CV 2016 Small Business awards

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Small Business

AWARDS 2016

Businesswoman

AWARDS 2016

THE LIFE -CHANGERS Sintetica are a Switzerland based pharmaceutical firm with a global reach. We invited CEO Augusto Mitidieri to talk us through how the firm came to achieve its current success.

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WELCOME TO THE SMALL BUSINESS AWARDS 2016 Small businesses form the backbone of our corporate landscape. Despite often being overlooked in favour of bigger names, these firms provide much needed support and services to the communities they operate in, and as such deserve recognising and rewarding for the hard work and dedication they put in.

In order to ensure that the very best small businesses, and the individuals behind them, receive the recognition they deserve, we have designed the 2016 Small Business Awards. All sectors and regions are covered in this programme, with firms ranging from service providers and manufactures through to unions and lawyers welcome.

The only unifying factor is an unwavering commitment to excellence.

THE WINNERS ARE...

4. Sintetica - Pharmaceutical Company of the Year - Switzerland

8. E-Bisprint Pty Limited - Best SME Managed Services Provider & Innovation Award for IT Integrated Online Services - Australia 10. Fake Bake - Best Sunless Tanning Brand 2016 - UK 12. IsoAcoustics Inc - Best Audio System Mounting & Stand Engineers - Canada & Most Innovative Speaker Isolation Stand: Modular Aluminium System 16. Qualitia Software Private Limited - Most Innovative Test Automation Platform 2016 18. Allfire - Most Innovative Fire Safety Equipment Company - UK 19. Brand Potential - Best Brand Marketing Agency - UK 20. Cobblestone Garden Centre - Best Garden Centre 2016 - Calgary 21. Collins McHugh - Best CSR Consultancy - UK 22. Entwurfreich - Best Design Consultancy - Germany 23. Eviivo - Best Accommodation Booking Solutions Provider 2016 24. EVITA PERONI - Hair Accessory Retailer of the Year - Singapore 25. Fragrance Delivery Technologies Ltd - Best for Product Design - UAE & Most Environmentally Conscious - UAE 26. GForces - Best Automotive Software & Digital Service Provider 2016 27. Global Forwarding Pty Ltd - Best for Freight Forwarding Solutions 2016 & Innovation Award for Supply Chain Management 28. Go West Group - Best Branding & Marketing Firm - Victoria 29. The Golden Jubilee Conference Hotel - Best Conference Hotel 2016- UK 30. HydroNov - Best Hydroponic Technologies Installation Company - Quebec 31. The Ideal Marketing Company - Best SME Marketing Firm - Midlands 32. Integrated Facilities Solutions Ltd - Best Construction Handover Documentation Specialists - UK & Ireland 33. iP24 Limited - Most Innovative Security Solutions Specialist - UK & Award for Excellence in Surveillance Technology Installations - UK 34. JustAccounts - Best Professional Accountancy Platform Provider - UK 35. Laipac Technology Inc - Best for Real Time Asset Tracking Solutions - Canada 36. Nonconform - Best Brand Design & Marketing Agency - UK 37. Opus Recruitment Solutions - Best Recruitment Services Provider - UK & Recruitment CEO of the Year - UK 38. Ontario Property Management Group Inc. - Best Property Management Firm - Ontario 39. OXIS Energy - Best Lithium Sulphur Chemistry Manufacturer 2016 40. Pemeco Consulting - Best Manufacturing ERP Consultancy - East Canada 42. PhytoLux Ltd - Best Horticultural LED Technology Provider - UK 43. Red Cow Media Limited - Best Digital Marketing Agency - United Kingdom 44. Reset Branding - Best Branding & Design Firm 2016 & Most Innovate Beverage Brand Development Project: Empire Distilleries 45. Sterling Cross - Best Ammunition & Body Armour Manufacturer - Canada 46. STEROID Integrated Marketing LLC - Best for CRM - Middle East 47. Thermal Energy International Inc. - Best Energy Efficiency Solutions Supplier 2016 & Award for Excellence in Clean Tech Implementation 48. ValiRx - Best Cancer-Focussed Biotech Company - UK

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Pharmaceutical Company of the Year - Switzerland

Sintetica are a Switzerland based pharmaceutical firm with a global reach.

We invited CEO Augusto Mitidieri to talk us through how the firm came to achieve its current success.

Established 1921 in Switzerland, Sintetica is a pharmaceutical company delivering injectable anaesthetics and analgesics to patients worldwide, through innovative science and excellence in development, production and marketing. Operating around 230 employees in sites across Europe, in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Italy and United Kingdom, the firm offers a truly global reach. Augusto explains the firm’s core focus and how it aims to provide the most innovative solutions on the international market.

“At Sintetica we are fully committed to innovate therapies and drugs in local anaesthesia, pain management and neuromodulation. We move forward with passion and competence in the full respect of people and environment.

“All of our efforts and resources are focused to become leader in these fields by developing novel medicine and better treatment’s options for physicians and patients worldwide. To achieve this leadership by innovation in the context of global growth, we consider strategic partnering and business development the key factors. We have built an agile and multicultural high-performing organization to support both the robust national growth and the rapid global expansion and we have adopted two different business models accordingly. In Switzerland, Germany, Austria, the UK and Ireland our specialized sales teams directly promote and market our products. Worldwide the Global Division delivers our top medicines through strategic international partners.”

As a privately owned company, Sintetica have a very effective and fast track decision chain, which is a distinctive advantage in the completive market in which the firm operate.

The Board is very close to the company itself, granting a large autonomy to the CEO, but also providing the ability to approve or amend strategic plans and industrial projects in a timely manner.

With its 95th anniversary coming up, Sintetica are able to draw on a vast past experience in order to focus on improving the value proposition it provides to customers. Augusto

believes that health and safety, as well as innovation, are the core focuses of the business, and therefore it works hard to ensure that it is constantly compliant with the latest regulation and ahead of the curve in terms of new techniques and technologies.

“Fundamentally, we consider the quality system to be central to deliver excellence to patients worldwide. Therefore, we implement a robust and comprehensive quality policy stating guidelines and procedures to manage all aspects of our industrial day-life, making our people the best asset to maintain quality and safety of our products at the highest level. The Company Ethic Code and the quality health and safety policy are fundamentals of being a Sintetica employee. Our people are the real stars of our business and the biggest resource we count on to safeguard both the company and the lives of our clients. That is why we believe in offering a great place to work, with a culture that promotes creativity, informed risk taking and safe and good feeling in everyday work.

Sintetica takes seriously its obligation to meet the highest standards of business ethics and integrity, and makes meeting those standards is the responsibility of all our employees. The manufacturing and development sites are both based in Switzerland and are routinely inspected by the international health authorities meeting the Swiss, European, US and international highest standards.

“In addition, we also believe that technology is central to our success. The integration of the technology into the processes is one of the operational challenges we are facing in this recent period of rapid growth. The speed of technological development is impressive and within the pharmaceutical industry we struggle to follow, due to the stringent regulations we have to abide by, which can delay innovation adoption. The increasing complexity of the processes requires a massive implementation of the technology, not only in the manufacturing where we have made and still are making important efforts of automation, but also in the management of the organization, the operations and sales force. Our corporate ERP system is

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Pharmaceutical Company of the Year - Switzerland

running and is continuously adapted to follow the pattern and the model of the growth while a corporate CRM system is used by the national sales forces. An innovative new IT infrastructure is under development to support, among the others, techniques such as smart working.”

Augusto’s assertion that the market is rapidly evolving highlights the challenges firm’s such as his face as they work to adapt around new developments on all fronts: new regulations, technologies and methods of working are constantly being introduced. Novel new therapies and treatments require more and more the redevelopment of existing drugs.

As such Sintetica enhance drug formulation assuring the fitting of its “Premix” medicines to the current standard of care.

In addition, surgical procedures have increased the cost pressure on the global health system, and therefore the industry is shifting towards day surgery. Modern short/medium acting local anaesthetics are part of Sintetica’s “One Day Surgery “proposal to adapt the length and the conditions of anaesthesia to the novel surgical needs, allowing patient same day safe demission.

“We also consider of outmost importance that patients when back home after surgery is again fully able to operate as they would normally” Augusto adds. “This means that pain has to be managed at hospital as much as possible. “Dual Spinal” is our innovative pain killer drug which we are developing to treat the acute pain after surgery at hospital, when inducing anaesthesia.

“Enhance Intrathecal Therapy” is our promise to improve care in the neuromodulation. Overall we develop novel drugs and make available life-changing medicines to the largest number of patients and health care providers world-wide.”

In order to achieve this vision, the firm needs to operate with a strong team behind it, which is why Augusto is keen to expand upon the firm’s internal culture and how it fosters collaboration and dedication.

“Sintetica’s corporate culture is well summed up in the concept of “great place to work”, which has become our real brand. Our commitment, thanks also to the creation of a new corporate division for sustainability and human resources, is to make this vision continuative, shared and participated. As part of this we help different cultures every day interact with our Swiss environment to generate opportunities of growth. That is why, when hiring new employees, we look for ‘smart’ people who share our thirst for diversity, our respect for traditions and our aim to be a global leading company.

“As part of our strategy to attract these staff to our firm we are currently reorganizing and enhancing the recruitment, selection and hiring process. This is also due to the strong growth which we are seeing, which means that we need new staff to support us through this. As a small company we must be excellent to attract or possibly discover the best talent in the market.

Alongside our recruitment drive we also have to recognize, develop and encourage the ones we have. To achieve the overall goal, we are also implementing our employer branding proposition to attract the very best talent and make staff feel secure and supported in their role.”

Looking to the future, the firm is keen to continue innovating in order to remain at the forefront of the latest developments in the market, as Augusto concludes.

“Moving forward, the strategic plan “Strategia 2021” has been recently approved by the board.

This plan calls for the international commercial diffusion of the innovation as main leverage to grow in the next future. Our Global Division is focusing on high speed robust partner selection and affiliation in each and every country of the world offering a dynamic portfolio of selected branded medicines, developed to answer unmet clinical needs, to build sustainable and long lasting alliances. Ultimately, executive projects to improve the industrial sites manufacturing capacity and pharmaceutical and clinical pipeline development are major pillars to sustain the midterm strong growth.”

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Company: Sintetica SA Name: Augusto Mitidieri Position: Corporate CEO Email: info@sintetica.com Web Address: sintetica.com Address: Mendrisio- Switzerland Telephone: +41 91 640 42 50

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Best SME Managed Services Provider & Innovation Award for IT Integrated Online Services - Australia

First established in 1990 as a home-based print brokerage firm, E-Bisprint is now a multi-award-winning Australian family owned and operated procurement company, catering to the core needs of clients in a variety of sectors; warehousing and logistics, corporate apparel and workwear, marketing, and print management, which is all managed by one overarching IT division.

Put simply, E-Bisprint support and simplify an organisation’s purchasing and operational activities by offering a complete end-to-end solution, saving their clients time and money.

Since 2000, the company has increasingly diversified into e-commerce; back then, E-Bisprint were known as early adopters of this technology. Today, the company has offices in four Australian capital cities, with headquarters on the NSW Central Coast. They also operate a major distribution hub in Asia, have access to 69 warehouses across Australia, and have a growing IT development team in the Philippines.

The majority of the firm’s clients today are medium to large corporate companies and government departments. E-Bisprint are passionate about what they do and are proud to maintain their roots as a family owned and operated business, despite their rapid growth.

The success of E-Bisprint is founded on that passion and belief, as well as the firm’s ability and foresight to move swiftly with technology and come up with the most innovative ideas by placing a strong focus on continually building on their Intellectual Property. E-Bisprint have always understood that people are the real secret to success in business and have always made it an absolute priority to look after their people.

Whether they are working with a new client or on a new sizeable project with an existing client, they assign an implementation team staffed by the right personnel to suit the client and the product. E-Bisprint also nominate an account director who manages the project every step of the way and acts as the main point of contact for the client. The account manager establishes a Gantt chart for project management purposes, assigns the appropriate resources for each allocated task, scopes the project, obtains client approval based on that scope, and tracks progress as the timeline progresses. Thorough testing is always conducted before any new product goes live. For more recently released innovations like the firm’s tailored procurement software solution ZOOL, a staged release with testing and pilot releases at intervals was deemed the best means of implementation.

ZOOL is fast developing a reputation within the procurement industry as a prime example of disruptive technology. The software is capable of managing the procurement for an entire State Government department and delivering hard cost savings of more than 7% as well as substantial soft cost savings. Being a tailored solution that is continuing to evolve, there is widespread belief that the world is yet to see the full potential of this powerful software.

E-Bisprint’s mission is to improve processes and costs for their clients at every stage of the procurement cycle. The firm are achieving this mission by conducting a thorough needs analysis with every client they work with, listening closely to their wants and needs, observing the way they currently operate, and noting how their existing processes could be improved for greater efficiency and compliance, cost savings and reduced risk. E-Bisprint offer an ever-evolving suite of technology products, and tailor those products to the specific needs of their clients.

The firm are set apart from their competitors by four key principles, which they have adhered to since foundation; innovation, customer-centric design, a positive workplace culture, and a commitment to leading the way as opposed to playing catch-up. Early in the firm’s evolution, Paul Freeman made the strategic decision to focus on the IT side of the business, despite the fact that the Internet had only just been launched, while other print management companies were moving into warehousing. This decision was instrumental in creating a major point of difference from his competitors. Today, E-Bisprint are continually enhancing their core products as new clients come on board.

E-Bisprint’s short-term goal is to selectively target the right people within the right industries to demonstrate this technology to with a view to tailor ZOOL to suit their specific needs and in this way, further grow the business and the firm’s reputation as a leader in the procurement space.

It’s about education as opposed to selling. Once potential clients are educated on the significant benefits that can be achieved with this software

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and understand that E-Bisprint provide a step by step solution, with testing, further education and sign-off at each phase, the client feels confident to proceed.

Looking longer term, the firm have an acquisition strategy in place to expand nationally, and then globally. E-Bisprint perceive the greatest opportunities for growth to be in their technology products, particularly their flagship cloudbased communication and procurement software ZOOL and QOKKI, the tailored event management software solution for which the firm recently won a PEAK Award in the US.

The projected growth of the company is in the vicinity of 30 – 50% year on year over the next five years. To support this growth, the firm are committed to expanding their development team both locally and offshore. The team at E-Bisprint firmly believe passion and commitment will drive their growth, and they are currently seeking people to join their team who share a belief in their products and vision, and have a desire to learn and grow with the company.

Company: E-Bisprint Pty Limited Web Address: www.ebisprint.com/

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Best Sunless Tanning Brand 2016 - UK

Fake Bake is the world’s largest independent tanning brand with over 25 years’ experience in discovering and manufacturing revolutionary tanning products. Founded in America in 1995, entrepreneur Sandra Vaughan decided to introduce the tanning brand to the UK as a salon brand in 2001. After this massively successful launch, 2003 saw Sandra develop Fake Bake into an award-winning retail range, which continues to grow year upon year.

Fake Bake has always been focused on the celebration of real women, with female empowerment often being at the forefront of their marketing campaigns; Fake Bake is truly a brand for the masses, and a brand which cares about their customers. Although their products are luxurious and contain only the most premium of ingredients, their competitive pricing and relatable brand personality enables them to appeal to every age group and a range of demographics.

Now celebrating their 15th year in the UK, Fake Bake’s trade and consumer customers continue to grow with the brand, which is taking on a cult status amidst the beauty industry, salon professionals and celebrities alike. From winning both industry and consumer awards year upon year for an extensive product portfolio, it is also Fake Bake’s consumer campaigns and charity affiliations that set them apart from the competition. These campaigns are not only relevant to the retail side of Fake Bake, but they are also picked up and utilised by their trade clients to help develop their own brand advocacies and positive associations.

Shortly after their launch in the UK, Fake Bake developed the Save Your Skin campaign, in support of UK Skin Healing Charity RAFT, with the aim of educating customers on the dangers of natural and UV tanning. Sandra Vaughan took a petition of 10,000 signatures to Downing Street to lobby for the ban of sunbed use for those under 18 years old, and was pleased when this was successful.

This is not the only campaign that Fake Bake have been involved in; throughout the Real Women campaign, they shared customer’s inspirational stories, celebrating their individual strengths. The #breasties collaboration with CoppaFeel!, educated customers on how to continually check themselves for breast cancer, as the company united fake tan with the checking process.

More recently, the much-celebrated Save Your Selfie confidence campaign spread across social media like wildfire, with customers, celebs and bloggers getting involved. An online wellbeing guide was created to support customers in all aspects of health and happiness, which included stories from singer songwriter Lucy Spraggan and Josie Gibson, alongside health tips from media doctor Dr Dawn, to name but a few.

Alongside their charity campaigns, B2B and B2C marketing are both a major focus for the company, and as such, Sandra launched Fake Bake Mobile in 2009; training customers in the art of spray tanning and providing them with the business tools required to launch their own spray tanning business. Further to this, in 2015 Fake Bake Beauty at Home was launched.

This party planning and direct selling business concept gives people the chance to become their own beauty entrepreneur at no risk and low cost, with flexible working hours and excellent commission, whilst retailing exclusive skincare, make-up, tanning, home fragrances and bath and body products.

Fake Bake believes that staying ahead of technological advancements in the beauty industry is one of their most important tasks. The luxurious product formulations are developed by their team of experts, and contain the highest quality ingredients, are free from artificial preservatives and parabens. Their specialist product claims, which include anti-ageing, are backed up by clinical trials. Fake Bake plan to maintain a continuous focus on new product development and leading the way in beauty innovation will always be a key aim for the brand. This is showcased by the recent launch of Fake Bake Signature and the James Harknett Contour Masterclass, which have both helped to ensure that the brand is at the forefront of tanning trends, which will help them to enhance their client’s business. The importance of remaining at the forefront of advancements

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outside of their sector is also a top priority for Fake Bake; they ensure that they are able to communicate with their customers via their favourite social media channels, via e-marketing and via live chat, at both their professional and trade websites.

Life at Fake Bake HQ is brimming with creativity.

It is through this unique and collaborative spirit that Fake Bake’s staff are able to promote the brand’s fun and quirky personality. All staff are provided with hands on training, and an exciting entrepreneurial spirit ensures that the brand attracts the very best talent in the business.

Self-tanning is one of the fastest growing sectors in the beauty business, so continual growth on a global scale is Fake Bake’s main focus.

However, throughout their journey travelling the world, Fake Bake have discovered a need to adapt their products depending on the country.

They are currently working on a project which will take them to territories that were originally not possible with their brand, but they believe that this will be their most exciting venture yet; it is all top secret at the moment, but make sure to keep looking out for Fake Bake!

Company: Fake Bake United Ltd Email: customerrelations@fakebake.co.uk Web Address: www.fakebake.co.uk Address: 22-28 Napier Place, Warpark North, Cumbernauld, G68 0LL Telephone: 03448 56 57 58

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Best Audio System Mounting & Stand Engineers - Canada & Most Innovative Speaker Isolation Stand: Modular Aluminium System

IsoAcoustics Inc have been designing and developing isolation systems for audio speakers since early 2012. Their stands provide superior acoustic isolation and enhance the sound clarity of virtually all speakers and amplification systems, including monitors for the professional studio and sound reinforcement, home theatre systems, musical instrument amplifiers, subwoofers and large monitors. IsoAcoustics products are now used by studio professionals, musicians and hobbyists in homes, in studios and on stages around the world, with the products being sold in over 60 countries.

Dave Morrison, founder and president of IsoAcoustics worked at Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for 20 years, holding a senior role on the design team for the Broadcasting Centre in Toronto, which upon completion, was the world’s largest multi-media facility at over 1.72 million square feet. Dave turned a personal passion into a fast growing business by designing and patenting a unique isolation system for audio speakers, with all IsoAcoustics built with this distinctive technology that allows speaker to float in free space, resulting in authentic, clear, uncolored sound.

“With a high degree of isolation to mitigate internal reflections, I discovered that managing the energy and resisting lateral movement and oscillations within audio speakers resulted in a greater level of clarity and focus. The studio professionals that use our equipment find that they are working faster with their mixes, and with greater confidence, as the IsoAcoustics stands compliment speakers and studio monitors to provide more openness and clarity.

configuration as required for these projects, allowing an enviable level of customization.

“IsoAcoustics has recently launched GAIA, a new line of products for the Home Audio and audiophile sector that provides a new level of sound clarity and openness. The GAIA isolators replace the threaded spikes in large floor standing audio speakers and compliment the speaker to provide a new standard in audio clarity. The bass becomes tighter and punchier, while the mid-range is better defined with more clarity in the higher frequencies. The entire sound stage opens into a spacious threedimensional image. GAIA speaker isolators are available in three sizes for different weights and sizes of speakers.”

“When a speaker is placed on a hard surface, the energy within the cabinet can excite the supporting surface, which in turn radiates sounds. This also means that reflections can come back up through the cabinet from that hard surface, like ripples coming back off the sides of a swimming pool. The IsoAcoustics stands isolate the speakers from the supporting surface to eliminate the muddy, smeared sounds, while resisting the lateral movements to provide greater focus and clarity.”

The Modular Aluminium system which the firm have recently developed takes the IsoAcoustics patented principles and makes them available in a flexible form that can be configured in virtually any size, to meet the needs of large speaker applications, as Dave explains.

“This technology can be used for large studio monitors, Hifi speakers, guitar amps, drum risers and other applications, with calculations based on overall size and total weight. IsoAcoustics website has an Online Calculator that will propose the optimal number of isolators and

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Each new product developed by IsoAcoustics is based on their patented design principles and builds upon their experience in developing simple and elegant solutions that deliver extraordinary results.

“We have a knowledgeable support team that can answer customer questions and inquiries, as well as providing guidance in product selection and configuration. There is a growing following of people who are very passionate about our products and performance and it’s a pleasure to work with them to find solutions to meet their needs. IsoAcoustics is a family operated business; everyone is aware of our new developments, strategies, accomplishments and is very passionate about our achievements. We work in a business that is an exciting cross-over between technology and the arts, and we get to work with very creative and enthusiastic people.

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Best Audio System Mounting & Stand Engineers - Canada & Most Innovative Speaker Isolation Stand: Modular Aluminium System

“To stay ahead of the competition, our focus remains on continuing to build innovative products that deliver real acoustic benefits.

Customers hear the difference in clarity and stereo image when they use our products for the first time, which has led to enthusiasm and growth in the marketplace. As the professional and home audio markets recognize the exciting new differences our products present in sound clarity and performance, we continue to build more relationships, with other manufacturers to integrate our products and patented designs into their products.”

Case Study The performance of a great monitor speaker can be even further improved when it is supported by IsoAcoustic’s patented acoustic isolation stands, as GRAMMY-nominated producer, mastering engineer, mixer and musician Fabrice “Fabulous Fab” Dupont knows. Fab has been a long time user of IsoAcoustic’s technology, and installed a pair of custom-configured IsoAcoustics Modular Aluminium Series stands at his Flux Studios facility under a pair of Focal SM9 reference monitors, and found that they brought additional clarity to the speakers he was using.

“The IsoAcoustics stands are what I call ‘unclouders’—they solidify things,” says Fab. “With these stands I don’t ask myself questions about where the low-mid frequencies are, because they make everything cleaner down there. All of these things are incremental ways for us to get our jobs done better.” He consulted with Focal to help develop the manufacturer’s innovative SM9 reference monitor, which he describes as “my favorite speaker in the world by far.”

Dupont recalls that he first encountered IsoAcoustics stands at a Sweetwater GearFest, where Simon Cote, pro audio sales manager for Audio Plus Services, Focal’s North American distributor, suggested that he check them out.

Case Study Ronan Chris Murphy, producer, mixer, engineer and recording artist, recently upgraded the main room at his Veneto West studio complex in Venice, California, where he removed the vintage analog mixing console, thus placing a greater emphasis on the monitoring signal path. The reconfigured studio now features a massive pair of FAR (Fundamental Acoustic Research) prototype main monitor speakers that are decoupled from the floor using customconfigured IsoAcoustics Modular Series aluminium acoustic isolation stands.

“These one-of-a-kind FAR speakers weigh about 300 pounds each. I was surprised that the IsoAcoustics stands could accommodate them,” says Murphy, who has hundreds of albums in a broad range of genres—including hip-hop, classical chamber music, acoustic jazz, singersongwriters and progressive rock—to his credit.

But the IsoAcoustics Modular Series stands were up to the task, and have made a marked improvement to the performance of the main monitors, he says.

“The FAR speakers are really great sounding, very full-range and very accurate, which isn’t always the case with very large monitors. I use them primarily for mastering work,” he continues. “But the difference with and without the IsoAcoustics stands is night and day. With the stands, the accuracy of the low end is just exponentially better. The FAR speaker cabinets each have dual 15-inch subs in them, and the subs alone are 1000 watts a side. Without the stands they are less fun to listen to because they make the whole room rumble. Now, with the IsoAcoustics stands, they produce a realistic and clear representation of the low end, more accurate and useful than before.”

“When I first listened to the IsoAcoustics stands, I really liked what they were doing for the low mids,” he recalls. “Since the low mids are what we spend many, many, many hours of every mix on, I thought they were very interesting.

I was using other products before—foambased stuff—but I was not enthralled. But these IsoAcoustics stands really make a difference for monitors and for subs, too. It’s amazing that something so basically simple in spirit would actually have such a dramatic effect when it’s well executed.”

Born in Canada and raised in France, Dupont‘s long list of credits include work with Queen Latifah, Jennifer Lopez, Shakira, Santogold, Mark Ronson, Bon Jovi, Marc Anthony, Sean Lennon and many others. Dupont has been nominated for Grammy Awards three times, for his work with Toots and the Maytals and Kirk Whalum. Earlier this year, French/Finnish duo The Dø won Les Victoires de la Musique—the Francophone equivalent of the Grammy Awards—in the category of Rock Album of the Year for Shake Shook Shaken, which Dupont mixed and mastered.

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Company: IsoAcoustics Inc. Name: Dave Morrison Email: dave.morrison@isoacoustics.com Web Address: www.isoacoustics.com Address: 4981 Hwy 7 East, Unit 12 Suite 160, Markham, Ontario Canada L3R 1N1 Telephone: 905-294-4672

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Most Innovative Test Automation Platform 2016

Qualitia is a technology firm which has created innovative script less test automation platform that enables everyone in QA teams in their clients’ firms to automate testing in in agile and Dev-ops environment. We profile the firm and explore the secrets behind its success.

Qualitia helps companies accelerate the process of releasing higher quality software by empowering their Quality Assurance teams. The platform is industry’s first GUI based and easy to use scriptless test automation platform for cloud applications, mobile as well as for thick client applications.

Traditionally, either the enterprises had to rely on manual testers to complete all their testing requirements and also manually keep up with changes in the application and modify and track the tests or enterprises had to leverage a script based test automation platform and spend considerable resources on developing and maintaining scripts. Qualitia, founded by veterans of the test automation industry, solves this problem by making test automation – fast, easy, reliable and comparatively cheaper.

Qualitia is a company to watch because it creates value for a large underserved market of manual testers by allowing them to automate their tests without requiring any development or scripting expertise. The focus of current vendors was on the testing community using script based testing methods and not on manual testers. In addition, the firm enjoys the first mover advantage and there is no eminent threat of other entrants. The firm serves the manual testing community which represents eighty percent of the total web based enterprise testing market.

Fundamentally, the platform is economical to deploy, easy to use, reliable in operations and swift in delivery. This is validated by zero customer attrition and increase in number of licenses being purchased by existing customers.

As such it solves the following four business problems for its target audience of enterprise customers using manual testing: tight delivery timelines resulting in not enough time to manually complete testing in a systematic manner; lack of dedicated resources to execute the test cases due to cost pressures; continuous product revisions warrant new test cases to be added frequently; and traditional script based test applications are complex and need additional resources in terms of manpower to write those scripts.

Ultimately, what makes Qualitia’s platform so disruptive is that it allows enterprises to reduce their manual testing cost and time by up to 66%, creating a new business model of serving non-developers to execute their tasks with same efficiency as offered by tools warranting development efforts. Overall, the platform meets the needs and serves the segment ignored by the larger commercial test automation players and this will be the firm’s ongoing focus.

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Company: Qualitia Software Private Limited Email: info@qualitiasoft.com Website: http://www.qualitiasoft.com/

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Most Innovative Fire Safety Equipment Company - UK Company: Allfire, a division of Allsaved Ltd. Name: Tom Simmonds Email: info@allsaveduk.com Web Address: www.allfireuk.com Address: Nyetimber Farm, Lower Jordans Lane, Gay Street, Pulborough, West Sussex, RH20 2HH Telephone: 01798 812999

Allfire are a solution focused fire safety company supporting a wide range of clients from single-site SMEs through to national utilities companies with thousands of sites. Operating in such a vital sector, Managing Director Tom Simmonds is keen to emphasise the firm’s focus on quality and compliance.

Offering a comprehensive range of fire safety services, Allfire supports clients with everything from fire risk assessments to fire suppression system installation and servicing. The firm’s sister divisions, Allpower and Allsaved, ensure a complete service offering by providing electrical contracting and health and safety services.

It is the firm’s focus on providing high quality solutions which keep clients safe which is central to its service offering, as Tom is eager to explain.

“Here at Allfire, our mission is to provide solutionfocused compliance. As such we always look at

things differently, seeking to be able to provide a cost effective solution that mitigates risk whilst in no way undermines standards.

“To achieve this, all projects are carefully assessed and the solution specified in order to deliver the best solution for the client. Once we are instructed by the client, the project is allocated a project manager to ensure successful project delivery.”

Technology is at the core of everything Allfire, Allpower and Allsaved do, and the firms use an integrated operational management system that delivers real world auditable client benefit.

Where the need for a bespoke software solution is identified, this is designed and implemented at the company’s cost to ensure the best service delivery and project expedience. Tom discusses how putting safety over cost is what differentiates the group from other fire safety firms.

“At Allfire we set ourselves apart from other fire safety companies by never targeting our profit at your cost. We never try to sell you goods or services you do not need and we do not pay any form of commission to our staff. This way they are not incentivised to sell you more than you actually require, and instead focus on delivering the products that will offer you the maximum safety according to your situation.”

Looking ahead, Tom outlines the firm’s continued focus on providing clients with the best possible solutions which meet their needs.

“The future for Allfire is to continue offering our existing clients the range of services on offer from our three divisions. In addition to this, we are keen to engage new clients with multi-site or large scale scenarios where our use of IT systems can reduce costs for the client.”

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Best Brand Marketing Agency - UK Company: Brand Potential Name: Tom Lovett Email: tom.lovett@brand-potenital.co.uk Web Address: www.brand-potential.co.uk Address: Number One, 1 High Street, Windsor, SL4 1LD Telephone: 01753 422944

At Brand Potential, the team find size and create opportunities for brand owners and investors looking for accelerated brand growth. Formed in 2010 by three hands-on owner-founders, who come from backgrounds in research, consumer strategy and branding, the firm’s aim is to combine commercial thinking with a creative edge to help accelerate brand growth.

Brand Potential provide research, insight, consumer and customer strategy, innovation, design and engagement, plus consumer and brand due diligence. Working with brand owners and PE firms, they help to create long term value, whether it’s to enter a new category, expand internationally, target new customers and consumers, or create new growth ideas.

The firm work both creatively, commercially and collaboratively to help their clients accelerate their businesses. Brand Potential aim to understand their clients’ business and objectives fully, so that they are able to add value at every stage.

The firm are an independent brand agency which was created to find, size, and realise the untapped potential in brands. Brand Potential provide confidence to the people who make the decisions for those brands, and their clients include; Unilever, Boots, Steinhoff, ABF group, ASDA, Wilkinson, United Biscuits, Arla, Pernod Ricard, Hailo, Mars and TalkTalk. The team have ‘inspiration days’ where they attend industry events to keep up with new methodologies and technologies. They have ambassadors who are visionaries in their fields who they keep in contact with, in order to keep one step ahead on industry trends.

clients, repeat business and a great reputation.

Brand Potential wish to foster a positive energy within the business, to create a buzz and to share it around, and to remain true to what they believe in, to do the best for their clients, their people and their business. They want to remain open and honest, and to have integrity in all they do.

Brand Potential believe that they are a new type of brand agency, combining research, creative and commercial thinking to help their clients accelerate their brand growth, applying rigour with ideas and practical brand and consumer solutions. The firm are looking forward to developing their capabilities further within their design team, building brand stories and identities. In addition, they continue to grow the team, setting up a northern office early 2017.

Team members at Brand Potential are a mix of creative, commercial, insight, strategic and experienced brand thinkers who apply logical, rigorous, creative, tangible and practical solutions to everything they do for their clients.

Within the business, the team have three distinctive values that they work towards; delivery, drive and truth. They never want to lose sight of the fact that great work means happy

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Best Garden Centre 2016 - Calgary Company: Cobblestone Garden Centre Name: Tricia Ingram Email: tricia@cobblestonegarden.ca Web Address: www.cobblestonegarden.ca Address: 10300 17 Ave SE Calgary Alberta Canada T0J1X0 Telephone: (Canada) 403.273.4760

Cobblestone Garden Centre Cobblestone Garden Centre is located in Alberta, Canada. The firm are a small-cap company that employ 15 people year round, with approximately 75 additional staff employed seasonally. Incorporated almost 15 years ago, the firm features both a production greenhouse growing facility, located 15 minutes southeast of Calgary, and a four-and-a-half-acre retail garden centre, located in Calgary, on the prime retail/commercial corner of the new southeast community of Belvedere.

Tricia Ingram told us more about the firm and their commitment to sustainability.

Controlling the supply chain, right from farm production to retail and commercial sales, Cobblestone Garden Centre are proud to be able to offer a comprehensive, value-added lineup of premium plant material to a wide range of clientele. Tricia notes that the firm’s current production is just under 500,000 plants annually, and that the firm are recognized for being a leader in environmentally-healthy growing practices.

“We are proud to be avid supports of waterconservation, soil rehabilitation, environmental protection, material recycling, proper crop rotations and integrated pest management, which includes the critical neonicotinoid elimination from our industry. Through our efforts, we are able to catch and re-use hundreds of millions of litres of water each year and increase the biological beneficials, nutrient ratios, and humus levels in soil.

“In addition to our award-winning plant material, we also offer the best brand of tools, soil amendments, plant fertilizers, pest control, turf supplies, aggregates, pottery, giftware, and outdoor birding in our full-service garden centre.

Retail clientele may bring their families for a fun outing, with many stopping in for a cappuccino or ice cream treat while they browse our store and display ideas, picking up various items for their home. Our commercial clientele may contact us for larger-scale projects, with the product being supplied immediately or coordinated over several weeks or months. We offer same-day delivery, installation services, custom growing, and in-home consultations. We understand that our success is a direct result of our customers’ success, and we actively engage our very valued clientele in the buying process, striving to facilitate for the best customer outcome where we can.”

Cobblestone Garden Centre prides itself on providing the best service, selection and value in the Alberta market, as Tricia explains.

“Like other businesses, we want to be as profitable as possible, but we also understand that profit is neither limited to, nor solely defined by, financial considerations; financial gain achieved at the expense of people or the environment is not true profit at all. Thousands of years of prior culture has shown that true business and societal success comes when development is partnered with environmental sustainability and individual fulfilment.

“Our company mandate of Whole Earth Whole Person - Whole Enterprise guides our corporate decision-making and operational goals. We advocate equally for a healthy planet, healthy citizens, and a healthy bottom line. Our dedicated team are all versed in our holistic approach and give diligent attention to all aspects of our business, from early-morning greenhouse inspections, and all-day customer care offered to our valued clientele, to Earthloving operational practices, and future business planning and community involvement. Despite an increasingly competitive market, we have continued to grow our operation year on year; the success we have enjoyed can largely be attributed to our holistic business strategy, as we are unique in our sector and have been wellreceived by our clientele and employee team for our commitment to creating a better world.

“We also use technology as a critical tool in our business. In our production greenhouses, efficient crop production and rotation is facilitated by specialized machinery capable of minimizing man hour labour and increasing crop consistency. Technology is also paramount at our retail garden centre, as we use the most up

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to date versions of garden centre point of sale software that allows us to track and account for inventory as it moves through the supply chain, record individual customer purchases, which indicates to us when an inventory item is not moving, which prompts a sale, and when inventory is becoming depleted, which prompts a re-order from suppliers. Our main office further relies on input from both our farm and retail store, in order to track performance, handle accounting requirements, and forecast future endeavours. Social media, websites, and most other related go-to technological tools that further our brand awareness are also vital to our success.”

Looking to the future, Tricia expresses that Cobblestone Garden Centre would like to continue to move forward with their holistic business strategy. The firm are excited to continue to expand their offerings and attract new clientele.

“Several infrastructures, housing, and business developments are planned or just getting underway in our local area; the opportunity to serve these new developments is tremendous.

We have also seen promising growth in our endeavour to develop markets for bioavailable urban farming, both in our region and beyond. Our extensive expertise in horticultural production, soil science, and environmentalism sets us apart as leaders in this rapidly expanding sector of the economy.

“Critical to our success, we are also actively looking for forward-thinking, results-oriented prospects to join our team. Employee recruitment and development will continue to be a substantial focus for us.”

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Best CSR Consultancy - UK Company: Collins McHugh Name: Barry Collins Email: bcollins@collinsmchugh.co.uk Web Address: www.collinsmchugh.co.uk Address: Carlton Business Centre, 28 - 32 Greenwood St, Altrincham, Cheshire WA14 1RZ Telephone: 0330 223 2965

Collins McHugh is an established corporate responsibility consultancy that is passionate about commercially focused corporate responsibility. We invited Director Barry Collins to tell us more about the firm and the services it provides in this area.

Collins McHugh incorporate over 20 years’ experience in the corporate social responsibility arena. Their focus is to maximize the impacts that a well implemented programme can bring to their clients’ business. Barry outlines the services his firm provides in this area and how it aims to provide clients with as many benefits as possible.

•

“Cost reductions through effective carbon management or increased tender success because of a better understanding of the concept of sustainable growth and development, are not just reflections of the responsible nature of any given business; they are powerful commercial tools.

“Our approach is one of collaboration, because we believe we are the best at what we do and one of our aims is to (delete hopefully) make our clients agree. However, our major aim is to make our clients the best at what they do in the CSR arena, as part of any piece of work we will assess the competitors to our clients, their customers and suppliers to assess the maturity of CSR within their industry. We will research what drives CSR with our clients customers (delete organisations), what their key performance indicators are, key challenges they face and how the CSR activity of our client could support them.”

“And that is only the beginning. Well managed Corporate Social Responsibility can bring improved performance across the whole of your organisation including; motivated and engaged employees; solutions for your clients; joint initiatives with customers; more proactive supply chain management; cost benefits from improved environmental performance; as well as engaged and supportive communities.

“In order to help clients achieve these positive outcomes we operate our ‘Guiding Principles’ which shape our approach to every client and customer. We are a listening organisation and we look to deliver the best solutions to our clients’ needs and challenges, based on the outcomes they want to achieve, in the timeline available to them.”

These Guiding principles are: • To be open, honest and transparent in all that the firm do; • To understand clients’ needs and work collaboratively with them; • To be solutions driven; • To provide the quickest, most efficient and cost effective processes to achieve results; • To be a great company to work for;

and finally to be a great company to do business with.

By implementing these principals, the firm is able to support clients and offer a collaborative approach which meets their exact needs, as Barry outlines.

Looking ahead, there are a number of developments which will help the firm to continue to provide the very highest standards of service and support to clients.

“Fundamentally, Collins McHugh will always look to engage across an organisation so that all functions of the business feel part of the process, we are also great at sharing what we do. If we can put our clients in a position where they can take forward the CSR agenda without us, to us that is success. We only want to be in our clients supply chain if we are really adding value.

“So far 2017 is shaping up as an exciting year, with plans including, increased collaborative supply chain programmes, an interesting school engagement programme linking sport to safety and the new Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidance coming into play. All of these developments provide our firm with the opportunity to continue to be creative and innovative in what we do.

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Best Design Consultancy - Germany Company: Entwurfreich GmbH Name: Simon Gorski Email: info@entwurfreich.com Web Address: www.entwurfreich.com Address: Fleher Str. 32, 40223 Duesseldorf, Germany Telephone: +49 211 15964350

Entwurfreich are a Germany based innovation and design consultancy. The firm create desirable products and services which have an instant impact on the market owing to their excellent design. Simon Gorski told us more about the service offering of the firm and the workshops they offer.

As a globally recognised and award winning consultancy, Entwurfreich have successfully worked with multinational large-scale enterprises like ABB and FUJIFILM, classic midsized companies like EMSA and aspiring startups like KINGO in Guatemala. Simon notes that Entwurfreich always focus on delivering user experiences that make their designs stand out in the minds of consumers.

“This is the best possible way to achieve lasting brand identity and commercial success for our clients. We always provide state of the art manufacturing concepts, detailed sketches, 3D CAD files and renderings, and also make sure we protect design quality during the implementation process in order to achieve premium quality. The technical clarity and precision of German design forms the basis of our design philosophy. We combine this point of origin with a comprehensive sense of emotional brand management and storytelling. We always make sure that our staff are trained within the newest technologies available, so that they are able to achieve this.

entrepreneurship, and innovation management.

User research is the foundation of our development strategy, as it maps successfully the intersections between innovation and ideal integration into the product application scenario.

We follow this with usability testing, where we develop a solid test plan, recruit participants and analyse and report the insights we have gained. The concept development stage of our process then begins, after we have identified our customers’ needs and analysed competing products. We then develop a number of concepts that are both technically feasible and which meet the targeted specifications.

“We are always curious about new technology, process and material innovations. For the benefit of our clients, we continue to identify and unlock new trends in order to give clear and actionable guidance for the future, and we plan to continue along this route, providing high quality services for our customers.”

“We are proud to be able to offer workshops for corporate leaders who are responsible for strategy, marketing, sales or innovation, as well as senior executives and managers who want to integrate cutting-edge creative practices into their business process and corporate structures.

Alongside our workshops, we give international keynotes at events, companies and business schools, to share our knowledge and our approach.

“Drawing on our real-life experiences, we talk about our successes, the challenges we have faced and the lessons we have learned, with some of our key topics being design thinking,

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Best Accommodation Booking Solutions Provider 2016 Company: Eviivo Name: Thomas Messett Email: Thomas.messett@eviivo.com Web Address: www.eviivo.com Address: The Grimaldi Building, 154 Pentonville Road, London, N1 9JE Telephone: 0203 103 3500

Eviivo provides a simple to use online booking app, called eviivo suite, to small hotels and B&Bs. It is designed to make overbookings, payment issues and time consuming administrative tasks a thing of the past, and which enables small hotel and B&B owners to gain more online bookings through hundreds of different websites and then manage them all in one place. Thomas Messett

Eviivo is the only provider in the industry that helps their customers every step of the way; after signing up, they are not simply left to fend for themselves, they receive dedicated training sessions and customer support that is available seven days a week to get them going. Thomas says that Eviivo is for anyone with rooms to sell and a story to tell.

“We want to put small businesses such as B&Bs and independent hotels, on an equal footing online with the major market players, and to help them transform into 21st Century digital

businesses. We do this by providing a toolset that gives these hotels the unrivalled ability to run their businesses online, for less than £40 a month - less than many of them pay for a mobile phone contract!

“Our industry is incredibly competitive and to stay ahead we make sure that we go into real detail in all that we do. We work in a very diverse sector, our customers range from boutique hotels to vineyards, railway cars, huts, windmills and boats, all across Europe and as such, their needs are very diverse, and we have to cater to suit these. As a technology based company, we use technology in everything we do to improve our service; our marketing is digital, our product is digital, and increasingly, our customers service is digital, with more and more of our customers utilising our live chat service.

“The challenge we face is to build software that is easy to use and that at the same time allows our customers to run their business their way, unconstrained. For example, whilst any given accommodation provider may define only one or two sales policies, when you put all of those together this involves supporting over 10,000 different deposit and cancellation policy combinations. Our mission is to keep things simple for our customers, and we work hard to achieve this.

“Eviivo is growing fast and we expect that to continue. With over 6,000 properties on our books, and a new office just opening in Italy, we’re excited to keep the momentum up and to also bring new technology to our existing customers to help them maintain control online.”

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Hair Accessory Retailer of the Year - Singapore Web Address: www.evitaperoni.com Facebook: @EVITAPERONIDK Contact: info@evitaperoni.com

EVITA PERONI was founded in 1988 in Denmark. For more than 25 years, the brand has been proud to provide premium accessories to women around the world, and are now offering a small fashionable range of eyewear and other accessories. EVITA PERONI is a world leader in hair accessories for women who want stylish and fashionable accessories, with a touch of luxury.

The EVITA PERONI accessories range includes wonderful pieces for everyday wear as well as for special occasions. The company take pride in the use of exclusive materials such as Swarovski crystals from Austria, fabrics from Italy and handmade acetate from France to create unique high quality products.

Customers can get styling tips from EVITA PERONI trained style consultants in their stores around the world, as well as online. EVITA PERONI is sold mainly in premium department stores such as Takashimaya in Singapore and Central Department store in Thailand. There are also a select number of exclusive EVITA PERONI standalone stores in premium shopping malls, such as Golden Halls in Greece and City Centre Doha in Qatar.

EVITA PERONI is loved by women around the world who share a passion for beauty and elegance and who like to put their own touch into how they accessorise themselves. Many younger customers adore the classic range, with solid coloured basics, such as the popular Patricia Clip or the Becky Rib. Office ladies adore the beaded range and fabric items to add a bit of colour and style without being too bold, whilst the fashionistas go for the show pieces, latest fashion and the one-off collections that only have a limited number of items produced.

EVITA PERONI is expanding in the online space and the team look forward to giving the customers extensive options and excellent customer service to complement the in-store shopping experience.

Accessories are complements – a way to complete your own look with a touch of individuality. EVITA PERONI is proud to be featured complementing other international fashion brands in many fashion publications such as Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, Vogue, Tatler, Cosmopolitan and Gracia.

EVITA PERONI is unique in the range it offers. It’s full of creativity and individuality, and has a unique combination of colours and materials. It’s beautiful yet functional. It’s a little gem in every woman’s treasure trove. Always to be relied upon for that touch of luxury to make an outfit complete.

Many celebrities are fans of EVITA PERONI accessories and the firm is proud to have been worn by the likes of Cara Delevigne, Olivia Wilde and Araya A. Hargate. EVITA PERONI has also sponsored events such as the MTV music awards, and features on a number of catwalks.

The firm are also the proud receiver of his Royal Highness Prince Henrik’s medal of honour.

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Best for Product Design - UAE & Most Environmentally Conscious - UAE Company: Fragrance Delivery Technologies Ltd Email: communications@oxygenpowered.com Web Address: www.oxygenpowered.com Address: Head Office: RA07AC06, LIU 15, JAFZA North, UAE UK Office: Unit 4 Enterprise Court, Station Road, Sandbach, Cheshire, CW11 3SB Telephone: UAE: +971 48870577, UK: +44 1270 766 676

Fragrance Delivery Technologies (FDT) provides emission-free technology which releases pure fragrance oil with odour neutralisers. We spoke to Hydros Jassem, CEO and Nupur Saxena, Product Manager to tell us more about these innovative, eco-friendly hygiene solutions.

FDT is an eco-friendly washroom technology specialist offering Oxy-Gen Powered Air Fresheners which are based on its patented Fuel Cell technology. This technology is widely believed to be the next revolution in the field of “emission free” and “precise” fluid delivery by generating oxygen at a constant and precise rate.

The same technology is used to deliver drugs to humans and animals in a continuous and timely manner. Hydros talks us through this innovative and pioneering technology in more detail.

“Our mission was to develop a system that is effective - in terms of eliminating malodour and in providing a continuous, pleasant fragrance using a clean technology that is safe for the user and the environment, that is reliable, easy to use and most importantly, cost-effective.

A rapid increase in repeat orders from customers across the globe validates the effectiveness of the product and has encouraged us to develop new products using Oxy-Gen powered technology”.

Nupur adds, “Distributed globally from our bases in the UK, USA, Europe, India and UAE, the OxyGen Powered system is the only air freshness system in the world which is Carbon Footprint Approved. It has been verified for emissions and energy consumption and was found to have a significantly lower carbon footprint compared to aerosol products in the market.

smelling environment, without worrying about any harmful side effects.”

Overall, the air care market has been characterised by novelty rather than innovation. There has been a clear need for a new generation of products that would bring significant improvement to the consumer in the way fragrances are being delivered, but the development of new technology has been hindered by the focus of major product manufacturers on creating shareholder value, rather than product development. We saw a gap in the market for a product that meets the preferences of the market, without the performance issues of its forerunners.

At least 70% of air fresheners used in commercial or institutional premises are aerosol, pump spray or fan-driven gel systems which are not environmentally friendly. Organizations are now looking for cleaner and greener products that are effective and that solve the problem of unavoidable odour issues that exist in any facility. Nupur outlines how FDT supports clients to achieve their objective by providing them with products which meet their exact needs.

“At FDT, we are able to create customised products for our customers, in order to meet their individual needs. Our system can be adapted to specific end user requirements and we work with them to make the necessary

“The patented Oxy-Gen Powered technology ensures that pure fragrance oil is delivered continuously, without any added volatile organic compounds (VOCs), solvents, propellants or other harmful emissions that are harmful to the ozone layer and to humans at elevated concentrations. It reduces the amount of VOCs being emitted by up to 90% when compared to aerosol cans. Combined with Neutra-lox, a proprietary odour neutralising agent, this eliminates, not masks, any bad aromas, leaving only a fresh scent in the air. This means that facility care providers can ensure a pleasant

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changes. From field trials to product launch to training, our team supports the customer at each and every step.

“In addition, we are continuously updating our existing products and developing new systems to give distributors and service companies a full range of washroom hygiene systems. We have a strong R&D department whose sole focus is on developing technologically advanced, ecofriendly and reliable products for the market.”

“In keeping with FDT’s strategic objectives of dynamic innovation , we look forward to developing unique new products to reduce pollution and maintain hygiene.”

“Ultimately, with so much pollutants in our environment, we do not need our air fresheners and hygiene products to add to the pollution.

The top three requirements for any new product that we develop are: green, reliable and effective, and as such our R&D department is working on several projects to introduce the greener technology and make the world a better and safer place. This remarkable technology can be used in various industries and we are looking at introducing our technology into new markets where continuous delivery of fluid is required in a reliable manner. This will provide us with many exciting new opportunities which we are looking forward to taking advantage of.”

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Best Automotive Software & Digital Service Provider 2016 Company: G-Forces Web Management Ltd Email: luke.phillips@gforces.co.uk Web Address: www.gforces.co.uk Address: Corbin Business Park, Caring Lane, Bearsted, Kent, ME14 4NJ. Telephone: 0844 055 9038

GForces is a leader in the provision of digital technology, marketing, and consultancy services to the automotive industry. Trusted by the world’s largest dealer groups, global vehicle manufacturers and national sales companies, the company operates throughout the UK, continental Europe, MENA and the Far East.

GForces deliver automotive consumer convenience through their proprietary NetDirector® software suite, combined with their team’s in-depth industry expertise. By providing consulting services and digital transformation programs across showrooms, sales operations, remarketing and aftersales, GForces delivers scalable cross-platform solutions to meet the automotive sector’s demands. Through flexible and open methodologies, they work within their clients’ existing technology ecosystems, CI standards and alongside in-house teams to ensure a collaborative and goal-orientated outcome.

The firm’s technical innovation isn’t just matched by their marketing intelligence; it goes hand in hand. GForces digital orientated focus gives the team the tools they need to produce data driven marketing strategies that meet the challenges of delivering to today’s connected consumer, both on and off line. This delivers an enhanced experience for the consumer and a greater ROI for GForces clients. The firm have made it their mission to help their clients navigate the complex online environment and develop marketing strategies to meet the various challenges they encounter. By encouraging a digital-orientated focus, the team also help their clients nurture more sustainable and productive online relationships with their own customers.

has data that can back up their claims when it comes to approaching new clients. The GForces NetDirector® platform enables over 20 million car buying interactions per week for global clients, generating automotive business intelligence to power high-performing marketing strategies and data-driven creative thinking.

Forging partnerships with fellow innovators and industry-leading technology and marketing providers, GForces can then offer best of breed solutions to the industry.

More of the car-buying journey can be experienced and facilitated online than ever before, and as such, GForces believe the future lies in connecting consumers, manufacturers, and retailers by working together to make the journey not only completely available online, but effortless too. GForces is committed to developing the tools, systems and technologies that will allow for this to happen, and change the industry for the better.

GForces NetDirector® Auto has set a new benchmark for the industry. The firm deliver on the wow factor, with a fully responsive platform, key integrations like CAP data, and HD image apps that display stock at its absolute best. With nearly 900 million user interactions logged through GForces websites, the firm

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Best for Freight Forwarding Solutions 2016 & Innovation Award for Supply Chain Management Company: Global Forwarding Pty Ltd Address: Suite 10/ No. 42 Global Drive, Tullamarine Victoria 3043 Australia Phone: +61 3 9310 5424 Fax: +61 3 9310 5315 Email: enrica@globalforwarding.com.au Website: www.globalforwarding.com.au

Global Forwarding Pty Ltd Global Forwarding Pty Ltd is a privately owned Australian shipping company with a strong professional network of strategic partners around the globe. We invited Managing Director Enrica Centorame to talk us through the firm and the wide range of services it offers.

Since 2006 Global Forwarding has concentrated exclusively on helping SME’s to streamline their supply chains to achieve lower costs where possible, higher profits and customer service excellence.

In 2014 a Consulting Division was created to advise SME’s, Blue chip and Publicly Listed Companies on the best packages available in Freight Forwarding and Customs Brokerage in an unbiased and analytical manner. At the centre of this division’s service offering is advising Professional Services Firms, mainly engineering, accountants and legal practitioners on international trade practices, Inco terms and cargo insurance.

Drawing on the many years’ experience in international freight forwarding, customs brokerage, warehousing and distribution of Director and Senior Management, the firm understands the needs of its clients, as Enrica emphasises.

“Here at Global Forwarding we understand the unforgiving deadlines importers and exporters need to meet. Our team will ensure streamlined processes are implemented to secure a speedy delivery of goods.

overall mission: to lead, partner with and educate companies to become and remain globally competitive through the execution of best practice supply chain management where decisions about their freight forwarding and customs brokerage are made based on merit of service offerings.”

With over 20 years’ experience in the transport and logistics industry Enrica is able to offer a unique insight into the market and the role her firm plays in it.

As her concluding comment, Enrica discusses the invigorating developments that have occurred through 2016 and the exciting plans the company has to build even further upon its success into 2017 and beyond. Global Forwarding Pty Ltd is the 1st Logistics company in Australia to be a globally certified Woman Owned Enterprise (100%).

“Operating in such a competitive environment, Global Forwarding understand the need be authentic, because our clients trust us for who we are as ethical operators in this market. Price is important but a race to the bottom produces negative long term effects, so our pricing structure remains competitive but sustainable.

“During the past year we launched our e-commerce logistics services on a domestic basis, taking significant market share off the major players. Clients with on-line stores have full faith and confidence their satchels and parcels up to 25kgs will be delivered same day or next day depending on post code. Our service is cost effective, fast, insurance free of charge, calling cards are provided if no one there to receive and driver redelivers next day with no additional cost.

Enrica and the Global Forwarding team are actively engaged in Supplier Diversity and very involved with Indigenous businesses in capacity building. Changing the way procurement spend occurs and is directed towards capacity building is very rewarding.

“Moving forward, 2017 will see Global Forwarding Pty Ltd launch international courier service for 0-25kgs satchel and small parcels, in order to continue to meet the needs of our clients and offer them the range of solutions they need.”

“Our core business is to make sure our clients achieve their logistics/supply chain objectives. By offering an in house customs brokerage department, we are able to care of tariff classification, duty concessions, duty drawbacks, landed costings reports and all AQIS, Quarantine and IFIP matters. We offer clients the value proposition that we will optimise their supply chain costs through maximizing load ability and sourcing the best mode of transport to move their freight.”

“The wide range of services we offer, alongside our industry expertise help us to achieve our

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Best Branding & Marketing Firm - Victoria Company: Go West Group Address: 3896 Rowland Avenue Victoria, BC V8Z 1Y1 Phone: 250-383-5300 Email: info@gowestgroup.com Website: https://gowestgroup.com

Go West Design Group is a full-service marketing and communications agency with a vast depth and breadth of knowledge, expertise and skills that come from decades of experience and hard work resulting in client success stories. We profile this dynamic firm and explore how it aims to provide clients with the very best marketing solutions to meet their individual needs.

Established in 1997, Go West Design Group has been supporting local companies for 20 years to increase market reach and drive sales by building the value of their clients’ brands in the minds of their target market to achieve top results.

In fact, through utilizing Go West Design Group’s exceptional services, many small and mediumsized companies have become the top business of choice in their industry.

The team of seasoned marketing, communications and design experts at Go West Design Group is dedicated to helping clients achieve success in a smart, strategic manner.

The group has a proven track record and offers a wealth of experience to do more efficiently whatever clients are struggling to find time to complete. Plus, Go West Design Group helps companies reach key targets.

As part of its commitment to excellence, Go West Design Group utilizes research, knowledge and ingenuity to reach specific audiences with vibrant, relevant messaging that speaks to the heart as well as the head. The team is devoted to developing effective, integrated campaigns combining marketing, design, communications, media relations and digital advertising that respects clients’ budgets, timelines and ideas.

“I have been working with Go West Design Group for a number of years and have always found their attention to detail, creative flair and professionalism is tops in the business,” says Rob Shemilt, Island Blue Print.

Most businesses are presented with marketing and advertising opportunities on a constant basis, and studies show that the average consumer is blistered with over 3000 marketing impressions per day. A clear plan and strategy are needed to prevent confusion in the marketplace and to strengthen consumer impressions of particular businesses.

In order to guide clients along the correct path, Go West Design Group offers great expertise when it comes to marketing, including branding, graphic design, print, radio, media buys; online marketing, such as Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Content Creation, Email Marketing, Blogging, Social Media; and communications, including newsletters, press releases, online content and media pitching. Their clients enjoy the rewards that a focused, integrated and cost-effective marketing and advertising strategy brings, including reduced wasted time, money and stress, by making informed and targeted marketing choices.

As a community-minded organization, Go West Design Group supports a range of organizations as part of its aim to give back, with recipients including Bays United FC, Cats Cradle Animal Rescue, and 100+ Women Who Care.

Overall Go West Group guarantees the very best results, drawing on the team’s vast experience to ensure that clients rise to the top of their market and reach the consumers they want.

“At the end of the day, you can focus on running your company while we take care of building your reputation and growing your market share,” says Melinda Harris, Go West Design Group.

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Best Conference Hotel 2016- UK Company: Golden Jubilee Conference Hotel Name: Bronagh Bell Email: Bronagh.Bell@goldenjubilee.scot.nhs.uk Web Address: www.goldenjubileehotel.com Address: Beardmore Street, Clydebank, Glasgow, G81 4SA Telephone: 0141 951 6000

The Golden Jubilee Conference Hotel is a world class conference venue located on the river Clyde outside Glasgow providing excellent meeting and hospitality services for international guests and delegates. We got in touch with Bronagh Bell to find out more about the company and its plans for the future.

Here at the Golden Jubilee Conference Hotel, we combine the standards of a four-star hotel with the services and attention to detail required to host successful meetings, events and conferences.

With 15 versatile meeting spaces including a tiered auditorium the Golden Jubilee has 168 bedrooms and is particularly popular with international associations who need the perfect combination of meeting facilities, on-site bedrooms, exhibition space, good food and relaxation facilities. Typically, we specialise in healthcare, pharma and medical related conferences but 45% of our business comes from commercial companies particularly those working in energy and engineering.

Our vision is to be the best Conference Hotel in the country and our team are aware of this, which makes communication and motivation very easy within our organisation. We have

a clear strategy to develop the venue to strengthen our facilities, particularly for the international healthcare sector, so we have a continuous improvement and redesign programme.

Most recently this included rolling out phase one of our bedroom remodelling project, which will see all 168 bedrooms redesigned to include “must have” features for the modern delegate, and the construction of our inspiration space, a versatile and flexible meeting space, which will allow us to meet the needs of more events than ever before.

Good technology is key in today’s events industry and venues must ensure that they provide excellent, reliable and high speed broadband WiFi access. We also provide an on-site technician to ensure that a client’s technology plans are running as smoothly as possible.

Understanding our client’s needs is absolutely critical with the number one objective being to clarify what success looks like for them and what are their event objectives. If we can understand these, then we work as an extension of their team rather than a third party venue.

Checks and balances are crucial along the way and our event planners work closely with the client to make sure that they can adapt and refine the event to keep it stress free and ensure there are no last minute surprises.

Going forward, our main aim is to keep our strategic direction to create a global conference venue of excellence on track and that requires a lot of innovative thinking and redesign. We need to ensure we have the infrastructure to meet the aspirations of international delegates whilst continuing to meet the needs of our current clients.

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SB160015

Best Hydroponic Technologies Installation Company - Quebec Company: HydroNov Inc. Name: Luc Desrochers, CEO Email: info@hydronov.com Web Address: www.hydronov.com Address: Mirabel, Canada J7N 2H4 Telephone: 1 450 475 75746

HydroNov provides high density hydroponic growing systems for use in greenhouses and other plant growing environments. We invited CEO Luc Desrochers to talk us through his firm’s innovative growing solutions.

Over 30 years ago HydroNove designed a revolutionary hydroponic growing system for leafy vegetables, which is now called deep water/floating rafts technology. Since then the firm have delivered over three Million square feet of growing systems in eight countries, taking charge of all aspects of a project from design to production start-up. Luc outlines the firm’s mission and the techniques it employs to achieve this.

Key challenges the firm faces are projects financing and the sites climate, however despite these seemingly tough issues the firm has thrived in recent years thanks to its dedication to quality and commitment to excellence.

“Here at HydroNov our mission is to give access to efficient vegetables production without the hassles of mist start-up. To achieve this, we deliver every component and send on site experienced staff is our way to install them.

By completing the project from start to finish we ensure that the outcome exactly meets the needs of the client.”

“Currently business is strong in our two key regions, the USA and China, and moving forward we are keen to build upon this success and continue to provide clients with the very best solutions. Our latest innovation is Floating Organic growing, which is a concept our clients are keen on, and we are looking forward to showcasing the potential of this technology in the near future.”

Ultimately, the firm is keen to continue to provide the very highest standards of service, and is enjoying great success working internationally, as Luc concludes.

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Best SME Marketing Firm - Midlands Company: The Ideal Marketing Company Name: Alastair Campbell Email: Alastair@idealmarketingcompany.com Web Address: www.idealmarketingcompany.com Address: The Old Town Hall, High Street, Market Harborough, Leicestershire, LE16 7AF Telephone: 01858 44 55 43

The Ideal Marketing Company The Ideal Marketing Company is a full service marketing agency offering everything from press release creation and distribution to social media content and ecommerce websites. Managing Director Alastair Campbell provides us with a fascinating overview of the company and the services it provides.

The Ideal Marketing Company is committed to offering a complete marketing solution which provides return on investment to all clients.

Alastair outlines how the firm achieves this by tailoring its solutions to meet client needs and drawing on the expertise of its dedicated and talented staff.

“Here at the Ideal Marketing Company we understand that clients have individual requirements, and as such we tailor our solutions to meet their needs. Some clients are looking for a successful launch, other to improve their margins or others to grow the company. Our measurements of success would always be based upon agreed objectives from what they want to achieve.

“In addition, our team of account managers also have a marketing speciality and we pair up the most appropriate member of staff with the client that they are best able to support so that we can offer them a dedicated single point of contact from the start.”

“Fundamentally, our approach hinges on our staff, and as such we have an internal culture which thrives on continued personal as well as professional development. At our staff reviews we always ask what aspects of the business are of interest and encourage staff to follow these areas and develop their professional skills so that they can continue to provide our clients with the very best services.”

Ultimately, Alastair is keen to emphasise the firm’s exciting future plans as it seeks to build upon its current success.

“Over the past three years the Ideal Marketing Company have expanded to take on a number of specialist areas. Instead of passing this work outside the company, we now undertake

Central to the firm’s client focused approach is exploring the client’s ideas and helping them to develop these into a workable solution, as Alastair explains.

“Listening to a client’s ideas is an important part of our work, but we also like to pre-empt their suggestions but looking at the best practice in their industry to see what their competitors are up to. Also, cross fertilisation of ideas from different sectors can be very powerful.

Transferring ideas that have worked really well in other industries can be a quick way to generate success for a client. Having worked in a wide range of sectors means that we have a large number of ways we can be confident will work for a new client because we have already tested them out previously.

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almost all of it ourselves, and have moved into new premises in order to accommodate our expanding team. This has led to better quality control, improved speed and generally a better service that has led to more work.

“Looking ahead, over the coming years we hope to carry on developing more in house skills so that we can offer a fully integrated approach to clients making their marketing more effective and making it easier for them to achieve the results they want. We will be looking to take on new clients and exploring new services that we can offer such as online marketing educational products. The core of our work will always be consultancy and working one to one with clients on helping them to achieve their marketing objectives.”

SB160058

Best Construction Handover Documentation Specialists - UK & Ireland Company: Integrated Facilities Solutions Ltd Web Address: www.ifacsolutions.com/

Integrated Facilities Solutions Ltd (IFS) are leading specialists in Digital Information for the whole building & asset lifecycle, the firm’s software and value-added services provide a secure structure from Design and Construction Collaboration (IFS Projects Live™) right through to coordination & delivery of the Projects Close out & Handover documentation (IFS Digital Project Manual™ - PRO) to the owner/operator. For each project/client, IFS provide and operate a quality assured process, a focused approach that achieves real results and provides a structure for your design and construction information to your project close-out and handover, and then leading into operations and lifecycle information to ensure that your building has secure and up to date access to all its building information from design to disposal.

The poor standard of construction handover and close-out information at the project completion stage often leaves client with unmanageable boxes of paper and USBs of unstructured PDFs. Limited communication with zero documentation quality approvals during the construction stage can have a huge financial implication; clients are left with very little chance on making life-cycle savings and instead are left with increasing operational costs. If an agreed structure and approvals procedure is not put in place, the task of managing the handover information is extremely difficult after Project Handover. This documentation should contain important operational information and a lack of structure and transparency is detrimental to the management and lifecycle of the building asset.

As the industry develops, so does legislation, regulations and government and international standards. The emergence of new technologies around collaboration, handover, operations and BIM has given clients access to better options, however the task of choosing a process that can provide a full solution at an affordable cost can be daunting. As a company who has pioneered the digital construction information process over the past 16 years, IFS have seen first-hand how important it is for both construction company and the clients’ FM/Operations team to have early access to approved content in a secure application, allowing them to gain familiarization with systems and procedures way ahead of the facility being handed over.

Pre Tender / Design The problems that most companies face with Handover can be dealt with at the Pre Tender/ Design Stage. The key to a successful fluid Handover is how the information is specified, a high performance detailed specification lays

the foundation for how documentation should be collated, managed and designed with a highlight on communication at the early stages of construction. Once a strong platform is set up with a structured process based on the client’s specific requirements, IFS can move on to the construction stage of the project and then successfully onto building operations.

Construction With a specification implemented in the tender documentation a full coordination and quality approval process is set up by IFS Digital Coordinator, who manages the whole process.

This includes developing a close working relationship with all Subcontractors on site, highlighting the information required from each separate Subcontractor along with establishing clear deadlines and target dates for information to be submitted. This logical process allows for documentation to be easily shared and ready for weekly reviews meetings so that any problems identified can be addressed in a timely manner. The client is able to see the information securely online as the building is developed.

This provides peace of mind to the facility management team and also vastly reducing the risk of documentation not been handed over on time.

Close out & Handover At Practical Completion, IFS target 90% + of the Projects Construction Handover Information to be reviewed, approved, published and handed over to the client. And they don’t stop at project handover either; IFS set-up automation of key management functions for efficient property, maintenance and asset management planning.

The processes ensure that the client has instant access to this vital operational resource securely on-line when taking occupancy.

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Staying at the forefront of recent advances in technology as well as Government regulations is vital to the long term planning of the asset, having adopted a digital handover process the client now has a secure, up to date building lifecycle management tool that provides a dynamic and accessible platform which reduces risk, increases productivity and promotes a culture of efficiency and safety.

Building Information Modelling (BIM) The adoption of BIM during the design and construction process, and its extended value into facilities management and operations is gaining momentum across IFS’s industry. At IFS, the team have developed their integration platform BIM 4 Lifecycle Viewer to support BIM model formats within their common data environment. IFS are currently engaged in the implementation of BIM format integration in both Hi-tech and process manufacturing environments. This integration process is unlocking the undoubted added-value potential of 3D model formats within our applications.

The firm’s capability to provide secure viewing of these models over the internet and for these models to act as a visualisation gateway to the data rich content contained within their cloud-based applications represents an exciting advancement for their end users.

IFS has been providing its software and services over 16 years for blue chip clients across mission critical sectors. Organisations specify their product and services for their new and planned Capital Projects to guarantee a high standard, and a customisable solution in keeping with the key characteristics of projects, current regulatory compliance and industry best practice for their building and asset information.

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Most Innovative Security Solutions Specialist - UK & Award for Excellence in Surveillance Technology Installations - UK Company: iP 24 Limited Name: Graeme Oliver Email: graeme.oliver@ip24.co.uk Web Address: www.iP24.co.uk Address: Unit 17, Chichester Business Centre, Chichester St Rochdale, Lancs OL162AU Telephone: 0845 8750095

iP24 is an innovative Electronics Security Solutions Specialist, with extensive experience and high profile clients across all facets of industry. Operating UKwide, iP24 specialises in the design, installation and maintenance of the very latest surveillance technology in CCTV, Access Control, Perimeter Detection and iP Solutions and, as an independent company, is able to work with various Manufacturers and Suppliers to deliver Security Solutions that meet their customer needs, for today and tomorrow. We spoke to Graeme Oliver, who told us more about the service offering of the firm and its innovative REMSERV solution. iP24’s customer base is extremely diverse, and includes household names such as British Car Auctions Group, BMW, restaurant chain Living Ventures, Longcliffe Quarries, Morgan Advance, Lockwoods foods and local organisations including Beva Investments, where the firm have multi-site installations. Graeme believes that the key to iP24’s has been their innovative approach.

“Our security installations are underpinned with one of the most advanced service and maintenance programmes anywhere in the industry. The advanced REMSERV system is a 24/7 ‘health check’ that monitors every aspect of the technology performance and reassures end user operators that their security systems are operating to their optimum, day in, day out.

This is delivered to their mobile phone, iPad, or computer, offering ease of access for our clients.

This solution can be provided to all new iP24 installations, and even includes third party.

“Enhancing the customer experience has been a key area of growth for us as a firm, and is a big differentiator between us and our competitors.

Our bid review system is an example of this; one of our customers has an issue with collating HD video footage regarding disputes. To rectify this, we delivered a bespoke cloud based review system to solve the issue. An account manager is also assigned to the account of each client. and it is his job is to ensure that the customers’ needs are met. This all aligns as part of our commitment to our clients to provide a top class service.

“We are constantly reviewing the weak areas of our competitors, and capitalising on our findings. Our REMSERV maintenance offering is a very good example, which we are continuing to enhance in order to give the customer the best experience we can. REMSERV can be provided on either iP24 Installed Systems or third party, which opens up a number of significant opportunities for our clients. This system is particularly useful for multi-site clients. We carry out regular employee appraisals and all training needs are looked at and scheduled in line with our business needs. We foster a culture within the business that is ‘can do’, and we have been very successful in hiring good staff, mainly through ‘word of mouth’ from our existing employees and suppliers. “iP24’s mission is to be the best in our field, and to be able to offer our clients the bespoke and innovative solutions they require, at a price they can afford. We also have a very clear objective, and that is to grow the maintenance element of the business, with its unique REMSERV health checking system, and therefore maintaining its net profit margin.”

Graeme notes that the industry is moving rapidly into the IP networking environment, and people are key in ensuring that they can deliver these complex solutions.

“As we look to the future, we will continue to develop our existing solutions, and look at ways in which we can add value through innovation, which will continue to meet and exceed our customers’ requirements.”

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Best Professional Accountancy Platform Provider - UK Company: JustAccounts Email: kilian@justaccounts.com Web Address: www.justaccounts.com Telephone: 01942 721 397

JustAccounts provide a cloud based, white labelled, accountancy platform, specifically tailored to the needs of contractor accountants. The firm have crafted a system that enables client growth, fosters efficiency, saves time and money, and makes life easier for all involved. JA helps Contractor Accountants take advantage of the rapidly growing contracting market.

JustAccounts’ mission is to provide an agile, versatile platform which helps their clients through change, thereby increasing their productivity and efficiency. They also aim to ensure a secure place for customers to store their clients’ data, leaving them safe in the knowledge that they are the only owner of it, and that it is fully backed up.

Finally, they want to be able to offer an array of extra services ranging from training, marketing, business productivity consultations, to help their clients make the most of their business under the JA umbrella. JA ensure this mission is completed by working with an experienced team, doing all developments in-house, and most importantly, by researching the market and listening to their existing clients, then developing the platform accordingly.

manage thousands of clients, thus allowing them to grow their business efficiently whilst decreasing the amount of time spent on each client. Accountants can then use the time saved to concentrate on their clients’ needs, and provide them with proactive business advice.

As a software company, JustAccounts sees being up to date with the latest technology as their number one commitment to their clients. The team are encouraged to take on any additional training they would like, as a way of ensuring this developmental edge. The Marketing and Sales teams work together to devise and realise every extra service that they believe clients can benefit from.

Clients of JustAccounts value the team’s personal approach and the opportunity to voice their opinions about new functionalities and action some of the new services. JustAccounts actively seek this feedback from their clients, and act accordingly; they run seasonal user groups where clients suggest the changes they would like to see in the platform, and these changes are then integrated in the system releases that follow.

JustAccounts is the only cloud accounting software which allows users to run cross company payroll, VAT, transactions, bank reconciliation, allowing for the maximisation of efficiencies and granting access to clients’ data in just a few clicks. Batch efficiencies and automation processes enable the user to

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Best for Real Time Asset Tracking Solutions - Canada Company: Laipac Technology Inc Address: 20 Mural Street, Unit 5, Richmond Hill, Ontario, L4B 1K3, Canada Web Address: www.laipac.com/index.html Email: info@laipac.com Telephone: +1-905-762-1228

Laipac Technology Inc is considered to be amongst the leading companies in the development of GPS and Internet of Things (IoT) products and solutions; we profile the firm below.

Laipac Technology Inc. was founded in 1999 by two distinguished Canadian entrepreneurs, Maria C Pacini and Diego Lai, both of whom continuously strive to improve their products and generate new ideas. The firm specifically design tracking devices in order to provide their customers with peace of mind, by efficiently monitoring and locating the physical position and status of their mobile assets.

These assets can include any land, road, or coast water vehicles, construction machines, expensive equipment, ATM machines, company personnel in the security field and lone workers.

For mobile healthcare, Laipac Technology Inc. has developed a series of products for the care of elderly people and those suffering from Alzheimer’s. The firm’s expert team continuously succeeds in the development of the customized solutions which are required by customers to meet their need.

Laipac Technology Inc. has received numerous awards and nominations that recognize the firm’s excellent business achievements and vision for the future. The firm’s mission continues every day, where they strive to provide the best innovative solutions to improve the quality, the protection, and the safety of human beings.

Leading the field in asset tracking devices, Laipac offer the Starfinder Kamel and MicroConvert. Starfinder Kamel is designed for the tracking and recovery of non-powered assets. This GPS tracking device monitors, tracks and recovers non-powered and powered assets, and efficiently manages all assets that are in stock, rented or acquired. It has been specifically designed for vehicles, watercrafts, trailers, construction machinery, stationary equipment, compressors, generators, waste and recycle dumpsters, and is the perfect product for

use in the industrial field as the battery life can last up to four months.

built in and more. Starfinder Lite is ideal for any kind of private or company vehicles.

Laipac’s MicroCovert is the best solution to track, locate and recover non-powered assets in covert operations. This GPS tracking device is protected by a strong, durable, waterproof, shockproof, and dust proof case, and is easy to install; just attach the MicroCovert to any metal surface and it is ready to use. Laipac provides two versions of the MicroCovert GPS tracking device, Version 8A and Version 21A. Version 8A of the MicroCovert contains an 8Ah battery that lasts up to one month on a full power charge.

Version 21A of the MicroCovert has a 21Ah battery that powers the device for up to six months of GPS tracking on a full power charge.

The personal locators offered by the firm allow for peace of mind for those who need additional support. The S911 Lola is a mobile Personal Emergency Response System (mPERS) that locates and recovers individuals through GPS tracking technologies. This small and portable personal GPS locator is combined with cellular phone capabilities, that provides instant two-way communication between the holder of the S911 Lola GPS tracking device and the designated recipient.

The firm also offer a range of vehicle locators, titled Starfinder AIRE, Starfinder Lite, and Starfinder BUS. Starfinder AIRE is a compactfriendly, trendy, and an economically designed product with easy installation. This GPS tracking device functions in motorbikes, scooters, ATVs, boats, ATM machines and other assets.

This device provides peace of mind to asset owners, as it sends automatic alerts directly to a designated cell phone in the event that a customer’s vehicle is moving or lifting from its original position, fast tracking the vehicle’s location online.

Starfinder Lite is a compact real time vehicletracking device that efficiently provides the time and position of mobile assets. It is based on GPS/GSM/GPRS technology and has a complete set of features that allows the customer to access reports about the speed, position, heading, millage, tow alert, speed alert, and collision alert, as well as providing a panic button, Geo-Fence setting, remote control of vehicle engine, windows and locks, data logger

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The S911 Lola excels in any situation where assistance is not readily available, or when the holder of the device is at risk due to being alone. It addresses the emergency requirements for people with physical or cognitive disabilities, lone workers working in isolation, the protection of students on campus, the protection of teenage drivers, recreational activities in remote areas, the security of children, personal asset tracking and more.

The firm’s S911 Bracelet Locator HC is a locator device that is perfect for lone workers and Alzheimer’s patients. The S911 Bracelet Locator Healthcare features an SOS emergency button, a G-sensor to detect falls, GeoFence protection, and quick dial for immediate assistance. In real time, the device can pinpoint the exact location of the person. It sends alerts on emergency situations when the person is unable to communicate, and the unit is durable for the patient’s everyday use.

Laipac’s technology is making a notable impact on the lives of its customers, and is helping them to maintain their assets and ensure the safety of those they care for.

SB160030

Best Brand Design & Marketing Agency - UK Company: Nonconform Name: Rachael Biggs Email: rachael@nonconform.co.uk Web Address: nonconform.co.uk Address: 62 Hope Street, Liverpool L1 9BZ Telephone: 0151 707 0334

Nonconform is a brand consultancy and full-service marketing, design and digital agency based in Liverpool. We caught up with Managing Director Rachael Biggs to learn more about the firm and its service offering.

For 25 years, Nonconform have been creating brands and campaigns that transform organisations and shape their futures, working with clients of all shapes and sizes, from SME’s and start-ups through to housing associations, universities, art galleries and even cathedrals. Rachael provides more detail on the firm’s service offering and how it works with clients to ensure that they get the outcome they need.

“Many of our clients come to us for a full brand development project, but we also work with clients who come to us with more singular, or less complex needs - a website, a social media campaign, a publication.

We enjoy the challenge of taking on discreet or smaller projects, and in particular, watching our SME and startup clients grow and expand.

“As such our approach revolves around working collaboratively with our clients to define their vision, their sense of purpose, and the values and attributes that they wish to be associated with. We consult their audiences and find creative ways for them to engage with the new vision. We strip these complex messages down to their simplest form and find powerful visual and verbal ways to express them.

“Our most effective projects are always the result of a strong partnership between ourselves and our clients.

Our ability to maintain these relationships, many of which are in excess of ten years old, allows us to work more incisively together, and to pre-empt challenges and opportunities on behalf of our clients and their brands. We constantly question, test and push the boundaries of our work, challenging both ourselves and our clients to deliver fresh brand experiences for their audiences at all times.

“Fundamentally, we help our clients connect with people - the internal and external audiences that determine the success of their organisations or projects. We develop brand strategies, creatively led campaigns and visual identity systems that people can easily engage with, and that will spur them into action.”

The firm’s motto is ‘…with more meaning’, and this is embodied in everything the company does. The emphasis is on taking inspiration not just from the client and designated meetings, but from everyday occurrences as well. Rachael outlines how this is incorporated into Nonconform’s culture and helps to ensure a low staff turnover, enabling the company to offer a superior service.

“What makes us different is that while some marketing agencies are reading social media blogs, or design books, it wouldn’t be a surprise to find our staff reading a book about flight patterns of birds, or characteristics of the solar system. We encourage our staff to develop an interest beyond their ‘silo’ – developing alternative skills is key. For example, we have marketing staff who studied English Literature at University, but they have brought analytical skills from that subject, and have a depth of understanding when it comes to Metaphor, language and human behaviour.

“Ultimately, we teach our staff methods to find the meaning themselves. We also mix young members of staff, straight out of university or in their first job, with seasoned members of staff who act as mentors. This strategy helps us to embed the ‘Nonconform way’ throughout the company.”

Looking to the future, the focus is firmly on highlighting the firm’s full service offering, as Rachael concludes.

“As we are 25 years old, and our roots are in graphic design, we have been traditionally seen as a branding and design agency, and although that is still a major part of our core business, we have expanded over recent years to supply a full service marketing package.

We have been designing and building websites for decades, but some of our clients will see us as a traditional design agency. Therefore, we will continue to embed that full-service offer message in order to show our full potential.

“In addition, we also must continue to skill up in the digital realm in order to meet the needs of our clients and remain competitive in an increasingly technological market. There is a digital skills gap that we can help our clients fulfil thanks to this focus on remaining at the cutting edge of new developments.

We have seen with a number of clients that the seasoned marketing strategist within a company or organisations may not have the digital skills to scope out transformation projects. With some clients we have been offering training and workshops to help them to understand their own internal structure, to rebuild it for a changing digital landscape, rather than us coming in to deliver a project and then take the skills away with us afterwards. This is an area that we would be keen to develop further, and we are excited to see what opportunities this will bring us in the future.”

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Best Recruitment Services Provider - UK & Recruitment CEO of the Year - UK Company: Opus Recruitment Solutions Web Address: www.opusrs.com Address: Castlemead, Lower Castle Street, Bristol, BS1 3AG Telephone: 0117 968 9292

Opus Recruitment Solutions was founded in 2008, by Darren Ryemill, with an ambitious vision to become a global leader in niche and innovative recruitment solutions; Darren told us more.

From our Bristol headquarters, we have expanded rapidly to be able to better meet the needs of our international clients and candidates. We now operate from six offices, spread across four continents: Bristol, London, Amsterdam, New York, Los Angeles and Sydney.

We set ourselves apart as thought leaders in the recruitment industry through a continued investment into our business and its growth.

Our Compound Annual Growth Rate is in excess of 60% year-on-year, and we have been recognised by multiple awards as a result, including The Sunday Times Virgin Fast Track.

We integrate ourselves into our specialist markets by building lasting relationships with both clients and candidates. This is accomplished through our expert offering and our extended reach, which is achieved

by hosting regular industry events. The events we host allow us to create and develop relationships as well as get a firsthand understanding of what our clients and candidates are passionate about.

With over 20,000 recruitment companies in the UK alone, setting yourself apart from competitors is one of the biggest challenges. Our internal investment in our employees and resources means we are able to provide a service that isn’t necessarily different, but it is reliable. The relationships we have and the delivery of our offering is trusted throughout the recruitment industry and beyond.

At Opus, our employees are at the core of our offering; we invest heavily in their training and development as well as giving them all the resources they need to perform at an awardwinning level. Placing for two consecutive years in the Top 5 of The Sunday Times Best Small Companies to Work for, we’ve learnt that an outstanding service starts with an outstanding workplace experience.

As well as offering incredible incentives such as trips to Fiji & Las Vegas, luxury car giveaways and Michelin-starred lunch clubs, we recognise the importance of everyday wellbeing. Our benefits and wellness package has been created by top professionals to make employees feel empowered and driven as a result.

Our international growth will continue at a competitive rate, with further expansion throughout Europe, Asia and the United States.

As we invest in our specialist and global offering, we will develop further opportunities for not just our candidates and clients but our employees as well.

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SB160033

Best Property Management Firm - Ontario Company: Ontario Property Management Group Inc. Name: Kim B. Overbye/President/CEO Email: kim@opmg.ca Web Address: www.opmg.ca Address: 3075-14th Avenue, Unit 12, Markham, ON, L3R 0G9 Telephone: 905-470-1244 ext 222

Ontario Property Management Group Inc. (OPMG), was incorporated in August 2003, with services commencing January 1st 2004. The firm started off with four employees, including Kim Overbye, President and CEO, and the first contract they signed was for a 60-unit townhouse complex; with a client that they continue to work with to this day.

In the 13 years since their incorporation, OPMG has grown and now services 45 clients, with over 5800 units under management and almost 100 employees. OPMG provide full management services for private landlords and the social housing sector (co-op and non-profit housing), with the team also able to provide consulting and in-house paralegal services. Kim points out that at the beginning of a new project, the firm like to meet with the Board to get a better sense of the community and the needs within this. OPMG then analyse the financial, physical and internal aspect of the project for the client, to ensure that they fully understand how best to assist them.

“Our mission is to provide a service that exceeds the requirements and expectations of our clients by accurately assessing their needs through extensive communication. We attain the highest quality results in a timely, cost-effective manner whilst exhibiting total honesty, integrity and ethical practices, that are always open to scrutiny. We achieve this by developing a long term, mutually beneficial relationship with our clients, providing professional, personalized advise and service with integrity, responsibility and the highest ethical standards, and we use the same standard of care and diligence in managing our own clients’ properties as we would use managing our own.

“Here at OPMG, we have extensive experience in transitioning from a variety of management models, and we believe our successful transition rate is down to the use of several key elements that we have incorporated into our system. This ranges from adequate HR, in order to ensure a minimum level of interruption to the community, providing a clear and precise understanding of various systems and procedures that will be utilized by our clients, such as accounting software, rent calculation procedures and systems, maintenance systems, and internal control systems. We utilize a check list/action list outlining who will be in charge of projects and how these will be conducted. As our focus is on the provision of top quality service, value for money, the exceptional delivery of service and community leadership, we have to make sure that all of our processes are thorough, and we pride ourselves on our ability to adapt to the needs of our clients.”

As technology continues to advance around the globe, OPMG ensure that they send their staff for training consistently, whenever it is needed. Kim notes that whilst the implementation of this training is crucial, it is also key for OPMG to maintain the human aspect in their relationships with their clients.

“We do a lot of intensive marketing, and attend and host yearly receptions in order to set ourselves apart from our competitors. We hold meet and greets with new and existing clients, in order to keep and maintain our rapport. Our corporate culture is based on sharing the same vision and values when it comes to our clients, and as such, we recently certified 90% of our staff using Customer Service Professionals Network’s course in Customer Service. This has allowed us to enhance the customer skills of our head office and our onsite staff. We also provide employee recognition every three months, so that our employees feel that their commitment is appreciated, and so they can to be motivated to provide excellent customer service to our clients.

“In order to source our staff effectively and to make sure that we are recruiting those that share our vision and values, we use a number of employment platforms such as Indeed.com, our OPMG website, Job Bank and all the local universities and colleges. We currently have two certified HR’s who screen all potential employees, and depending on the position we are hiring for, we bring in the Senior Managers who conduct a second interview to ensure that a candidate is the best fit for that particular position.”

Looking to the future, Kim is confident that his firm will continue to adapt alongside industry trends and grow.

“We will continue to grow and adapt to the ever changing world with continuous training and by consistently upgrading our management systems. We recently launched a marketing campaign where we did intensive marketing, and through these efforts, we are happy to now be in a position to move into the ‘private’ world. This will involve reaching out to private landlords and not just limiting ourselves to the social housing sector. My future plan and focus is to further expand and grow my business, particularly within this sector.”

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Best Lithium Sulphur Chemistry Manufacturer 2016 Company: OXIS Energy Ltd Name: Huw Hampson-Jones Email: info@oxisenergy.com Web Address: www.oxisenergy.com Address: E1 Culham Science Centre, Abingdon, OX14 3DB Telephone: 01865 407 017

Located in the Culham Science Centre near Oxford, OXIS Energy has been developing its Lithium Sulfur Li-S rechargeable battery technology since 2005.

Due to rapid growth, and thanks to nearly USD 70 million investment in recent years, OXIS is now ready to move into the mass production and commercialisation of Li-S pouch cells for a number of applications, such as electric vehicles, energy storage, defence, aviation, space and maritime. Huw Hampson-Jones told us about his plans to expand the service offering of the business.

OXIS’s mission is to remain a leader in the Lithium Sulfur rechargeable battery industry.

The firm have been putting significant resources into their R&D department in order to push the development of the technology they offer, and to achieve their long term targets, as Huw explains.

“Since our foundation, we have developed two types of Lithium Sulfur pouch cells: Long Life and Ultra Light. Our Long Life ranges features high safety and cycle life, and is capable of around 1500 cycles with a specific energy of 220 Wh/kg, with a 39 Ah cell. Our Ultra Light range features high gravimetric energy density and safety. In Q3 2016, we tested an R&D 18 Ah cell at 400 Wh/kg.

We also have the capability to develop prototype Li-S battery systems and integrate third party Battery Management Systems.

“We are in the process of upscaling our production facilities in the UK, so that we will be able to manufacture cells in large volumes in order to respond to customers’ demands.

We also have an existing collaboration with GP Batteries of Singapore, which allows us to manufacture cells and supply quality products to our customers. We are constantly seeking partnerships with system integrators and battery manufacturers to build Li-S battery systems and to demonstrate the strengths of the technology in a number of fields.

“Our current customers include Daimler, Siemens, Renault, Steatite, SEAT, Airbus, the UK Ministry of Defence, the US Army, Qinetiq and Sony, and thanks to the performance characteristics of Lithium Sulfur, OXIS is now planning to introduce the technology to an even wider range of applications.

“We are currently working on the development of a Li-S battery pack for an electric scooter, targeted for the premium market segment in China. Battery tests are underway at our partner Lithium Balance, in Denmark, and the commercial roll out is expected in late 2017, early 2018. We are also planning to start the development of a Li-S battery system for electric buses. Our technology is a strong contender in this sector, thanks to its high gravimetric energy density and safety, which results in weight saving and thus an increased number of passengers.”

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Best Manufacturing ERP Consultancy - East Canada Company: Pemeco Consulting Name: Jonathan Gross Title: Managing Director Email: jonathang@pemeco.com Web Address: www.pemeco.com Address: Ontario, California, Arizona, Texas Telephone: (647)499-8161

Pemeco is a vendor-neutral consulting firm that leads ERP and other enterprise software-related transformation projects. The firm provides enterprise IT and operational assessment, vendor evaluation, implementation project management and ongoing optimization services. We spoke to Jonathan Gross, Managing Director to find out more.

Pemeco’s clients are generally mid-market and enterprise-sized manufacturing and distribution companies. The common thread that binds its client base is the fact that the companies are market leaders; they leverage complex, integrated technologies to both protect and expand their dominant market position.

Jonathan notes that for these businesses, ERP project failure is simply not an option, and how, time-and-again, they have trusted Pemeco to lead their projects to successful outcomes.

“An example of this is a recent engagement where we delivered ERP and business systems analysis training courses to the IT department of the world’s largest aircraft manufacturer.

We have also been leading Tokyo Electron’s ERP implementation projects since 2004; Tokyo Electron is the world’s second largest manufacturer of semiconductor production equipment. A final example is that, since the mid-1990s, we have been leading worldwide ERP projects for Curtiss-Wright Corporation, a diversified leader in aerospace, defense, automotive, oil and gas, and industrial markets.

“Our ability to routinely deliver successful project outcomes is a product of our talent, project delivery methodologies and service operations.

Each of these is a necessary ingredient in our process.

“Our consultants come to us with proven track records at companies like Boeing, Raytheon, IBM and General Motors. We support our consulting talent with proven methodologies and a strong knowledgebase.

“Our methodologies are industry-leading and academically rigorous. Our ERP implementation project management methodology, known as ‘Milestone Deliverables’, is used in 40 countries.

Our business assessment and vendor evaluation methodologies formed the basis of an upperlevel systems analysis course at Canada’s #1 ranked MBA programme.”

Jonathan believes that Pemeco’s internal service operations create a framework for predictably delivering successful project outcomes, which he explains further below.

“Firstly, from a delivery perspective, we minimize project variability and risk by religiously adhering to our methodologies and by leaning on our enabling tools, technologies, templates and bestpractices. Secondly, we embed quality control and assurance into our delivery processes.

For example, critical project deliverables are oftentimes internally audited prior to delivery. And, at the conclusion of projects or major phases, we use an out-brief process to assure performance and to drive continuous improvement.”

As a firm that operates in the enterprise software consulting space, Pemeco understands that technology plays an important role in efficient, collaborative business operations.

“Day-in-and-out, we see first-hand how technology catalyses meaningful business transformation for our clients. We take a similar approach internally and are always looking for ways to improve. We lean on sophisticated solutions across our value-chain to support our marketing, sales, service operations and accounting functions.

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“For example, with collaborative project management tools, templates, and standard best-practices, we execute implementation projects more efficiently, at higher quality and for a lower cost. This means that our clients generate a higher ROI and quicker payback on our services, and more importantly, it means that they’re positioning themselves to more rapidly execute on their strategic programmes.

“As another example, we’ll soon be rolling out a proprietary application to support the negotiation of complex technology contracts.

Our clients stand to benefit in two major ways.

First, they’ll have access to more streamlined negotiations lifecycle processes. Second, they’ll be able to use benchmarking data to establish more well-informed bargaining positions.”

Looking to the future, Jonathan recognises that cloud is a game-changer. Pemeco is already building a foundation to lead its clients in their shifts to the cloud.

“Cloud offers companies opportunities to rapidly deploy and scale their systems, platforms and infrastructure to support business processing, big data, and technology adoption needs.

At the risk of sounding like a public service announcement, companies should approach cloud responsibly by proactively managing enterprise architecture, procurement, integration, security and risk. These areas are natural extensions of our business model, and we are well-positioned to guide our clients.”

Strategically, Pemeco has developed an organizational foundation that will support its growth and expansion plans. Jonathan elaborated on these plans, as follows.

“Over the past two years, we’ve worked very hard to build an operational foundation to support and enable our business growth.

We have standardized business processes, catalogued best-practices and templates, and implemented solutions to support our service operations, sales and marketing functions.

“We’re now looking to accelerate our growth. In the short-term, we’re focusing on two key growth dimensions. The first dimension is expanding our market share in our core manufacturing and distribution markets. The second dimension is expanding our existing service lines into new vertical markets, such as professional services.

“Another key piece of our strategy is getting closer to our clients. Our clients lean on us for big projects. We want to become their trusted partners for ongoing optimization and other smaller projects. To do this, we’ll be establishing a local presence in strategically important regional markets.

“In summary, we’ve put in a lot of hard work to build a foundation that assures our ability to deliver successful projects at scale. We’re really excited for what the future has in store.”

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Best Horticultural LED Technology Provider - UK Company: PhytoLux Ltd Name: Steve Edwards, Managing Director Web Address: http://phytolux.com/home

Founded in 2011, PhytoLux Ltd has designed and developed a range of LED lighting, specifically for the horticultural market. After undertaking a two-year research and development programme in collaboration with Rothamsted Research, the company achieved its first commercial sales in January 2014 and has grown exceptionally well since this time, as Managing Director Steve Edwards explains.

PhytoLux LED lighting is now in use in over 70 installation sites within the UK and western Europe and the company has established and promoted a highly respected knowledge transfer network of organisations, that has improved and advanced the understanding of the effect of LED lighting on plant physiology. Steve has been invited to speak at a number of world-wide industry seminars in North America, the UK, Europe and the Far East, and was happy to tell us more about the research his company has undertaken.

“PhytoLux Ltd has undertaken specific research to determine an optimum, generic, LED plant growth light. We have established a strong knowledge feedback loop with our clients, to capture and collate plant response and growing technique data. This, in turn, has allowed us to establish and promote a strong knowledge exchange network within the industry. We undertake a before, during, and after sales customer support process that ensures clients quickly understand the optimum set up for their new lights.”

Recently, PhytoLux have been working closely with UK universities in order to establish the Attis-7 plant growth light as a firm choice for those wanting to take advantage of the improved plant growth potential and large energy saving that can be achieved with this installation. Steve proudly notes the growing popularity of his project.

“Since 2013, a number of universities, colleges and research establishments have either rolledout or are in the process of trialling PhytoLux LED lights. The catalyst for this was PhytoLux’s GBGO (Great British Grow Off) programme, through which more than 30 UK universities, colleges and research organisations tested Attis LED lights in order to establish the effect on the plants being grown and the energy being saved versus HPS lights. With average energy savings of 65% and positive growth results recorded, the decision for these institutions to swap over to the PhytoLux solution has started to gain real momentum.

“We have signed an exclusive licensing agreement with Plessey Semiconductors Ltd, which is helping us to extend our sales reach globally. With installation sites already established in the UK and western Europe, we are now dealing with major project enquiries from the USA, Canada, Eastern Europe and the Far East. Our business development strategy identifies a 10-fold increase in turnover over the next five years, which we are very excited to oversee.”

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Best Digital Marketing Agency - United Kingdom Company: Red Cow Media Name: Stephen McCance Email: stephen@ redcowmedia.co.uk Web Address: www.redcowmedia.co.uk Address: Blackfriars House, Parsonage, Manchester, M3 2JA Telephone: 0161 711 0888

Red Cow Media are a multi-award winning digital marketing agency based in Manchester City Centre. They offer their clients a variety of services, from their core specialism in SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) to PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising, Social Media Management and Retargeting. Stephen McCance told us more about how the firm has achieved success and how the he is planning to continue this in the future.

Red Cow Media are prominent in the fashion sector because of the results they have achieved with clients such as Boohoo, BoohooMAN, BOY London, Criminal Damage, Good For Nothing Clothing and Gym Shark. The firm also have a variety of clients in other sectors such as BUPA, The Odeon and Royal College of Physicians, which demonstrates the breadth and depth of experience they are able to offer their clients on any new project.

As the firm’s approach to digital marketing is all based on return on investment, Stephen notes that their initial discussions with a client are always based on what revenue and enquiries they expect to generate from their spend with a marketing agency.

“Once we have conducted these discussions with a client, it is then our job to put together a strategy that beats their expectations substantially. Our approach to the day to day work is quite different from other agencies, as we don’t employ account managers; our technical team perform all tasks, thus getting rid of any errors in communication and paving a more direct path for a client to get answers to any questions they may have.

“Our mission is to change digital marketing; with the team having all worked at large companies in the past, we know that the vast majority of these companies have huge sales team that over-promise and under-deliver, and who then try to restrict a client’s access to the stats to hide this failure. We give our clients access to everything; we make projections and then base report on how we have compared to those projections at each stage of the campaign.

Digital Marketing accounts for the vast majority of marketing now, and just because we use computers does not mean the fundamentals are any different from traditional marketing, so the results should be the same.”

Owing to Red Cow Media’s commitment to changing the face of digital marketing, they have set themselves high research targets and are constantly searching for new ways of improving their service, as Stephen explains.

“We are in a fast-moving industry which faces daily changes, and a large part of the job is to stay ahead of the competition. We frequently set up our own test campaigns on sites we have created, to see how our theories actually pan out. We pride ourselves on our ranking at number 1 for SEO Manchester and Retargeting Manchester, as these are two of our core services. Why would anyone use a digital agency who don’t even rank on the first page of Google for their own keyword? Instead of focusing on sales, we focus on proving what we can do, which in turn generates more new clients.

“To complement this, we focus heavily on training, and boast the Red Cow Academy, which is dedicated to providing staff with initial training and then future training, as and when changes happen. We have senior members of staff responsible for researching new techniques and training the rest of the team in these when they are discovered.”

Stephen notes that one of the biggest challenges currently facing Red Cow Media is hiring staff whose abilities and aims align with those of the firm.

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“We have found that the vast majority of ‘Digital Experts’ either over-hype their experience or have been trained very badly elsewhere. It is very hard to change bad habits, and therefore over time we have looked to focus on hiring new people that we train up ourselves, from scratch; looking for good core values such as motivation, enthusiasm and competitiveness throughout the hiring process.”

We asked Stephen about whether he is seeing any changes in the wider industry, and he notes that the way ‘search’ is used is always changing, particularly in relation to Google. He notes that the general trend is towards localised results, with national results being phased out, with paid advertising being the main option to counteract this. Stephen notes that in light of this, Red Cow Media’s focus is switching away from Google and towards newer, larger markets around the world, in different countries, where there are far more opportunities and brand new customers.

“We are always growing, and have some more big expansion plans on the horizon. One of the main things we are looking to do in the new year is to launch the Red Cow Academy.

It has become clear through my time in this industry that many ‘marketing managers’ don’t seem to think digital is part of that world, when in reality it accounts for a large proportion of marketing now. The Red Cow Academy will train up marketing managers so they have a good knowledge of the sector, and will show them how to interview and judge digital agencies who may be pitching for their business. We will also be giving seminars to students at local universities and using it as a way of recruiting new talent.”

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Best Branding & Design Firm 2016 & Most Innovate Beverage Brand Development Project: Empire Distilleries Company: Reset Branding Name: John Miziolek Email: john.miziolek@resetbranding.com Web Address: www.resetbranding.com Address: 33 Shepherd Road, Oakville, ON Canada L6K 2G6 Telephone: 1-888-552-2045

Reset Branding are a strategic branding and design firm, based in Ontario, Canada. John Miziolek, President and CEO talks to us about the work of the firm and their plans for the future.

John Miziolek is an innovative branding professional, skilled in strategic development for both consumer and business-to-business products and services. Reset Branding specialise in CPG (consumer packaged goods), and have worked with clients of all sizes, including Chapman’s Ice Cream, High Liner Foods, Hershey’s and Molson Coors. John’s vision for the company is for it to be the most unique and innovative agency in North America, and as such, they have purposely reinvented the typical agency model, creating an environment of raw creativity, collaboration and brand acumen, thus ensuring that their clients are consistently achieving great results.

“We are part of an industry that allows creativity to drive businesses, and we are honoured to be recognised for our talent and passion for building brands. This is what drives us each and every day.”

“We have developed a powerful system of collaboration that ensures we only build and work with senior, experienced teams. This allows us to increase the speed to market and provide the best possible range of solutions to our clients. In addition, we have developed and believe very strongly in ‘Design Perspective’.

This is a system that stretches a brand to its limit, without breaking it, that allows clients to see it on a full spectrum. We have all the latest technology to ensure we are current but truthfully, we are the trendsetters in the design industry.”

John is excited about the future. His plan is to continue to grow the business and absorb clients that are frustrated by other agencies who cannot provide the results they need to survive in today’s economy. Reset Branding believe they are the answer.

The design and branding industry is one that faces constant evolution, and John explains how industry changes have affected his business in recent years.

“One of the biggest changes that we have seen is the number of ‘boutique agencies’ that are now owned by huge multinational communications companies. This has created a very large gap between small agencies, that do not possess the acumen to take on large clients, and big agencies that have watered down creativity due to the many inexperienced, but inexpensive, team members they choose to employ. We built Reset Branding to address the most pressing needs of clients today; speed to market, business acumen, strategic thinking and implementation, and raw design talent.

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Best Ammunition & Body Armour Manufacturer - Canada Company: Sterling Cross Defense Systems Corp Name: Tim MacFarlane Email: tmacfarlane@sterling-cross.com Web Address: www.sterling-cross.com Address: Abbotsford British Columbia, Canada Telephone: 001 604 746 2608

Sterling Cross was founded in 2007, and started out as a brokering company for military goods. However, the vision for the firm was always to become a manufacturer, and over time they expanded their services, now producing body armour and ammunition. Sterling Cross’s ammunition lines now include shotgun ammunition, a remanufactured ammunition line for pistols and rifles, and their new frangible ammunition for pistol, rifle and shotgun lines. Tim MacFarlane told us more.

Sterling’s mission is to culminate all three divisions of the business - Sterling Ammunition, Sterling Armoured and Sterling Arms - into the largest manufacturer on the west coast of Canada for military goods for the commercial and professional industry. Tim explains that Sterling Cross is an ISO 9001 company, and as such, they utilize the ISO standard to ensure proper quality, not only for their products but for all of their operations.

“In Canada, this use of ISO standards help to set us apart from our competitors. ISO in Canada is still growing, but in our industry, we would be one of a very small group who utilizes these quality control measures for manufacturing, to ensure the proper procedures yield the same quality of product. We are also a Controlled Goods Directorate company, which means that we are vetted accordingly with our Federal Government to export military and sensitive goods.

“Looking to the future, we hope that Sterling Cross will become the largest manufacturer of ammunition and body armour in Canada, and as such we have been working hard on our weapons line, and have been creating different platform technologies and assembling them for bespoke clients globally. Our greatest accomplishment in this sector was the build and sale of a few hundred Sniper Systems for a government, in which we also produced the ammunition to shoot through it, creating an extremely accurate ‘Tack Driver’.”

“At Sterling Cross, we are constantly looking to integrate the latest technology into our work. For example, creating remanufactured ammunition alone calls for all types of technology based processes to ensure the proper separation of brass, the proper cleaning compounds and processes to ensure a new look and finish from brass, that in some cases, has oxidized and ensuring wall thickness will not diminish the safety of the ammunition. We are constantly searching and testing for the appropriate projectiles. Our frangible ammunition is perhaps the most sensitive to load and ensuring that there is no projectile crushing is a constant challenge with regard to sourcing and utilizing new technologies globally.

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Best for CRM - Middle East Company: STEROID Integrated Marketing LLC Address: P O Box 22785, Dubai, UAE Phone: + 971 4 2387064 Fax: +971 4 2387065 Email: info@steroidim.com Website: http://www.steroidim.com/

STEROID Integrated Marketing LLC is a Dubai based marketing agency specialising in providing strong return on investment for clients. We interviewed CEO Lakshmi Krishnakumar to talk us through the firm and the services it offers.

Established in 2011, STEROID draws on the vast experience of CEO and Founder Lakshmi Krishnakumar, who has been working in the Middle Eastern direct marketing sector for over 20 years. Having worked in this market for the entirety of her career Lakshmi understands the need for firms in this sector to offer innovative services which meet the ever evolving needs of their clients, as she emphasises in her opening comments.

“Drawing on my experience in this industry I am well aware of the need to constantly seek to offer dynamic new service offerings and to stay at the forefront of industry development in order to offer clients the services they need. Technology, which is a particularly vital component of our work, is constantly changing, and therefore we need to always remain at the forefront of innovation.

“It is our dedication to development and commitment to change that has ensured that STEROID offers a unique service, with accurate, dynamic service offering and exemplary local knowledge ensuring that clients receive marketing services which meet their needs.

By keeping our finger on the pulse of the latest developments, both in our market and that of our clients, we are able to ensure that we are always ahead of our competition.”

As a pioneer in the Indian marketing and CRM space, Lakshmi is able to offer a unique insight into the market and the various changes it has undergone over the years.

“The Middle Eastern direct marketing sector is less developed than it is in Western markets, however it has been growing steadily for the

past few years as firms see the appeal of this emerging market and begin to understand the stark differences between operating in Europe or America. Clients need to work with experienced firms that offer local knowledge, technological capabilities and skilled staff. There has never been an issue with acquiring technology but staff with the expertise to use it has been limited, but over recent years the market has expanded and staff with the ability to meet the needs of their clients are becoming more prevalent.

“What makes STEROID the ideal partner for companies looking to conduct marketing campaigns in the region is our strong understanding of the market across the GCC, spanning Dubai, where we are based, through to Lebanon and North Africa. In addition, due to our technical expertise we are able to integrate our offering onto any CRM software that the client uses, and as a professional communications agency we offer the very highest quality of services in the region. It is because of these factors that we have been privileged enough to work with some huge household names, including Cartier, 3M and Nissan.”

Looking to the future the firm has a number of exciting plans which revolve around building upon the firm’s existing database in order to offer clients a comprehensive service and act as a one stop shop for all their CRM and direct marketing needs.

“There at exciting times ahead for STEROID as we look to create the largest regional database of opt-in data which clients can access and use in their marketing campaigns. We are looking forward to creating this innovation offering and building on our current success.”

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Best Energy Efficiency Solutions Supplier 2016 & Award for Excellence in Clean Tech Implementation Company: Thermal Energy International Inc. CEO: Bill Crossland Email: general@thermalenergy.com Web Address: www.thermalenergy.com/ Address: 36 Bentley Avenue, 2nd Floor, Ottawa, Ontario, K2E 6T8, Canada Telephone: (613) 723-6776

Thermal Energy International Inc. (TEI) is an established global supplier of proprietary and proven energy efficiency and emission reduction solutions to the industrial and institutional sectors. TEI is a Canadian publicly-traded cleantechnology company, with shares listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSX-V) under the symbol TMG. The firm has offices in Ottawa, Canada, as well as in the UK, United States, Italy and China.

TEI is a best in class provider of thermal energy efficiency technology and solutions to the industrial, institutional, and commercial sectors.

The firm saves their customers money and improve their bottom lines by reducing their fuel use and cutting their carbon emissions, as Bill Crossland explains.

“Our award winning products have an excellent long term track record of delivering significant energy savings of between 10% and 30%, with compelling financial returns and paybacks of one to five years, lower maintenance costs and increased production efficiency.”

“As a firm, we are very proud of our proprietary technology offerings and our innovations in waste energy recovery and energy conservation.

Our GEM® Trap has changed the way that many view steam traps, and is a permanent solution, with no moving parts that wear out or fail.

Conventional steam traps have a large orifice and an open/closing mechanism, and they are bound to fail eventually because of these moving parts. When conventional steam traps fail, they fail open and frequently go undetected, allowing live steam to escape from the system.

This loss of steam causes unnecessary steam load, alongside wasted energy and water, and results in excessive operating costs that can be easily prevented with our GEM® steam traps.”

heat normally lost through boiler flue gas stack emissions is recycled by FLU-ACE®. This is possible because of the unit’s unique directcontact (gas/liquid) design, which enables optimal recovery of both sensible and latent heat.”

“Looking to the future, we see ourselves as the first choice supplier for larger industrial and institutional organizations worldwide looking to improve their energy efficiency and their bottom lines. We will achieve this by increasing our penetration in our existing key markets in North America and Western Europe, launching additional product lines, or acquiring complementary businesses, and expanding to new markets such as Eastern Europe and Asia.”

“Our FLU-ACE® technology greatly improves the fuel efficiency of boiler operations, providing a significant return on investment, and reducing environmental emissions. Up to 90% of the

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Best Cancer-Focussed Biotech Company - UK Company: ValiRx Web Address: www.valirx.com

ValiRx is a clinical stage biotechnology company, specialising in the development of novel and personalised treatments for cancer and in the development of associated biomarkers. The company aims to make a significant contribution in ‘precision’ medicine and science; in particular, they aim to engineer a breakthrough into human health and well-being through the early detection of cancer.

ValiRx has four classes of drugs in development, two of which are now in the clinic and which have demonstrated the potential for addressing currently unmet medical needs. All of the technologies of the firm have worldwide patent coverage and exclusive commercial rights.

The firm are pleased that a Phase I/II clinical trial of their lead compound, VAL201 in patients with hormone resistance prostate cancer, is currently being conducted by University College London Hospital and is being expanded to include other trial centres for part of the study, to accelerate dose escalation.

A review of the pre-clinical data obtained with VAL201 has revealed that there is a major gynaecological indication for the compound, namely in the treatment of Endometriosis.

This condition is excessively debilitating and it represents one of the major causes of female infertility. The condition is not adequately served with current medications, as they are frequently poorly tolerated and can impair fertility even further during treatment. VAL201’s reformulation, namely into VAL301, should show that the compound is completely devoid of these complications and that it also shows signs of maintaining fertility and bone density whilst treating this chronic condition.

commenced the dosing of patients and is pleased to report that those patients are tolerating the treatment well.

ValiRx’s business model focuses on in-licensing early stage drugs and technologies from worldleading academic institutions, such as Cancer Research UK and Imperial College, and maturing them to the stage where they can be out-licensed to pharmaceutical partners and taken to market.

The directors of ValiRx believe that the successful completion of these trials would render the treatments eminently licensable to potential bigpharma partners who would be able to market the product for treatment purposes. Alongside this, the company continues to look to expand its intellectual property as its development programmes move forward and it remains open to technology acquisition opportunities and ways in which it can both deliver shareholder value and grow its oncology drug portfolio.

The company’s second drug currently in a clinical trial is VAL401, which is a reformulated drug with an established safety record derived from clinical studies and years of use in other medical areas. This drug has recently entered the clinic having demonstrated encouraging pre-clinical data as far as lung and pancreatic tumours are concerned. The Company has

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g n i o g e r ’ u o If y o rebel, t it do pose. r u p h wit

Proud to be the only agency in Canada to receive the CV 2016 Small Cap Top Fifty Award

RESET BRANDING Strategic Branding + Design

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