Virtual Lichfield firm celebrates business booming in milestone year

Effective Business Management is a virtual outsourcing one-stop shop for businesses across the UK that’s been growing steadily since it was founded back in 2010.

Run by Lichfield husband and wife team Alison and Steve Hancock, it has seen a six-fold increase in business growth over the last four years alone, and tripled its employees in the same timeframe, as firms have shifted further into operating more of their services online.

Now the company, which is based on Lichfield Business Village, The Friary, is planning to expand its staff by at least an additional third – if not almost double its workforce – over the coming months.

Lockdown has led to shift in virtual expertise needed by businesses

Prior to lockdown, EBM had already seen a steady nine-month increase in the number of businesses seeking virtual support from its team for managing live chats, emails, phonecalls and virtual events, to providing operational and executive support from PA to director and board level.

But co-director Steve said nothing could have predicted the change in the shift of the virtual support needed in, and since lockdown, as the pandemic continues to impact the world we live and work in.

“With the new challenges that Covid has brought to businesses, we’ve seen a change in the type of work that firms have called us in to support, or completely manage from start to finish,” said the owner.

“As there’s been a move away from physical to virtual events, one area we have seen a big upturn in demand for is staging virtual events, like conferences, as companies have been unsure of how to set up and manage effectively having not run them prior to lockdown. Just one example is we managed a virtual event that was attended by 1200 people.”

And that’s not all. With the added financial challenges of the pandemic, firms, as well as non-profit and charities, are also calling them in more often to help develop more flexible ways of managing budgets and working in different ways.

With reduced capacity workforces, for a host of reasons, EBM is also seeing more last minute calls to step in and support in a range of areas – like implementing GDPR legislation, statements and policies – when it’s proved too time-consuming or complex for firms to complete on top of daily demands.

Key to success is an agile and flexible approach

Father-of-two Steve, who runs EBM with wife Alison, and an established team, added: “I think part of the reason for our success is that we are very flexible and agile with how we work.

“We can either work for an hour, part-time, full-time, or for a one-off project, event or conference, or for regular support, and, no matter what support is needed, because we have a professional team of experts on our staff, and partners we work with, our clients know that we can be trusted to come in and cover anything requested, and do it seamlessly.

“In a climate, when so many things are uncertain and unpredictable, we’re a flexible, experienced choice for businesses ranging from sole independents and SMEs to large corporates.”

EBM, which offers regular service packages from £9.99 a month as well as one-off support, is looking to recruit between two to five new employees in the coming months as well as extend the wealth of partners it works with across a host of industries.

Clients already supported by EBM include within the supply chain for Formula 1, business schools, coaching businesses and medical profession.