Back in July, the East Midlands Development Agency (EMDA) put out for tender the redevelopment of the England's East Midlands website (www.englandseastmidlands.com) to reinvigorate the site and make it more appealing and relevant to international businesses looking to relocate to our region.

EMDA used the ‘supply2gov.uk' tender website, a national contract opportunity portal provided by Business Link, to ask for expressions of interest. Of the 80 expressions of interest, and subject to two tender stages, Absolute was short listed to present our proposal along with five other agencies.

Our understanding of the nature of foreign direct investments and its impact on the region meant that we were well equipped to manage such a project. Having worked with EMDA on many regional projects in past years, we were delighted to get the call that we had won the contract. We are proud to be part of something that will help support businesses throughout the region and we're looking forward to applying our integrated creative web design and technical development skills to this prestigious new website.

Specialists in office interior design, shelving, racking and partitioning, Butler & Willow approached us to create a web design that more accurately matched their professional and design-focused approach. The company, who are based in Long Eaton, Nottingham and have been clients of Absolute's for ten years, wanted a website that not only looked great, but also allowed them to update and maintain key areas of the site, such as case studies, latest news and information on the services they offer. The new site, which went live this week, was 50% funded by grant assistance specifically provided for manufacturing businesses. Powered by our 'Absolute' content management system (CMS), the site features a bold, dynamic web design, supported by strong case study photography and has been positively received by the client.

Delegates representing a diverse range of businesses and organisations joined us for our latest seminars, held over the last two weeks here at Absolute. Our digital services manager, James Bird, led the seminars which were well received by those who attended and hopefully gave delegates a better understanding of how a content management system (CMS) works, the benefits it provides and how, when combined with search engine optimisation (SEO), it can represent an excellent investment for companies of all sizes. We're planning more seminars before the end of the year on a range of topics, including branding and sales techniques and strategy. Get in touch if you'd like us to keep you posted.