But what really interested me was a comment made by Peter Macleod, editor of SHD magazine during the frenetic four day event. Talking to me on the Savoye stand – where the French automation specialist had just unveiled its new all-electric conveyor Intelis – Peter made the point that while exhibitors spend tens of thousands of pounds at events such as IMHX to show off their latest innovations, logistics is still a people business.

I agree with Peter. The European logistics industry is a mature market, and as such technological developments are gradual, not dramatic. And while I am not denying that there are some exciting innovations in logistics technology – it’s still the people that make the sector such a vibrant and high performing one.

So, while new developments in WMS, automated pallet handling, ASRS and picking, are all important parts of the competitive landscape, have we reached a point where the ‘technological deliverable’ is a given in such a sophisticated and established market. What’s left for companies to leverage is the less tangible, yet powerful weapon of people.

That’s why logistics businesses that have leading-edge systems as a given are doing well in the current market. And those with the right technology – combined with passionate, informed and engaging people – creates an unbeatable business formula.

Perhaps understandably, those involved day to day in the logistics industry become fixated with the hardware of automation. Watch any logistics manager at an exhibition and their eyes almost hypnotically follow any moving engineering process. While new technology is key, those businesses that also invest in the ‘softer’ side of the equation – such as PR, marketing, training and negotiation – are the ones who will enjoy the long-term success and ‘customers for life.’

The next IMHX will take place from 13-16 September 2016 at the NEC, Birmingham.

Prova’s logistics industry team is staffed by a mix of former journalists and marketing types who understand what makes the media tick. We deal with editors every day and understand what really annoys them – and what really turns them on!

Getting your approach right with the media is crucial if you’re going to achieve powerful coverage in the right media – for free! Anyone can pay for an advertorial in a magazine that nobody reads, but it’s a real skill to secure free coverage based on its editorial content. Here are our top five tips for logistics businesses looking to harness the power of the media.

1. Know your target publication
One of journalists’ top pet hates are press releases that have been written with no one in particular in mind, in a style that doesn’t suit their title, containing news of little interest to their audience. So a press release about a firm opening new premises in Sheffield sent to the Manchester Evening News, will only annoy an editor. Think about who will actually be interested in the story and what titles they will read. Don’t write generic news releases and shower the media with flaky stories like confetti. It’s all about quality not quantity!

2. Make contact
All too often, businesses don’t spend the time to research the right contact at a specific magazine and end up sending news items to the wrong person. It’s important to develop a genuine relationship with the right journalists, who by and large appreciate proactive contact from businesses that can keep them updated on developments in the logistics industry. Invest in developing a robust list of media contacts and spend the time cultivating these contacts.

3. Stay away from self-promotion
One of the surest ways to get your story ‘spiked’ or binned by a journalist is to write about your business in a biased, overinflated way. Making unsubstantiated claims about your company or product will simply get your news filed under ‘spam’. And the trouble is, once you brand your business as a supplier of ‘non-news’ to an editor, you risk being blacklisted. It might be very tempting to write pages about your company’s fascinating new adoption of waste paper bins, but this is unlikely to be of interest to the readers of HSS, Logistics Manager or SHD. Keep it factual, keep it newsy. Ask yourself; does this pass the ‘so what’ test?

4. Please don’t call!
One of the top ‘pet hates’ of journalists, usually committed by PR agencies, is the dreaded follow-up call after a press release has been issued. This crime is usually committed by a junior member of the team, who’s given a list of editors to call and a copy of the press release that was written by someone else. Unless there’s an error in the story or something additional that an editor might need to know after the press release was issued, making a chasing up call will only irritate a writer.

5. Be accessible
Once a journalist is interested in following up a news story or feature, they are likely to have a clear deadline, which means they need to talk to you quickly. There are few more frustrating things for editors than receiving a press release with a contact number that does not work. Make sure you’re available if an editor does want to progress the story and be aware that they will need your support urgently. Not getting back to a journalist’s call is the best way of ensuring they won’t bother calling again!

To find out more about dealing with the media, why not give one of the Prova team a call on 01926 776 900 and ask for St. John, David or Faye. Alternatively, you can email us on stjohnw@provapr.co.uk or davidp@provapr.co.uk.

At the beginning of the year The Guardian reported that Morrisons had experienced the least successful festive period of any UK supermarket. The doom and gloom has continued into 2013 with the retailer announcing just last week that sales for the first quarter are down 1.8 per cent on last year. Will this be the final nail in the coffin for Morrisons stance against the wave of multi-channel retail offerings?

It is inevitable then that spring 2013 brings with it the news that Morrisons will finally be giving in and joining all other major retailers in offering a home delivery service.

The retailer has had to recognise that multi-channel retailing is only going to gain momentum. As Smartphones, tablets and other portable devices become more intuitive and advanced; consumers will have fewer reasons to spend their money in traditional bricks and mortar outlets. Why leave the comfort of your own home and traipse between different shops, when you can do it all in one place and have someone bring it to your door the same day if you like?

Giving Morrisons its due, the retailer has tried very hard to stand its ground, dressing its stores to look like market places of old, advertising that personal service that the consumer would expect from a smaller store, even investing in technology that continuously spritzes its fruit and veg with a cool mist to help keep it looking fresh and tempting. But even the support of Ant and Dec could not save the store from the inevitable, multi-channel retailing is the only sensible option in this day and age. Sure, some customers will always prefer the look and feel of a real shop and Morrisons will do well in attracting them with its traditional shopping feel and USP’s like Market Street, but there is a new generation of shoppers coming through and they just won’t share the same nostalgia. They will have grown up in an age when your phone/tablet gives you news updates; schedules your diary and even keeps you updated on what your friends are up to. Why would they expect shopping to be any different?

Morrisons has now signed a deal with Ocado to carry out its online operation and plans to launch a ‘multi-format, multi-channel’ offering by January 2014 are apparently progressing. It’s about time too Morrisons, there’s some catching up to do by the looks of it!

It is fair to say that most logistics companies know that they need a social media strategy, but there remains a lot of confusion around the process of actually building one and how to then make it work for you. If you have been thinking of taking the plunge, then here are Prova’s top five tips to help you make the most of social media.

1. Know your audience
The most important step towards building a successful online presence is to know who you are talking to and how they like to be spoken too. With social media, you are speaking directly to customers or suppliers, so be personable!

2. Be visual
Photos and videos tell stories about you in ways that text alone cannot and you don’t need a big production budget to get this right. Use your smartphone to take pictures and short videos of customers, staff and any other things that are going on at your business. Then upload them. A picture really is worth a thousand words – and a video is worth a thousand pictures!

3. Add value
What you write must provide something of value to readers. Educating a customer or potential customer about a product, service or a particular issue is necessary in order to fully engage with them. This means that everything must be written in a manner that is easy to read and always has the audience in mind.

4. Don’t sell
Using Facebook or Twitter, it is important that you speak ‘to’ the audience, not ‘at’ the audience, so there is a careful balance that needs to be struck. Your customers want information on something useful to them, not just sales patter. Social is the keyword here, so creating an ongoing, open and honest conversation about and around your brand, your products and services will be very beneficial to your business.

5. Develop clear guidelines
If you have a social media strategy, you also potentially have a 24/7 customer service channel, so you need to be clear about the message that is being sent to the audience. It’s a good idea to spell out not just what employees should refrain from talking about on social channels, but, more importantly, spell out how employees are encouraged to participate. If you get the connection with your customer’s right and are being proactive in connecting with them it will be beneficial in the long term.

If you require further information please contact St John White: stjohn@provapr.co.uk

Our inaugural lunchtime meeting covered topics such as driving UK’s engineering exports, the government’s industrial strategy, encouraging young people into manufacturing, the challenges facing Motorsport Valley and even the use of tyres designed to degrade in Formula One!

All in all, it was a great opportunity for the media to engage with two of UK motorsport industry’s leading opinion leaders, learn more about the challenges UK manufacturers are facing and explore the great future the sector has.

We’re planning to hold these Inside Track discussions on a regular basis – as an informal way for the media to keep in touch with this highly innovative and growing sector of UK manufacturing.

I finished my photography degree at the University of Portsmouth with an optimistic feeling that I would find the perfect job in press photography in order to use my new set of skills. However, seven months down the line, that sense of hope was fading away as I kept finding I needed more experience.

In stepped an intern role with Prova.

With not much knowledge about PR, I was slightly worried about understanding the jobs, but Sarah found a way of tailoring tasks to fit my interests and gaining new skills.

On the first day we all gathered for the Monday morning meeting and talked about colleague’s movements which sounded like I was about to witness a busy week for Prova. David and St John wanted my photo skills and help at separate events, one was at the Niche Vehicle Network conference at the National Motor Heritage centre in Gaydon and the second was at the IMHX Logistics Trade Show at NEC. Both were a fantastic insight into how Prova deliver outside of its office doors, attending to clients’ needs and making sure they every angle of the story is covered.

Back in the office, Prova kept me on my toes by lining up a series of jobs that needed attention such as filing, researching, calling, emailing and proof-reading. Through these tasks I learned vital skills in many areas that will be used again within an office environment. I really enjoyed spending time researching companies and understanding how they used social media and presented themselves on their websites. The information I gathered was then collated into a presentation for Prova’s clients. From my perspective, I made sure that every task I was given was done as efficiently and professionally as I could, and if I had any questions I never felt worried about asking as members of the team would provide assistance.

Any student or graduate who is thinking of doing work experience at a PR company, should send their CVs to Prova, as they will gain vital skills and learn about how a successful business works on a day to day basis.

A top tip while working at Prova – keep a diary and log all the tasks you do each day. You will also find you have an interest in the businesses you work for – even when you are driving on the motorway and you find yourself getting quite excited when you drive past a client’s lorry!

I have enjoyed every moment – thank-you for bringing back my confidence Prova!

Rain, wind and snow greeted the Prova team on our 2013 away day this ‘spring’. Bravely we’d headed to the Welsh mountains for some team bonding and some business-related discussions about everything that had happened in 2012 and what we could look forward to in 2013.

The first evening we arrived in the Brecon Beacons, having survived the treacherous conditions outside, a bit soggy around the edges but ready to enjoy a nice meal with each other. There’s nothing like some good food and a little wine to help you loosen up and really have a nice time. The Welsh certainly know how to cook their meat too!

We finished the evening with a round of ‘guess who’ which saw us all trying to sift through dodgy haircuts, even dodgier outfits and questionable poses to work out who was who in a series of old pictures of each other. Somewhat of an eye opener let me tell you! I don’t think I’ll ever look at Sarah or Gill in the same way again…

Friday started early with us congregating for our away day business meeting. It was fantastic to take some time out to discuss the previous year, celebrate what we’d done well and ponder over where we could improve. We talked about our clients a lot, thought about what they wanted and what we could do to make them even happier, make their jobs easier and improve our relationships further. Lots of interesting ideas were discussed; it’s amazing how a full Welsh breakfast can get the creative juices flowing!

Geared up and motivated from our morning brain bounce we set off into the Welsh valleys. Snow prevented us from climbing Pen-y-Fan, much to the disappointment of some (delight of others), so instead we headed out in search of Welsh waterfalls. We battled through wind and rain, all ‘suited and booted’ in our begged, borrowed and stolen walking kit. Along the way we talked, we fell and we admired the beautiful view. It was a challenge for all of us, some more than others, but as a team we got through it and after four hours we surfaced rosy cheeked, out of puff but victorious and promptly treated ourselves to a pint in the ‘friendly’ local as a reward.

We had a wonderful time away. We forged stronger relationships, saw some dodgy pictures, ate some delicious food, braved the elements and discussed our future as a team. Sometimes it’s good to just take some time out to recoup, refocus and ready yourself for the year ahead. We have lots of exciting things planned, watch this space…

Later this summer, Wanzl-owned trolley retrieval business, Trolleywise, will be launching an app which allows people to report abandoned trolleys in their local communities. Using photography and GPS, the Trolleywise team will collect all reported trolleys within 24 hours, donating to charity for every trolley collected with the aim of raising enough to plant 2,000 new trees in the UK within the first 12 months.

Working in partnership with the likes of Defra, Keep Britain Tidy, the Canal & River Trust and Trees for Cities, the Prova team is currently operating behind the scenes with media, local authorities, retailers and industry groups to finalise the working of the app and the supporting marketing materials. We’re looking forward to the upcoming launch and if you would like to know more or get involved, please contact Aimee Postle on 01926 776 900.

The CRR, of which DS Smith is a member, announced on 25th March that they have decided to “draw a line” under the matter, despite being disappointed with the outcome. It is understood that CRR members are wary of mounting further costly legal action after the judge had indicated that they did not have strong grounds for an appeal.

Prova assisted DS Smith throughout the review process with press statements and industry monitoring. Although DS Smith was naturally disappointed that the judge in this case didn’t support the view that the current interpretation will impact on the quality of recyclate, it continues to campaign for best practice in recycling. Indeed, the Waste Framework Directive 2015 is an opportunity for all to source segregate waste and DS Smith will continue to pursue best practice with its customers in order to get the most from their waste streams.