Connect with us

Business & Technology

Apex wins Marketing Team of the Year at Network Group

Published

on



JOSEPH GABRIEL LAGONSIN

News Editor

Apex Computing has won the Marketing Team of the Year award at the Network Group 2026 Gala and was also shortlisted in two other categories.

The Manchester-based IT services provider was recognised at an event celebrating managed service providers, IT resellers and retailers across the Network Group community.

The award followed a shift to a fully in-house marketing model in 2025. Apex said the team developed its own strategy and expanded its work across events, webinars, video, social media and lead generation.

It was also shortlisted for MSP of the Year in the over £2.5 million turnover category and for Technical Team of the Year, giving the business recognition across three areas of its operation.

In-house shift

The marketing award follows Apex’s decision to bring all marketing activity in-house. The move gave the company more direct control over brand messaging and customer engagement, it said.

The team also introduced marketing automation tools and placed greater emphasis on performance data in campaign planning. Internal engagement was another focus, with marketing staff working across departments to align campaigns with company culture.

Chris Gorman, chief executive officer of Apex, highlighted that wider support: “We are absolutely delighted to have received the Network Group 2026 Gala Marketing Team award. It feels like a just acknowledgment of all the incredible work carried out by the team this last year, as it has transitioned into the complete in-house management of all marketing efforts.

“I’m so proud of the way that the team, led by our amazing Marketing Manager, Rachael, has embraced its new responsibilities – and how well the rest of the Apex team have supported them. Marketing is often dismissed as of lesser value than many other business priorities. But the results driven by the Apex team this year show just how wrong that dismissal can be.”

Wider role

Daniel Shone, founder and managing director of Apex, said the team’s work had gone beyond campaign delivery.

“Rachael and the team have worked tirelessly this year, not only developing and executing campaigns but also sharing valuable insights that the whole Apex family have been able to learn from. Their work has helped strengthen our connection with customers and improve how we communicate our expertise.

“Over the last year, our focus has been on helping businesses across Greater Manchester and the wider North West better understand their IT, cyber security and digital transformation challenges, and feel more confident about the decisions they need to make. The marketing team has played a pivotal role in that effort.”

Apex provides IT business solutions in Manchester and serves organisations across Greater Manchester and the wider North West. Recognition in the marketing, managed services and technical categories suggests judges viewed the business as a strong performer across both customer-facing and operational functions.

For Apex, the result marks a notable point in a period of internal change as it seeks to sharpen how it presents its services and engages with clients in a competitive regional IT market. The additional shortlistings also suggest its progress has extended beyond marketing into wider operations.



Source link

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Business & Technology

Oxfordshire high street independent store up for £575k sale

Published

on


The Flooring Centre in Witney High Street has been listed for £575,000 with the tenancy included as part of the agreement.

The listing from estate agents Chancellors stated: “An exciting opportunity to purchase this prime location shop, sold with tenants in central Witney, complete with parking, office space and kitchen area.”

READ MORE: Campaigners and leaders call for Thames Water reckoning amid sewage spills

The lease for The Flooring Centre in Witney is included in the sale (Image: Chancellors)

The ‘premium carpet showroom’ offers a range of supplies and is a member of the Associated Carpet Group, a national buying association that works with independent retailers.

The business has a 4.8 star rating based on 24 Google Reviews from customers and describes itself as a ‘family business’ online.

It first filed on Companies House as a business in 2007 and in its latest accounts for 2024 reported an average of six employees across the year.





Source link

Continue Reading

Business & Technology

Tesco store in Oxford told hygiene improvement is necessary

Published

on



The Tesco superstore in the Oxford Retail Park in Ambassador Avenue in Cowley was visited by Oxford City Council’s Environmental Health Team in February.

Inspectors stated that ‘improvement (was) necessary’ in the food hygiene rating of the stores.

This specifically focused on the cleanliness and condition of facilities and building.

This concerns having appropriate layout, ventilation, hand washing facilities and pest control to enable food hygiene.

READ MORE: Oxford professor backs decision to fly Brits home from virus-hit cruise

Meanwhile, the hygienic handling of food including preparation, cooking, re-heating, cooling and storage was only rated ‘generally satisfactory’.

Although, the management of food safety for the store was rated as ‘good’.

A Tesco megastore in East London was given a zero-star food hygiene rating three years ago after a customer reported seeing a rat on the premises.

The branch was ‘not found in clean condition and good repair’ and was found to have mouse activity, including droppings, in a warehouse.

A Tesco Spokesperson said: “We set ourselves the highest store standards and take hygiene extremely seriously,  with comprehensive cleaning and food safety processes in place across all of our stores.

“The majority of our stores have a hygiene rating of 5, the highest rating, and we have taken immediate action to address the recommendations made during the store inspection.”





Source link

Continue Reading

Business & Technology

Shufti wins iBeta Level 3 for face liveness on mobiles

Published

on



SOFIAH NICHOLE SALIVIO

News Editor

Shufti has achieved iBeta Level 3 conformance for passive face liveness detection on iOS and Android, becoming the first European group to reach that level on both mobile platforms with a single-selfie approach.

The London-based identity verification provider was assessed by iBeta Quality Assurance under the ISO/IEC 30107-3 Presentation Attack Detection standard. Testing of its Android SDK v1.9.8 and iOS SDK v1.3.42 found a 0% Attack Presentation Classification Error Rate and a 0% Bona Fide Presentation Classification Error Rate across all tested scenarios.

The result puts Shufti in a competitive part of the biometric security market, where vendors are under pressure to show that facial verification systems can reject spoofing attempts without adding friction for users. Banks, fintech groups, payment firms and public sector services increasingly rely on such checks during digital onboarding and authentication.

Test results

According to Shufti, iBeta used a Google Pixel 4 running Android 12 and an iPhone 12 Pro running iOS 16.6.1, with both devices connected to the same cloud backend. The backend was checksum-verified before and after the assessment to confirm that no changes were made during testing.

Under the Level 3 protocol, one bona fide presentation was alternated with three artefact presentations using silicone, urethane and resin masks until 150 attacks and 50 genuine presentations per species had been completed on each device. In total, the evaluation included 900 presentation attacks and 100 bona fide presentations. The final report recorded no successful spoofing attempts and no false rejections of genuine users, the company said.

Shufti also said it was the only vendor with iBeta Level 3 certification to test on both older and newer iOS and Android device versions, while other vendors had limited testing to newer hardware. That distinction matters because identity checks in commercial use often take place on mainstream consumer handsets rather than the latest flagship models.

Shufti’s liveness system uses a passive, single-selfie method rather than asking users to blink, smile or turn their head. The software is designed to distinguish a real person from attempted impersonation using printed images, replayed video or 3D masks.

Step-by-step progress

Over the past three years, Shufti said it has progressed through iBeta’s presentation attack detection tiers. It first achieved Level 1 conformance against 2D attacks such as printed photographs and replayed images, then moved to Level 2 with broader testing against more advanced 3D mask attacks, before reaching Level 3 across both iOS and Android.

That progression reflects how suppliers in the sector are expected to show repeatable improvements as attack methods evolve. Independent testing has become an important benchmark for clients in regulated industries that need to compare biometric systems against a common standard.

Shufti says it operates in more than 240 countries and supports more than 10,000 document types in over 150 languages. Its wider product line includes face verification, document checks, know-your-customer and anti-money laundering screening, electronic identity verification, video KYC and address verification.

The business is headquartered in London and has offices in the UAE, Singapore, Hong Kong, Cyprus, the United States and the United Kingdom. Its customer base spans sectors where identity checks are closely tied to fraud control, regulatory compliance and customer conversion.

Commenting on the result, Shufti highlighted the use of commonly available handsets during the evaluation.

“We are the first European company to independently achieve iBeta Level 3 conformance on both iOS and Android, with zero errors and no extra steps for the user,” said Shahid Hanif, CEO of Shufti. “What matters beyond the headline is what these results say about how we build. We achieved this on mainstream consumer phones, the same devices people actually use to sign up, not custom hardware engineered for the test. That is the point. And reaching this level so quickly, without bespoke tuning, reflects the quality of our underlying platform.”



Source link

Continue Reading

Trending