Smarta.com and O2 have named umi hotels, a WYSE Travel Confederation member, as a winner in the 2011 Smarta 100 awards: a collection of the UK’s savviest, enterprising, most disruptive small businesses. The budget hotel company has also been listed within the top five businesses for the special “People” award for its work with young people. Voting is now under way to find the
overall O2 Smarta 100 Business of the Year, winning 10,000 GBP courtesy of O2.
This year’s Smarta 100 provides a fascinating snapshot of UK small business today: a cross-section of ingenious new ideas, individuals seeking self-employment after redundancy, the innovators of the cloud and crowd and the fast-growth big businesses of tomorrow.
Umi hotels is a “luxury-budget” hotel brand that empowers its people to help keep the business innovative and offers a value product without even a tiny compromise on service. There are 99 other businesses all battling it out for the title of O2 Smarta 100 Business of the Year. From the weird and wonderful world of non-spill potties, pillows for long-distance lovers and non-tooth pulling toffee, to market changers like crowd-powered wine dealer Naked Wines and fast-growing retailer WedgeWelly; innovation and entrepreneurship are alive and well in Britain.
Commenting on their inclusion in the Smarta 100, Steve Lowy, Founder of umi hotels said: “Being listed in the Smarta 100 really is an honour for us and particularly having a place in the Top 5 for People as I strongly believe in working with young people. People are an integral part of any service industry and it is great to be acknowledged for our efforts in this area, as well as being an innovative and progressive business.”
Many of this year’s winners have triumphed through adversity such as Camille Johnson, who set up Pink Ribbon Lingerie after her mother’s experiences struggling to find attractive mastectomy lingerie.
Proving the crucial role small businesses have to play in the future recovery of the UK economy, Smarta 100 revenues total over 65,000,000 GBP with an average turnover of 692,000 GBP. They’re contributing more to the nation than they’re borrowing too, with over half (51%) entirely self-funded. On average, they are three years and two months old and Smarta 100 businesses tend to be running lean operations with a growing shift towards virtual teams and networks of freelancers.
The Smarta 100 also tells us about the people behind Britain’s brightest small businesses. This year’s winners are 55% male, 45% female, aged between 18 and 52 with an average of 33 years old.
Commenting on this year’s Smarta 100 winners, Dragons’ Den star and Smarta board member Deborah Meaden – who wasn’t part of the judging process – said: “This year’s Smarta 100 has uncovered some superb small businesses, many of which I’ll admit I’d never heard of but have enjoyed discovering and am very much looking forward to meeting. What pleases me is that these awards are championing passionate and ambitious people with brilliant ideas who’ve acted on those ideas and turned them into flourishing businesses. These small businesses and individuals are hugely important and deserve our recognition and support.”
Simon Devonshire, General Manager, SMB for O2, said: “The SMBs that have made the final shortlist are testimony to the dynamism and variety of businesses that are operating and flourishing in the UK. O2 supports young companies such as this that are looking to make a name for themselves by offering them flexible communications packages. It will be fascinating to find out which companies win the categories and the O2 Award, which will act as a springboard for future growth.”
The overall winner and special awards winners will be presented with their prizes at The Smarta 100 Awards final on Wednesday 21 September at London’s IndigO2. These awards will be decided by the Smarta 100 judging panel consisting of King of Shaves founder Will King, Bebo founder Michael Birch, PR guru Lynne Franks, TV’s Sarah Beeny, creator of MySingleFriend.com and Tepilo.com, Smarta’s Shaa Wasmund and O2’s Simon Devonshire.
To view the full 2011 Smarta 100 (including the special awards shortlist) visit: www.smarta.com/100.
About Smarta
Smarta is the UK’s largest leading news, tools and advice resource for small business owners. Smarta recently launched Smarta Business Builder, an online toolkit offering accounts, website, email, legal docs and business planning software from a single web page from 20 GBP a month. Smarta was founded by Shaa Wasmund and is backed by some of the UK’s top entrepreneurs, including Deborah Meaden, Theo Paphitis, Michael Birch and Sir Richard Needham. At the heart of everything we do is a commitment to encourage more people to start and grow successful businesses. Smarta is supported by RBS, Intuit, NatWest, Viking and Mishcon de Reya.
Smarta press office contact:
James Nixon
press@smarta.com
www.smarta.com
www.smarta.com/businessbuilder
About umi hotels
umi hotels currently has properties in Brighton, London and Moscow, offering the best accommodation and service for a value price. The businessman behind the umi brand is the award-winning Steve Lowy, a long-time WYSTC attendee, WYSTC 2011 Advisory Committee Member, board member of STAY WYSE and director of the British Education Travel Association (BETA). Umi reflects Steve’s passion for affordable quality in the tourism and hospitality industry. Umi marketing provides marketing, business strategy and training services for the hotel and travel industry.
Umi hotels press contact:
Rachael Dines
rachael@marketing-professional.co.uk
www.umihotels.com
About O2
Telefónica UK Limited is a leading communications company for consumers and businesses in the UK, with 22.3 million mobile customers and over 700,000 fixed broadband customers as at 31 March 2011. Telefónica UK Limited is part of Telefónica Europe plc, a business division of Telefónica S.A. which uses O2 as its commercial brand in the UK, Ireland, Slovakia, Germany and the Czech Republic, and has 56.9 million customers across these markets.
O2 employs around 11,000 people in the UK and has 450 retail stores. In October 2010, O2 was voted the UK’s best mobile network by the readers of both What Mobile and Mobile Choice magazines. O2 was ranked highest in customer satisfaction for both UK mobile and fixed broadband customers according to the J.D. Power and Associates UK Mobile and Fixed Broadband Studies 2010.
For further press information about O2 go to www.o2.co.uk/news or contact pressoffice@o2.com.