His Royal Highness the Duke of York, Special Representative UK Trade & Investment, visited the headquarters of IMS Research in Wellingborough on June 7 to meet staff and tour the facility.
IMS Research won a Queen’s Award for International Trade in both 2005 and 2009, and earns more than 85pc of its revenues overseas. It is a provider of market research and business intelligence to the electronics industry, with a client list that includes most of the world’s largest electronics companies.
During his visit
The Duke of York was shown the high-value reports produced at IMS Research, and given demonstrations of some of the products studied. These included a Sony 3D television, an Apple iPad, Visteon’s latest in-car internet unit, a wireless charging unit from Powermat, a handheld ultrasound scanner from SonoSite and an Axis thermal camera. At the end of the tour, the Duke of York acknowledged the major contribution made by medium sized enterprises, such as IMS Research, in increasing UK export trade, and paid tribute to the hard work and dedication of staff.
IMS Research was founded 20 years ago and now has a direct presence in the US, China, Taiwan and South Korea. It has seen revenue growth averaging more than 25pc per annum over the last decade.
Matthew Towers, Managing Director of the Wellingborough-based research firm, said: “We are delighted that the global success achieved by IMS Research in highly competitive, international markets has been recognised by the visit of HRH the Duke of York today. We continued to invest through the recent global recession and, despite the adverse economic conditions, we managed to achieve revenue growth of nearly 20% last year. We have aggressive plans for further expansion over the next five years, with further overseas offices planned in Japan and other important markets.”
