VOITEQ CELEBRATE A SUCCESSFUL 2008 - And look forward to a prosperous 2009

Published 5th January 2009

For many 2008 has been a challenging year, but VoiteQ’s 2008 has been a successful one. VoiteQ has gained several significant new customers, such as Sainsbury’s, Next and Planet Organic, to add to their increasingly impressive list of clients.

2008 was also an award-winning year for VoiteQ and their solutions having been acknowledged by Sainsbury’s awarding VoiteQ with ‘Supplier of the Year’ and ‘Solution of the Year’ at their 2008 IT awards and also Vocollect awarding VoiteQ with ‘Technical Partner of the Year’ for the third year running. David Stanhope, CEO of VoiteQ, said “We have specialised in providing IT solutions to retailers since 2001; we are delighted that Sainsbury’s recognised our expertise in this area and also very pleased with a further acknowledgement from Vocollect of our very high standards of technical expertise in providing industry leading voice solutions.”

This year VoiteQ also reached a significant milestone for one of their key technologies, Voice-Directed work. It may still seem like a ‘new’ solution, but the team at VoiteQ went live with the first voice-directed warehouse system in the UK 10 years ago, on 27th September 1998. The implementation of this WMS system into the Heald’s grocery distribution operation in 1998 was designed to control all aspects of the warehouse using Vocollect Voice, including Goods-In, Putaway, Replenishment, Picking and Stock Counting. From these beginnings VoiteQ is now the UK’s largest supplier of voice directed distribution systems, having supplied hardware, software, services or support to the majority of UK warehouses which have adopted voice technology. VoiteQ added another ‘first’ for voice technology this year as they implemented the first Vocollect Voice® solution on a LXE HX2 wearable computer at Next’s new, purpose built, 1m sq ft distribution centre in Dearne Valley.

Earlier this year Planet Organic selected VPoS, an Electronic Point of Sale (EPoS) system from VoiteQ to provide them with the IT foundation they required to achieve their ambitious plans for growth. Founded by Renée Elliott in 1995, Planet Organic has transformed the retail scene by opening the first supermarket selling only natural and organic food. Planet Organic was the UK's first fully certified organic supermarket of its kind when it first opened its flagship store in Notting Hill, London. When VPoS was first implemented Planet Organic had three stores, followed by two additional stores which opened during the summer, but have plans to rapidly expand over the next few years.

To complete the year VoiteQ was listed in ‘Lancashire's Hot 100 SMEs’, a list of Lancashire's most profitable businesses. Stanhope concluded, “VoiteQ, the company and the team has continued to perform exceptionally well in 2008, through the tough business climate. The 2009 order book is already looking good and we are therefore very confident that we will be able to build on our existing business and add even more customers to our growing list in 2009, to make it an even more successful year than 2008.”