Here’s a selection of the latest news, views and insights from industry leaders and experts from across the globe.
Today we’ve been updating our whole business with plans for the future whilst taking some time to celebrate our achievements.
So many of our colleagues won very well deserved awards not to mention the many colleagues celebrating long service.
We were entertained during the day with some close up magic and a caricaturist and went into the evening with Vegas-themed games and food.
On Thursday 6 July, we held our annual partner event, ASM Thrive, celebrating success over the past year and looking deeper into growth plans for the future.
We hosted over 20 vendors at our Cheshire HQ before heading to nearby Jodrell Bank to take a journey through space and learn more about how technology and exploration is teaching us more about our galaxy and the origins of our planet.
Adele Hope-Urwin, Head of Vendor Alliances at ASM said
“What a pleasure to host our annual strategic partner event, ASM Thrive. A huge thank you to all our partners who joined us to hear about our strategy and how we can grow together as well as a fantastic experience and immersive journey at Jodrell Bank, the Mars Rover activity was such good fun too!”
ASM Thrive brings our eco-system of disruptive vendors together to collaborate, network and discuss future growth plans. We were joined by partners from Azul, Bose Professional, Checkmarx, Flashpoint, Getac UK, GoTo, Immuta, Kollective, Nitro, Pro2Col, Rocket Software and Vimeo.
We were thrilled to attend the CRN Sales & Marketing Awards along with some of our strategic partners.
The team received a Highly Commended award for Best Partner Event, recognising ASM Connect 2022.
ASM Connect 2022 was held at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium in London and featured keynote speeches from Futurists Matthew Griffin and Amelia Kallman, sharing insights about how emerging technologies such as AI, the Metaverse, VR, MR and XR will impact the future of work and the customer relationship. Guests had the opportunity to do a stadium tour or challenge themselves to The Dare Skywalk, 46.8 meters above the pitch! Our guests also had the chance to learn more about our eco-system of disruptive vendors and understand more about their innovative technologies first-hand.
Jo Wilson, Marketing Manager said
“We’ve received such positive feedback over the last 12 months from customers, with many people asking about the next one already. We’re delighted to have been recognised by the CRN judges for the hard work the team put into making the event such a big success. Watch this space for ASM Connect 2023”.
ASM Technologies were very pleased to attend SCC Engage 2023 which took place at the Silverstone Circuit. The conference welcomes valued partners and is fantastic opportunity to showcase disruptive and innovative technology.
Customer Success Manager for SCC, Paul Ogden attended the event on 11 May and said
“It was a great event to open up new opportunities, expand on existing relationships and drive growth together.”
ASM have been announced as GoTo’s EMEA partner of the year, yet again showcasing our fantastic partnership.
Adele Hope-Urwin, Head of Vendor Alliances at ASM Technologies said:
“I am thrilled to have collected the EMEA partner of the year award from GoTo at their partner presidents club event. The whole team worked very hard in helping us achieve such a prestigious award. Special thanks go to Liselotte Maidment for all her hard work throughout the year and thank you to Nadya Gaughran and Robinder Koura for all the support. I am looking forward to building on that success this year.”
This year ASM celebrated turning 30 in style with a fourth consecutive year of double-digit organic sales growth.
“We are very pleased with our results for the financial year,”
said Iain Tomkinson, Sales Director.
“Our strong performance is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our team, as well as the continued strength of our business. We are excited about the opportunities that lie ahead for us and are well-positioned for more growth in the years to come.”
During the year the business continued to expand the ecosystem of partners and vendors whose innovative technologies are truly disrupting the market, providing unique opportunities for our clients and their customers.
Our growth also resulted in us creating new positions within the business and our teams have enjoyed returning to in-person events including ASM Connect 2022 hosted at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
Over the coming year the business will continue with its strategic growth plan and deploy further investment in people and systems.
We’d like to extend our thanks to our team, customers, vendors and partners for their continued support.
Technology has typically been a male dominated sector but at ASM we’re very proud to say 66% of our workforce is female.
Today we’ve been celebrating all of our fantastic team with some sweets treats while raising awareness about discrimination.
The aim of the IWD 2023 #EmbraceEquity campaign theme is to get the world talking about Why equal opportunities aren’t enough. People start from different places, so true inclusion and belonging require equitable action. Read more about this here.
ASM Technologies were very pleased to attend Computacenter Group Kick Off which was held at Manchester Central.
Over the course of the two-day event we had an extremely busy, central stand with over 800 visitors from around the globe. This kind of event offers our account management team invaluable time with contacts from these countries while continuing to build upon our relationships.
Leanne Ogden, Head of Business Development, said:
“The event is always a great opportunity to meet different people from around the business and understand their challenges for the coming year and seeing how we can best support them.”
We were joined on our stand by our strategic vendors Getac, Kollective & GoTo.
We talk about Emerging Technology a lot, whether that be on our podcast, ASM Connected or in our day to day work with our customers. During a keynote speech at ASM Connect, Futurist Matt Griffin argued that those who think we’re not living in sci-fi times are wrong, so we decided to explore some of the key emerging tech trends we’ve seen throughout 2022.
Conversations around the newest generation of wireless technology, 5G are happening more frequently as more industries adopt and see benefits. In ASM Connected episode 9, Inma Martinez, Digital Pioneer and AI Scientist shares that anyone offering digital products and services are going to be part of the new telecom industry with technologies such as 5G, Edge and Cloud Computing making up the technology of the new century. 5G differs from 4G and 3G because the benefits go far beyond connecting to a smartphone, and play a vital part in the digital ecosystem of the future.
Want to work from anywhere? With the rise of Virtual Reality (VR), more and more people are successfully thriving in this new digital world. At ASM Connect, Futurist Matt Griffin spoke about the notion of ‘Working from Anywhere’ and how this also extends to working within VR, and not just working away from the traditional office. It seems that everyone is talking about the metaverse and how the internet as we know it will look completely different in the future. Futurist Amelia Kallman in episode 5 of ASM Connected gave us some great insights on what we can expect, such as how it will be a decentralised network of immersive spaces that connect to create one universe. Amelia shared that one of the practical challenges will involve uniting the many spaces which currently exist as a multiverse, such as Fortnite, Roblox and Minecraft, and making them interoperable so users can move from one space to another, like we do with the Internet. There is lots to look forward to with this technology, and who knows, perhaps one day, you’ll be listening to ASM Connected in the metaverse!
Moving onto Synthetic Data, which tends to be most commonly used in the financial services and healthcare industries, is information that’s artificially and algorithmically manufactured and stands in for real life data where there are constraints around using sensitive or regulated information. In series 3, episode 4 of ASM Connected, Simon Godfrey shares insights about the opportunities for public sector organisations to leverage Synthetic Data and Digital Twins to drive better outcomes.
Augmented Reality (AR) is an emerging tech trend that gained popularity during the pandemic when businesses were forced to work remotely. Richard Price spoke about a study conducted in the healthcare sector about patients attitudes to clinicians wearing AR goggles such as Google Glass and Microsoft HoloLens. They found that when clinicians were wearing headsets such as Google Glass, patients weren’t as opposed to them because they were smaller and more discreet, whereas when clinicians wore headsets such as the Microsoft HoloLens patients felt it created a barrier between them and the doctor.
Deepfake technology is frightfully gaining significant traction around the world. This technology leverages machine learning and artificial intelligence to manipulate audio and visual content to replicate someone else’s appearance. Deepfakes can be unbelievably realistic so exercising caution and discretion is paramount. In episode 5 of ASM Connected, series 3, we spoke to Öykü Işık, Professor of Digital Strategy and Cybersecurity at IMD Business School, who shared insights about FakeCatcher, the world’s first real-time deepfake detector, launched by Intel, which detects fake videos with 96% accuracy by looking for clues of what makes someone human, which is subtle blood flow captured in the pixels of a video.
Assisted Reality (aR) is often confused with Augmented Reality (AR) however aR is a reality first, digital second experience. Our partner, RealWear is the world’s leading provider of Assisted Reality wearable devices which connect the modern frontline worker to all the information they need, when they need it. Workers are able to utilise the aR technology to leverage the hands-free verification and visual documentation they need to fulfil their role and don’t risk the same safety concerns linked to bulky hand held equipment.
Finally, Natural Language Processing (NLP). When choosing technology, you should always consider how it helps people to work more efficiently. Our partner, Primer AI are an industry leader in NLP technologies and work with government agencies, financial institutions and more to automate text-based workflows at scale with human level quality. In episode 15 of ASM Connected, Primer AI’s Geoffrey Nicholls MBE and Nick Melgaard spoke about the practical benefits NLP technology can deliver to the defence sector and beyond. Primer AI are experts in addressing some of the National Security use cases such as identifying disinformation campaigns, monitoring global events in real time and responding to cybersecurity attacks.
We’ve really enjoyed working with so many emerging technologies throughout 2022 as well as discovering from our podcast guests about what else we can expect to see in the future. The emerging tech landscape is continuing to grow, but the question is, are you prepared?