Diva Group’s presence at Silverstone Park is set to expand significantly as Diva Patang, one of Afghanistan’s leading businesswomen in Europe, is to dramatically increase the size of her e-commerce business.
Diva Group is in the process of moving from its 33,000 sq ft premises to newer 100,000 sq ft industrial accommodation at the innovation and technology campus. Employee numbers are set to double to around 200 as a result of the move.
The business has already invested heavily in the use of AI plus, more recently, over £1m in automation systems to keep up with consumer demand for the big brand products it sells online.
Diva, who located her business to Silverstone Park with just 20 employees three years ago, says growing belief in her vision from external forces has given her the confidence to expand.
“Before Covid, online business was not as known to so many big brands,” explains Diva. “I remember trying to impress them and they weren’t that interested but now it is the other way around – they knock on our door to impress us to say ‘we’ve got the good brand, why don’t you bring it onto your shelves’.
“I think that just shows the growth in online business and the technology that people are using today.”
Diva continued: “In the next few months the premises will be transformed with a huge amount of warehousing for distribution – we anticipate serving a huge number of customers.
“A lot of automation is coming – we’ve invested over £1m alone on automation and bringing new technology into the business such as belting systems to make our business growth faster.
“AI is separate and something we’re already using. I’ve been careful to ensure I personally understand the AI so it is used in the correct way for our customers. This has proved highly effective in dealing with customer enquiries – 99.9% in fact.”
Diva says her business also has the means to move with the times in terms of consumer demand.
“As technology has improved, we have the online tools now to see what consumers are searching for the most.
“This enables us to respond to these trends and fill those niches.”
She added: “Who knows, maybe in the next few years there will be little robots running around in our premises – they perhaps need to be more advanced before we bring them, but it is something I want to bring in maybe the next stages of our growth. They could be part of our future but I think automation is the future anyway.
“I believe in the next three to five years we can be three or five times bigger than we are now – this is my challenge.
“I’m very happy with my business being at Silverstone Park – it’s a place that is providing huge opportunities for big companies and I’m actually proud to be with all these brands, companies and names in technology. And of course it’s nice to now be the holder of the biggest property here.”
