Manchester Digital's Member Conference 25 was based around the theme 'Built to Last', celebrating the organisations thriving through collaboration, experimentation, resilience and growth.
In this post we share insights from our members on how their businesses have adapted, innovated, or collaborated to achieve sustainable success.
Member Conference 25 was delivered in partnership with The PMC, Traversally and Bruntwood SciTech.
The PMC
Carl Phillips, Managing Director
At The PMC, being ‘Built to Last’ is about strong fundamentals. What works for us is a strict focus on cash flow and finances. It sounds basic, but having the resources to weather the storm and keep paying our fantastic team is the only definition of survival that matters.
Of course, that revenue comes from our awesome clients. To keep our recurring costs covered, we focus on deep partnerships that bring real-world results and value. It is not enough to deliver a service; we have to actively drive our clients' growth, aligning our success with theirs. Put simply: if they don't win, we don't expect to get paid.
That solid financial base allows us to run a highly dynamic workforce. We use a model of a core ‘T-shaped’ team—people with deep specialist skills who also understand how the whole company works. This design lets us pivot quickly. Ultimately, resilience for us is simple: keep the bank balance healthy, keep the clients growing, and keep the team flexible.
Find out more about The PMC here.
Pulsant
Steve Fearon, Chief Commercial Officer
Another week, another cloud outage, and another reminder of the risks businesses face if they rely heavily on centralised cloud infrastructure.
Recent, high profile failures have been a wake-up call for contingency planning – and the need to shift from reactive response to strategically planned recovery.
Latest Pulsant research suggests many businesses are moving away from dependence on a single public cloud provider, with 87% planning to repatriate some or all of their workloads over the next two years.
This change isn’t driven by resilience alone. Cost savings, better performance, lower latency and greater control are all contributing factors.
True resilience requires workloads to span colocation, private infrastructure, and public cloud. Colocation sites provide critical support if primary facilities fail, offering regional diversity, robust physical security, and the connectivity needed to bridge private systems with cloud platforms.
Recent outages have reignited the debate on data sovereignty and the importance of securing the right balance for global reach and local control.
For organisations operating in multiple jurisdictions, it’s hard to know where their data is at any moment, and to be compliant with the laws of each country.
Clear, workable definitions of sovereignty and residency are vital.
Business imperatives for 2026 must be to build recovery into digital architecture, embrace multi-platform strategies, and advocate for a cloud ecosystem that’s competitive, flexible, and future-ready.
With our Trafford Park data centre among our 14 interconnected sites across the UK, and offering direct access to LINX Manchester, we’re uniquely placed to help.
Find out more about Pulsant here.
Buymedia
Fergal O’Connor, CEO and Founder
The advertising industry has long favoured the biggest players. Since 2015, our mission has been to make advertising more accessible, sustainable, and socially responsible through three core principles:
- Innovation through AI
- Resilience through collaboration
- Progress through impact and purpose.
We're proud to be recognised as one of the leading tech companies in Ireland, and EMEA, boasting 2,208% revenue growth. Our cloud-based platform, powered by 100% renewable energy has helped clients achieve an average 27% increase in ROI, with one SME generating €128 million in new business.
This success is down to the hard work, innovation and expertise of our team, building long lasting relationships with clients, collaborating with a range of partnerships, exploring new markets and opportunities, as well as a long lasting commitment to purpose driven benefits for all parties involved.
Innovation That Opens Doors
When SMEs have access to the support of AI-powered predictive analytics, audience insights, and optimisation tools, once exclusive to large enterprises with multi-million-pound marketing budgets, they can compete on a level playing field.
Resilience Through Partnerships
Our recent UK launch, supported by Enterprise Ireland and MIDAS, marks a significant milestone. Speaking about our Manchester expansion, Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, said: "Buymedia is already a standout success in Ireland's tech sector, and we're proud they've chosen Manchester as their UK launchpad. It's important that businesses across the UK embrace innovative platforms like Buymedia to help them grow and scale nationally and internationally."
Our client portfolio spans sectors including FMCG, hospitality, retail, telecoms, healthcare, education, and non-profits featuring long standing relationships with brands such as E45, Bio Oil, eir, JYSK, and Bluebird Care.
Partnerships with trade bodies like Manchester Digital, Enterprise Ireland UK, MIDAS, Greater Manchester Chamber, Digital Irish, and Prolific North provide us with vital support that strengthen our growth trajectory.
Purpose That Creates Ripple Effects
Since 2021, our "Advertise for Good" initiative has contributed €96,000 to charities including UNICEF and LauraLynn, proving profitability and purpose are mutually reinforcing.
We've proven that profitability and purpose aren't mutually exclusive; they're mutually reinforcing.
Profit with purpose isn't an ambition, it's the blueprint. It's how we're truly “Built to Last”.
Find out more about Buymedia here.
Zoho
Chinia Waterman, Marketing Specialist
At Zoho, “Built to Last” is more than a theme - it’s a guiding principle that shapes how we grow, innovate, and operate as an organisation.
As a privately held, product-led company, we prioritise long-term thinking over short-term gains. This approach gives us the freedom to experiment, adapt, and evolve at a pace that feels sustainable rather than reactive. Over the past year, this mindset has helped us strengthen our product ecosystem, refine our operations, and lay foundations that support resilience across every team.
One of the key drivers of our sustainability is our commitment to steady, deliberate innovation. Whether exploring the opportunities of AI, enhancing our platform, or improving internal processes, we focus on building solutions that will stand the test of time - scalable, secure, and adaptable.
We’ve also continued to invest in our people and culture. Encouraging autonomy, curiosity, and experimentation helps teams uncover new ideas and ways of working. This has played a huge role in helping us stay resilient during periods of rapid technological change.
What’s working for us is simple: stay true to our values, think long term, and continue building with purpose. That’s how we ensure Zoho remains an organisation built to last - today and in the future.
Find out more about Zoho here.
Leighton
Lee Gilmore, AWS Practice Lead
This year at Leighton we launched our new AWS Practice, created to help organisations achieve sustainable digital transformation through strategic, future-proof cloud solutions. Led by AWS Hero and Principal Solutions Architect, Lee Gilmore, the practice brings together specialist technical experts to give customers access to high-calibre teams that can deliver complex projects end-to-end covering everything from business analysis, engineering and architecture to DevOps, QA and security.
The practice recently worked with a well-known loyalty retailer, to deliver a multi-brand e-commerce platform in just 14 weeks. The solution combined a headless storefront fully compatible with their preferred third-party provider, a bespoke order management system, and robust, brand-agnostic middleware designed to scale as new brands join the retail platform.
By collaborating closely across disciplines, our team created a secure, cost-efficient and highly scalable solution that gives the retailer full control over design and content, ensures consistent customer experiences and supports seamless transactions and exchange of loyalty points as well as fulfilment across multiple logistics partners.
This project is an example of how the launch of our AWS Practice can help organisations accelerate delivery, reduce risk, and build platforms that last. With deep expertise and a commitment to quality, we enable customers to meet their strategic goals without compromising on performance, security or scalability.
For more information about the AWS Practice at Leighton, please get in touch.
Find out more about Leighton here.
Datum
Matt Edgley, Chief Operating Officer
In the world of data centres, ‘built to last’ is a principle that extends far beyond physical durability. It represents a deep commitment to sustainability, efficiency and futureproofing for our infrastructure and our clients' operations.
Our recently launched MCR2 facility in Manchester and the recently begun construction at our London-edge campus are prime examples. By building data centres in two of the UK’s leading tech hubs, we are placing our cutting-edge infrastructure exactly where demand is highest.
Our data centres are engineered for longevity, facilitating long-term client scalability while embodying sustainable design and operational principles. MCR2, for example, was built on a brownfield site to support local regeneration. An embodied carbon assessment was conducted to minimise our environmental footprint and PV panels were integrated as part of our 100% renewable energy mix that powers our operations responsibly. Highly efficient cooling systems maximise our environmental efficiency, and heat reuse capabilities to facilitate a district heat network for a planned local housing development were integral to our design.
Data centres exist to solve critical challenges, but not at any cost. We believe everything we construct must be built to last - sympathetic to the local community and engineered for minimal environmental impact.
Find out more about Datum here.
MIDAS
Joseph Beaden, Head of Inward Investment
Do you ever feel like Manchester is often remembered just for the first stored program computer and Alan Turing?
Our history is incredible, but Manchester today is so much more.
This city has always moved with the times – and often shaped them. We’ve shown resilience through challenges, and innovation is at the heart of everything we do.
We’re proud to have the UK’s fastest-growing economy, a thriving tech sector, and a reputation as one of the most liveable cities. But behind the headlines are the people – the innovators and collaborators – who make the real difference.
At MIDAS, Greater Manchester’s inward investment and economic development agency, we attract foreign direct investment into priority growth sectors like digital and technology. We’ve built strong links with global markets – the U.S., India, Japan and the EU – creating jobs and driving economic growth.
We also recognise the challenges: funding pressures, skills shortages and productivity gaps. That’s why we’re working with partners to help companies scale faster, hire better and innovate more widely.
Some of Manchester’s greatest success stories come from Manchester Digital members.
Share yours – and next time someone talks about our history, let’s make sure they hear about the people shaping the present and invite them to join us in shaping the future.
Find out more about MIDAS here.
