Green light for Traffic studio management tool

Ground-breaking software company Sohnar has won a Queen's Award for Enterprise, one of the most prestigious honours than can be bestowed on any business.

The company, the only one involved in the creative industries sector to be honoured in this year's list (announced 21 April), launched its Traffic system from the back-bedroom of a house in London just five years ago.

Since then, it has risen to become a multimillion-pound international business with customers in nine countries and offices in Edinburgh, London, Sydney and New York.

The Awards, which are made in three separate categories - including International Trade, Innovation, and Sustainable Development, are intended to honour outstanding UK companies that embody the spirit of enterprise vital to the country's economy.

Users of Traffic typically work in graphic design, web design, multimedia, digital, advertising, design for print, interior design, package design, product design, PR, marketing and branding.

Sohnar, which gets its name from the fabled ship of legendary treasure hunter Sinbad, struck gold with the pioneering Traffic software programme and has risen to become the preferred system of more than 4,000 creatives working on over 76,000 projects across the world.

The citation for the 'Queen's Award for Enterprise 2008: Innovation' credits Sohnar, lead sponsor of the Design Week awards, for the development of what it calls "the essential tool for creative businesses".

Traffic is a software tool that manages every aspect of a creative business, whether it's a design, marketing or advertising agency working in print, multimedia or online.

It holds the client database, tracks all client contacts, forecasts the sales pipeline, provides rapid and accurate job quoting, maintains time sheets and schedules work to the team.

Financially, Traffic tracks brought in, and in-house costs and monitors profitability across projects, jobs, and clients.

It improves the efficiency of creative businesses by providing a single view of all client activity, facilitating quick and accurate quoting and billing, reducing costs through supplier tendering and the professional handling of client requests and queries.

Managing Director Tracey Shirtcliff, who founded the company in 2003, said of the award: "It gives us validation that we are doing a lot of things right.

"We're getting the Queen's Award and that's the highest accolade a UK business can get - that's what I call fantastic".

Out of the 802 companies considered for the Queen's Award this year only 139 were successful and of those just 42 won awards for innovation.

"For the last five years we have been helping creative businesses around the world and most of our growth has been largely achieved through word-of-mouth and you can't get a better recommendation than that," said Shirtcliff.

"We now have 27 staff and a strong customer base in nine countries with new clients in places like Dubai, New Zealand and Hong Kong coming on board all the time.

"Our mission is to be the leading studio management system in the English speaking world.

"We are already the fastest growing, have the largest number of clients in the UK and are well on our way to replicating that in America and Australi..

In the last few years Traffic has won the MacWorld Developer of the Year award 2004, been shortlisted for the 2006 MacWorld Editor's Choice Productivity Software and received a 5 mice MacUser review and 5 stars from MacWorld.

"Most agencies don't deliver client service to the best of their ability and aren't as profitable as they could be," said Shirtcliff.

"On average 26 per cent of a creative agency's potential income is lost through inefficiency, or inaccurate quoting.

"It is as important to get processes right as it is to produce great creative work.

"Agencies need to deliver the efficient, effective creative result for clients in the most profitable way.

"When we started most systems on the market fell into two categories: those that were too complicated, and those that were too simple," she added.

"Neither provided what was needed - a system that combined depth of analysis with simplicity of use.

"Traffic does just that, to the benefit and well-documented gratitude of design businesses in the UK, the US, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Italy, Greece, Singapore, Hong Kong and now Dubai".

What do users say about Traffic? "We chose Traffic after evaluating four different systems: it was by far the most user friendly solution", said Richard Mott, Chairman of 20/20 in London, whose clients include Arsenal Football Club and Gala Casinos.

"The interface looks attractive and appealing, which encourages designers to use it.

"We knew from the outset that all our staff would be comfortable with the software".

Stuart Anderson, Branding Director of London's 85four, whose clients include Coca Cola, British Electric and Tesco, said: "Traffic has made 85four's office much more efficient: I love traffic because I don't have to rummage through files to develop an invoice or review the office workload.

"I can very easily access any information I need right from my computer.

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