Sharing the secrets of success

An event to mark the ongoing success of James and James eCommerce Fulfilment in Northampton, include the sharing of expertise and ideas from key business advisers, is available to view on YouTube.

On Thursday, July 8, James and James hosted Adversity Into Opportunity: Scale Up Your Business in a Post-Covid World, to mark the presentation by the Lord-Lieutenant of Northamptonshire, James Saunders Watson, of the firm’s Queen’s Award for International Trade.

Guests were able to tour the firm’s new Brackmills headquarters and fulfilment centre, comprising 600,000 square feet of operational space, into which James and James moved at the end of last year, as well as listen to talks from special guests and join a panel discussion on international growth and scalability.

James Hyde, founder of James and James Fulfilment, said: “The purpose of the event was the presentation of the Queen’s Award and also to welcome guests to our new headquarters.

“But in addition to that, we wanted to give guests the opportunity to hear from business experts and to benefit from some of our own experiences in scaling up and making the move into new, international markets.

“Our aim is always to work with clients to help them grow, to give them the confidence that we have the capacity to work with them as their space requirements increase. Taking that next step is stressful and we need to reassure them we won’t let them down.

“At the same time, as a company, we have learned how to scale our business into Europe and US, and tackled the legislation that goes with that, and so we can hopefully pass on the benefit of our experience. To help us, we brought in a group of speakers and panellists, some of whom we’ve worked with and others we know to be experts in their own fields.”

The guest speakers were Hanna Sillitoe, who impressed the dragons on TV’s Dragons’ Den with her natural skincare range, and Andy Bank, Commercial Director of pet technology company Sure Petcare.

Among those discussing International Growth: Q&A with The Scale Up Panel, were Digital Trade Adviser Susan Roe MIEx; Theo Sprague, Head of Relationship Management (eCommerce) at WorldFirst; Arne Mielken, Manging Director of Customs Manager Ltd; and Emma Robotham, Indirect Tax Senior Manager at Cooper Parry.

James added: “Brexit and COVID have been major factors over the past year or so and businesses need all the help they can get in navigating all of that and still managing to grow and scale up their businesses.”

Adversity Into Opportunity: Scale Up Your Business in a Post-Covid World can be viewed on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/JamesFulfil.