Signage and wide format company Easy Signs has won the Top Innovator in Australia crown at the 11th Smart50 Awards.
Smart50 says Easy Signs took out the Top Innovator Award, as it restructured its sign installation business five years ago, after seeing the traditional model for selling signage was no longer capturing clients.
This choice resulted in a smaller team and an initial revenue drop, but the radical change saw the company emerge as an online-first company that has grown to an $8m operation.
Adam Parnell, director at Easy Signs says this was the first year the company entered the awards as he wanted to get the company’s vision right before entering, “We are proud of getting the Top Innovator award, we were on a shortlist of eight and we did not like our chances of winning since there was some stiff competition, especially for us being a form of Australian manufacturing.”
[Related: Aussies take out FEPE lifetime award]
Parnell says, “We nominated ourselves for the Smart50 list and part of that you elect to go into categories and we chose the innovation category. Knowing the results last year we knew we would be on it.
“We chose the innovation category because we have a large technology focus, which is something different especially within our industry we are putting tech on the front end process, fast lead times and experience for customers.
“We are covering off what is the basic expectation for customers such as fast response to emails, live chat on our website, good customer experience and fast lead times and the fact we deliver on those promises. We are a young team and have a good grasp of technology and finding ways to deliver it. We have a fresh set of eyes and new thinking, being young means you have an advantage with technology.”
Parnell says the plan for the rest of the year and 2018 is bringing out new product lines, “We have just started to grow internal software development team we are glad about that long list of development. But for everything we do it is all about increasing customer experience.”
Easy signs first opened its doors in 2006, it has 44 staff, and it is based in Ingleburn, south east of Sydney, housing two HP Latex 3200, HP 570 Latex, two SwissQ Nyala and a Konsburg flatbed machine.
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