ITWALES.COM - Profile: Sequence

Posted: Thu, January 12, 2006 Sequence logo

Profile: Sequence

by Sali Earls

Sequence is Wales' largest internet services agency and provides web solutions to major blue chip clients including Volkswagen and Panasonic, as well as a large public sector presence having worked for BBC, National Assembly of Wales and the Wales Tourist Board, amongst many others.

As well as web development and branding services, Sequence offer a range of web based solutions including streaming media and mobile data.

Managing Director Richard Baker was named Welsh Young Business Entrepreneur in 2004 in the Western Mail Business Awards, and with Marketing magazine ranking Sequence among the top 50 agencies in the UK, this is a company putting Wales firmly on the map. Sali Earls spoke to Richard Baker to find out more about the company.

What's the history of your company?
Phil Murphy and I started Sequence in June 1995, as with my core strengths lying in data communications and Phil's in Software Development we quickly realised that we could work together to capitalise on the introduction of the first mass-marketed web browser, with Microsoft Internet Explorer bundled with Windows 95.

Now with over 30 staff and a brand new office in Fitzalan Court Cardiff, we are the largest web development agency in Wales (for the fourth year running), ranked Top 10 'outside' London agencies we are breaking in to overseas markets too.

What unique products/services does your company provide?
Through our team we are uniquely able to provide a true 'full' service to our clients, comprising the balanced application of in house creative, technical and business expertise focused simply at providing a return on client investment.

We recently tailor-made an online and SMS voting system for the highly celebrated Cardiff Screen Festival that allowed them to become fully interactive for the first time. The visitors to the festival were able to vote for their favourite film either through the website or by sending an SMS vote, resulting in the 'Audience Award'.

A staggering 20,000 people visited the site during the festival period - an impressive 25% increase from the previous year, and over 1,300 votes were counted for the Audience Award.

Screenshot of a website developed by Sequence What's been the key to your success?
I believe the overall reason we've been successful lies in our efficiency, responsiveness and our investment in the long term relationship with our clients.

I also feel that our balanced approach is key as it is all too easy to allow technology to stifle creativity, creativity to stifle technology or indeed allow both to cloud the primary business goal of what the project is looking to achieve.

We've always strived to eliminate the traditional client-supplier relationship that usually focuses on just one product or service and the relationship usually finishes there. Our web applications normally form a critical part of our customers business, and as such we consider ourselves as a 'partner' who is there to work with them to help them achieve their strategic objectives.

Screenshot of a website developed by Sequence What one piece of outside technology has benefited your company most?
As far back as 1996 'Middleware' (software that enables web pages to connect to databases) has been our most influential piece of technology. We initially used Allaire's ColdFusion (later acquired by Macromedia, and subsequently Adobe) to experiment with databases and websites.

We quickly realised that such software could be used to enable the client to manage their own website content, so we produced one of the UK's first Content Management systems (CMS).

The success of our CMS powered websites, has since led to the use of .NET (Microsoft) and Java technologies, but without that initial version of ColdFusion (version 1.5!) and the inspiration to use it to build client empowered websites we may not experienced the growth we have.

What one piece of advice would you give to start-up companies in your field?
Having an ethical approach towards building and growing the business is extremely important, as over the years we've seen many promising organisations come and go as a result of employing some slightly suspect tactics in the quest for business growth. A logical extension of this is that the power of partnerships between companies should never be underestimated. For example by establishing partnerships with other organisations we have won, or helped them win business that without such a relationship each party would have been highly unlikely to get the business.

Where do you see your company going in the future?
We're determined to take the new media focus away from London, and provide organisations with a viable regional alternative. We're extremely proud of being based in Wales, and have already demonstrated that we can win work across the UK, and fulfil it using our Welsh team, often at the fraction of costs / timescales associated with some of the larger London based agencies.

An element of diversification is on the cards, as by offering services that support and complement the web applications we produce (such as mobile and interactive technologies) will likely form the basis of this process. The uptake of IPTV and 3G is now a reality, and we're already watching these very closely to make sure we're up to speed with how these can impact our customers' businesses and strategies.

Find out more about Sequence at www.sequence.co.uk.

Subscribe to
ITWales Updates
Click Here!