Created to recognise top talent in the online gambling industry, awards are given in 20 categories, ranging from “Tech Idol of the Year” to “Fraud and Risk Idol of the Year”, among others. BLM’s “Employer of the Year” is one of these awards, being distributed for the third time since its launch in 2017, during the second edition of the iGaming Idol Awards.

Companies will be judged based on a “rigorous independent scientific study” created and curated by Business Leaders Malta. BLM says the study focuses on gauging employee satisfaction and engagement, which are benchmarked “across various domains”. The winner is selected based on the findings of the study.

“It brings me great satisfaction to see all of these companies invest in initiatives which, more than anything, benefit the wellbeing of their people,” said Morgan Parnis, CEO of Business Leaders Malta. “As always, we are thrilled to be a part of this hugely successful and innovative event. It is truly an honour and pleasure to have been entrusted by iGaming Idol to deliver the ‘Employer of the Year’ award for the third consecutive time since its inception, and to be working with such an amazing and professional team,” Mr Parnis added.

“We are excited to work with BLM for the third consecutive year on the ‘Employer of the Year’ award of iGaming Idol,” said Pierre Lindh, Managing Director of Ambassadör Events Ltd that organises the iGaming Idol. “For such a prestigious award, it was important for us to create a process of high integrity to live up to the prestigiousness of the award. BLM turned out to be the perfect partner to execute this process with us, creating a fair employee survey which not only highlights which company has the happiest employees, but also brings value to the participating companies by offering important data on the wellbeing of each company’s employees,” Mr Lindh added.

The post BLM to award best employer at iGaming Idol show first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

Best-selling author and successful entrepreneur, Mr Ankersen has been the Chairman of FC Midtjylland — his childhood football club in Denmark — and director of the English club Brentford FC. His entrepreneur career allowed him to incorporate two fundamental life elements: work and passion.

Yet, how do business and football come together? “I believe that both worlds can learn a lot from each other. Running two football clubs today I take a lot of inspiration from best practices in the business life, especially in the way I think about business models and KPI [key performance indicator] systems,” Mr Ankersen says.

“At the same time, I believe business can learn a lot from sports, especially in terms of how athletes have to innovate to stay ahead of the game.”

Rasmus Ankersen, Brentford FC Co-Director of Football

Working with two clubs in two different countries, Mr Ankersen has to deal with cultural differences, especially in a sport such as a football, where connections between people are significant. Different countries have different approaches to playing sports, which is very visible when we see the national teams competing against each other during international events.

“I think there are some great cultural differences which you need to take into account when leading people. In the United Kingdom, there is a lot more respect for hierarchy than in Denmark for example,” the professional says. “But overall, I would say that the mechanics of running a football club are not too different. It is pretty much the same strategic challenges that both clubs face,” he says as he recounts his own experiences.

Tech bets its boots

Mr Ankersen appears to be highly enthusiastic about the possibility to improve the gameplay of football through technology.

In recent years, football has changed. What used to be more about passion, nowadays is often accompanied by figures and more and more by statistics. It is fundamental, therefore, to analyse a football club in different ways, and not just to talk about the ability of the players and the managers. Through the use of analyses, one can give a more objective idea of what the game is and how we should deal with it in this modern era.

“Football is a very emotional industry, and unfortunately, too many important decisions are still based on emotions rather than rational thinking. Analytics is a way of trying to take the emotions out of a decision, and if used correctly, I think it can make a huge difference to the quality of the decisions you make in a football club,” Mr Ankersen says.

His innovative vision of football is rooted in the inclusion of big data and is heartfelt across all his operations. He says big data analysis helps him to cut through all the evocative narratives created by media and fans. Since everyone has an opinion about how players play and how coaches manage — or should do so —, Mr Ankersen clarifies that analytics and hard facts can provide a much more objective answer, hence improving the decision making.

Celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, Business Leaders Malta is organising the Breakthrough – From Good to Great conference by Business Leaders Malta on 14 June at Teatru Manoel, Valletta. If you want to hear what Mr Ankersen has to share, come and see him in action at the event.

Business Leaders Malta started life as an alliance between three diverse companies in 2009 — Mdina International, Jugs Malta and Konnekt, fusing capabilities, experience, professionalism and creativity to pursue their original goal of creating a forum where thought leaders and professionals could come together to share knowledge and ideas.

The post Tech kicks off in football for better scoring first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

Mr Doherty started selling jams around his neighbourhood when he was only 14 years old, after falling in love with the process of jam making when cooking together with his grandmother. Selling his product was a demonstration of how much he always wanted to start his own business and become a businessman in the future.

“Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to start my own business. I was always interested in the idea of creating a product and making a career out of doing something I loved,”

MR DOHERTY SAYS.

After many years of effort, his dream became a reality. Newspaper articles and TV interviews followed suit as next milestones, confirming the success of his work. “I took advantage of media coverage by embarking on a ‘rock and roll’ tour of all the Waitrose supermarkets; handing out samples and telling people all about my gran’ and our 100% fruit jam recipe,” says Mr Doherty about how he was trying to boost the sales of his products already available in Waitrose.

His debut before a bigger audience happened when Waitrose decided to hold a “meet the buyer day”. Mr Doherty believed it was the perfect chance for him to introduce his SuperJam to the big market. “I convinced my dad to drive me there. My dad waited in the car outside, I borrowed his suit and got ten minutes to ‘pitch’ my idea to the senior jam buyer of Waitrose,” Mr Doherty recounts his story.

“He said it was a great idea and explained what I would need to do if I was serious about supplying their stores — I would need to set up production in a factory, offer him a good price and get labels designed that would catch people’s attention. It was at this point that I became sure that running my own jam business would become my career,” he adds.

Open-mindedness fuels foreign expansion

The ability to always stay open-minded allowed Mr Doherty to expand his project and his ideas abroad. As a matter of fact, South Korea has become the largest market for SuperJam. “We supply thousands of stores there and have also launched snacks, peanut butter and honey,” Mr Doherty says, adding that currently, his products are available in five countries.

Moreover, one of the most interesting projects launched by Mr Doherty is the “SuperJam Tea Parties” series, which also represents a fundamental pride for the company and its founder. This activity is based on the organisation of hundreds of parties over the world. The main target is the elderly. As Mr Doherty says he always remembers when his grandmother used to take him to tea parties and this project represents a kind of tribute to his grandmother; the main inspiration for his product.

In addition, the longing for business brought him to open his business interest to startups. As the cofounder of Beer52, indeed, he supported the development and the growth of new beer types, different to the usual ones and more interesting, causing the capture and the attention of more and more markets. “Beer52 has been at the forefront of this in the United Kingdom and we have now become the largest craft beer club anywhere in the world, with more than 60,000 monthly subscribers,” adds Mr Doherty.

Celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, Business Leaders Malta is organising the Breakthrough – From Good to Great conference by Business Leaders Malta on 14 June at Teatru Manoel, Valletta. If you want to hear what Mr Doherty has to share, come and see him in action at the event.

Business Leaders Malta started life as an alliance between three diverse companies in 2009 — Mdina International, Jugs Malta and Konnekt, fusing capabilities, experience, professionalism and creativity to pursue their original goal of creating a forum where thought leaders and professionals could come together to share knowledge and ideas.

The post SuperJam producer kickstarts business at age 14 first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

BLM says Esprimi is committed to always “adding more and more innovative partners to the Esprimi Community rewards list”. Under the recently announced collaboration, members of the Esprimi Community can now redeem their community points for cash through Revolut.

“To set this in motion, community members who do not yet have a Revolut card can sign up for one for free, this way all Esprimi Community members can enjoy claiming cash rewards. Members who already own a Revolut account can go ahead and start making use of this new feature as from next week,” the blog entry says.

The Esprimi Panel describes itself as a “vibrant community of opinionated people ready to share their views on issues, trends, brands, products and services.” BLM believes that people on this online panel make up a sample which is representative of the general population in Malta.

The post BLM’s Esprimi adds Revolut to partners in Malta first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.