Future of the Office Contributor: “The Office Will Always Be Best Place to Work”: EKM Boss
UNITED KINGDOM / AGILITYPR.NEWS / April 30, 2020 / EKM founder and CEO Antony Chesworth has declared the office will always be the best place for work – as long as it’s the right kind of office.
In 2017 EKM launched a self-financed £3.5 million 23,500 sq ft office to provide capacity for over 250 employees based on anticipated growth.
The offices, which took four years to design, plan and build, include a giant three-storey slide, which runs from the top floor to the dining area, a meeting room inside an original Airstream caravan, state-of-the-art office technology, an expansive kitchen, relaxation area and gym.
Established in 2002, EKM was the first cloud-based ecommerce platform in the UK. Today it employs over 80 at a single site in Preston and is still the UK’s biggest subscription-based ecommerce platform provider, having helped set-up over 70,000 online shops worldwide, with customers generating over half a billion pounds in sales per year.
Founder and CEO Antony Chesworth said: “While, in the light of Covid-19, we have moved with the rest of the world and moved our entire operation to home working, with almost zero impact on customers, we certainly don’t see homeworking as a long-term solution.
“There is a great deal of talk online about whether working from home will become the new normal. People are basing their thinking on the fact that many knowledge-based industries have managed to make the move so seamlessly. This is true in our case as well.
“But what people forget is that the reason the transition has been so seamless for many is because of the personal connectivity, camaraderie, joined-up thinking and can-do attitude that had already been built up by these teams prior to Covid-19 hitting: At the office.
“At EKM, our mantra is ‘Do Something you Love’. That ethos runs through everything we do from helping our customers build businesses of their dreams to ensuring our employees are also living their best life too.
“When we built our offices, the central idea was to create a place not just as good as home, but in-fact preferable to home. If you create a place people literally want to come into everyday, you’re halfway there already to getting the best productivity out of your team.
“But having gathered your team into a single workspace every day, the hands-on team management, motivation and support you can provide within that shared environment cannot possibly be replicated in a home-working model.
“So, as we see it, the office is far, far, far from dead. Admittedly, it has to be the right kind of office. But if you get it right, no way of work is more productive than a well-appointed, well-run office.”
About Us
EKM
EKM believes that everyone should spend life doing something they love. And so since 2002 they have helped more than 70,000 people to create their own successful online shop.
EKM was the first cloud-based eCommerce platform in the UK. Today, it is still the biggest in the UK, and EKM shops generate over half a billion pounds in sales every year.
With over 80 employees at a single site in Preston, EKM currently has a roughly equal share of the UK market to global leader Shopify.
EKM understands starting a new online business can be difficult so each shop is assigned a dedicated, UK-based, account manager available via telephone 7 days a week during regular UK office hours, to help you get your online shop set up.
Each website plan has a fixed cost and is designed to scale as your business grows. Unlike many platforms, EKM doesn’t take any transaction fees or cut of online sales.
EKM’s unique Evolution Mode, available in all plans, ensures customers’ websites never go out of date. Website changes are suggested and implemented by members of the EKM team.
Evolution Experts regularly check customers’ websites and offer advice, make design tweaks and fix any mistakes, without customers lifting a finger, so each shop will always be in optimum selling condition.
For further information, go to www.ekm.com.
Antony Chesworth
EKM CEO and founder, 38-year-old (2018), Burnley-born entrepreneur Antony Chesworth, set up his first business off credit cards after banks told him his business model would not work.
He now flies himself to business meetings all over the world in his own plane – which he says saves him time and gives him a chance to switch off from work.
He is a prolific vlogger, often on the themes of entrepreneurship and his belief that anyone can do it.
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