Pace, S&T and Latens UK are all to receive The Queen’s Award for Enterprise for their achievements in international trade.
Pace picks up its third Queen’s Award having won its first International Trade Award in 2008 and an Innovation Award in 2009. The Saltaire company is now the world’s second largest supplier of set-top boxes. In the past three years it has expanded into new territories, winning major customer deals in Germany, Australia, Canada, Turkey, South Africa, Indonesia, Belgium, the Middle East, Spain, The Netherlands, French overseas territories and Poland.
Neil Gaydon, CEO of Pace plc, commented: “Pace has consistently executed against its strategy to build profitable relationships with the leading pay-TV operators around the world, be the world’s best set-top box company and position the company and its products at the heart of digital convergence within the home”
London-based interactive TV software developer Strategy & Technology Ltd (S&T) has been recognised for its achievement in growing product sales internationally over the past four years through a well-defined and effective marketing strategy.
“This is public recognition of the creative efforts of the engineers designing and selling our products around the world,” said MD David Cutts. “The Award cites our focussed marketing strategy and positioning as a key factor in our success. I am incredibly proud of our achievement in becoming a small UK-based global company. Our goals have always been to be a leader in the markets that we serve and to focus on giving our customers true value and return on their investment in the technology that we supply. At its heart S&T wins because of its great engineering, experienced management and excellent sales and support teams; the company couldn’t be more honoured to receive this award.”
S&T began life in 1996 as a two-man consultancy. It now has offices in London; Bristol; Louisville, Colorado, US and Hong Kong and supplies software that facilitates the creation, play out and display of interactive television content.
Much of the work has been centred around the MHEG-5 application programming interface used initially by UK DTT, but now finding favour in international markets. S&T has provided complete MHEG systems to broadcasters and operators in both New Zealand and Hong Kong and is working on a major deployment in Australia.
Over the past six years S&T has grown exports six fold to nearly £4 million (€4.56 million) over the period. Exports represent over 90% of sales including Europe, North America, Asia and the Pacific Rim.
Since it commenced trading in 2002, Latens has been a pioneer in cardless conditional access products and has extended its innovation to its own middleware.
“We are thrilled that Latens has received the Queen’s Award for the first time,” said Jeremy Thorp, founder and CEO at Latens. “We have an excellent team of people working at Latens, all of whom have contributed to our growth. We all take pride in being recognised for our business success by such a prestigious award.”
Latens has won the award for the first time for doubling its exports over three years with all sales being exports.
