E4H are a medical education and publishing business based in Letchworth Garden City. Founded and run by Karl and Melanie Hamer we are a family business working with some of the largest clients in pharmaceuticals and healthcare in the UK. E4H work with many blue chip clients including Pfizer, Bayer Healthcare, MSD and public sector bodies such as NICE and Public Health England.
As they hit the ten year mark they have reflected on why they have been successful and why Letchworth is great base for their business. They started the business in Letchworth and returned three years ago to the wonderful Spirella building. Letchworth provides a great base only 35 minutes for London Kings Cross but with excellent local facilities and lovely local towns and villages from where our talented team live.
In his own words, Managing Director Karl Hamer, looks back at how the business has evolved.
Like many people, we always had the ambition to start our own business, but the security blanket of a large corporation, the burden of a large mortgage and two dependent children always somehow prevented us from taking the leap. Then, by chance, an opportunity arose, through a variety of circumstances and regarding the sale of another business we were already familiar with. Feeling entrepreneurial, we jumped at the chance, and after a number of months of negotiation, Melanie started Events4Healthcare, with the Pf Awards 2007 as her first project.
Statistics show that most companies unfortunately fail within three years of starting – so we kept this thought in mind throughout those early years and recruited wisely with our outstanding team
We listened carefully to our customers, we embraced innovation and developed new products, and with careful management, we succeeded beyond that stage and now find ourselves at the 10-year mark with a range of great clients and products across the business. Like many companies, however, the products and services we deliver now are not those we started with.
We started Events4Healthcare with the aim of delivering inspirational events; back then webinars were expensive and unreliable, databases were poor, and healthcare professionals felt that face-to-face meetings were the only way to receive an education.
With the growing pressures on health care professionals and developments in digital and e-learning techniques, our environments and customers have changed. So, we evolved to meet their needs, took advantage of the technology available, and now offer a range of virtual solutions that we could not have dreamt of 10 years ago.
When we started we chose a ‘Ronseal name’; we did what it said on the tin. As we evolved, however, we found that our original name – like many businesses – no longer worked for us, and in many ways, worked against us. We do still deliver outstanding events, but that’s not the whole story anymore. We needed a new identity.
We knew we wanted to keep the major elements of our brand, but needed to remove the ambiguity it presented about our service offer. So, like the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), British Telecom (BT), Hennes and Mauritz (H&M) and IKEA…okay maybe not IKEA…the Events4Healthcare name has evolved to become E4H. We still have the same core values, the same committed staff, but we are now so much more – see www.e4h.co.uk for more information.
If you want to blog about your growing business in Letchworth, don’t hesitate to get in touch via digital@letchworth.com
