In an exciting new partnership, Belfast based digital training and mentoring company Profile Tree and Kilkenny based software company Veri Connect have collaborated to develop an advanced training platform that is bringing online training and mentoring services to the next level.
Profile Tree, who are market leaders in training and mentoring provision in the digital marketing space, partnered with award winning software creators, Veri Connect, to develop a digital cloud-based system that not only improves training provision but also accelerates the transfer of mandatory training and mentoring paper based information into intelligent, easy to access electronic records.
The new platform and user interface system not only digitises mandatory paperwork but also delivers easy and rapid monitoring of the mentoring and training programmes, simultaneously saving time spent on administration while creating intelligent data which allows clients to remediate for improvement and plan.
Predicted to out-perform any current offering in the market, the data driven scalable software solution, designed to meet the needs of large corporate businesses, public sector organisations and SMEs across Ireland, the UK and internationally, has the capacity to reduce client costs and provider’ overheads by approximately 30%.
The cross-border project was made possible through the Co-Innovate programme, which is supported by the European Union’s INTERREG VA Programme, managed by the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB).
Ann Marie McSorley, founder and CEO of Veri Connect, who places sustainability at the heart of her company said that development of the software is “just the beginning.” She believes that blended training programmes with digital tracking via Veri’s technology “should be an industry standard,” while CEO and co-founder of Profile Tree, Ciaran Connolly, added that the ground-breaking collaborative project has “streamlined” how his company delivers training so that “we can scale the service and deliver a seamless training experience to clients. This would not have been possible without the Co-Innovate programme support.” he said.
Explaining the background to the project, Ciaran said the Covid-19 pandemic had sparked an increase in demand among companies and public sector bodies for in-house online training services. Veri had already created an award-winning digital training platform which Profile Tree had been producing content for in the form of online and hybrid training courses. The Co-Innovate programme provided an opportunity for the two companies to collaborate more closely to build an advanced version of the platform that gathers real time information on programme delivery that both companies can use to improve their value proposition, expand their businesses and enter new markets.
Ciaran said, “The opportunity to collaborate with another company in this way was incredible and the support Co-Innovate provided was invaluable. We had never worked so closely with another company before on such a complex, meaty project that has the scope to generate new revenue streams, new employment and new opportunities for both Profile Tree and Veri.
“In terms of practical support, we got a lot of help with project management, including monthly meetings which helped keep us on track and focused on the end goal. One of the beautiful things about working so closely with another company was that we were able to give each other feedback in a friendly way, so we also improved our own processes and internal communications and our team developed new skills and benefited from working with a bigger, more experienced and skillset-diverse team across the border,” he added.
Ann Marie McSorley said her team in Veri also benefited from collaborating cross-border with Profile Tree in terms of knowledge sharing and learning, among other benefits. “Connection is core to everything we do and the support received from Co-Innovate enabled our teams to benefit from each other’s technical expertise in specialist areas. Our tech team in Veri gained from working with Profile Tree’s front end designers and learned from their experience. The teams worked hand in hand and there has been mutual learning.
“Due to our participation in Co-Innovate we have achieved all the improvements on our roadmap and we now have a white label product ready for the market, meaning the language on our platform can be modified and designed for a specific programme. We have also been able to increase our staff from 1 to 3 people in Northern Ireland. We aim to have 5 team members in place by the end of the year in NI with a focus on growth in the UK in 2023 and we hope to enjoy a continued relationship with Profile Tree outside of the Co-Innovate Project, as we move into the future,” she said.
Both Ann Marie and Ciaran said they wouldn’t have been able to deliver the project and create the platform without the financial and mentoring support they received from Co-Innovate.
“We wouldn't have done it on our own, not in a million years! We wouldn't have had the skills and we wouldn't have been able to collaborate so closely and in such a structured way with the team in Veri. Co-Innovate offers an invaluable opportunity for any company and I’d recommend it to anyone,” he said.