ISG/uxplore case study

A Coventry company has successfully landed a contract with another organisation in the city by using a business website that has reached its 5,000 members milestone.

Since it was launched in April 2020 by Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership (CWLEP) Growth Hub, FinditinCW has promoted over £35 billion of opportunities in the region.

Last summer, a new portal was created on FinditinCW to help connect creative industry businesses and freelancers to supply chain opportunities.

The Creative, Cultural & Tourism (CCT) Network supports resilience and innovation in the sector and enables users to connect with suppliers and receive procurement notifications, find events and networking opportunities, build an enhanced profile to promote their services, and post job openings

TV production company ISG Productions, based at the TechnoCentre at Coventry University Technology Park, benefited from the portal after successfully responding to a request from uxplore.

The European Regional Development Fund project, which is led by Coventry University in partnership with the CWLEP Growth Hub and Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce, is aiming to make Coventry and Warwickshire the leading digital place in the region, with world-class connectivity, services, and skills.

Chloe Townley, Business Innovation Development Manager at Coventry University, said: "We wanted to create eye-catching video testimonials to share the positive impact our fully funded Digital Connectivity Workshops have had, supporting and evoking business ideas and developments, to technically advance SMEs.

“We invited three businesses who previously attended the workshops, who provided an account of how the workshops benefitted them, including opening doors to enable them to develop new products and services, and learning about how digital connectivity can help SMEs stay ahead of the competition, increasing their resilience and productivity.

"We found ISG through the CCT Network who, following our ERDF procurement process, made our vision come to life. ISG was extremely attentive, accommodating, and creative. Through ISG's work we have been able to share emotion and thought-provoking content on our website and over our social media platforms."

ISG Productions has deep-rooted connections with the region after starting life in the early 2000s as Skibbly Media Limited, a small production company run by a couple of Coventry University students.

Among its early successes was the production of various short documentary series for the Discovery Channel, including the award-winning Beetle Crisis and Campervan Crisis.

In 2016, the company was sold to ISG Media Sports Group, which has offices in London and Milan, but retained its presence in Coventry and now lists UEFA, FIFA and NFL among its clients as well as Co-op, Continental Tyres and Sony.

With a view to making more contacts in Coventry and Warwickshire, ISG Productions joined the Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce in 2022, benefits of which includes an upgrade to FinditinCW executive level subscription, and successfully submitted a tender for the uxplore opportunity using the new CCT Portal.

Laurence Archer, ISG Productions managing director, said: "We are a small company with big clients, who go quietly about our business. We are keen to engage and work with other local companies to provide really cool, contemporary, compelling content. We produce digital and broadcast content including sports highlights, promotional trailers, viral campaigns as well as corporate sales films and training and testimonial videos for websites and social media.

"We’ve been filming and editing for the National Apprenticeship Awards last year which involved going to different locations to do interviews with students doing degree apprenticeships and also talking to their managers in places like Amazon, Ernest Young, Great Ormond Street Hospital and AstraZeneca in Oxford, regarding the Covid vaccine.

"That style of filming and getting people to speak clearly and concisely to camera fitted really nicely with what uxplore needed in terms of the testimonial videos they needed producing. It worked out incredibly well and we met some great new contacts for our business.

“It was actually located next to our offices in Coventry so it was a very simple, straight-forward shoot to set-up and execute.

"The CCT Network is a good resource and, from our point of view, very important to secure our first local client."

Craig Humphrey, managing director of the CWLEP Growth Hub, added: “To have reached the milestone of 5,000 registered members on FinditinCW is a fantastic achievement and underlines the need for this type of service.

“It is a very effective way to connect buyers and suppliers, and it’s really easy for businesses to advertise their procurement requirements and to find new supply chain opportunities. We would encourage every creative business, including freelancers and those who supply to that sector, to register to the network to start promoting their business to over 5,000 members locally.”

To find out more and get in touch, please visit: www.finditincw.co.uk