Microsoft pinpoints Britain's 'Digital Elite'

Called Britain's Digital Elite, the awards are the culmination of a nationwide search for UK businesses that use technology in the most cutting-edge, innovative and exciting ways to make a positive impact on their businesses and markets.

Despite well-publicised fears that the UK is heading for an economic downturn and pessimism about the nation's lack of innovative business ideas, the latest research and the strength of the awards entries demonstrate that many businesses still see investment in IT as key to achieving growth, while innovation remains one of the UK's core strengths. 1

Microsoft set out to highlight these innovative British businesses by identifying the companies leading the way in harnessing the power of software and IT to help them drive sales and profitability, increase customer satisfaction, create competitive advantage and even change the traditional business model of their industry. Award winners range from mass-participation film project Swarm of Angels to Zebtab a company creating a desktop application that is helping transform the magazine publishing industry.

'British business is often criticised for a lack of innovation but we've been deeply impressed by the sheer variety and quality of businesses in the competition,' said Simon Hughes, Director for Small and Medium-Sized Business at Microsoft UK. 'These businesses are all using software to the full to create slick, agile businesses well equipped to stand up to and even beat larger competitors.'

Hughes continued: 'It's easy to get carried away by flash ideas and blue sky thinking but where these businesses really excel is through execution. These businesses have demonstrated excellence in not only what they provide, but innovation in the way they provide it.'

Winner of the M&A category, Manifest, is changing the face of electronic proxy voting at general meetings of listed companies worldwide. Currently, getting approval for a resolution at an AGM can be time consuming and with a very low voter turnout. Manifest's voting systems puts the voter in direct contact with the issuer, making the chain of intermediaries system redundant.

'Manifest's system looks terrific,' says Digital Elite awards judge Jay Bregman. 'At my company eCourier.co.uk we've had situations where we frantically tried to contact shareholders in other continents, or faxed materials to Mexico to try to get a signature from a shareholder.' With Manifest's new approach, the era of voter-hunting, low response rates and lost votes will become a thing of the past.

Another Digital Elite winner, Webmart, is a great example of how a growing business is using technology to ‘take on the big guys' and compete with business heavyweights and furthermore make fundamental changes to the way their marketplace operates. Webmart is a print company with no printers. By accessing the capacity levels and prices of printers across Europe, Webmart can offer clients the cheapest possible printing cost. Webmart is the leader in this sector, having managed £3.6bn of print jobs, five times more than its nearest rival.

'Being recognised as one of Britain's Digital Elite is a huge accolade for us,' says Webmart Managing Director Simon Biltcliffe. 'There is nothing like our software anywhere else in the world and our goal was to help both the printer and print buyer to work better together to mutual benefit– looks like we're getting there!'

According to IDC research commissioned by Microsoft, UK firms are spending £45.7bn on IT this year and this will increase by 5.5% over the next four years. Recent research from Microsoft and Durham Business School, Growth and use of IT among Small Businesses in September 2007, shows the proportion of growth businesses which believe IT has the potential to deliver competitive advantage ranges from 81% to 92% across company size bands, compared with 75% to 84% for non-growth companies

About Digital Elites

Real Business magazine and Microsoft set out to identify the nation's most intelligent users of software. These firms are harnessing software to radically improve performance, transforming their sector in the process. The winners were decided by a panel of four judges including two entrepreneurs, Charles Orton-Jones from Real Business and Simon Hughes of Microsoft.

Entrants were judged on three criteria:
• Excellence in execution of IT project
• Support from the board of IT projects that drive growth and place technology at the heart of the business
• Recognition of that IT as a driver for growth – and success in driving this growth

The winners in each category were:

Mobile
Ace Fixings is an Ulster-based supplier of power tools and equipment to the construction industry. It has combined a Microsoft Dynamics NAV system with Drizzle, a PDA-based mobile system, so that its 24 salespeople can see all company data and take orders on the move. Three-quarters of orders are now taken by the roving sales force this way.
Location: Ballymena, Northern Ireland

Runners up: JB Eye and Blyk

Education
Direct Path Solutions is the creator of OWL, a Neighbourhood Watch organisation portal. Endorsed by Hertfordshire Police, this system allows participants to schedule shifts and exchange observations.
Location: Hertfordshire

Runners up: Prime Principle and Music Factory

Consumer Interaction
Zebtab is a desktop widget which allows magazines, retail websites, bookmakers and video sites to push information to the user, rather than wait for the user to come to their website. For the user, the appeal is having information from favourite websites organised in a convenient manner, plus access to unique special offers. Firebox.com, Maxim magazine and AtTheRaces betting site have all signed up to ZebTab's service. The service blends RSS, AJAX and .NET.
Location: London

Runners up: Tailgate and Moo

Marketplace analysis
Thompson Intermedia uses software to monitor advertisements. The scope of its operation is breathtaking. It processes and manipulates 80,000 pages of newspaper print each day and extracts all advertising and text and calculate the 'ratecard' cost of each advert. It automatically monitors TV and Radio stations extracting all new advertisements and automatically recognising existing advertising from an 'audio fingerprint', and does this on the web too. Clients access all the resulting data over the web.
Location: Kent

Runners up: Sciemus and Brain Juicer

Performance Analysis
Wall Colmonoy: This 70-year-oldSwansea firm manufactures Nickel and Cobalt alloys. Its manufacturing floor features 98 machine operations and co-ordinating this process has been transformed by the adoption of Preactor software. Preactor controls all areas of production, including scheduling, delivery, stock control and can even process 'what if' scenarios. Visibility of what is happening on the plant floor has gone from 0 per cent to 100 per cent. Wall Colmonoy now can see every order, its current status, and projected progress. On-time delivery performance has increased from 80% to 95%. The machining area efficiency has risen from 75% to 92%.
Location: Swansea

Runners up: TenUK and JT Dove

Taking on the Big Guys
Webmart is a print company with no printers. By accessing the capacity levels and prices of printers across Europe, Webmart can offer clients the cheapest possible printing cost. Run by the ebullient entrepreneur Simon Biltcliffe, Webmart is the leader in this sector, having managed £3.6bn of print jobs, five times more than its nearest rival.
Location: Barnsley

Runners up: Coolroom and Zubka

Logistics
ViaPost: Why not let someone else post your letters? ViaPost's free software allows users to electronically transmit documents to ViaPost, where the document is printed, put in an envelope and posted using the Royal Mail. ViaPost has a number of locations across the UK, allowing 'final mile' posting. Even better, users are charged second class rates for first class postage.
Location: London

Runners up: Hazchem Network and Marshalls

Back-office automation
Gallowglass is the UK's foremost crewing operation for gigs and shows, supplying 71,000 crew shifts for 8,000 shows. Turnover is £7m. Each job typically has at least two elements: booking in and booking out, both of which need crew assigned. Gallowglass uses Microsoft's Dynamics NAV to allocate jobs, create invoices, record crew specialisms and visas, and uses a traffic light system to alert staff to unfilled jobs.
Location: London

Runners up: Motorclean and Access Displays

R&D
A Swarm of Angels is a mass-participation film project. The project is funded by 50,000 volunteers paying $50, who will collectively write the script, and then direct, produce and distribute the film (which will be available under the Creative Commons licence). Termed 'open source cinema' A Swarm of Angels uses web-collaboration technology to utilise the talents of all volunteers. It is lead by Matt Hanson, 35, who was described by Forbes magazine as one of ten people who are likely to change the world.
Location: London

Runners up: Cambridge Cell Network

M&A
Manifest: This firm is changing the face of electronic proxy voting at general meetings of listed companies worldwide. Currently, getting approval for a resolution at an AGM can be time consuming and with a very low voter turnout. Manifest's voting system puts the voter in direct contact with the issuer, making the chain of intermediaries system redundant. Manifest's system is particularly relevant at EGMs, where takeovers need to be rapidly authorised.
Location: Essex

Runners up: TNS and Project Fusion

Related links to this article:
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Finalists announced in the 2007 e-Government National Awards
81 finalists (detailed at this link) have been chosen from among the record 527 nominations received in this year's e-Government National Awards 2007. 11 Awards categories will recognise this year's "best of the best" strategies, achievements, teams and individuals in UK public sector web, ICT & e-Government services. The judging panel was headed by Government Chief Information Officer John Suffolk (based at Cabinet Office).

The winners will be announced and presented with their e-Government National Awards on 22nd January 2008 at a black-tie dinner at the Dorchester Hotel in London. Finalists may book tickets at this link

Platinum sponsor is KPMG.
Also a sponsor is O2.

The Awards are supported by the Government Chief Information Officer (Cabinet Office), the Office of Government Commerce, the Society of Information Technology Management (Socitm), and SOLACE (Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers).