Graphite Digital was delighted to take the top spot in the ‘Creative Industries’ category at the Sussex Business Awards 2021.
The award recognizes outstanding businesses which operate in the local creative and digital sectors.
A Year of Exceptional Growth
Despite the challenges of the last 2 years, they offered a unique opportunity for them and the sector they operate in. The pandemic provided a catalyst for rapid change across the health and pharmaceutical industry, forcing many to adopt digital technology and abandon old ways of working.
Graphite Digital was there to partner with their clients on a huge range of digital projects and initiatives, helping them to grow, evolve, and embrace change. As an agency, we also decided to use this transformative momentum to implement positive change across all areas of their business.
Subsequently, they experienced a period of expeditious growth, almost doubling in size in both headcount and revenue. After a whirlwind of 18 months, Graphite Digital is delighted that the business decisions paid off and is more excited than ever about what lies ahead.
They are looking forward to continuing their growth as outside interest continues, clients and team members continue to remain engaged and enthusiastic about their ways of working, and as they bring on more talented people to further enhance their capability.
Graphite’s Unique Offering
In the crowded digital agency space, it can be difficult to stand out. Graphite Digital has found that by refining their offering and narrowing their remit, they have been able to cut through the noise and clearly convey who they are and what they do.
In early 2021, Graphite Digital pivoted to work solely with clients within the healthcare and pharmaceutical sector. This has reassured their clients of their level of expertise and ability to work successfully within a highly regulated and complex industry.
Graphite Digital also streamlined their services to only focus on those that they truly excel in — customer experience strategy, user research, and design.
Exciting New Internal Initiatives
Graphite Digital is heavily invested in creating an employee experience for their teams that they are proud of. They owe all their success to them, after all. In 2021 they have introduced a number of initiatives in this area.
They conducted the b-Heard Employee Engagement Survey for the first time to gather honest, insightful, and confidential feedback from their entire team on a wide range of areas. They came out with a strong score which was further improved upon when they conducted the second survey 6 months later.
They have also revamped the agency’s CSR strategy this year, with the creation of 4 new focus areas that allow people to work specifically on initiatives that are most important to them — environmental; diversion and inclusion; future talent; health, and wellbeing. In addition to this, they joined the ‘1% pledge’ and have been donating 1% of both profits and time to charitable initiatives for the last 12 months.
Winning at the Sussex Business Awards
The winners of the 2021 awards were announced at a sell-out event at The Grand Brighton on 2 December. This year saw a record-breaking number of nominations for each category, with hundreds of applicants whittled down to just 75 finalists. Winners included individuals and companies from across a wide range of sectors who have managed to succeed despite a year like no other.
Being located in such a creative city, Graphite had tremendous competition from very worthy agencies in our category, for which they have the utmost respect.
The awards were judged by an independent panel of business experts who possess a wealth of knowledge and experience. The Creative Industries category was judged by representatives from Sussex University Business School.
On presenting the Creative Industries Award, Marcus Atkinson, Engagement Manager at the Business School said:
In this exceptionally challenging time, Graphite Digital has shown outstanding creative digital innovation to ensure that their healthcare and pharmaceutical clients can create products that reach their target audiences, through digital experiences that meet their needs.
Rob Verheul, their Managing Director here at Graphite added:
We experienced this success thanks to the incredible talent we have in the agency, who showed adaptability and resilience to changing business and life circumstances. We pride ourselves on being at the heart of the healthcare and pharma sector.
It takes a lot of work, which is why we believe in a learning culture where our team can continually grow in knowledge, capability, confidence, and influence so we can offer the very best service to our clients.
Graphite is incredibly excited to continue its growth in 2022, working with new clients and bringing on more talented people to further enhance their capability. The future looks bright from where they are standing.
About Graphite Digital
Graphite Digital is a team of specialists that collaborate with global brands to deliver world-class digital customer experiences.
Written by: