KAT Creativ

For Colchester-based marketing and communications company KAT Creativ Ltd, using CompeteFor and Business Link services saved a lot of time, effort and paperwork in the process of winning a contract. Director, Claire Hunt used the site to bid successfully for a contract to develop an online registration system for a 2012 event.

"KAT Creativ Ltd is the merger of two companies, KAT PR and The Journeyman Company.  Journeyman was founded in 2000 and at one stage we were running up to 800 events a year, many for the Department for Trade and Industry (DTI), with more than a dozen employees, and a turnover of more than £500,000," explains Claire, who came into event management after many years working in the hospitality sector.

KAT Creativ has run award programmes for clients including the London Borough of Havering and the London Development Agency (LDA), coordinating invitations, creating delegate packs, organising catering and liaising with audio-visual companies.

In November 2007, Claire attended a meeting about CompeteFor and subsequently joined up. "My experience with the CompeteFor team has been superb, as they are so helpful," she says. "I didn't have a quality assurance certificate, but I was advised that having a quality system written down as a policy would be sufficient. We talked about wording, and about insurance, which led to me to cancel one policy and take out another that included professional indemnity insurance. I've also used the site's Diversity Works for London diagnostics tool."

She adds: "As an online tendering process it's very, very simple - that's the biggest joy. In the old days you'd have to make five copies of a 50-page document, but with this you fill in all the information online and when a potential employer wants to ask a specific question, it's the sort of thing that will only take 15 minutes. Most of all, it means small businesses are not excluded from bidding and it puts you on a level playing field."

KAT Creativ Ltd beat 45 other businesses to win a contract to develop an online registration system for a free 2012 event that took place in September 2008. Claire had only ten days to develop the process until it went live: over a six-week period, they registered 300 people and dealt with queries arising. As a result of this success, she won further business to develop another registration site for the London Business Network and her relationships with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills continues.

Claire has used Business Link services extensively and recently applied for funding through Train2Gain in order to put her project administrator through an NVQ in Events Management. "This is my project administrator's first job, and she is unfamiliar with the world of events management, so this sort of training will be very helpful in terms of winning future contracts," says Claire.