” Alex Ganderton is the in-house mastermind behind the new technology. He had just joined the IT team when he was tasked with helping to create AMBER. “An external company had built a platform that wasn’t quite right for our client needs so we basically rebuilt it from the ground up. “The system is easy to duplicate and flexible so that each client has a tailormade profile matching their specific travel, accommodation and training needs. We have over 1,000 business clients and having these efficient admin workflows mean our staff can focus on other productive tasks.” Nick is full of praise for the progress made by his young software and development manager in just three short years, saying “It’s pure luck we got him when his original university placement fell through. However, Alex responds with, “Credit where credit’s due. Some of my friends were shoved in a corner and given Excel data entries to do for nine months. “Here, I always had people to turn to for help. I also went out on the road with our business development manager, speaking to clients and building relationships with them. I did project management with the software team and learned new skills. “It was a good match for us both. arrangeMY wanted my knowledge and

Nick with software and development manager Alex Ganderton

they gave me a really good flexible working environment where I could try stuff out. “It’s great to be able to learn and improve myself and the company at the same time!” This caring, sharing attitude was integral to the family values laid down by Nick’s dad Simon, when he founded arrangeMY in 1990. These values are just as strong today, as Nick explains: “I’m really proud of our family roots. We have great people working with us who are aligned to our core values of caring, teamwork, respect, integrity and quality. “As a company, we had dark days during the pandemic, but we chose to protect jobs, and our staff know that we care about them, not just the bottom line. “Our business was decimated by COVID but there have been lots of positives. We genuinely care for our clients and they genuinely appreciate our work, even more than before. We’re a trusted partner, as our service levels show, and our clients know that we will help them in the best way we can.” Caring was also apparent in the manner in which arrangeMY recently took over three other companies. Nick points out, “They weren’t hostile takeovers. We had acquaintances in the industry who approached us and said, for example, ‘Look I’m about to retire, you’re a good bunch, we’d like you to take on our business’.”

The newcomers have proved to be a natural blend to our core business, so it’s been very beneficial all round!” And what about the future? Nick concludes, “Our business accommodation is actually now ahead of where we were in 2019, and things are slowly improving for travel and events. We’re looking to roll out AMBER in a similar vein for event sourcing and management, so if a client needs a bespoke booking platform or a check-in inventory system, we can look at that alongside our more standard booking solutions. We always want to work with our clients rather than for them!”

Find out more at arrangemy.com

AMBER was a recent finalist in Best Use of Technology at the Chamber of Commerce Awards. What does it stand for? It stands for arrangeMY Management, Booking Engine and Reservations (system), What does it do? It’s an All-in-One portal that allows our clients to independently manage all aspects of their event or training programme, including courses, timetables, documentation and more. The system includes encrypted documentation, bespoke ticketing systems and phone apps. A notification hub provides updates on bookings and documents with real-time confirmations, ensuring information is always at the user’s fingertips. Regular surveys monitor customer feedback to make sure the system is meeting user needs. Full details can be found at