ACADEMY INTERNET

Sector:  Digital Agency

No of Employees: 21

Region: South East

Summary

Since starting up in 2002 with 2 staff, Academy Internet (AI) has grown into a £750k business employing 19 people. Central to this extraordinary story of business success are their creative community partnerships that enable them to recruit, develop and inspire staff and win new business, while providing employment placements for local people, entrepreneurship activities for school pupils and business development advice for local charities and entrepreneurs.

Background

Academy Internet is a Brighton based high growth digital agency providing bespoke e‑learning & internet marketing.

Responsible Business Objectives

When Academy Internet started up in 2002 they set out "to be a great place to work, to be different, to build long-term relationships with clients and to deliver outstanding results" with the aim of becoming Brighton’s leading digital agency. The founders of the company understood that this vision could be achieved only if they recruited and retained not simply people with talent, but people with talent who shared their values. And so from the start they have embedded their values using a community strategy that is integrated into the business strategy.  

How They Do It

• AI’s approach is simple but highly effective. They want to invest in their people.
• They also want to invest in their community.
• Through their community strategy they can do both at once.
• Working with four community partners - Action for Change, University of Brighton, Young Enterprise, Brighton and Hove Business Community Partnership and Sussex Wildlife Trust, each carefully chosen to ensure a good fit with the skills and interests of the company and its staff - means that AI can develop a good relationship with them all.
• And it is the high quality of these relationships that leads to high quality training and development opportunities for AI staff which they undertake as part of their personal development plans.
• These opportunities include coaching, mentoring, training and community action days. 

Business Benefits

• This approach has been endorsed with Community Mark and Investors in People accreditation each in record time.
• But perhaps more importantly, it has led to extremely low levels of staff turnover (in a sector where average annual staff turnover is 20%, last year no one left AI)
• extremely high levels of customer satisfaction and the winning of profitable new business.
• Investors in People and CommunityMark accreditation both achieved in record time
• 84% of customers would recommend AI and £120k of new business has been gained through their community strategy
• 56% of employees have improved their training, mentoring and organisation skills through community activities.
• All 2006 recruitment by word of mouth referrals, saving £27,000

"Academy Internet showed with dazzling clarity how operating as a responsible small business is helping it to succeed in the highly competitive digital media marketplace in which recruiting and keeping talented people is critical. Their social and environmental action, channelled through four key partners has won them not just admirers, but new staff and profitable new business."

Gordon Parsons, Managing Director, npower business