Actual Experience, the small Bath-based digital supply chain management firm, plans to become “truly global” within a year as it prepares to sign contracts with international blue-chip businesses, its co-founder predicts.
Chief executive Dave Page, pictured, the Bath-based entrepreneur who helped launch the innovative firm in 2009, said it was poised to revolutionise the market for digital products in the same way Japanese car makers had led the transformation of Western manufacturing industry in the 1970s and 1980s.
Actual Experience uses techniques in the digital world similar to those deployed by Japanese firms to streamline physical supply chains and improve productivity – the result is a step change in efficiency and an end to glitches that dog digital platforms such as buffering and poor internet connections. 
“I’ve been involved in start-ups for 16 or 17 years now – and this is the one business that has the opportunity to truly be a global company,” Mr Page told Bath Business News. He said Actual Experience was talking to "about a dozen" international firms and expected to announce two or three soon.
“If you realise that the value of the global digital economy is $8 trillion and the cost of problems associated with the digital industry is another $700bn, then that’s a huge opportunity.
“In the digital world – whether at home, in the office, or on a smartphone – consumers are often frustrated by products for banking, shopping, work, TV, navigation and so much more. This is a serious quality problem, in large part due to the pervasive absence of science and data to assist businesses with digital supply chain management and quality improvement, which depresses revenue and reduces brand value.
“Our professional and personal lives are becoming increasingly digital and business leaders must focus on digital product quality as relentlessly as they have done in the physical world. We come at the problem from a completely different angle to anything else on the market. We bring the necessary digital science, data and methods for this to be accomplished.”
Mr Page, who has worked for Cisco, IBM Global Services, BT Global Services and NatWest, co-founded the firm with Queen Mary academic Jonathan Pitts, raising £4m from global investment firm Henderson in 2013 and floating it on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market in February last year.
After further developing the business last year – it now employs 25 staff, the majority at its Bath HQ – it is close to announcing a number of contracts with major global firms, said Mr Page.
Earlier this week it announced its third contract with Ofcom to continue developing a quality measurement methodology that takes account of all factors which can affect internet performance.
The three month contract, Actual Experience’s largest to date, culminates in a report to be submitted to Ofcom.
More contracts will follow, said Mr Page.
“Following a year of hard work by a very talented growing team, I am more convinced and excited than ever about Actual Experience’s opportunity to create and lead digital supply chain management,” he said.
“Customer feedback to date has been very positive. We hope to bring significant news of customer adoption by major businesses in 2015 which will help us accelerate into this vast market."
The global expansion will be spearheaded from Bath, which he said was a great location for an innovative tech business.
“You hear a lot about Silicon Roundabout [in East London] but it’s a bit artificial,” he said.
“The Bath and Bristol area has a greater mix of talented designers, techies and creative people. A lot of companies work together here – there are some very big companies that work with small businesses.”
