Showcasing 100 of Greater Manchester’s most innovative businesses Published by Are you ready to UNLEASH YOUR INNOVATION? Business Growth Hub’s expert innovation services will help you break old patterns and create the right culture to generate and commercialise new ideas. Start with a £5,000 Innovation Voucher Call 0161 359 3050 or visit businessgrowthhub.com/innovationservices Innovation.indd 1 19/01/2018 16:33 Are you ready to UNLEASH YOUR WELCOME TIME TO MAKE CHANGES INNOVATION? A word of Latin origin, to innovate is to make changes in something established, Business Growth Hub’s expert innovation services will or introduce something new. Literally, the origins of the word are to ‘make new’ and ‘renew’. It’s a simple word that carries with it huge potential for the help you break old patterns and create the right culture businesses of Greater Manchester. to generate and commercialise new ideas. Innovation is what happens when you combine what is possible with what is needed. It’s not necessarily inventing something new that’s never existed before – though, of course, it sometimes is. But what it always does is solve a problem, Start with a £5,000 Innovation Voucher CONTENTS create some value. And innovation in Greater Manchester is about as diverse as it gets. From high 06. CONNECTING THE TRIBES technology, cutting edge healthcare devices, through to the keeping of bees, Call The Growth Hub brings innovators, investors and there are few stones that haven’t been turned in the quest to find out what 0161 359 3050 entrepreneurs together happens ‘if we just do this…’. or visit businessgrowthhub.com/innovationservices Statistics from Innobarometer show that those companies that prioritise 08. BUSINESS BRAIN, TECHNOLOGY BRAIN innovation are also those who experience the highest increase in turnover, but The closing of one firm was the catalyst for brilliance that doesn’t mean that you have to be big to do it. The Innovation100 are all in Apadmi small and medium sized enterprises of Greater Manchester. Three true exemplars of innovation are explored in-depth here. Four ex- 20. TIME BOMB colleagues combined their skills to form Apadmi, providing mobile technology Can you establish a medical manufacturing facility in solutions that change businesses. A family firm, HMG Paints, are finding brand six months? new ways to coat surfaces. And Elucigene Diagnostics is working with our very DNA, finding solutions to healthcare challenges around the world. 26. A STRATEGY FOR IMPACT I’ve been impressed with the casual way that businesses of Greater At the University of Salford, industry and academia Manchester innovate. As if it’s no different to any other day at the office. are getting closer Something to be proud of, naturally, but not something to shout from the rooftops. 34. INNOVATE IN PAINT But it is. Because you’re changing the world, and the world needs to know. How do you make blue paint that doesn’t have any Join in the conversations on twitter using #Innovation100GM blue in it? Suzy Jackson, BQ Editor 38. IP PROTECTORS Securing intellectual property is the key to protecting innovations 50. HEAD IN THE CLOUD In association with Reinvestment in R&D has seen UKFast fly BQ is part of BE Group, the UK’s market leading business improvement specialists. www.be-group.co.uk BQ, Spectrum 6, Spectrum Business Park, Seaham, SR7 7TT. www.bqlive.co.uk. As a dedicated supporter of entrepreneurship, BQ is making a real and tangible contribution to local, regional and national economic growth across the UK. We are unique in what we aim to achieve as a media brand, a brand that has established a loyal audience of high growth SMEs and leading business influencers. They wholeheartedly believe in BQ’s focus on people – those individuals that are challenging the traditional ways of doing things. They are our entrepreneurs. BQ reaches entrepreneurs and senior business executives across Scotland, the North East and Cumbria, the North West, Yorkshire, the Midlands, Wales, London and the South, in-print, online and through branded events. All contents copyright © 2018 BQ. All rights reserved. While every effort is made to ensure accuracy, no responsibility can be accepted for inaccuracies, howsoever caused. No liability can be accepted for illustrations, photographs, artwork or advertising materials while in transmission or with the publisher or their agents. All content in this Innovation100 should be regarded as advertorial. All information is correct at time of going to print, Innovation100 Feb 2018. Innovation.indd 1 19/01/2018 16:33 CONTACTS SALES BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER SENIOR BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER Helen Gowland Rachael Laschke Mike Moloney [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER ACCOUNT DIRECTOR FINANCE ASSISTANT Hellen Murray Dave Townsley Maria Winsper [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] DESIGN & PRODUCTION DESIGNER DESIGNER DESIGNER Stephen Ford Craig Hopson Oliver Hurcombe [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] SUB EDITOR PRODUCTION MANAGER DISTRIBUTION ASSISTANT Peter Jackson Steve Jessop Sam Yard [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] MULTIMEDIA DIGITAL JOURNALIST DIGITAL JOURNALIST SENIOR DIGITAL JOURNALIST Ellen McGann Chris Middleton Bryce Wilcock [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] PHOTOGRAPHY Nicky Rogerson www.kgphotography.co.uk GROUP COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR EDITOR Bryan Hoare Suzy Jackson [email protected] [email protected] 0191 389 8468 | bqlive.co.uk BQ LIVE @BQLIVE “Innovation is seen as being “ very much part of growth, and it’s an essential part of helping businesses to become more competitive.” Showcasing 100 of Greater Manchester’s most innovative businesses READ ONLINE Sign up now for FREE at Published by 02 9 772515 BQ2 048006 BQ Magazine is available to Special Report www.bqlive.co.uk/bq-bulletin read online at bqlive.co.uk for to receive your NEW daily when you are on the move BULLETIN email update bqlive.co.uk 05 The great innovators The Innovation100 panel, give us their take on three standout businesses, the standard-bearers for how innovation happens, and what it can achieve, in business. Apadmi have a hunger for learning. Creating Elucigene is a shining example of how to Can a long established business be competitive edge in mobile apps from leverage leading technology through a smart innovative? Certainly HMG paints, restlessly pushing the boundaries of what can commercialisation process. The result is a established in 1930 proves the point. It starts be done; a ‘what-next’ rather than ‘me-too’ company punching well above its weight, from clarity of focus, a vision as a niche attitude. In this market being agile is critical even against multi-national Pharmaceutical provider of surface coatings. Staying at the and Apadmi achieve this by building competitors. Elucigene are now the leading edge of challenges faced by the everything in-house, giving tight control over internationally leading provider of cystic industry, most notably seeing the tremendous their solutions and more freedom to create fibrosis diagnostics and with significant market range of opportunities for environmentally their own processes. They illustrate their keen shares for the pre-natal diagnosis of Downs, sustainable products. They are dealing with understanding that people are at the heart of Patau and Edwards syndromes. these issues head-on constantly moving their this ‘engine for growth’ by mentoring school They have focussed on addressing unmet product portfolio forwards. and university students as their future source clinical and technical challenges, collaborated They demonstrate a strong outward looking of human capital. with users, seamlessly integrating product perspective, seeking clarity of customers’ Through their Labs initiative they are conception and customer engagement. This needs as well as trends within the global discovering and developing pioneering innovative business approach significantly environment. Actively seeking innovative technologies. Looking for common trends, to de-risks ongoing new product development suppliers, researching not just their own but deal with underlying root cause issues across by ensuring products address the most critical across into other industry sectors. their client base. This is true innovation hurdles to adoption. Investment relative to their size illustrates synergy, where a problem is solved once for There is arguably as great an impact from the their conviction in innovation. They many. business process as the technology with understand that the true measure of But just as impressive is their understanding customers emotionally investing in the innovation success comes from customers, and management of the innovation process. solution in advance of launch. The company that the future of the business is dependent Putting their money where their mouth is with has recognised the intellectual know-how and on creating products that customers judge as hands-on investment in technology-based value associated by re-applying this winning most appropriate. start-ups through their Ventures programme, methodology throughout their product There are massive changes within the coatings collaborating with customers to understand portfolio. With several proven solutions world. HMG already have a great portfolio of how and where to make processes better and already in market, and further ongoing waterborne and solvent free product, applying technology solutions as the tool, not partner/customer collaborations in the however there is lots to do and HMG are the master. pipeline, the origins of Elucigene’s certainly up for it! phenomenal growth are clear. from less than four staff right up to two Energimine hundred plus, these businesses are as diverse as it gets, but have an extraordinary ability to Hellosoda innovate in common. HMG Paints Covering Manchester, Stockport, Oldham, Trafford, and Salford, the ten firms who the Advanced Laser Technology Informed Solutions panel judged as making the greatest business Apadmi Now Healthcare impacts with their innovation are wonderfully diverse.