Member Article

Big jump in revenues at Explain

Explain, the Newcastle based customer insight and engagement specialist, has seen a huge jump in revenues in the first quarter of the new financial year that started in April. Sales grew by 44% on the back of strong demand for financial services research from Yorkshire and Skipton Building Societies. The company also managed the NHS consultancy project for the North East Strategic Health Authority which improved revenues in a sector which had been very quiet in recent months.

Commenting on the increase in sales and profits, Explain managing director David Shiel said he was delighted that the increase had come from core business because nationally, research spending had fallen and Explain had yet to benefit from demand for the new Better Community product it launched in January in partnership with Better, the Stokesley based social media and branding agency.

“We have orders from Northumbrian Water, Scottish Power, CE electric and Home for Better Communities so that is going to help us deliver consistent growth throughout the full financial year. In total we have had 15 further expressions of interest in what is a high value year one product so if we can convert another 5 of those we will have hit the target we set ourselves in year one. We have also seen excellent growth in core customer research with new clients such as Nova, Sage, DFDS and New Charter Housing.

I think we are seeing the benefit of recent additions to the team; Stephen Slater has already made a telling contribution in his first 6 months as non-executive director and we are about to appoint a new director in October which will strengthen the strategic and entrepreneurial approach of the team. We are also looking to export the new product next year and are currently carrying out a market review with the department of Trade and investment.“

I’m not sure we can sustain such growth throughout the whole year but we certainly expect a record performance as July and August are also showing strong demand for our services well up on 2010“.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Rebecca Crinson .