Since deciding to relocate from the UK last year, Daniel Rowles, Chief Executive, and Susana Rowles, Commercial Director, of Target Internet have discovered that throwing themselves into community life has paid real dividends as they look to grow their digital marketing skills business from Jersey
Give us an insight into what Target Internet does?
Daniel Rowles (DR): We work with organisations all over the world to help them upskill their teams’ digital marketing capabilities, covering anything from data analytics, content marketing and search marketing to developing a digital strategy, mobile marketing and social media.
We do that through face-to-face sessions and by delivering online courses through our e-learning portal, whilst we’re also an official centre for the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), which allows us to provide CIM qualifications and certification. We also produce the weekly Digital Marketing Podcast, one of the most listened-to marketing podcasts globally.
Susana Rowles (SR): We also offer a skills benchmark for firms, so we can identify where firms are strong in their skill set and where there is scope for improvement. That way we can provide a tailored approach to help give them the support where they need it most. Over the years, we’ve developed around 150 different specialist courses and we’re continuing to build and evolve that library, so we can be pretty targeted in how we can help support any organisation.
What made you consider Jersey as a place to move to?
DR: We were previously based in Brighton and had been thinking about making the move to somewhere else. We’re a distributed business, with colleagues working remotely elsewhere in the UK and a development team in India, so it was a relatively straightforward move in terms of footprint.
I’d visited Jersey a number of times in the past and had always been keen on it as a place to live. Once I got talking to some of the people here about the business landscape and Jersey’s ambitions in the digital space, it was a no brainer really.
We had looked at other options, but we kept on coming back to the reality that in Jersey there were really no barriers. It felt like there was a real affinity between what we do as a business and what Jersey was doing as a jurisdiction – plus it’s familiar in terms of language, has a sophisticated and cosmopolitan economy and offers really easy access to the UK. Overall, it felt like a natural move for us.
Was the relocation process straightforward?
SR: We moved over in March 2018, and it’s actually hard to think how the process could have been any easier. From the outset, through Locate Jersey and Digital Jersey, we’ve been introduced to people who could help us sort things out, from a business perspective, with things like licensing and establishing a company, to personal and family things, such as sorting out accommodation and registering for schools for our children.
The whole process has been remarkably smooth, and the after-care we’ve received since being here has been hugely helpful too.
DR: One of the things we’ve been really impressed with is the ease of access to expertise. Whether we’ve needed to speak to accountants, lawyers or government officials, people have been really amenable and available for us to speak to. You simply don’t get that everywhere.
Accessibility has been an important factor too. We work with organisations in London, across the UK and overseas. I’m also an associate professor at Imperial College, so being able to get to and from the island has always been important. The connections Jersey has to London in particular is a real advantage.
How have you found settling in to your new home?
SR: When we moved, we were very aware of the fact that we would need to build up our network in Jersey quite quickly, and pretty much from scratch. So we’ve deliberately got ourselves involved in the local community as much as possible, both from a business and a personal perspective.
I’ve been lucky in that I’ve had a number of opportunities come my way, including supporting the Georgian Association and the 23rd Jersey Scout Association. These things have all been great to get involved in anyway, but they’ve also been incredibly helpful for us in terms of getting to know people and the island better.
We’re supporting JCG’s Leadership and Entrepreneurship Programme (LEAP) too, which is a hugely impressive initiative, and we’ve reached out to local firms and individuals to create the Jersey Marketing and Communications Group. Through this, we hold regular events to bring the local marketing and comms communities together. We’ve been really impressed with the response we’ve had to that.
DR: We’ve also done a lot with Digital Jersey, to help deliver specialist digital marketing courses to local people. We’re also involved in the Digital Jersey Academy, to help support the drive to digitally upskill local people.
All these things have been fantastic for us – there’s a clear appetite to network here and that has meant that making connections has been really easy.
DR: From a family perspective, it’s been refreshingly easy to move here too. Our children have easily settled into their schools, and they’ve got themselves involved in local clubs and sports. It was always important for us that this move was a move that would suit us as a family as well as a business, and Jersey certainly ticks that box. The opportunities for families here, the lifestyle and work/life balance, and the safe and secure environment it offers, is an excellent mix.
How do you see your business evolving?
SR: We very much see Jersey as providing us with a strong platform to continue to grow our business internationally. It’s a real privilege to be able to work from here in this fantastic environment and at the same time work with global brands around the world. We also see strong potential to support the needs of a growing number of businesses in the island too.
DR: At the same time, I’m really excited about being involved in Jersey’s digital project and playing a part in supporting the digital skills drive locally. It wasn’t necessarily always our plan to get involved in the local community in all these ways, but in less than a year of being here, doing so has given us so much opportunity – and that’s symptomatic of the positive attitude here.
It’s clear that local businesses and the government believe in the importance of digital skills, and that gives us real confidence in our future and Jersey’s future.
• This advertising feature was produced in partnership with Locate Jersey, and was first published in the March/April edition of Businesslife magazine. Visit www.locatejersey.com