Unbelievably (positively of course), Lewis has been with us for a year today.
We enjoy his wit and good humour (as well as his great design skills and continued contribution to our success) and look forward to putting up a similar blog next year!
This went out yesterday; we just want to add a big thank you to all our clients, all our suppliers and, most of all, all of our team. We have a group of people who are passionate about Design and are passionate about the Fripp Design and Research project; without their support, enthusiasm (and occasional sarcasm!) and input, we would not be doing as well as are…a big big thank you:
Fripp Design announces significant business growth
Fripp Design and Research, one of the UK’s leading product design, research and business consultancies, has announced significant business growth in the past twelve months, despite problems with the economy that have affected many other companies across the country.
Sheffield-based Fripp Design and Research has seen its turnover more than double from £160,000 in 2008/9 to £400,000 in the financial year to the end of March 2010. In addition, the company has also doubled its head count as it continues to meet demand for its services in key markets, including the medical, health and safety and retail sectors.
In the last year Fripp Design and Research has also increased its customer base, adding well-known names such as B&Q, Boots, Balfour Beatty, The Welcome Trust and Sheffield University to its client portfolio in the process.
Steve Roberts, director at Fripp Design and Research said: ‘We are delighted with our performance and growth over the past twelve months, especially given the downturn in the economy in that time. Fripp Design continues to deliver a first class product design and development service for its customers, which is reflected in so many well-known names choosing to work with us. We look forward to continued success throughout 2010 and beyond.’
Fripp Design and Research was the first private sector company to be recognised as an Innovation Voucher Knowledge Provider, providing Innovation Vouchers for SME businesses based in Yorkshire and Humber, as well as in the North East. Innovation Vouchers are part of the government’s Solutions for Business Portfolio and, in the Yorkshire and Humber region, provide companies with up to £7,000 worth of 50/50 matched funding.
Steve Roberts added: ‘Innovation is vital to the long-term success of any business and we are proud to be able to help provide companies with the opportunity to tap into our wealth of expertise and support the delivery of an excellent knowledge solution for their innovative project.’
Our MD visited a local comprehensive school yesterday. It is typical of comprehensive’s built in the 1960’s and has a mainly working class catchment of some 1600 young people.
He was invited to meet with the sixth formers studying Product Design, looking at, and assessing, their final year projects. To say he was amazed was an understatement, the quality of their problem solving was as good as any professional designer and some of their solutions have the potential to be of commercial value.
The head of department is an ex Industrial Designer and Engineer who wanted to give something back; and it really shows.
We still believe the majority of the state Education system teaches young people to pass exams, rather than show personal intiative; however Dinnington certainly breaks that trend.
It goes to show that, if you can give young people the right level of support; with teachers who have experience of working in the real world, then our young people will have a brighter future.
This ethos could be seen accross the whole school (he had lunch in the school canteen and the students were first class). We will continue to work with Dinnington as their head of department is entitled to our support; if we are to create the knowledge driven economy UK PLC needs.
We have just found out that we have been approved to provide Innovation and High Growth Associate Adviser Services to Business Link Yorkshire.
Details of what the services offer are to follow.
Again this is another great endoresement for the quality of Design, Research and Business support Fripp Design and Research are providing to the Yorkshire and Humber region.
We went to the Sheffield launch of the new Yorkshire and Humber investment fund which supersedes SYIF and PIF. It is a £90M fund which offers three products:
Seedcorn Finance : £15K-£780K – The focus here is on technology pre/post Start Ups
Business Loans: £15K-£150K – The focus is on established business who need working capital/Capital support to grow their businesses
Equity Linked Finance:£100K-£2M – The focus on major capital investment and some larger start ups
The fund is available from April 2010, which is great news, however not all the fund manager contracts have been put in place so there maybe some delays.
All SME business sectors are eligible if based in the Yorkshire and Humber region.
We applaud this investment in helping entrepreneurs to develop world class businesses in our region. If we were to have one criticism, it is the cost of managing the fund, some £10M which represents 11% of the fund value…but we guess the fund managers will see an awful lot of ‘interesting’ investment opportunities in the next 3 years!
We’ve just had the opportunity to scan through the Ingenious Britain Report and we applaud My Dyson’s findings.
The UK has always prided itself in being a nation of Innovators (rather than the term more commonly used which is Inventors, which we consider to be a sub set of Innovation), however the reality is that India, China etc are rapidly closing the Innovation gap by the investment they are putting into education and the emphasis they put on hard skills (such as engineering which can be differentiated from soft skills such as marketing).
It is essential for the UK to remain ahead of the game and the future Government needs to take on board what Dyson says very seriously.
We consider ourselves as Innovators and this starts with the quality of the people working in our organisation.
We will shortly be announcing our results which will show a two and a half times increase in turnover and a doubling of overhead in the middle of the deepest recession in living memory.
We have a new team member; Abhijeet Patil who has joined our design team…and he holds a unique position in the company:
He is the first of our Designers not have got his Masters from Sheffield Hallam University!
Educated in India and the UK, Abhi brings enhanced engineering design skills and an international perspective of Design.
Welcome Abhi.
Well done to Amy Williams; a terrific achievement for Great Britain and for the sport of Skeleton Bob.
Clearly we are very diappointed for Shelley and Kristan as we know the mountains (financial and political) they have to climb to simply get themselves on to the track. Add to this that they have a beautiful daughter to bring up too (remembering they have no partner to help in this…except for uncle Richard of course!); they should both be very proud.
Richard, Dan, Mike and Kristan should also be very proud of what they are achieving with Bromley Technologies…and may it long continue; to get two athletes in the top 6 is a fantastic achievement for the Sheffield based team.
We look forward to seeing them back at the top of the sport in 2014 (unless Kristan’s retired of course!!!)
Tonight (18th February) is the first run of the Skeleton Bob at the Winter Olympics (starts around midnight GMT). As sponsors of their team we wish them every success and we are proud of everything they, and the team, have achieved.
Go for it guys!
We had the inaugral meeting of Designed in Sheffield last night. It is an initiative to get national recognition of the great design that is behind the great manufacturing in Sheffield; which is already recognised by the Made in Sheffield marque.
We hope the marque will give the Product/Industrial/Architectural Design sector, in our region, the opportunity to tell the world why Sheffield is an important centre of excellence in Design.
It is pleasing to report that both of our Universities are fully on board with the initiative too.
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