| 21 April 2008 - Innovation is key to success as Sohnar is honoured by the Queen |
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Innovation is key to success as Sohnar is honoured by the Queen 21 April 2008 A ground-breaking software company taking the US design industry by storm has won a Queen’s Award for Enterprise, one of the most prestigious honours than can be bestowed on any business. The company, which supplies essential software technology for many leading US creative agencies, has been recognised for its spirit of innovation which has turned the pioneering business into a multi-national concern. Sohnar launched Traffic, a highly-effective management system for creative agencies, just five years ago but now has customers in nine countries and offices on both sides of the world. Out of 802 firms considered for a highly coveted Queen’s Award this year only 139 were successful, of which just 42, including Sohnar, were honoured for Innovation. The UK-founded company which provides project management software to numerous US clients, such as marketing company Digital Operations in Portland and the General Board of Global Ministries in New York, was praised for its pioneering solution to increasing business efficiency and productivity. The company, launched from a back-bedroom has risen to become a multi-million pound international business with offices in London, Sydney and New York. The Awards, which are made in three separate categories - including International Trade, Innovation, and Sustainable Development, are intended to honour outstanding companies which embody the spirit of enterprise and innovation. Sohnar, named after the fabled ship of legendary treasure hunter Sinbad, struck gold with its Traffic software programme which has risen to become the preferred system of more than 4,000 creatives working on over 76,000 projects around the globe. Traffic, is a software tool that manages every aspect of a creative business, whether it’s a Design, Marketing, or Advertising agency working in print, multimedia or online. It holds the client database, tracks all client contacts, forecasts the sales pipeline, provides rapid and accurate job quoting, maintains time sheets and schedules work for team members to provide quick and accurate quotations and invoices to save time and money. “Our results have been impressive,” says Dan St. Peter, Director of Digital Operations. “Traffic greatly improves our workflow, streamlining project communication, project management and communication with our clients and across the enterprise.” Users of Traffic typically work in graphic design, web design, multimedia, digital, advertising, design for print, interior design, package design, product design, PR, marketing and branding. Managing Director Tracey Shirtcliff who founded the company described the honour as “absolutely tremendous, it’s a dream come true.” “It gives us validation that we are doing a lot of things right,” said the 36-year-old entrepreneur. “Getting the Queens Award is the highest accolade a UK-based business can get - that’s what I call fantastic.” ”For the last five years we have been helping creative businesses around the world and most of our growth has been largely achieved through word-of-mouth and you can’t get a better recommendation than that,” said Tracey. ”We now have 27 staff and a strong customer base in nine countries with new clients in places like Dubai, New Zealand, Hong Kong and the USA coming on board all the time. “Our mission is to take on the English speaking world and be the leading management system. We are already the fastest growing, have the largest number of clients in the UK and are well on our way to replicating that in America and Australia.” In the last few years Traffic has won the MacWorld Developer of the Year award 2004, been shortlisted for the 2006 MacWorld Editor's Choice Productivity Software and received 5 mice MacUser review and 5 stars from MacWorld. “Most agencies don’t deliver client service to the best of their ability and aren’t as profitable as they could be,” said Tracey. “On average 26% of a creative agency’s potential income is lost through inefficiency, or inaccurate quoting. It is as important to get processes right as it is to produce great creative work. Agencies need to deliver the efficient, effective creative result for clients in the most profitable way. ”When we started most systems on the market fell into two categories: those that were too complicated, and those that were too simple,” she added. ”Neither provided what was needed - a system that combined depth of analysis with simplicity of use. Traffic does just that, to the benefit and well-documented gratitude of design businesses in the UK, the US, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Italy, Greece, Singapore, Hong Kong and now Dubai.” - ends - |
