Breakthrough business of the year: Blue Yonder

Blue Yonder was established in 2004. In 2019, the business restructured to focus on two parts of the company: the core, which focused on Blue Yonder’s existing work, and a ‘new core’ focusing on innovation.

Richard Heath joined as managing director to develop the core business, while Blue Yonder’s founder, Jonathan Million, became chief innovation officer leading the new core business

The company’s restructure included changing its team structure, ways of working, training, recruitment, research and development investment, tool kits and communications.

It also developed a collaborative office space and implemented a policy of staff spending one day a week at home.

The results have been a 52% growth in revenue to £2.4m, and £448,000 in new client revenue. Blue Yonder invested £232,000 in research and development, and the team grew 58% to 30 people.

Clickscape was released in 2019 as the first of the company’s new core innovations, developed with IFF and Unilever. Clickscape is a tool that allows clients to understand people’s emotions in real time, and has so far earned the company £200,000.

Blue Yonder is planning on expanding to Asia-Pacific next year, and has plans to make Clickscape a sister company using external investment.

Heath said: “What means the most to us is that this is an MRS award. They recognised the scale of our re-structure, our commitment to innovation and linked the benefits to our success and staff retention.

“Breaking through is hard work; it takes everything we have got, every day, to constantly evolve into the modern agency clients need to achieve genuine competitive edge – and delivering that is what we enjoy the most. This award has made it all worthwhile.”

The full list of MRS Awards winners can be found here.