Thank you for 20 years of business!

September 2020 marks two decades since Prism Training & Consultancy was founded. Since then, we’ve had the good fortune to work alongside a vast array of clients, software providers and colleagues across multiple industries to provide expert guidance via statistical training, consultancy support and bespoke software solutions to multinational corporations and brand new start-ups alike. To mark this special occasion, we’re taking a moment to reflect on our past, the present and an exciting future.

Co-founder and Technical Director of Prism, Dr Paul Nelson, says “We are incredibly proud to have established our group as the go-to statistical partner for many long-standing customers – we’ve worked with over 150 companies from around the world since we started, and that number continues to grow. Whatever the industry, application or specific problem that a client has faced, we have consistently been able to provide innovative solutions that have far exceeded their expectations. We’ve been able to do this by building a varied, experienced and extremely knowledgeable network of trusted consultants, trainers and programmers, ensuring that we’re able to select the perfect project team for any situation. This technical proficiency, underpinned by the team’s ability to communicate techniques and results in a straightforward manner, encourages our customers to develop their own statistical understanding and confidence. We’ve continuously evolved and improved the way that we operate over the last 20 years; the larger team that we have today offers a greater breadth and depth to the services that we provide than ever before, whilst at the same time retaining our core strength of delivering results in a way that enables our clients to effectively apply statistics to their own work.”

Having assembled this flexible team to call upon whenever required, and being very used to providing assistance remotely to a global client base, we've been ideally situated to support clients through the recent months of uncertainty. A large number of Prism’s customers work in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries and are urgently seeking breakthrough developments in the search for effective tests and vaccines to combat the COVID-19 pandemic; others have taken advantage of enforced lockdowns to train their staff in powerful statistical techniques, such as Design of Experiments (DoE) or Multivariate Analysis (MVA); whilst some clients have used their time away from the lab to revisit historical data, exploring whether any previously unseen information can be uncovered using advanced statistical methodologies. In all cases, we’ve continued to support these companies, start-ups and individuals, in whichever way they wish to use statistical firepower to supercharge their own scientific capabilities.

Andrew Macpherson, our Managing Director, explains that “despite the challenges that the pandemic has caused for everyone, we’re really pleased that our group’s ability to quickly adapt to any circumstances has minimised any disruption in our services to our clients. It’s been relatively straightforward to continue providing our consultancy support via online collaboration platforms and, while our interactive face-to-face workshops are currently not viable given lockdown restrictions, we’ve invested time in trialling remote deliveries of selected courses. Huge credit must go to our trainers, for the effort that’s gone into rethinking and adapting our training for the virtual classroom – we’re very happy with the results so far, and we’re excited to continue improving them for future delegates to benefit from!”

Looking ahead, Prism are also very pleased to announce the appointment of Chris Challis as our new Business Director. Chris, already familiar to many of our customers through his previous role as our Business Relationship Manager, oversees our incoming leads and is usually the first point of contact that clients interact with. Once a work package is underway, Chris provides continuity for the client as he works with our chosen project team; this ensures that the right people are assigned to the right tasks, and that the project scope, budget and deliverables are carefully monitored.

“I’m incredibly excited to become Business Director at Prism and look forward to continuing to help the group to meet the needs of our existing and new customers," says Chris. “It’s very satisfying to be involved throughout the support process; from developing a lead or initial enquiry through to completion of the work package and I'm very lucky to be able to work alongside both customer and consultant alike to help get the job done. In my mind, what makes Prism so special is our ability to make statistics accessible to all; to look beyond the data to tell a story is, in my mind, one of the most powerful ways we help our clients solve their problems."

The last twenty years have flown by and we'd like to place on record our sincere appreciation and gratitude to our clients for their support over the years. We look forward to the business’s future with great optimism and we’re excited to continue supporting such a diverse, exciting and innovative group of highly-valued customers. Likewise, we'd like to extend our warmest thanks to Stat-Ease, SAS JMP, Camo Analytics, GraphPad, Minitab and all the software companies we work with for their support and generosity which allows us to do what we do with some incredibly powerful tools. Finally, a huge thank you to the Prism team - past and present - for their consistently exceptional contributions to the business. Without them, the growth of the last two decades would simply not have been possible, nor anywhere near as enjoyable!