Orchard Media and Events

Origins

When Orchard was born from a merger in 2010, the motivation was to accelerate growth in an ‘organic plus’ model. Two businesses, even with similar values, take time to gel but thankfully, the synergies were strong and the firm experienced the benefits of being able to offer a fuller service offering from an early stage. In 2010 and the early years, there was still a challenging trading environment as the economy recovered from the 2008 recession, but with hard work and loyal clients (many of whom are still with the firm), it has managed to grow sustainably.

Success Factor

Recent growth has been down to several connected factors including the firm’s relocation to new owned HQ on Trade Street, which has acted as a catalyst for change and growth; investment in people providing more expertise, more specialisms, more value; refining and defining values, along with service offering; and significant client wins attracted by credentials and reputation for excellent service delivery

The Future

Orchard has ambitious plans to grow the agency side of the business through more ‘organic plus’ activities’, with scope for further restructure as it grows, and take on more specialist roles. There is huge scope for the firm to venture into new territories both geographically and in solution-led rather than service-led offerings. It is also looking at several new spin-out opportunities where the agency has acted as a business incubator for a start-up, as achieved with Rescape Innovation.