Kielderside Growth Agency / BG-Demo – Demo
Callcompleted
Kielderside Growth Agency · 7 Apr 2026 09:45
Demo of B-Viz on the agency's anonymised enquiries and grants records. Lesley Charlton said it was close to what account managers asked for. She cannot discuss the tender outside the formal process, and Keith holds the budget.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Demo of B-Viz on the agency's anonymised enquiries and grants records. Lesley Charlton said it was close to what account managers asked for. She cannot discuss the tender outside the formal process, and Keith holds the budget.
What happened: Hannah Lowe showed chat, business pages, the grants and notes timeline and search on the agency's anonymised sample. Lesley Charlton, Emma Kirkup and Wendy Armstrong attended for the agency.
Customer view: Lesley said what they saw was close to what account managers asked for. Wendy said the outstanding-returns list is one she builds by hand, and Emma is comfortable on architecture subject to a written paper on roles.
Commercial: Lesley said she cannot discuss the tender outside the formal clarification process. No price was given, and Hannah tied the dashboards builder to the Enterprise tier.
Watch: Keith, who holds the budget, was not on the call. BG-Demo owes a written note on access roles and data flow, and Emma wants her governance colleagues to read it first.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Tender market engagement demo
Importance
neutral
Sentiment
positive
Voice
champion
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Hannah Lowe to write up the access model and data flow and send it through Tom Ashdown.
- Tom Ashdown to send a short note of what was shown and the questions raised.
- Hannah Lowe to send anonymised screenshots of the grants and notes view to Wendy.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- The purchase runs through a formal tender, so BG-Demo cannot discuss terms or price outside the clarification process.
- Keith, who holds the budget, was not on the call.
- Emma's comfort on architecture depends on the written paper on roles and data flow.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Enterprise tier with the dashboards builder for board-level evidence of the agency's impact.
- A pre-visit briefing page for account managers, combining grants history and notes.
Transcript
Tom AshdownMorning, morning. Can everyone hear me alright? I've got Hannah here with me, she's on mute while she sorts her screen share.
Lesley CharltonGood morning, Tom. Yes, we can hear you. Emma is here with me in the room, and Wendy is just joining from her desk.
Wendy ArmstrongSorry, sorry, I'm here. The link took me to the wrong waiting room first. Morning, everyone.- Tom AshdownNo drama at all. How's your week been so far? It's only Tuesday, I know, but it feels like it should be Thursday.
Emma KirkupBusy. We had a system outage on Monday that wasn't ours, so I've spent most of two days saying it wasn't us.- Lesley CharltonAnd the grants team have a round closing, so Wendy has had a week of her own. We're grateful you've given us the morning.
- Tom AshdownOur pleasure. Right, let me say how I'd like to use the time, and Lesley, shout if it's wrong. Hannah's going to show you B-Viz running on the anonymised sample you sent over, the enquiries line records and the grants records. Then we leave plenty of room for questions.
- Lesley CharltonThat's right. I should say at the start that I can't talk about the tender outside the formal clarification process, so if I go quiet on a question, that's why. Today is about seeing whether the approach works for our people.
- Tom AshdownCompletely understood, and we wouldn't want to put you in a spot. Anything process related, we'll route through the proper channel. Hannah, over to you.
Hannah LoweThanks, Tom. Hello, everyone. Before I share anything, what do you most need to know by the end of this call? I'd rather aim at that than walk you through every screen.- Lesley CharltonWhat does the business owner experience? That's my question underneath everything. Our account managers are asking to see one picture of a business, not three systems and a lot of emails.
- Emma KirkupFrom my side, I want to understand where the data sits and who can see what. I look after the CRM and I'm the one who gets the phone call if something is exposed.
- Wendy ArmstrongAnd for grants, I need to know whether it can show me what we've already given a business and what the account manager knows about them, in the same place. At the moment those live in completely different worlds.
- Hannah LoweGood, that gives me three clear things. Let me start with Emma's, because it shapes the rest. To be precise, B-Viz is built and run inside your own Snowflake account. The data doesn't get copied out to us. We connect to your systems, bring the records into a layer in your Snowflake, and that's what you query.
- Emma KirkupSo it stays in our environment. Our information governance people will ask that first.
- Hannah LoweYes. The short answer is that it stays with you. The longer answer is that there are still choices about which roles can see which tables, and I'll put that in writing for you rather than describe it loosely on a call.
- Emma KirkupThat would help, thank you.
- Hannah LoweRight, I'm sharing now. Can you see a page with a search box and a list down the left?
- Lesley CharltonYes, we can see it. It's a bit small on the room screen, but it's readable.
- Hannah LoweI'll zoom in. Better? So what you're looking at is the anonymised sample. The business names are made up, the contacts are made up, but the shape of the records is what you sent us: enquiries line contacts on one side, grants applications and awards on the other, and the CRM account records joining them.
- Wendy ArmstrongIs that join automatic? Because in our world the same business can be spelled four different ways.
- Hannah LoweGood question, and I won't overstate it. We match on identifiers where you have them, such as a company registration reference or a shared email domain, and then we flag likely matches rather than silently merging them. In this sample, a handful were flagged for a person to confirm. You'd have someone like Emma deciding on those.
- Emma KirkupI'd be happy with that. I'd rather confirm a few than have it guess wrong about a grant.
- Hannah LoweExactly. So let me show chat first, because that's what an account manager would use day to day. I'll ask it something plain. Which businesses contacted the enquiries line about premises support in the last quarter?
- Hannah LoweGive it a few seconds, it's searching across the enquiries records and the CRM. There we go. It gives a short list, and under each one it shows where the answer came from, which enquiry record and which account.
- Lesley CharltonThat showing of sources matters to me. I need to evidence that. If I stand in front of the board and say a number, I have to be able to say where it came from.
- Hannah LoweEvery answer links back to the underlying records, so you can click through and check. It won't always be right, and that's why the links are there.
- Tom AshdownIf I can jump in, that's the bit we hear most from public sector teams. People don't mind an AI answer, they mind an answer they can't defend.
- Lesley CharltonQuite. Please carry on, Hannah.
- Hannah LoweNow a business page. I'll open one of the sample businesses, a small manufacturer. This is the single view. At the top, the account details from the CRM. Then the account manager's notes, then the enquiries line history, then the grants. All in one place, in date order if you want it that way.
- Lesley CharltonThat's what I was hoping to see. If a business owner rings the enquiries line, the person answering knows who the account manager is and what's been discussed.
- Hannah LoweYes. And the reverse works too. The account manager can see that the business rang the line twice about the same thing before they had a conversation.
- Emma KirkupCan I ask about the notes? Our account managers write in all sorts of ways. Some are two lines, some are paragraphs. Does it cope with that?
- Hannah LoweIt reads whatever is there. Short notes give it less to work with, naturally. I'll show you what it does with a thin note in a moment, because it's honest about it. It says the notes don't cover that, rather than filling in the gap.
- Wendy ArmstrongCan I ask my thing now? I don't want to lose it.
- Tom AshdownPlease do, Wendy. That's the whole point of today.
- Wendy ArmstrongSo, say an account manager is about to visit a business. I'd want to see the grant history for that business, what they applied for, what was awarded, what's still being monitored, and next to it the account manager's notes. Because sometimes the notes say the owner is struggling with cash flow and the grants record says nothing, and sometimes it's the other way round.
- Hannah LoweRight, that's a very clear use. Let me do it live on the sample rather than describe it. I'll open the grants view for this same manufacturer.
- Hannah LoweSo, on the left, the grants history. Two applications, one awarded, one declined, and a monitoring return still outstanding on the awarded one. On the right, the account manager's notes, newest first. Is that the sort of side by side you meant?
- Wendy ArmstrongYes, exactly that. Can you scroll the notes so the dates line up with the grant dates? What I'm looking for is whether the account manager knew about the declined application when they wrote that note about the expansion.
- Hannah LoweThere's a timeline toggle for that. I'll switch it on. Now both streams are on a single line of dates. You can see the declined application here, and the account manager's note about expansion plans a few weeks later.
- Wendy ArmstrongOh, that's useful. So the note was written after the decline, and doesn't mention it. I wouldn't have spotted that without opening two systems.
- Lesley CharltonThat's the joined-up support I mean. The account manager could have been encouraging an expansion without knowing the grant didn't go through.
- Hannah LoweLet me ask the chat the same thing in words, so you can see the other route. Show me this business's grant history alongside the account manager's notes, and flag anything the notes don't mention.
- Hannah LoweIt's thinking. Here it is. A short summary of the two applications, the award, the outstanding return, and then a line saying the notes don't mention the declined application. And again, links to each source record.
- Wendy ArmstrongCould it say that for every business before a visit? Like a briefing?
- Hannah LoweYes, you could build a page that does that for any business, so an account manager opens it before a meeting. That's a page in the product, not a custom build. Whether you'd want it for every business or only a priority group is a design conversation.
- Tom AshdownAnd that's something we'd agree properly with you, not just promise on a call. Leave that with me, I'll make sure it's in the notes we send.
- Emma KirkupCan I come back to access? Grants records are sensitive. Not everyone on the enquiries line should see the grant decisions, and not every account manager should see another team's notes.
- Hannah LoweUnderstood. To be precise, access follows the roles you set up in your Snowflake account. If the enquiries line team's role can't read the grants tables, then B-Viz can't show them that data, in chat or on a page. It doesn't create a back door around your own permissions.
- Emma KirkupAnd is that something I set up, or you?
- Hannah LoweWe design it with you during implementation and you own it afterwards. I wouldn't want you relying on us to keep it right. I'll write up how the roles map so your governance people can check it.
- Emma KirkupGood. That's what I'd want.
- Lesley CharltonHannah, can I ask what happens when the source systems change? We update our CRM from time to time, and the enquiries line system is shared with another team.
- Hannah LoweThe short answer is that connectors can break when a source changes. The longer answer is that we watch for it. If a connector stops loading, you'd see the record counts go flat, and we'd flag it. It's one reason we ask for a named person on your side, so someone tells us before a big change rather than after.
- Emma KirkupThat would be me, most likely. I usually hear about changes a bit late, but I can fix that.
- Tom AshdownEveryone hears late, Emma. It's how IT works.
- Emma KirkupHa, true enough.
- Hannah LoweLet me show one more thing, search. Wendy, you mentioned spellings. I'll type a business name with a typo and see what comes back.
- Hannah LoweSo I've mistyped it on purpose. It still finds the right business, and it also shows a second record with a similar name, marked as a possible match. That's one of the flagged ones I mentioned earlier.
- Wendy ArmstrongThat's the sort of thing that causes us trouble. Two records, and a grant paid against one while the notes sit on the other.
- Emma KirkupWhich is half my job, quite honestly. Could I see how a person confirms a match?
- Hannah LoweOf course. I'll open the review list. Each possible match shows both records next to each other, with the reason we flagged it. You pick merge, keep separate, or leave for later. The choice is recorded, so you can see who decided what.
- Emma KirkupRight. I like that it leaves a trail. Our auditors always ask who changed what.
- Lesley CharltonCan I ask about the people who aren't technical? Many of our account managers are brilliant with businesses and cautious with software. What would you expect them to need?
- Hannah LoweHonestly, less than you'd think for chat and business pages. The thing people need is a few examples of good questions. We usually run short sessions by team, and the account managers would get ones built around their own businesses. It isn't a long course.
- Tom AshdownAnd we can talk about training properly when the time comes. I don't want to stray into scope while there's a process running, so I'll leave it there.
- Lesley CharltonThank you, Tom. I appreciate that.
- Wendy ArmstrongHannah, going back to the side by side. Could I ask it which businesses have an outstanding monitoring return and whose account manager's notes haven't mentioned the grant in a while?
- Hannah LoweGood one. Let me try it. Which businesses have an outstanding monitoring return, and no mention of the grant in the account manager's notes for a good while?
- Hannah LoweIt's working through it. There we go. Three businesses in the sample. For each, it shows the return status, the date of the last note that mentions the grant, and a link to both. One of them has no note mentioning the grant at all.
- Wendy ArmstrongThat's remarkable, because that is exactly the list I build by hand before every monitoring round. It takes me days.
- Hannah LoweI'd add a caution. It's a sample, and the real data will be messier. I'd expect some false hits, such as a note that mentions the grant using different words. So treat the list as a strong starting point, not a final answer.
- Wendy ArmstrongI'd still take that over a blank spreadsheet.
- Lesley CharltonHannah, one for the board side. If I wanted to show what our help achieved for a group of businesses, can this support that? Not today, I mean in principle.
- Hannah LoweIn principle yes, within the tier that includes the dashboards builder, which the Enterprise tier does. You could bring grants, enquiries and account manager activity together and build a view for a group of businesses. What it can't do is invent outcomes your systems don't record. If outcomes are only in a spreadsheet, we'd need to look at how to connect that.
- Lesley CharltonThat's fair, and it's helpful to be told. I'd rather know where the edges are.
- Emma KirkupHannah, how many systems would we be connecting, roughly? I'm thinking of the CRM, the enquiries line, the grants system and possibly email.
- Hannah LoweThose four are a sensible first view. The Enterprise tier allows plenty of connectors, so you wouldn't be squeezed. I'd start with the ones that matter to the single business view and add the rest once that's working.
- Emma KirkupSensible. Less to go wrong at the beginning.
- Tom AshdownThat's how we'd do it. Get one view working, get people using it, then widen out.
- Lesley CharltonI should also say, for the record, that I can't comment on commercial matters today. Keith holds the budget, and anything about price goes through the formal route.
- Tom AshdownAbsolutely, and I haven't brought a price to the call. It's about whether you can see it working.
- Lesley CharltonGood. Then I can say that, from where I sit, what we've seen is close to what our account managers asked for.
- Wendy ArmstrongFrom the grants side too. The timeline is the thing. If I could only have one feature, it would be that.
- Emma KirkupI'm reasonably comfortable on the architecture, subject to the paper on roles. I'd want my governance colleagues to read it before I say more.
- Hannah LoweThat's fair. I'll write up the access model and the data flow, plain language first and then the detail, and send it to Tom to pass on. And if there's a question I'm not certain about, I'll check with our security lead before answering it.
- Tom AshdownWhich is the right way to do it. So, next steps from our side. Hannah's write-up on access and data flow. I'll send a short note after this call with what we showed and the questions that came up, so you've got a record.
- Lesley CharltonThat would be useful. If any of those questions are really tender questions, I'll send them through the clarification process rather than back to you directly.
- Tom AshdownPerfect, that's what we'd expect. We'll keep anything that touches the process in the proper channel, and I'll make sure the note says so.
- Wendy ArmstrongCould I ask for one more thing? A copy of the grant and notes side by side view, as a screenshot, so I can show my team lead.
- Hannah LoweYes, I'll grab a couple of screenshots from the sample and include them. They'll be anonymised, so you can share them freely inside the agency.
- Wendy ArmstrongBrilliant, thank you.
- Emma KirkupWhile we're at it, Hannah, one last thing on data. If a business asks us to delete their records, what happens in the layer?
- Hannah LoweGood one to ask. Because the layer is rebuilt from your source systems, a deletion at source flows through at the next refresh. I'd want to confirm the exact behaviour for each connector before promising it, so I'll add it to the write-up and be specific.
- Emma KirkupThat's all I need. Thank you.
- Lesley CharltonIs there anything you two wanted to ask us before we finish? I don't want us to take all the time.
- Tom AshdownJust one, and answer however suits. When you came away from the regional event, what stuck with you? Only because it helps us pitch things right.
- Lesley CharltonThat a business owner shouldn't have to explain themselves three times. We have good people and good data, and they don't meet. Seeing it joined up today made that feel possible rather than a nice idea.
- Tom AshdownThat's lovely to hear, and I'll be careful not to oversell it. It'll only be as good as the data underneath.
- Hannah LoweAnd as good as the notes people write. That's the honest bit. The tool shows you what's there and what's missing.
- Wendy ArmstrongWhich might nudge a few of us to write better notes.
- Lesley CharltonI wouldn't mind that at all. Wendy, you'll be on the hook for that.
- Wendy ArmstrongNoted. Ha.
- Tom AshdownRight, I think we're about done and you've got a round closing. Thank you all for the time and for the sample data, it made the demo much better than a made-up one would have.
- Emma KirkupThanks, both. I'll look out for the access paper.
- Lesley CharltonThank you, Tom, thank you, Hannah. It's been genuinely helpful. Best wishes to you both, and we'll be in touch through the proper route.
- Hannah LoweThanks, everyone. Speak soon.
- Tom AshdownCheers, all. Have a good rest of the week, and good luck with the grants round, Wendy.
- Wendy ArmstrongThank you! Bye now.
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