Chris was nominated by the Management Team as despite being many thousands of miles from Head Office, (and managing with a 9-11 hour time difference too) he has always sought to challenge the status quo: especially in looking at new sales initiatives and pricing models.

He’s always interested in the business’ performance and profitability and has a keen eye for detail. This keen eye was fundamental in resolving some business process issues at the start of the month, so thanks Chris!

We know that many of our customers use our blog to receive support posts or technical updates only. Consequently, we’ve created a technical category within the blog which will cover support, infrastructure improvements, product updates and all things Developer/API related.

Those of you that currently subscribe to the Support and Developer blogs don’t need to take any action as you’ll continue to receive updates from the technical category RSS feed. We’ll also continue posting all new blog entries to Twitter.

For all newbies, you can choose to receive an RSS feed of our blog in its entirety or from the Technical category only. It’s up to you!

If you’ve got any feedback on this change or have any ideas on how we can improve our blog, send an email to marketing@esendex.com

January 2010 marks the first time we’ve run the Employee of the month award. As a company we’re looking to recognise those who go above and beyond their job description to really make a difference and in doing so, encapsulate our company values of entrepreneurship, integrity and the highest quality of service.

He was presented with a (very heavy) trophy and £100 to spend on a posh dinner at anywhere he chooses. Note – even Hart’s is affordable with that money, if you stick to 2 courses, or forgo the wine!

Congratulations once again Darren!

Darren (left) looking very pleased with his trophy

Despite regular stories commenting on the possible demise of SMS messaging, both its simplicity and ubiquitous nature, continues to win through with consumers and businesses alike.

This is certainly our experience at Esendex. SMS messaging has been mainstream for years now, but despite this, new businesses start to use SMS for the first time every-day, and once they do, they often increase their SMS volumes, add 2-way SMS messaging or start to communicate with different groups as they look for applications of SMS across new areas of the business.

We were amazed with the number of schools and colleges that contacted us during the recent bad weather wanting to use SMS for the first time to communicate with parents and staff. But we shouldn’t have been. We have been established in the market for 9 years now and it may feel like SMS is a well established business communication technology to us, but for many organisations, they are only just starting to realise the benefits.

The full press release from the MDA can be read here.

Bulk SMS messaging enquiries from companies large and small are a regular thing here at Esendex. After checking they don’t want to send spam (!) and confirming which service they want to use to send SMS – Web, Email etc, the question then comes round to SMS volume. 

“How many SMS messages do you expect to send?”, “About 5000” is the reply. “ 5000 a day?” “No per month” is the answer. Ah, so it isn’t Bulk SMS after all…..

This is a regular scenario, and understandably so. After all, customers want to send SMS as cheaply as possible, and Bulk SMS users get the lowest prices as they benefit from economies of scale. But at what monthly SMS volume does Bulk SMS start?Posts

Well our Bulk SMS pricing starts at the 50,000 SMS mark (whether that’s as a one off, or regularly) which is in line with the industry. It’s interesting that the customer perception of what volumes constitute Bulk SMS can be so different from what the industry is saying. This could be down to a customer feeling that sending 200 SMS messages in one go is a lot for them – when actually there are other companies out there sending thousands every day.

Bulk SMS messaging users do have different needs from their SMS provider compared to lower volume users. Bulk SMS customers need to ensure their SMS provider’s gateway is up to it, and can deliver high volumes quickly in one go. Multiple direct network connections will ensure SMS messages are delivered fast, and if there is a problem with one network, the SMS provider can switch over to an alternative network easily without any loss of service.

If a Web interface is chosen to send Bulk SMS, the application needs to be intuitive enough to handle a bulk upload of addresses and potentially multiple messages easily, without fuss. Here at Esendex, I’m happy to say, we meet these requirements!

We entered two teams into the team relay event and Julian, our CEO, entered the individual event as did Richard Stannard.

The course included a 1.5km open water swim in the Thames (nice!), a 40km bike ride and 10km run. Here are the finish times:

Congratulations to everyone who entered. Next stop, the Esendex sponsored Last Minute Sprint in September.

Pic of the swim

Darren looking extremely focused

There’s a lot of forces at work which are driving SMS usage, and government legislation is one of them. Nine million people in the UK are deaf or hard of hearing. That works out at one in seven people, a pretty huge figure.

The Disability Discrimination Act and the Disability Equality Duty has meant public sector bodies need to look at new communication methods with the deaf, hard of hearing and speech impaired. Under the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), organisations are required to make a ‘reasonable adjustment’ in the way that they deliver information to the public to make it accessible to everyone. 

We’re working with an increasing number of public sector organizations to provide SMS services for the deaf and speech impaired – here’s just a few examples:

Kent Police use Esendex to deliver their life saving emergency SMS services to the deaf and speech impaired. People can text the word ‘police’, ‘medic’ or ‘rescue’ depending on which service they need, followed by the rest of their message. The text will then be chanelled to the relevant organisation and dealt with immediately. Here’s some more detail on our SMS service on the BBC website.

Devon Fire and Rescue use the Esendex SMS service to provide public services information to the deaf community. Read the case study here.

Minister for Disabled People, Anne McGuire, sums it up very well when she comments that using SMS in delivering emergency services will:

“Empower deaf and seech impaired people to gain quick and easy access to emergency services where and when they need to”.

Co-founders of Esendex, Adam Bird and Julian Hucker have been announced as two of the Midlands Business Insider’s ’42 under 42′ for 2009. The list celebrates the talent and flair of 42 companies in the midlands region whose MD’s are under 42. 

Midlands Business Insider says:

“the list represents a cross-section of entrepreneurs and managers from a range of sectors. It’s a group we believe can succeed in the long term, to the greater good of the midlands economy.”

Adam (37), and Julian (42 – he was 41 when the list was announced by the way!) are really pleased to be included in this year’s list and have their achievements for the Midlands region recognised.

Adam Bird told me:

“We’re really pleased to receive this recognition. The strength of the other appointees shows just how strong and innovative the business culture is in the Midlands. I’ve seen this here in Nottingham too with the Notttuesday events.” ]]> http://www.esendex.co.uk/blog/post/co-founders-of-esendex-make-the-42-under-42-list-for-2009/feed/ 0 http://www.esendex.co.uk/blog/post/esendex-signs-up-for-growth/ http://www.esendex.co.uk/blog/post/esendex-signs-up-for-growth/#comments Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:12:50 +0000 Ann http://172.16.1.140/blog/?p=180

Esendex is delighted to announce that it has been accepted on the East Midlands Development Agency‘s (emda) HighGrowth program. Their recent press release is below:

4th June:

Nottinghamshire companies sign up for growth

emda today announces the names of the 27 ambitious high growth companies who have been accepted to take part in the agency’s flagship High Growth programme, part of HighGrowth East Midlands in 2009. Funded by East Midlands Development Agency (emda) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), HighGrowth East Midlands provides intensive, tailored and rigorous support to help businesses prepare for and sustain high growth.

This is the second year of the £4.3 million HighGrowth East Midlands programme, 24 businesses signed up for the High Growth programme in 2008 including Lincoln’s Dynex Semiconductor Limited, Leicester’s Lastolite Limited and Nottingham’s Asiana Limited.

The High Growth programme provides 18 days of intensive coaching and includes specialist support such as a three-day residential masterclass for Managing Directors and Chief Executives, which has been designed by the Nottingham Business School. This support is provided over a 12 month period, helping businesses to address and exploit areas of their business to maximise and sustain their existing growth.

HighGrowth East Midlands is part of emda’s long-term strategy to stimulate high quality innovation and accelerate regional economic growth. Targeted towards ambitious and forward thinking businesses, the scheme aims to help growing businesses achieve their full potential through increasing profits, enhancing competitive edge and creating the ideal conditions for long term success.

Speaking about the HighGrowth East Midlands programme, Michael Carr, emda’s Executive Director of Business Services said: “I am delighted that we have been able to recruit another class of ambitious businesses for this year’s HighGrowth programme. Despite the challenging global economic climate, it proves that opportunities for growth do remain for businesses with the right vision and that the East Midlands is well poised to benefit when the up turn comes”.

He added: “The diverse range of sectors represented on the 2009 programme reflects the strong diversity of the regional economy. Businesses from sectors as diverse as cooling systems to digital communications and producers of specialist cleaning products for the healthcare sector are represented in this year’s programme. I wish the businesses every success and look forward to seeing the results of their engagement in the coming months”.

Speaking about why they joined the 2009 programme Julian Hucker, CEO of Nottingham based Esendex Limited said “The business has achieved very rapid growth over recent years. However we recognised that we’d benefit from support from the High Growth programme to challenge the management team to think differently about our growth and help us drive the company forward in a structured way so that we can maintain our growth over the next 5 years. We look forward to working with our Growth Coach over the next 12 months”. Esendex is an international provider of Business Communications. They deliver Web SMS, Email SMS, PC SMS, SMS API services and a range of other communication services to over 7,000 businesses large and small across the world. The business was founded in 2001 and now has offices in Spain, France, Ireland, Australia and Germany and employs 35 people worldwide. Their customers range from large corporations to SMEs, in sectors as diverse as financial services, local government and public sector, travel and transport and retail. ]]> http://www.esendex.co.uk/blog/post/esendex-signs-up-for-growth/feed/ 0 http://www.esendex.co.uk/blog/post/business-sms-price-offers-for-summer/ http://www.esendex.co.uk/blog/post/business-sms-price-offers-for-summer/#comments Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:08:01 +0000 Ann http://172.16.1.140/blog/?p=178

We’ve got some great offers on our Pay As You Go SMS and SMS Tracker Tariff this summer so you can send more SMS, and save money at the same time!

Firstly, we’re offering 25% extra SMS messages for free with Pay As You Go – to take advantage of this offer you can buy online now. Alternatively sign up for a free trial, then when you go ahead and purchase, the extra messages will be credited to your account.

Alternatively, you can receive 500 extra SMS messages for free with our SMS Tracker Tariff. Our Tracker Tariff is already one of the most competitive around. The price you pay changes month to month depending on the volume of SMS you send, so send more SMS and the price per message goes down. And with this offer you’ll automatically get 500 extra messages for free when you sign up to the SMS Tracker Tariff.

And that’s not all – we are also offering a further 500 SMS messages for free on our Tracker Tariff when you sign up to Direct Debit. That’s potentially 1000 SMS messages for FREE!

During these challenging times we hope these offers will help you get the most from Business SMS. To take up any of these great offers, just email sales@esendex.com. ]]> http://www.esendex.co.uk/blog/post/business-sms-price-offers-for-summer/feed/ 0