In April of this year, Martin Audio was honored with a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Innovation for its Wavefront Precision optimized line arrays, and six months later, the company was formally presented with the award at a special reception held at its High Wycombe headquarters by Countess Howe, Her Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire.
Also in attendance were Councillor Zahir Mohammed, Chairman of Buckinghamshire Council as well as Phil Dudderidge, Executive Chairman and Founder of Martin Audio parent company, Focusrite, who was joined by all the staff of Martin Audio. After a brief demonstration of Wavefront Precision, Martin Audio Managing Director Dom Harter introduced Countess Howe, who started by congratulating the company on its achievement, noting that there were 205 award winners across the UK and only 48 in the innovation category, including two from High Wycombe.
“Buckinghamshire clearly is the entrepreneurial heart of the UK,” she states. “In order to receive this award under the Innovation category you have needed to demonstrate that innovation is critical to the growth of your company, and that you have invested in development with the right risk balanced portfolio. Your research into what the market needs has been crucial to building your networks. Customer satisfaction has been a key indicator of your engagement with your market. And with a world class rating in the customer satisfaction tables you are clearly doing the right thing.
“Your investment in research and development has enabled the diversification of your business from an essentially touring heritage to encompassing fixed installations,” she continues. :This you have rolled out at an awe-inspiring rate with an unprecedented level of new product development — 60 new products in five years I believe, resulting in a five-fold increase in product. You should feel justifiably proud of achieving the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the Innovation category, and on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen and as her representative in the county I am delighted to make the presentation.”
A crystal glass trophy along with the certificate were duly presented to Dudderidge and Harter, the latter stating, “I am extremely proud of this achievement as it recognizes both innovation and commercial success and is testament to everyone’s hard work here at Martin Audio. The last 18 months has been the most challenging time in the company’s 50-year history, but the combination of innovation, hard work and family spirit has once again shown that we can meet any challenge. As we emerge from the pandemic, fitter and stronger than before, this Queen’s Award presentation feels the perfect celebration to everyone’s efforts, and I couldn’t be prouder of the team here.”
