Member Article

WhosOff.com shortlisted for the Smarta 100 02 awards

Canterbury, October 12th2012. Online staff leave planner WhosOff.com is through to the finals of the “2012 Smarta 100, together with O2” Awards, described by Smarta and 02 as “the ultimate index of the UK’s savviest, supremely disruptive, most resourceful and socially-beneficial small businesses.”

WhosOff.com, used by 800 companies around the world, 600 of them in theUK, will learn next month if it has gained the £10,000 prize as overall winner, or if it has won one of six special awards for innovation, technology, resources, marketing, people and social impact.

All winners will be announced at The Smarta 100 Awards final on Thursday, November 8thatLondon’s Proud2, The O2,Greenwich. Voting is already under way by judgesTheo Paphitis (Ryman and Dragons’ Den), Sháá Wasmund (Smarta), Ben Dowd (O2 UK), Rowan Gormley (Naked Wines), Mike Soutar (ShortList Media), Thea Green (Nails Inc) and Alastair Lukies (Monitise). The £10,000 prize is courtesy of 02.

It is the second time in two months that WhosOff.com – used in 42 countries around the world, by start-ups, SMEs and blue chip corporations – has featured in a UK-wide award. In August, WhosOff.com was shortlisted for theSmall Online Business of Year Award at this year’s National Business Awards in partnership with Orange, the winners of which will be announced on November 13th.

Philip Cross, co-founder of WhosOff.com, said, “Our staff are delighted once again to see their hard work recognised and get through to an award final. They have helped us take WhosOff.com from an idea to a global enterprise that generates income from each of the tens of thousands of users on it. This a great day for the company and British innovation.”

In total, 2012’s Smarta 100 are generatingrevenues of over £200 million a year and employing more than 1,104 people. Sixty six per cent of the 100 - WhosOff.com among them - are self-funded.

More at www.smarta.com/smarta100

About WhosOff.com

Founded in Canterbury, Kent, in 2006, WhosOff.com offers a free, two month trial period of its full service, to enable users to fully evaluate it. The app is currently used by more than 800 companies globally - 600 in the UK alone. Users include small businesses of four staff up to blue chip global companies with thousands of staff. WhosOff is a registered trademark in the UK and US. Web: www.WhosOff.com Email: phil@whosoff.com

About Smarta

Smarta is the UK’s leading online resource for start-ups, small business owners and entrepreneurs. Smarta also operates Smarta Business Builder, a cloud-based toolkit offering accounts, website, email, legal docs and business planning software from a single web page from £20 a month. Smarta was founded by Shaa Wasmund and is backed by some of the UK’s top entrepreneurs, including Deborah Meaden, Theo Paphitis, Michael Birch and Sir Richard Needham. At the heart of everything Smarta does is a commitment to encourage more people to start and grow successful businesses.

Smarta is supported by RBS, Intuit, NatWest, Viking and Mishcon de Reya.

About O2 O2 is the commercial brand of Telefónica UK Limited and is a leading communications company with over 23 million customers – read more about O2 at www.o2.co.uk/news O2 runs 2G and 3G networks and was the first to trial 4G/LTE, reaching speeds of over 100Mpbs, as well as owning half of Tesco Mobile. It also operates O2 Wifi, O2 Health, O2 Unify, O2 Media and has recently launched the O2 Wallet. O2 employs over 11,000 people in the UK, has 450 retail stores and sponsors The O2, O2 Academy venues and the England rugby team. Telefónica UK Limited is part of Telefónica Europe plc which uses O2 as its commercial brand in the UK, Ireland, Slovakia, Germany and the Czech Republic and is a business division of Telefónica SA.

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Note to the media:

For more information please contact:

WhosOff.com

Philip Cross, WhosOff.com, phil@whosoff.com +44 (0) 1227 764806

or see www.whosoff.com

Or Paul Whitehead, Western Associates PR

paul@western-pr.com (+44 (0)1403 711177

Smarta

Smarta press office contact:

Nick Giles (Seven Hills) nick.giles@sevenhillsgroup.co.uk 020 7199 2200

Or Henrietta Walsh (Seven Hills) henrietta.walsh@sevenhillsgroup.co.uk 020 7199 220002

O2 press office contact:

017535 656 56 pressoffice@o2.com

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Western Associates PR .