Fluxx and magneticNorth merge to support businesses in designing the future workplace

Manchester’s award-winning digital design studio, magneticNorth merges with London’s top innovation consultancy Fluxx, creating an independently owned innovation powerhouse to support business transformation across the UK and globally.

As the world begins the process of driving economic recovery post-pandemic, magneticNorth and Fluxx are merging, bringing together their joint capabilities to better support clients as they face a huge next era of challenge and opportunity. The combination of magneticNorth’s design-led approach to creating digital experiences and Fluxx’s ability to rapidly solve complex business problems means they will be able to quickly develop, build, and incubate much-needed new products and services to market. In recent months, both companies have experienced an increase in the demand for their services as companies focus on the opportunities presented by C19.

“The challenges facing many businesses are exponential” says Richard Poole, Fluxx’s Founder. “However, dynamic markets and rapid changes create opportunities for bold leaders to leapfrog their competitors. These leaders know that this upside is only realised when they are able to guide their teams to be adaptive, agile and innovative, along with being highly in tune with the changing needs of your customers. Our merger with magneticNorth puts us in a strong position to support businesses ‘build back better’.”

“We already share a common culture and history of helping organisations realise potential and create market-leading products and services’’, says magneticNorth’s Founder, Lou Cordwell OBE. “We’ve partnered alongside Fluxx successfully already, and there’s always been a strong sense of mutual respect for each other’s team and capabilities. This is a natural step to step up to meet the needs of our clients in the coming years.”

In the latest budget the Government announced plans to establish the UK Innovation Hub in the North of England, along with the relocation of 22,000 civil service roles out of London. The larger geographical footprint offered by this merger means together, magneticNorth and Fluxx are primed to boost growth and drive the international competitiveness of the UK’s innovative businesses.

The pandemic hasn’t only created high demand for new products and services, it has also disrupted our home and working lives. One of the challenges facing businesses is the move to hybrid working. At the start of the pandemic Fluxx conducted a working from home study, this combined with their Work Reimagined Festival in early 2021, where around 1,000 business leaders came together, means Fluxx has an abundance of insights that can help businesses rethink the employee experience.

Fluxx’s research found just over two thirds of people would like to work from home two-three days per week and just over 50% of people said they had already, or were strongly considering, moving house in the next 3 months to designations further away from their current office location.

“Hybrid done right boosts productivity” says Jenny Burns, Fluxx Partner and future of work expert. “Done badly it will widen social divides, create divided cultures and second class citizens” warns Burns. “We must work hard to maintain inclusivity by implementing some clear and shared principles and rituals. Everyday meetings will have a mixture of online and offline workers, so good digital facilitation will be key in ensuring everyone’s opinion is sought and heard to maintain good quality decision making”.

Fluxx are now working with large, complex and often, global companies to reimagine the world of work post the pandemic.

Click here for details on the merger, or get in touch with Jenny Burns, Lou Cordwell OBE or Richard Poole.

Jassi leads Marketing at Fluxx. For more details on our company, check out these useful links, or get in touch at jassi@fluxx.uk.com.