A BUSINESS based at a technology park just outside Chester has been recognised as a 'Cool Vendor'.

UK data science consultancy Barcanet, based in the University of Chester's Thornton Science Park, was recognised with the honour in the Sourcing Technology report by Gartner, Inc.

Barcanet is one of only three companies to be selected by Gartner for inclusion in the report which is designed to help chief procurement officers (CPOs) improve their group’s capabilities to drive better supplier collaboration and business decisions.

The research in the report focuses on emerging technology vendors that can support senior decision-makers in addressing targeted business challenges.

Barcanet bucks the trend that sees many analytics tools starting with the results and extrapolating insight from those.

The data specialists begin by identifying customer business priorities and then mine the specific information required to achieve those objectives. This information is then delivered via simple, user-friendly graphs, tables, and decomposition trees.

Commenting on Barcanet's inclusion in the Cool Vendors list, Ian Yates, Barcanet managing director and founder, said “We believe being included in the Cool Vendors report from Gartner is a fantastic achievement for the team and for a Chester-based business.

"We always start with our customers' questions, challenges and priorities.

"Quick, simple, data-driven decision-making is vital for agile businesses, so our mission is to help customers put data at the centre of their organisations with tools and services that not only show what has happened in the past, but also explore, predict, forecast and anticipate future eventualities across a range of meaningful scenarios.

"We support our customers to overcome their micro-battles; specific, individual challenges.

"Then we build out our apps enabling them to answer more and more questions and tackle more complex macro challenges. All the while our customers' digital transformation is happening from the ground up."

Ian has more than 25 years’ industry experience across telecom, energy and retail businesses.