Organisers

Tyne and Wear Development Company

Tyne and Wear Development Company is a business development agency offering independent advice in all aspects of expansion or relocation within Tyne and Wear. Acting on behalf of the five local authorities, Gateshead, Newcastle, North Tyneside, South Tyneside and Sunderland, the company provides free and confidential advice in all areas relating to potential investment including property availability, financial assistance and training and recruitment.

Our services are available to companies of all sizes from across a range of sectors and we will support your business throughout your enquiry, giving you one consistent point of support.

Headline sponsor

Northern
Recruitment Group

Recognised as the leading recruitment business in the region for Contact Centre Recruitment, NRG is passionate about the reputation of contact centre professionals within the North East.

The region continues to expand its offering and attraction to new contact centres. Businesses are drawn to the high calibre of staff available within the region and the clear evidence of high levels of customer service delivery and positive levels of staff retention, whilst businesses already rooted in the region continue to grow and develop their people and their overall business offering.

NRG plays a key part in the attraction and resourcing strategies for many of the region’s contact centres - often supporting them in other parts of the UK. Specialist teams at NRG work on a dedicated resource basis with each client to ensure the highest levels of dedicated client care and exceptional levels of candidate care. On many occasions, the NRG brand is not evident, since the client brand is adopted by the NRG resourcing teams. However, the expertise and capability of the NRG teams are highly evident, resulting in successful recruitment campaigns - both in project delivery or business critical programmes. The reputation, expertise and knowledge of our recruitment teams ensures success in key specialist and technical roles across the contact centre sector.

Recent feedback:

Client
"A true recruitment partner that we trust to deliver the best results and candidates on time, every time."
Candidate
"Communication with my Consultant was excellent. I secured a fantastic role with a great company through NRG".

Media partner

Call Centre Helper

Call Centre Helper is the UK's most popular call centre magazine with over 30,000 readers. It is a free, weekly online magazine aimed at giving call centre people up-to-the-minute advice on how to make their businesses work more effectively.

Separated in to four distinct areas – call centre management; call centre technology; call centre life; and call centre jobs – the aim is to help readers navigate as swiftly as possible to the area that interests them most. To this end, there are lots of regular features, such as a Q&A column that asks people with real-life call centre experience to answer the real-life problems faced by their peers in the industry, and a monthly 'What to look for when buying…' series, offering guidance by industry experts on the latest must haves in the world of Call Centre technology.

Associate sponsor

Avanta

For almost 30 years, Avanta (previously TNG and InBiz) has worked in the heart of local communities to deliver services that create long term advantage, helping communities flourish.

The work we do helps local residents, businesses and voluntary groups to make positive changes. We do this by enabling people, from whatever walk of life, to improve their skills so they can secure a job with a future or start their own business. We support organisations to recruit the staff they need and develop their workforce. And we work with local community groups to enable them to develop and deliver public services that work.

We work with national and local government to deliver high performing public services that put policy into practice. For example, as one of the largest suppliers of the Work Programme on behalf of DWP, we’re working with Local Authorities to make Community Budgets work – enabling public money to go further where it’s needed most. We work with the Skills Funding Agency to enable people to get an Apprenticeship, acquiring the skills they need to get on in work. And we’re now working with partners to develop and deliver services that reduce sickness absence, tackle re-offending rates and offer alternative education routes for young people.

Avanta specializes in delivering services that are funded on a payment by results basis, which means that we only get paid if we deliver on our promises. This ensures that everything we do is focused on delivering outcomes that create long term advantage.

Category sponsor

Business Quarter Magazine

BQ (Business Quarter) is a stimulating quarterly business magazine brought to you by room501 Publishing, a leading contract publishing company. Providing the inside track on what drives the North East's leading businesses, business people and entrepreneurs, BQ offers a unique and refreshing mix of business news, commentary from leading business people and profiles of our most inspirational entrepreneurs. With an inspirational attitude, BQ aims to get to the heart and soul of our most successful business people to find out what drives, inspires and motivates them towards their ambitions.

Each quarter BQ also brings you a wealth of business intelligence and information, whilst looking ahead to forthcoming events and reporting on recent developments that will have a significant impact on the North East business landscape. BQ is no ordinary business publication.

With unique content and a style determinedly its own, its aim is to inspire, enlighten and empower, embracing and reporting North East business success wherever it is found.

Category sponsor

GEM Premium People Recruitment

GEM Premium People is a staffing solutions business based across the North East of England with expertise in a range of sectors including contact centre, commercial, industrial and executive search with offices in Newcastle, Peterlee and Newton Aycliffe. The contact centre team has extensive experience of supporting some of the leading businesses in the North East; we develop strong partnerships with our clients enabling us to add significant value to people challenges facing the industry at present.

We know today’s customers are demanding and they expect a modern contact centre to be innovative, flexible and easily accessible. They expect you to be available when they are, your frontline staff to be knowledgeable, supportive and helpful and to resolve their issues and queries first time.

More than ever it is your people that make the difference. Having teams of frontline and operational management and support staff that are talented, skilled and committed is vital. As such, a staffing model that delivers industry specialists who are able to add real value to the end customer is essential in today’s market.

We have developed services that can respond quickly to high volume, quick turnaround campaigns, replacement challenges and restructuring programmes. Whether the need is large scale and volume, specialist professional, senior management or industry sector specific, GEM Premium People has the capability, experience and creativity and to deliver every time.

The contact centre team at GEM Premium People has an enviable track record of successfully delivering all types of recruitment campaigns within the North East contact centre industry including significant start up projects, executive search, high volume permanent and temporary campaigns and contingent support. Our candidate expertise is unrivalled, our database extensive and the team well networked, enabling us to engage with exceptional candidates, who our competitors cannot reach. This ability to unearth the best talent in the market place in turn enables you to deliver outstanding service to your current and future customers.

Category sponsor

Sunderland City Council

Sunderland has enjoyed tremendous success in developing a leading edge contact centre sector, with a range of blue chip and SME businesses pumping over £140 million a year into the local economy in salaries alone.

As part of this the City Council has a proven track record of working closely with new and existing investors. This includes providing support for recruitment and training, site issues, sourcing available land and premises, and securing financial assistance from the Council and other bodies as part of a continuous programme of aftercare.

Category sponsor

Quorum Business Park

Located within the vibrant Newcastle conurbation, Quorum is one of the UK's leading business parks. Combining cutting edge offices and some of the most cost effective financial packages in the UK, Quorum provides the opportunity for businesses to thrive.

At Quorum, it's not just about the office buildings, it's about creating a business community and a lifestyle for occupiers that enhance their working day. Quorum's dedicated Events Manager coordinates the use of the free-to-use, on-site sports facility, comprising football, netball and tennis courts as well as organises over 300 annual events and activities. There is an on-site Commuter Centre and travel coordinator to assit with any travel queries to and from the park.

Category sponsor

Contact Centre Professional

CCP are experts in training, operational and business consultancy, labour market research, business process mapping, project management, performance management and pre-employment training.

From set up in 2001, CCP has seen phenomenal growth and have quickly established themselves as one of the market leaders in business and training solutions, with a range of blue chip and public sector clients.

CCP train over 4000 learners per year and were sited by the Chief Executive of OFSTED as being one of the best providers in the UK as well as gaining a grade 1 inspection score. Other areas of expertise include the implementation of competency frameworks, qualification development, appraisal, PD, recruitment, succession and career planning processes.

CCP also has considerable experience working with a range of local councils and public sector bodies, setting up new communications channels and contact centres as well as developing systems and procedures from scratch. This includes 'people processes' and the supporting IT systems, infrastructure and business processes.

Category sponsor

Sinclair Voicenet

Sinclair Voicenet Limited is a leading solutions provider of multimedia recording, quality management, customer interaction analytics and workforce management applications. Exceptional Professional Services experience enables them to deliver a complete design and implementation capability.

Established over 40 years ago, Sinclair Voicenet is the UK’s longest established and most reputable multimedia recording company. Providing a vast range of reliable solutions and services across many industry sectors including; contact centres, banking, insurance, public safety, local authorities, emergency services and utilities, Sinclair Voicenet’s highly experienced team work with customers to understand their business priorities and deliver the right solutions to address the company’s needs on time and within budget. Whether simple or bespoke, these solutions enable companies to comply with regulations, reduce risk mitigation and provide their customers with superior customer experience that allows them to not only protect their business but continue to grow even through uncertain times.

With over 400 customers in the UK, Sinclair Voicenet’s fully accredited engineering team provide the highest level of service and support for more than 500 installations, retaining more than 90% of their customers on full maintenance contracts as a clear demonstration of their complete commitment to service excellence.

With a significant focus on NICE Systems solutions, Sinclair Voicenet is the only partner in the UK to qualify for the ultimate level of accreditation of NICE ‘Master Distributer’. Together, Sinclair Voicenet and NICE Systems offer first class, fast and efficient solutions for the capture, storage, retrieval and analysis of customer interactions. Regarded by NICE Systems as a leading expert in the deployment of NICE solutions, Sinclair Voicenet not only delivers a diverse range of related services to their own customers, they have also extended these services on behalf of NICE and other approved NICE resellers.

Category sponsor

Already Sorted Ltd

Already Sorted Ltd is a local event production services company and equipment hire stockist, working in the field of creative and technical support for event organisers, to provide a genuine one-stop professional partner capable of supplying and operating every type of requirement for event equipment hire to give customers maximum value for money and simple liaison.

With our warehouse full of hire equipment stock including room styling, props and scenery, party theming, intelligent lighting, PA systems, stagecraft, audiovisual and more, you can benefit from extremely comprehensive and competitive packages. Not only this, our own full time production crews with many years of diverse industry experience will operate it for you so that the results are perfect.

Our in-house creative and technical teams design and install highly acclaimed themed balls, awards, celebrations, conferences, exhibitions, music gigs, and fashion shows for a range of clients. Our comprehensive skills, reliable organisation and high standards have led us to being the preferred resident contractor for several venues and arenas and we regularly work with well-known corporates, universities, event agencies, public sector organisations, theatres, charities, councils and HM Forces. Our creative portfolio also encompasses community events and multi-cultural celebrations.  So whatever the challenge, we always delight our customers. 

Whether it is Circus, Neverland, Carnival, Midsummer Night’s Dream, or endless other choices of themes - or even if you haven’t decided for your next big event - our team is ready to help you.

This professional and dependable service comes with your own dedicated production manager from first thoughts and beyond to deliver our promise of quality, experience, innovation and reliability.

Table Wine sponsor

Hays Contact Centres

Finding and retaining the relevant skills and experience can transform your organisation. Whether you need management, customer service, sales, collections or processing skills, we can help you secure the right talent.

We know the different skill sets and personalities needed to ensure your contact centre can function efficiently and effectively. Our sector know-how and scale allow us to find the right people for your roles – skilled individuals who, either in a permanent or temporary capacity, can help your organisation grow.

Our geographical reach and extensive database enables you to choose from the widest range of suitable candidates with the right skill set for your contact centre positions. Our understanding of their skills, aspirations and availability helps you identity the right specialists for your requirements.

When the pressure is on and a high volume of staff is required, we will propose innovative candidate attraction and management solutions to make the process more effective for you. With many years’ experience working in close partnership with North East employers, we understand what it takes for contact centre employees to be successful.