Founded by Barney Smith, Perform Green works in four areas: smart society, digital transformation, change management, and learning and organisational development. Perform Green became a company member of Sheffield Digital in December 2017.
Built on strong values and with a mantra of ‘change for the better’, Perform Green recently became a Certified B Corporation® and Living Wage Employer. We sent a few questions to Lara Moloney, the company’s Head of Business Development and Client Partnerships, to find out more about who they are and what they do.
What does Perform Green do?
Perform Green are a strategy and change consultancy. We drive innovation, productivity and a sustainable, collaborative future through digitally inspired change.
We work under a banner of what we call Smart Society, which harnesses the power of digital technology to deliver positive benefits to individuals, communities, organisations and cities, whilst keeping the people of a place at the heart of what we do.
We support local authorities, build partnerships and work with world-class organisations around the digital sector to deliver world-leading projects which help cities run better, organisations and local economies perform better, and improve quality of life for people and communities.
Why is Perform Green interested in Sheffield?
Perform Green’s CEO Toby Rhodes, along with several of our team are based in Sheffield, so we have a natural affinity and long-standing relationship with the city, and want our work to contribute in a location that is home to many of us.
Furthermore, the growth and development of Sheffield through the commitment and dedication of those at a local level hits home with Perform Green’s company values.
What is Perform Green’s interest/involvement in the digital sector?
Our job is to help our clients tackle challenges and work out how to solve them. In the current economic climate and ever-increasing pace of innovation, virtually all change has a digital or data component, or is driven by the introduction of new digital technologies.
We believe that digital opportunities present a real chance for long-lasting change in how cities and organisations are managed and deliver services. The pace of change is so rapid now, and the demands of people, especially in city environments, from transport to energy supply, public safety or community engagement are growing at an exponential rate.
We use our team’s knowledge and experience of tackling complex problems (and simple ones!) to help local government and organisations make sense of how to solve these problems. We then identify whether digital solutions can streamline processes and create efficient opportunities for change.
What do you mean by ‘digitally inspired change’?
Understanding data and digital is not enough to guarantee success. For change to be embraced, deliver benefits and lead to a better world, we need to consider governance, economic and commercial models, stakeholder engagement, organisational development and change management.
‘Digitally inspired change’ is the bringing together of digital expertise with our broader organisational and commercial change thinking to make sure that we are using the most relevant digital solutions to meet our customers’ needs. Executed in a way to deliver genuine change for the better.
This could be integrating GPS tracking for people with dementia and living independently to ensure their safety and improve how they connect to loved ones. Or it could be something as simple as being able to turn street lights on and off based on demand to save energy, money and improve the quality of environments.
Why did Perform Green decide to become a company member of Sheffield Digital?
Sheffield Digital’s approach to tackling the effects of austerity and motivating communities to deliver a technology, data and digital agenda as a collective effort is inspirational.
We believe in working in a collaborative approach and feel that to create a society that is fair for all, working together on challenges, bringing together collective brain power and efforts is an extremely important part of the mix. Perform Green wants to be part of this!
In addition, as our business is relatively new in the market, a lot of our experience has been in other regions. We worked on world-leading projects, such as Bristol is Open, a city-wide infrastructure test bed for new technologies and Bristol’s Smart Operations Centre, which integrates 19 different council teams to deliver streamlined services for the people of Bristol and huge cost savings to the council.
As our business expands, it makes sense for us to focus our attention to a place where our people are based and where we have a long-standing knowledge and vested interest in the city thriving.
What does Perform Green hope to achieve by being involved with the Sheffield Digital community?
We hope to learn from the range of talented people and their ideas, as well as contribute and support development of new digital opportunity in the region in any way we can.
We would be extremely proud to contribute to the development of Sheffield as a place that strives to lead and influence the UK on digital innovation. It would be very exciting to be part of a larger movement, from micro businesses and tech entrepreneurs to the city council, other institutions and inspirational people, all involved in the mix to make Sheffield a better place to live, work and play through digital innovation.
Find out more
You can learn more about Perform Green on the company’s website. And if you’d like to support the work we do to promote, connect and represent Sheffield’s digital companies and people, please consider becoming a member too.