We are delighted to announce that 2 Shackleton companies have won Queen’s Awards this year: Exterity and Trutac.
The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise are the most prestigious awards for UK business. With only 216 winners in 2020, the awards are designed to recognise and encourage truly outstanding achievements in innovation, export, sustainability, and promotion of social mobility. Exterity won an accolade for its contribution to International Trade; Trutac won its award for Innovation.
Scotland-headquartered Exterity was one of only 8 companies in Scotland to be recognised. Announced today (Tuesday 21st April 2020), the prestigious award recognises Exterity’s ability to successfully deliver the best professional IP video and digital signage solutions to its clients worldwide.
Exterity is a Shackleton-backed technology company established in 2001 and is a trusted, financially stable and profitable business still led today by the founding executives. The company has experienced an 85% growth in exports over the last three years, and has a presence on every continent, providing multilingual sales and support around the world. Its solutions have been used by many prestigious clients, including the New England Institute of Technology, PSV Eindhoven, the Parliament of Victoria, and the Cannes Film Festival (below).
Colin Farquhar, Exterity’s CEO, is recognised globally as a leading authority in IP video, whose opinion and input is frequently sought by industry media and the proAV technology community. The executive team is supported by a high calibre and long-standing Board of Directors and Investors, and works hard to ensure the business is run with honesty, integrity and the utmost dedication to its staff, customers and partners. Commenting on the Award, Farquhar said:
“We are incredibly proud to receive The Queen’s Award for Enterprise: International Trade 2020, and it is a tremendous achievement and testament to our continued investment in R&D and in the best talent, alongside our strong ties with the advisors and investors who have helped us turn our vision into a market-leading, global company. Since our inception in 2001, we have always focused on providing the best solutions, brought to the market by the best people, establishing connections across the world, whilst proudly sticking to our roots as a Scottish business.”
TruTac, a very recent alumnus from the Shackleton portfolio, is the UK’s leading designer and supplier of software solutions for coaches and heavy goods vehicle compliance control. It’s award was for its innovative contribution towards safety and drivers hours management within the bus and coach industry.
TruTac worked closely with the Confederation of Passenger Transport UK (CPT) and leading bus operators to design a range of cloud-based software tools for accurate recording of vehicle and driver activities, thereby replacing unreliable manual procedures and enabling operators to comply with the specific safety and legal requirements of the coach and bus sector.
TruTac’s Commercial Operations and Marketing Director, Jemma James explains:
“Many of our coach and bus operator customers were relying on manual procedures to capture and record vehicle and driver activities and not surprisingly, this was time-consuming and led to errors and difficulties in analysis, not least in presenting data for DVSA-related checks and auditing.”
TruTac’s software designers wrote an entirely different set of rules to overcome these issues, using unique algorithms, based on the PSV ruleset and the bespoke operational requirements of coach and bus operations within the UK and Europe. A resulting driver education software tool, TruDriver – which is part of a complete software suite developed for the industry – enables drivers to view and access their own data records, thereby helping to improve performance and reduce fatigue-related errors and infringements. Moreover, using TruDriver, operators can improve auditing processes for driver debriefing and data management to comply with DVSA (Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency) and Traffic Commissioner regulations.
“Our bespoke software development and broader experience in the PSV sector led to TruTac winning the CPT’s Commercial Partner tender in 2014” continues Jemma, “and in subsequent times through close working partnerships with CPT and numerous coach and bus operators, TruTac has set itself apart from other tachograph analysis providers – as this Queen’s Award demonstrates.”
The Queen’s Awards scheme was instituted by Royal Warrant in 1965 and the first Awards were made in 1966.
