Redwood to sponsor new Thames Valley Innovation award
As Bracknell-based cloud communications pioneer Redwood Technologies prepares to sponsor the first-ever ‘Innovation' award at the Thames Valley Business Magazine Awards, its Group CEO Sean Taylor considers the critical role innovation plays in business
“Thirty years ago mobile phones, the Internet, emails, websites and social media were just starting to be developed as mainstream ways of communicating and there was debate about how important they would be. Today, the same debate exists regarding how important ‘big data’ might become in the future. In all likelihood we will see forms of data analytics being as significant as the communications methods listed above, only in a much shorter timeframe.
“The increasingly rapid rate of technological change we have experienced over the past decade, with the advent of smartphones, tablets, superfast networks and social media – to name but a few – has not only empowered today’s consumer; it has already changed the pace and face of business. Today’s most successful companies, as we have already seen countless times in the past few years, are those that have been able to find innovative ways to anticipate, keep up with, and stay ahead of, consumer expectations.
“But the IT sector is just one example of how innovation is applied to generate huge value for organisations. Across the Thames Valley, there are a whole host of businesses that leverage innovation tremendously well. Within our area are the regional headquarters of multinational corporations whose innovations have defined generations of progress, and at the other end of the spectrum we have hundreds of exciting startups, lean and hungry for opportunities to shake up their markets and change the world.”
Redwood Technologies now enters its fourth year of sponsorship in the Thames Valley Business Magazine Awards (TVBMA), having previously supported the ‘Best Use of Technology’ category. Last year’s winner in that classification, accesso,
proved its innovative prowess by developing and deploying cutting-edge virtual queuing technology that significantly reduces waiting times for millions of visitors to a range of global public attractions. Taylor continues:
“Every year, when reviewing TVBMA entries, we found ourselves impressed by the great many local companies that were not only using technology to their best advantage, but also devising innovative ways to transform their companies or their markets. This might be through developing new business processes or, in other cases, inventing new ways to approach established or emerging business challenges.
“For 2016, therefore, we decided to ask TVBMA if they would consider replacing the ‘Best Use of Technology’ category with something wider: an ‘Innovation Award’. We were delighted that they agreed to this suggestion.
“The new Innovation Award looks to recognise the Thames Valley organisations that are the most outstanding at leveraging innovation, of whatever kind, to deliver amazing results for their customers, great new ways of working or revolutionary business results in their market sector.”
Innovation and creativity have always been at the heart of Redwood Technologies. The company was founded in 1993 and became an early pioneer in the field of computerised communications, conceiving new ways of providing business services such as conference calling. In the early 2000s the company developed ground-breaking Internet Protocol communications technologies and techniques for consumer participation in mass-scale live media events, before going on to invent the award-winning software technology
behind hundreds of cloud-based contact centres and thousands of corporate end-users around the world.
“As a business, Redwood makes sure that innovation is in its DNA, which is why we invest so heavily in research and development. As a result of this, we have managed to break tremendous new ground in the cloud space and latterly in the Unified Communications arena, where we have pioneered exciting new applications of our core technology.
“But stagnation remains a constant risk for us, as it does for all businesses. We have unfortunately seen so many companies that had devised a fantastic new approach, either technologically or otherwise, to their market and did amazingly well for a short period. But, once their initial innovation became commoditised, they failed to follow up with any great new replacement vision, and they eventually fell by the wayside. So, the lesson is that innovation can never stop; innovation is something that all organisations must constantly strive towards to ensure continued business growth and competitiveness. For any business that wants to maintain a position of leadership, that constant spark is vital,” argues Taylor.
“We hope that the Innovation Award will serve not only to recognise the outstanding innovation we have here in the Thames Valley, but also as a source of encouragement, ensuring that more companies continue to value creative and different ways of approaching a world that is constantly in flux.”
The Innovation Award is now open for entries to organisations of all sizes and sectors across the Thames Valley, who are able to demonstrate how their innovative approaches to business have helped them to deliver tangible benefits to their organisations, employees and customers. Winners will be announced at the annual Thames Valley Business Magazine Awards on Thursday November 17 at Reading’s Royal Berkshire Conference Centre.
Details: Alex Smith 01344-852350
businessmag.co.uk
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – JUNE 2016
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