Wood Group and 4i2i triumph in Queen’s Awards for International Trade

Queen's Award for International Trade Aberdeen City and Shire continued to fly the flag in this year’s Queen’s Awards with two local companies being recognised for excellence in International Trade (out of an overall Scottish total of seven this year).

The two recipients reflect the range and diversity of the accolade, which was first introduced in 1965 and is widely regarded as the most prestigious business award available to a UK company.

Established energy services world leaders, Wood Group, are certainly no strangers to the honour, while first-time winners Bucksburn-based 4i2i showed how hard work, commitment, market knowledge and modern technology can turn the smallest, most market-distant company into a serious global player.

Wood Group

Wood Group is a recognised market leader in the provision of engineering design, production support, well support and industrial gas turbine services for the international oil, gas and power generation industries. When the Group first won the Award six years ago it employed 9,000 people in more than 30 countries, compared to today’s 20,000 people in 44 countries.

This year’s Award has been given in recognition of the increase in its international sales by 50% over three years to £1.2bn per annum – no mean feat, even for one of our biggest local businesses.

Wood Group operates through three businesses - Engineering and Production Facilities, Well Support, and Gas Turbine Services - and its range of engineering, production support, maintenance management and industrial gas turbine overhaul and repair services help support the oil and gas, and power generation industries all over the world, from the Americas to the Middle East, Russia and India, as well as closer to home in Europe.

A seasoned recipient of awards and accolades over the years, chairman of Wood Group, Sir Ian Wood nonetheless appreciates this most recent honour, regarded by many as “a corporate knighthood”. “We are delighted to receive the Queen’s Award for the second time. It recognises the significant achievements of our global investments and activities and is tremendous recognition for the Group worldwide.”

Sir Ian also acknowledges the part his global team has played in the Group being recognised for a second time by the Queen’s Awards. “This prestigious Award also reflects the wealth of talent and huge commitment of our people around the world, and I would like to congratulate all of them.”

Meantime, back at Wood Group HQ in Aberdeen, it’s all hands to the flagpole for a timely running up of the new flag. Recipients are allowed to fly the flag for five years after receiving the Award, so the 2001 flag has recently been retired from active service. So it’s a case of very good succession planning for the Wood Group flagpole!

Click here to visit the website of Wood Group

4i2i

At first glance, the bracing North East coast of Scotland and the sun-soaked west coast of America may seem worlds apart. But Bucksburn-based 4i2i is proof that distance is no object to doing business – to the highest standards – when you have the right product, market knowledge and commitment.

Set up in 1995 by husband and wife team Martyn and Laura Riley, 4i2i are leading suppliers of semiconductor IP cores and software for video-coding. Their biggest customer base is in the San Jose area of California, better known as Silicon Valley. The company received its Queen’s Award in International Trade for nearly quadrupling its exports over a three-year period – last year alone it saw an increase of 112% in growth, with over 94% of that coming from North America.

Colin Turnbull, 4i2i’s VP Marketing, sees the award as an endorsement of their hard work and market preparedness. “4i2i has won several awards over the years but the Queen’s Award is the one we’ve always viewed very positively and decided this year we’d apply for it as the timing was appropriate in terms of business growth.

“Our diligence has been checked, our technology has been checked and our ability to perform on the world stage has also now been checked and deemed worthy of the award. We were overjoyed to hear we’d won it – it’s a huge accolade.”

The result of hard work

For some, the process of filling out the application for the Award can be daunting but 4i2i’s good housekeeping made it rather more manageable. “We have an ongoing process so making the application was fairly straightforward – though it does take time - because we have all the information to hand, we know what we’re doing, where we’re going, how we’re going to do it, and historically we have checks and measures to see that we are being successful.”

The rapidly developing nature of the industry makes it all the more remarkable that a small company based in North East Scotland is performing so brilliantly on the world stage. So how has 4i2i managed it? Colin is in no doubt - “Hard work and determination. We empathise with our customer base, understand their needs, recognise their wants and in what direction the technology is moving in that industry and where we fit in as part of their road map for moving forwards.”

With the global hunger for video, Colin reckons one of the principal reasons for 4i2i’s prodigious success is their ability to keep their cutting-edge technology in video compression and decompression “just ahead” of the market. And while their client base is currently predominantly in North America (ranging from US space agency NASA to major broadcasters) the company is continuing to open up in new markets – it’s just spread its wings into Japan which they expect to bring in 30% of their revenue in the next 5 years.

“We didn’t do any business in Japan at all but spent a month there in the last quarter of 2006, and appointed a distributor on January 2nd. We signed our first contract with him on January 26th so within 4 months we’d gone into a new market - we researched it, so we know who the players are, know our route to market and got our market entry strategy absolutely right,” says Colin.

But it’s not all hard work for 4i2i’s 23 industrious staff – it’ll soon be time to don the party hats!

CEO Martyn Riley will be making the trip to Buckingham Palace to collect the Award and plans are afoot to mark all the company’s recent successes. “We’re planning to have a celebration for our 23 staff, including our design team of four in Edinburgh, once we’re settled into our newly renovated office, a Victorian house in Dyce,” says Colin.

“And later in the year we’re looking forward to the formal visit from the Lord Lieutenant to present the Queen’s Award flag – by which time we will make sure we have a new flagpole in place in our new home!”

Click here to visit the website of 4i2i