RIG client wins prestigious METAward

Former RIG client Semafone recently won the Merchant Emerging Technology Award in the Start-up category. The award recognises solution providers who deliver the most innovative, cutting edge technology for managing payments and risk in electronic commerce. Semafone’s win came as the result of an extensive assessment process by the Merchant Risk Council (MRC) and presentations by the finalists at the MRC annual conference in Las Vegas.

Semafone will also be presenting at the MRC European Congress taking place 25^th-27^th April in Dublin. To find out more about Semafone, please visit www.semafone.com.

Posted by RIG Admin on April 23, 2012 at 12:36 pm in News | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackback (0)

         

RIG clients execute over $3m in Q1 sales

RIG has broken its sales record in the first part of 2012 by completing over $3 million worth of sales alongside clients in Q1. These sales represent both ground-breaking initial enterprise sales for early stage clients, as well as significant deals across multiple geographies for clients in the later stage of scaling.

Posted by RIG Admin on April 5, 2012 at 12:55 pm in News | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackback (0)

         

RIG consultants participate in investment panel

RIG consultants Paul Higgins and David Gates shared their advice with entrepreneurs as part of a panel at the ‘From Idea to Investment’ workshop run by the Next Generation Finance Consortium on 29th March.

The event, lead by Capital Enterprise in association with the Business and IP Centre at the British Library, focused on helping entrepreneurs to find out whether they would be able to turn an idea for a business into a venture that could raise investment and generate significant profit.

The panel, which also included Paddy Willis of WFT Consulting and Ian Merricks of White Horse Capital and Accelerator Academy, took the audience’s questions on tackling their funding challenges.

Posted by RIG Admin on March 30, 2012 at 10:28 am in News | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackback (0)

         

RIG partners with innovative career development company

RIG has started working with CareerGro, a Dublin-based organisation that is revolutionising career development within companies by enabling employees to take control and manage their own career development in partnership with their managers for the benefit of both themselves and their organisations.

Careergro combines the latest best practice from career coaching with the ease of use of consumer applications such as LinkedIn to enable organisations achieve greater productivity and reduce costs.

Companies such as Vodafone and Heineken are leveraging Careergro’s employee development solution to improve their performance.

For more information on CareerGro visit www.careergro.com

Posted by RIG Admin on February 29, 2012 at 10:45 am in News | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackback (0)

         

RIG website and blog re-launch with new look

Following several months of development, the Rapid Innovation Group website has relaunched with a brand new look for 2012. With the help of Regenesys, RIG has revamped the content and design of the site to reflect the company’s growth and development over the past few years and to provide better insight into the ways in which RIG works with entrepreneurs.

The new site also incorporates the blog, previously held at rapidinnovation.typepad.com, along with an expanded Entrepreneur Viewpoint section containing our interviews with select members of the entrepreneurial community. Look out for a wider range of content planned for the site over the coming months!

Posted by RIG Admin on February 15, 2012 at 4:59 pm in News | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackback (0)

         

RIG consultant in Entrepreneur Country magazine

An article written by RIG consultant Paul Higgins was published in the November edition of Entrepreneur Country magazine as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week.

Entrepreneur Country is a community of entrepreneurs, investors, corporate partners and media who believe that entrepreneurship and independent business growth are vital to the future of the UK and Europe. The community meets twice a year and gathers online for information and inspiration and connections. The magazine is published monthly.

Paul’s article, entitled “Can you be a lean startup and a visionary entrepreneur?”, discusses whether following the methodologies in Eric Ries’ new book, The Lean Startup would prevent entrepreneurs from building truly transformational companies.

Read the article online on page 16 of Entrepreneur Country’s November edition.

Posted by Paul Higgins on November 14, 2011 at 12:27 am in News | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackback (0)

         

Long-term RIG client acquired by NASDAQ OMX

The NASDAQ OMX group will integrate Glide Technologies, founded in 2003, into its Corporate Solutions to create the first and only fully-integrated workflow solution for investor relations and public relations professionals.

Sam Phillips, Chief Executive Officer, Glide Technologies said: ‘We are excited to combine our market-leading set of PR products with NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions’ robust IR offerings. This provides IR and PR professionals with a unique and comprehensive proposition of integrated services on a united platform. It is a hugely exciting and logical step for our company to be taking.’

Since 2005 Rapid Innovation Group consultants have worked with Glide Technologies to develop the market offering, proposition, processes, practices and people. We look forward to watching the company develop as part of the well-respected NASDAQ OMX Group.

Posted by Paul Higgins on October 24, 2011 at 12:52 pm in News | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackback (0)

         

RIG client featured in The Economist

The Economist’s science and technology blog, Babbage, reports on Permasense’s innovative solution for monitoring pipe corrosion in oil and gas refineries. To read the article, visit http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2011/10/corrosion-monitoring.

For more information on Permasense, visit their website at http://www.permasense.com.

Posted by Paul Higgins on October 4, 2011 at 3:27 pm in News | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackback (0)

         

Three former RIG clients recognised in Times Tech Track 100

The eleventh annual Tech Track 100 league table supplement was published in The Sunday Times on 18 September 2011.

The 2011 Tech Track 100 ranked Britain’s private tech (TMT) companies with the fastest-growing sales over the latest three years, from 2007 to 2010, or 2008 to 2011. Growth ranged from 37% pa to 361% pa, with sales typically between £5m and £50m. Three former RIG clients were recognised on the list.

Toluna (#27) runs online surveys for market-research companies such as Ipsos and GfK. Chief executive Frederic-Charles Petit founded the business in 2000 with £2m from Eurovestech, a European investment fund. Toluna floated on the Alternative Investment Market five years later, but was taken private in April this year by the Belgian investment firm Verlinvest in a deal that valued the company at more than £160m, and with Invesco retaining a stake. Sales have climbed 81% a year from £12.5m in 2007 to £73.6m in 2010, boosted by a series of acquisitions that culminated in the £24m purchase of Microsoft’s online survey business in 2009. Its online community generates more than 1m votes a day.

Fourth Hospitality‘s (#48) software is used in 16 countries, including Russia, Germany and South Africa. Husband and wife Derek and Edwina Lilley founded Fourth Hospitality in 1999 after running several restaurants in northwest England. The company provides web-based planning software for restaurants and hotels to manage staffing, invoicing and stock control. An iPhone app was launched in April and is offered to customers so that tasks like checking rotas can be done remotely. Chief executive Ben Hood has overseen sales growth of 61% a year from £2.4m in 2007 to £9.9m in 2010, and in March ECI Partners invested an undisclosed sum for a majority stake.

Solar Communications (#87) has been transformed since 2007 when it was bought by its current chief executive Mark Colquhoun, who has run several businesses, including a game lodge in South Africa. It now specialises in unified communications, helping companies to integrate phone, text messaging and voicemail with more sophisticated telecoms. Typical clients have 200 to 3,000 employees and include Portman Travel, World First, and the College of Law. Sales at the Wiltshire company have grown 40% a year from £2.7m in 2007 to £7.5m in 2010, and it plans to release a mobile-phone application shortly, enabling its clients to dispense with their desk phones altogether.

Posted by Paul Higgins on September 18, 2011 at 3:29 pm in News | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackback (0)

         

Former RIG client in GrowthBusiness Top 50 Rising Stars 2011

Solar Communications, the provider of telecommunication solutions to businesses, has been recognised by GrowthBusiness as one of its Top 50 Rising Stars of 2011, the annual list of the UK’s most exciting businesses with the fastest-growing sales and profits in the UK last year.

The annual Rising Stars ranking is the only such research to consider both profit and turnover growth in its assessment. The Rising Stars have combined sales of £1.4 billion, up 7 per cent on last year’s list, while total profits have reached £287 million.

Wol Kolade, managing partner of ISIS Equity Partners and GrowthBusiness blogger, comments in his blog post this month that the Rising Stars of 2011 represent some welcome light at the end of a dark economic tunnel.

Solar’s customers operate across a range of sectors, including health, education, legal, travel, manufacturing and finance. Chief Executive Mark Colquhoun took the helm when the business was losing money and has since turned the company around. RIG worked with Mark to categorise Solar’s customer base and optimise its account management and development function. As part of the project RIG was involved in the selection and recruitment of a sales leader to drive Solar’s continued revenue growth.

For more information about Solar Communications, please visit their website www.solar.co.uk.

Posted by Paul Higgins on September 13, 2011 at 3:30 pm in News | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackback (0)

         

RIG helps client secure major partnership to substantially scale deployment

RIG has been instrumental in helping a client sign a partnership agreement with a major services company with an annual turnover of $4bn. The partnership will focus on building a ‘next-generation’ sustainability platform.

RIG realised that by finding a company to partner with prior to product build, it could enable its client to have access to market and end-user expertise to inform development, build early momentum before product launch and drive rapid market deployment. RIG drove the whole process from partner selection to an agreement being signed.

The partnership has already begun work on building the solution, which it is planning to have ready for roll out in the first half of 2012.

Posted by Paul Higgins on August 20, 2011 at 3:31 pm in News | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackback (0)