ScotlandIS, the trade body for the digital technologies industry, has announced the winners of the sixth annual Digital Technology Awards at a sell out ceremony at Glasgow’s Old Fruitmarket.
The highlight of the night, the awards for Digital Technology Business of the Year, were shared by four companies. The Large Digital Tech Business of the Year trophy went to Skyscanner. The Edinburgh headquartered travel search business was recognised for its continued innovation, development of new products and its exceptional worldwide expansion.
The Midsized award went to Linlithgow based Calnex. The telecoms test and measurement specialist was chosen for its world class testing solutions and success in selling around the globe.
Personalised shopping app startup Mallzee lifted the Small Digital Technology Business of the Year trophy, in recognition of the business’s exceptional growth, securing £2.5 million new investment to fund new product development and further expansion into the US.
The Emerging category winner was Glasgow based web design and marketing company Senshi Digital, chosen by the judges for their rapid growth and confidence in going after global clients.
For the second year running Nucleus scooped the Best Financial Services Product / Service award. The Edinburgh based provider of online wrap-based platform products also won the Outstanding Marketing Performance by a Tech Company category. The young, disruptive company was recognised for its achievement in gaining a significant share in an established market with expertly planned and executed marketing.
This year’s awards celebrated the vision and expertise of Scotland’s digital company leaders with the launch of a new CEO of the Year award. Brian Ferrie from Edge Testing lifted the trophy on the night. Brian was recognised for growing the business from a standing start in 2007 to having over 150 staff. The company is now one of the premier independent suppliers of software testing solutions in the UK.
The Best Education Provider / Training Programme, created to highlight and celebrate the work being done to develop technology skills, was awarded to Professional Learning and Networking for Computing (Plan C) for its innovative programme to upskill computing teachers across Scotland.
The Transformational Innovation Through Data category was won by the Royal Bank of Scotland, in recognition of its work done in enriching the customer service experience by innovative use of technology, harnessing the power of ‘big data’ in a complex data science project.
Ambergreen Internet Marketing took home the hotly contested Digital Agency of the Year Award for a well executed business development strategy, and document assembly company, HotDocs, won this year’s International Technology Star award. The Edinburgh based firm have bucked the trend by buying out a US business and becoming the market leaders in their sector in North America.
The Best B2B Technology Product / Service category went to hospitality industry specialists Zonal Retail Data Systems for their stand out solutions, whilst the best Business to Consumer (B2C) Product/Service award was picked up by Mallzee, for its personalised shopping app, which now tops the App store for shopping apps.
Schools and business software company School Cloud Systems took the Best Public Sector Product / Service award. Their timetabling software is now used in around 2000 schools worldwide by over a million people.
Investment Deal of the Year went to Edinburgh based business management software provider FreeAgent in recognition of its well planned and executed crowd funding campaign, raising £1.2m from over 700 investors.
Polly Purvis, CEO of ScotlandIS, said: “We were delighted to see a record number entries for this year’s awards. The strength and scope of the award applications was outstanding so I would like to congratulate all of our winners, and everyone who applied. From well-known names to specialist businesses we saw a great many examples of passion, innovation and hard work.
“Scotland’s digital technologies sector is not just buoyant, it is thriving and as a small country I believe we punch well above our weight. ScotlandIS now has around 300 member businesses and this year’s award winners offer a snapshot of the talent making an impact across our industry.”
Some 84,000 Scots now work in the digital technologies industry, which generates more than £5 billion in GVA and, according to KPMG’s Tech Monitor, the number of tech sector enterprises in Scotland grew 43.3% between 2010 and 2015, second only to London (54.6 per cent).