Member Article

New contracts and innovation brings growth for Spark

Order fulfilment and contact centre services specialist, Spark Response has entered 2016 with new contracts and is planning for further growth with investment in recently launched staff engagement platform, Hive.hr

Currently employing 200 staff, the company is the first in its sector - renowned for being heavily geared towards people as the primary focus of service delivery - to sign up with a cloud-based technology that enables organisations to measure and improve employee engagement through weekly micro surveys.

Peter Slee, managing director, Spark Response said: “We have experienced a very busy start to 2016 with, for example, fantastic new contracts with Millennial Brands and Yogamatters and there is a pipeline of other new business opportunities that we are set to convert. As we continue to grow, employee engagement will be a key focus across our business.

“While we are incredibly proud of our culture and the fact that we retain our people for many years, we are always very keen to investigate new approaches to people engagement, especially as we embark on a period of sustained growth. The more we grow the more important that it becomes for us to build close relationships with our people.

“We are an early adapter to the Hive.hr cloud solution and, in many ways, that reflects our own culture, which is one of embracing new ideas and concepts, whether in the way we engage our staff or the solutions that we apply for our clients.

“We see Hive.hr as being an ideal solution to help further boost engagement in our teams. The timely and regular feedback and data we’ll be able to gather will make us much more agile in reacting to the needs of our people, which will, ultimately, deliver a more positive workforce, and directly benefit not only our business, but our clients, too. I’m delighted that Spark Response is one of the first companies to implement Hive HR, and even more so that it’s been developed by a business here in the North East.”

Developed and incubated within the innovation lab at Teesside-based Visualsoft, Hive.hr was originally created to help the tech firm’s own quest to become an employer of choice in the region before releasing it as a product that other businesses can benefit from.

Meanwhile, in its contract with Millennial Brands, Spark Response will manage both eCommerce and wholesale order fulfilment for its footwear brand, Rocket Dog. The company will manage the distribution of Rocket Dog footwear into stockists such as Schuh, Amazon and Shop Direct, whilst also shipping goods directly to customers who shop online via the Rocket Dog eCommerce store.

Millennial Brands had previously outsourced to a national logistics provider, but appointed Spark Response for its flexibility, ability to innovate, and its proven experience in the footwear sector with brands including FitFlop and Gandys.

Its fulfilment expertise was also the key factor that convinced London-based yoga retailer, Yogamatters, to contract with Spark Response. Led by Twanna Doherty, former head of buying at Ethical Superstore, which was acquired by Spark Response back in 2011, Yogamatters has a growing global online customer base.

John Ryder, founder of Hive.hr, said: “Employee engagement is now the number one priority for HR departments in the UK because businesses and organisations that engage their workforce effectively are seeing huge benefits from doing so. It is just as important for companies to look at employee engagement during periods of sustained growth as it is when they are facing restructuring. So it is great to be working with Spark Response at a time when it is set to grow further.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Spark Response .