Sauce partners with blue chip companies to drive digital transformation
GROWING: The Sauce team. Pictures by Tom Arran Commercial Photography
By Rick Lyon
A growing smart tech company is working in close collaboration with a range of leading businesses as their long-term digital partner to make them more efficient and effective.
Sauce has established partnerships with blue chip companies across different sectors to help keep them ahead of the curve and achieve their business objectives using digital solutions.
The team at Sauce are specialists in developing Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and delivering serverless infrastructure. They also provide expertise in UX [user experience], testing and quality assurance, digital design and branding, ongoing technical support, and in-house staff training.
The company has enjoyed significant growth as more businesses have woken up to the opportunities presented by digital transformation, and it is now providing long-term, scalable collaborations with a variety of major companies.
Sauce’s agile, flexible working methodology means it can be adaptable to each business case, understanding there isn’t one “off the shelf” solution that fits all. This means each partnership, spanning sectors including logistics, food and beverages, manufacturing and health, among others, is effectively bespoke.
The early consultation Sauce undertakes with clients ordinarily takes the form of a series of “value workshops”. These enable Sauce and the company to develop strategy and business goals, before they work collaboratively to achieve them.
Matt Weldon, co-founder and Chief Executive of Sauce, said: “We’ve developed significantly over the last two years.
“The evolution of the business, including our widened skillset, means we’re now able to offer a long-term, full-service package to our clients, drawing on all of our expertise.
“Previously, we’d become involved when a company already had their own digital transformation plans in place, but needed us to come in and deliver them.
DIGITAL EXPERTS: From left, Sauce Chief of Product and Design Jim Wardlaw, Managing Director Matt Weldon, Technical Director John Polling, and Chief of Finance and Operations Matt Gibson
“Now, we’re coming in much earlier and, in many cases, we’re delivering business consultancy up front, in order to help the client – and us – fully understand what their digital needs are. We’re then positioned to deliver the vision, essentially working as an extension of their team.
“Each relationship is different, but the common threads are establishing strategic priorities and exploring efficiencies and different revenue opportunities through digital solutions.
“We’re engaging with our partners earlier, and over a longer period of time, meaning we can deliver greater results and help them achieve their business goals.”
Award-winning Sauce has established long-term collaborations with companies including Ideal Heating, the UK’s leading home heating specialist.
Sauce has worked with Ideal for four years on specific projects, helping create intelligent, responsive heating controls driven by real-time data.
The two companies have now agreed a long-term partnership to further explore and deliver Ideal’s digital development objectives.
The ongoing collaboration involves members of Ideal’s software development team working alongside Sauce’s experts at its offices at Hull’s C4DI tech hub on a weekly basis. This means they benefit from Sauce’s specialist knowledge, improving their own professional development, and each team acts as an extension of the other.
Ideal is owned by Groupe Atlantic, a major European player in the heating, ventilation and air conditioning sectors.
Jason Hookey, Chief Digital Officer for Groupe Atlantic UK, said: “Our relationship with Sauce goes back quite a number of years now, initially on specific projects. As we continue to invest in digital services, this has moved to a long-term partnership.
TECH TEAM: Sauce, based at Hull’s C4DI tech hub, has enjoyed significant growth
“Working with Sauce, we’re able to co-design and then develop rapid enhancements to core customer and market-facing platforms, as well as remain current with new and emerging technologies. This has been evident across a number of vital platforms, from IoT, to homeowner apps and our new digital interface platform.
“Sauce have provided us with a responsive, agile development service, able to work alongside our changing market needs to deliver new digital products and services. Although the core service has been around development, the team also provides us with user design, quality and testing services, which results in us delivering a high-quality product to market first time.
“We’re now looking at ways to further develop the relationship. We’re working towards a strategic partnership with a combined resource model, based on agile principles that will accelerate our delivery capabilities.”
Other major companies Sauce is working in partnership with include food and beverage giant Nestlé, global logistics firm GXO, and leading IT solutions provider Bytes Software Services.
Despite its own growth, and the development of long-term relationships with some of the country’s biggest companies, Sauce is also continuing to work closely with SMEs to help them flourish.
Sauce, which has a team of 35 full-time staff and also runs a successful intern programme to identify and nurture young talent, works with smaller companies on individual projects and over shorter timeframes.
Matt said: “We have a really strong portfolio of clients, including some of the leading businesses in their sectors, but we also remain committed to helping companies that are at earlier stage of their development.
“The pandemic undoubtedly accelerated digital transformation and a lot of businesses and organisations have woken up and realised they can’t rely on paper-based solutions.
“We’re proud of where we’ve come from and we want to provide value where we can to help other businesses achieve similar success.”