The business case
esure was launched in 2000 as a joint venture between HBOS and
Peter Wood, its founder and Chairman with a ground-breaking policy
of only insuring drivers with at least four years' no claim
discount.
With headquarters in Reigate and an office in Manchester, esure
needed a new operational site to support the growth of the business
in 2001.
This site would need to be purpose built - to house a
state-of-the-art contact centre ready for rapid growth.
The right location
People
When deciding upon a location, one of esure's main concerns was the
availability and quality of staff.
Glasgow was already well known to Peter Wood through his
experience of establishing Direct Line's major presence in the
city. The positive staff attitude and work ethic were major
factors, combined with Glasgow's pool of 1.4m staff in a 45 minute
travel to work area.
Glasgow's friendly approach fits in well with esure's policy of
"no hard sell" - and esure has experienced very low levels of
absenteeism.
The city
Esure fast-tracked its start-up process by initially moving into
"Callpoint Europe", Scotland's only city centre call centre hotel,
while their site was being completed.
Adrian Webb, Head of External Communications said "esure chose
Glasgow as its main operational centre in 2001 for three simple
reasons."
Firstly, the city has a large pool of skilled motivated staff,
with an increasing number who have financial services or call
centre experience."
"Secondly, Glasgow has excellent transport links and the
financial area in particular is ideally located for commuting
staff. Finally, the assistance for investment in Glasgow has
always been excellent, focusing on the creation of long term jobs
for the city".
The results
esure aims to be a top 5 car insurancer in the UK also offering
excellent home and travel insurance particularly through the online
market.
The company now has over 600,000 customers, and is on course to
have created 700 jobs in Glasgow significantly more than their
initial target of 400.
Scottish Enterprise worked with esure from the very early stages
of the project. Its Business Location Service was able to
provide assistance and advice on many aspects of the
relocation.