Simply Business

Meet the winner of our annual Business Boost competition: Comfa! Comfa are a sensory-friendly clothing company designed to help neurodivergent children regulate in overstimulating environments. At 11 years old, Max is our youngest Business Boost winner yet. His passion and enthusiasm for what he does is infectious, with Max saying: “We’ve made something that will help me and I hope it will help other people too.” Max and his dad Matt’s hard work and originality impressed each of our judges, with Harpreet Kaur revealing: “I've never seen someone his age so entrepreneurial. I hope it inspires the next generation of entrepreneurs.” Max and Matt will be using the £25k grant to expand the Fidget-T product line to include school uniforms and adult sizes. A huge congratulations to Comfa – we can’t wait to see what you do next. Read more about their story and Business Boost here: https://bit.ly/3VSnjP1

This week we held our first ever Shared Services Conference – an opportunity for Simply Business colleagues to share knowledge, expertise, and learnings. Shared Services is a unified global team that plays a crucial role in driving and scaling Simply Business through innovation, underpinned by our technology and data. The team helps us to deliver our goal of providing the most straightforward and personalised way for small businesses and landlords across the UK and the US to buy insurance online. The theme of the conference was AI and fuelling our next stage of growth. We welcomed eight internal and external speakers across key functions such as customer experience, engineering, and product. Thank you Chan Ford, Sam Chelton, Toby Lewis, Daniel Aniszkiewicz, Beth Foy, Àgata Lapedriza, Shelbee Eigenbrode and Phillip Bohnenkamp for taking the time to share your expertise with us. Learning and pioneering are two of our core values, and we know we're at our best when we come together. It’s been a brilliant week, seeing how we can use the power of technology and our talented people to help our customers. We’re already looking forward to next year’s conference!

The Simply Business Summer of Giving has come to an end – with some of our amazing SBers spending over 850 hours giving back to their communities. This summer, we encouraged our team to take a day away from their day jobs and volunteer in their local community. Volunteering has many benefits — it’s a great way to connect with the local community, build positive relationships with colleagues, feel a sense of purpose, and most importantly, help out a good cause. Making a positive social impact is a core value for us at Simply Business and we’re proud of every SBer who gave back this summer. They supported the valuable work of 18 different organisations ranging from our charity partners, The King's Trust and Sky's the Limit, to local food and animal shelters. Our Head of Social Impact, Natalie Rathner, summed up our thoughts on the Summer of Giving: "We’re so proud we can offer SBers the chance to take some paid time off to volunteer and make a real impact in their communities, all while connecting with each other in the process". Watch the video to hear what our Summer of Giving meant to the people who took part.

Earlier this month we celebrated the outstanding achievements of our employees at the 6th annual Simply Business Awards – from groundbreaking innovations to exceptional customer service. Recognising and rewarding success is a huge part of Simply Business and we strive to make sure every SBer feels inspired to go above and beyond for our customers. The Atlantic isn’t big enough to stop us getting together. Our award winners were announced over Zoom in a single ceremony, followed by two parties full of good food and even better company – one held in London and the other in Boston. Congratulations to all our amazing winners and nominees – we’re inspired by you every day. And a big thank you to the incredible team who organised the event. We can’t wait to do it all again next year. 

We're looking forward to joining our partners and friends in NYC for the Global InsurTech Summit with FinTech Global today. Our very own Scott Aiello is participating in a panel discussion on Automating and Improving Pain Points in the Customer Experience Journey, alongside Roi H. from Zurich Resilience Solutions and Adam Van Loon from Plymouth Rock. We believe that the consumer journey in insurance is often complex and frustrating and that it shouldn't be. That's why we've invested heavily in developing a user-friendly platform that simplifies the process. We hope to connect with you at the summit! #GINSUS24 #insurtech #smallbusiness #businessinsurance

We’ve always believed that happy, fulfilled people deliver the best outcomes for our customers. We’re proud to go above and beyond to deliver a great experience to over one million customers in the US and the UK, and we know that requires a lot of hard work, from a lot of people. That’s why on Friday, 23 August, we’ll be giving all of our 1,000 plus global team the day off work – dedicated time to switch-off, enjoy some rest, and focus on their wellbeing. Our dedicated claims lines in the US and UK will remain open as usual for customers in need. 

Are you more likely to shop at a small business with a funny name? Our research shows two in three consumers would do exactly that.* So, as part of our mission to celebrate small businesses up and down the country, we’re looking for Britain’s Best Small Business Name... ➡️ Our winning business will receive £2,500** ➡️ judged by award-winning comedian Darren Walsh (famous for his puns) ➡️ previous winners have received national media coverage – a real marketing boost for their small business Find out more about our competition or enter today ➡️ https://bit.ly/3TdKVvq From A Pane in the Glass to Curl Up and Dye, there’s no shortage of punny and funny names out there. So if you haven’t seen it yet, watch our latest TV ad with real small businesses and punny names to make you smile. *Survey based on 1,000 responses, conducted February 2024 **T&Cs apply. Open to sole traders or business owners of an actively trading company or partnership registered in the UK (excluding N. Ireland) aged 18+. The competition is free to enter and closes 25/4/2024. We’ll announce the winner on 23/05/2024 #SmallBusiness #SupportSmallBusiness

Our Chief Commercial Officer Julie Fisher spoke to Jack Parsons on the My Duvet Flip - UK’s Leading Careers Show podcast – watch or listen to the full episode to find out Julie's advice for building commercial skills in the workplace.

Ivelina Yordanova, a Senior Data Engineer in our Data and Analytics team, has written this article about pioneering the introduction of graph databases at Simply Business. Our team is looking at how we can use data science to improve our insights and create a customer journey that sets us apart from our competitors. Ivelina's work with graph databases is a prime example of this – and we couldn't be prouder to share it with you here: https://bit.ly/3V0HvyP

National Apprenticeship Week (NAW) took place last week between 5 - 11 February 2024 and was an opportunity for us to celebrate the achievements of our apprentices and the positive impact they make. We love any excuse to celebrate our apprentices and the team that supports them on their career journeys. On Friday 1 February, Simply Business had three apprentices and one mentor shortlisted for the Makers Apprenticeship Awards 2024. Huge congratulations to Orlane D. for receiving a certificate of achievement for the Impact Award, to Cherelle Wilson and Nagore Valero for their Rising Star Award nominations, and to Serena Vano for being nominated for the Mentor of the Year Award. #NAW2024 #MakersApprenticeshipAwards #TechApprenticeships