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KTP reaps dividends for the UK’s fastest growing pre-employment screening company

Friday 26 February 2010

Powerchex

City based pre-employment screening company, Powerchex, recently secured a major new contract for its services which has helped double the company’s turnover on the back of an innovative Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) project that the company is undertaking in partnership with UEL’s Computing Information Technology & Engineering (CITE) School.

The KTP project which will deliver a customised, secure and automated IT infrastructure for Powerchex, is designed to help the company streamline is operations and improve its productivity. The project which is being delivered by PhD student Miao Kang and overseen by CITE's Haris Mouratidis, one of the UK's foremost secure software systems development specialists, will help to reduce Powerchex’s operational costs by enlarging the number of screening applications the company can currently handle and by providing an all important secure electronic infrastructure to enable them to improve the efficiency of their procedures and electronic communication with their clients. The system also will provide additional services and functionality for existing and new clients (e.g. electronic submission of applications for checking) as well as a secure infrastructure to support management information analysis e.g. profit analysis reports to indicate profitability.

Managing Director, Alexandra Kelly who has a long standing collaboration with Knowledge Dock, UEL’s enterprise development service, undertook the KTP project to help the company continue its exponential growth and to attract new large corporate customers to her company.

"I never imagined that the KTP project, which is still work in progress, would deliver such an immediate return on our investment. Undertaking the project was a strategic manoeuvre to help the company continue its impressive growth and more importantly to help the company deliver an outstanding level of customer service to our clients and to maintain our competitive edge", said Alexandra.

Alexandra who started working with Knowledge Dock from her days as a one-man band until the present day, is keen to highlight the support she has received from UEL over the years which have helped to propel her business forward.

"From the supervised student placement projects that I engage in annually to help raise the company’s profile, through to the different funded projects that have helped connect me to the academic expertise within UEL, the support I have received over the years from UEL has been vital for Powerchex’s development", said Alexandra.

In fact, the latest addition to Powerchex’s client list came when the client saw an article that was written by a previous placement student. Intrigued by the article, the client visited Powerchex’s website and was suitably impressed with the company’s service offer and after a series of meetings contracts were exchanged.

Rob Moss, Director of Knowledge Dock, said: "Powerchex is a shinning example of how an innovative idea is transforming an entire industry. Knowledge Dock started working with Powerchex five years ago when the company was just starting out. Over the years we have worked closely together on a number of projects which have helped the company’s development. Alexandra has always made a point of working with UEL as she knows there is a broad range of expertise she can access, and more often that not, we can help her company access funding to help reduce the financial outlay needed to engage with our experts".

For further information about Powerchex, please visit www.powerchex.co.uk

Notes to Editors

The University of East London (UEL) is a global learning community with over 28,000 students from over 120 countries world-wide. Our vision is to achieve recognition, both nationally and internationally, as a successful and inclusive regional university proud of its diversity, committed to new modes of learning which focus on students and enhance their employability, and renowned for our contribution to social, cultural and economic development, especially through our research and scholarship. We have a strong track-record in widening participation and working with industry.

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