A software company joined forces with Oxford Brookes Business School to support the growth of small and mid-sized supply chain firms.

ProspectSoft, based in Oxford, has been exploring ways supply chain companies can utilise customer data for growth alongside researchers from the business school.

The collaboration led to the creation of ProspectSoft's Growth Engine, which highlights opportunities to increase sales from new and existing customers.

Founder of ProspectSoft, Andrew Ardron, said: "We were delighted to partner with the highly-respected Oxford Brookes Business School.

"By bringing together experts from academia and industry, we have created something that can help small and mid-sized firms to increase sales to existing customers.

"Oxford is a hub for innovation, and projects like these demonstrate just some of the real-world challenges being addressed in the city."

Oxford Brookes' research team, comprising Methuselah Singh, Paul Jackson, Diana Limburg, and Ahmad Abd Rabuh, conducted interviews and explored data from ProspectSoft's software, surveys, and academic papers.

Mr Singh said: "Smaller businesses have limited resources, and employees usually have to wear different hats.

"Senior managers, including founders and managing directors, regularly lose valuable time on routine tasks which diverts them away from growth strategies.”

He added software ‘super users’ are key to sharing new features, training staff and helping businesses make the best use of the data in their software.