How to win, innovator 2008 explains

IT may have taken three years to win The Hunts Post Huntingdonshire Innovation Award 2008, but it worked wonders for recruitment, according to Hail Weston biometric products manufacturer Tensor plc. Chief executive Ashley Smith said the company had been s

IT may have taken three years to win The Hunts Post Huntingdonshire Innovation Award 2008, but it worked wonders for recruitment, according to Hail Weston biometric products manufacturer Tensor plc.

Chief executive Ashley Smith said the company had been short-listed in three consecutive years before finally emerging victorious last November.

"The publicity was very beneficial for recruitment," he said at the launch of The Hunts Post Huntingdonshire Business Awards 2009 at the Cambridge Golf and Conference Centre in Hemingford Abbotts, which is owned by former Business Award winner Peter Durham. "Candidates were coming to us to see if we had vacancies.

"We also gained loads of good suppliers and some sales from local businesses.

"But the unexpected bonus was the public sector. Police services and councils loved the fact that we had won a local award," Mr Smith said.

"Tensor is recognised as a company with innovative products, and we have used the winner's logo prolifically."

The company, with over 150 employees and more than 2,500 UK clients, specialises in attendance and access control equipment, which it designs, manufactures, installs and maintains.

Mr Smith believes the company prevailed by stressing to the judges the uniqueness and versatility of its products, its levels of investment in research and development, the benefits its operations generated within the business and its track-record in its market-place.

"It has been a very good experience, and we shall probably be entering again this year," he concluded.