From cotton mills to digital transformation, Manchester knows how to make the most of technological revolution. With a turnover of £2.9bn – the fourth highest in the UK – it’s no surprise the city has produced 898 new technology businesses. In this article we reveal the tech startups to keep a close eye on.
Three of Manchester’s Finest B2B Startups
Companies have realised that, beyond the hype, implementing AI requires huge amounts of data and a lot of hard work. Now Peak has done the hard work for you. Underpinned by their own AI platform they offer businesses growth and optimisation delivered through a range of services that include:
Customer segmentation
Demand forecasting
Data unification
Lead generation and scoring
Inventory optimisation
Customer retention
As AI is in its infancy and has a bright future ahead, there’s plenty of scope for this kind of service. And with impressive case studies for a range of customers, including Morrisons, it looks like Peak are here to stay.
There are no prizes for guessing why a workforce management app caught our eye.
Based on the premise that digital transformation has failed to extend to all workers, Zaptic provides a single cloud-based app to help employers connect with employees.
In many organisations, those who don’t regularly work with a computer, like manufacturing and retail shop-floor workers, are often left out in the cold.
Zaptic builds bridges by providing a place for operational documents, training and anything else employers need to share with their people. By bringing this part of the workforce into the 21st century, employers should save costs and improve employee engagement and output.
A smart solution for this widespread problem.
When your website is crucial to your business, you need to feel confident that it can deliver optimally at all times, whatever the internet throws at it.
Intechnica’s TrafficDefender helps businesses manage their web traffic and deliver the high levels of service that customers expect.
For example, one of their clients ran an ad during a break in The X Factor that delivered 27 times more traffic than that experienced on Cyber Monday. While this number of visitors would have caused some websites to crash, TrafficDefender ensured that many customers got on to the site.
Those experiencing buffering had their expectations managed in around the same time it would take for them to access the website. This provided a slick response in a situation where customer losses would be the norm.
Not only that, TrafficDefender can detect and manage bots and malicious attacks. It can then deal effectively with human and non-human users, ensuring a good customer experience for business’ real customers.
With website traffic and behavioural analysis available too, Intechnica provide a good all-round website management package for businesses who want to maximise their return on investment.
One For All. B2Everyone
As we exchange more information online, so the opportunities for fraudsters increase. Cyber security startup VST Enterprises seeks to make online fraud a thing of the past with their self-developed technology, the VCode.
Suitable for peer-to-peer, B2B and B2C transactions, this invention protects users across a wide range of transactions from instant online payments to file transfers.
The VCode allows genuine users to authenticate themselves across a range of online transactions and interactions by comparing a number of security parameters to verify the person, product or service you want to deal with or buy.
And the technology can even protect against the purchase of fraudulent products as it enables the supply chain to be tracked from end-to-end. We picked this startup as one to watch because their solution is applicable to such a broad section of clients so it’s sure to stick.
Our Pick of the Best Manchester B2C Startups
In 2016, 42% of millennials used a payday loan or pawnshop to make ends meet. But with interest rates of up to 2000%, this is a high-risk strategy that can often end in misery.
Intent on providing short-term loans in a safer way, Auden is a for-profit social enterprise built on the idea that loaning money needn’t place borrowers in shark-infested waters.
By building their own proprietary platform, they are able to provide short-term loans at more sensible rates in a way that makes sense to millennials, the market that needs their services most.
Average GP waiting times were predicted to hit 17 days in 2017. With everything else in our lives available pretty much instantly, it’s no surprise that digital startups are providing surgery solutions.
Push Doctor makes best use of digital technology by connecting patients with doctors via their app or website. With video camera technology far superior to its grainy past, showing a doctor what’s wrong or simply holding a conversation is well-served by online technology.
While not every medical problem can be treated remotely, a large proportion can. And with prescriptions now being sent electronically to your local chemist, this is a startup that makes seamless sense.
There are a number of competitors in this field so it will be interesting to see if there’s room for them all.
It’s frustrating to see customers leave your furniture retail store because they can’t quite picture how a certain piece of furniture will look in their home. But when people are investing in items that will be with them every day, you can understand why they want to get it right.
Digital Bridge builds a, you guessed it, digital bridge between an item of furniture and a real room using Augmented Reality.
Customers can now take a picture of a room in their house on their phone and the technology instantly recognises walls, floor and furniture. By creating a digital representation of the room, customers can virtually put up new wallpaper, try a new floor covering or replace their furniture with a retailer’s stock.
We love this because it’s a sensible solution that offers customers and businesses a platform they can both benefit from.
As the digital revolution continues to flourish there are endless opportunities for startups to make both our personal and work lives easier. Manchester is proving to be a fertile stomping ground for fledgling tech businesses to thrive so keep your eye on this innovative sector in a city that’s determined to maintain its industrious heritage.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
