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In 1996, two engineers named David Griffiths and Mark Christie, had been developing bleeding-edge research for British Telecom's internet technology group. They were growing increasingly excited about the commercial applications of this 'new' technology and decided to start their own company, which later became known as ioko.

Their original objectives for the company were simple: provide large corporate clients with domain expertise and an end-to-end set of services to successfully implement and manage these evolving internet technologies in order to create a competitive advantage.

Our first customers were indeed large corporate clients and that has remained our primary focus today. Why? Large corporate customers typically have complex existing infrastructures, large organizational environments and dependencies, and a need to constantly remain competitive in an always changing market place. Mark and David's vision was to create a company that could tailor to the specific needs of large customers through long term strategic relationships, providing an unparalleled level of service and domain expertise. Our customer focus and delivery-oriented philosophy still totally pervades our culture today.

Although we have grown considerably since 1996, our fundamental beliefs haven't changed. We are still privately owned, agile and fiercely loyal to our start-up philosophies.

Our company is led by a seasoned management team comprised of enterprise technology professionals - people who have deep domain expertise and a passion for technology. To join our company you have to know and love technology and be excited about the prospects of using technology to create winning business models. This brings a unique focus and fire to our business, from top to bottom. We're not in the business simply to make money; we're in the business of leveraging hard-core technology to create great business value for our customers, which in turn drives immense value for us along the way … it's the delivery that really excites us and it just so happens that the reward is a profitable business.

From the start, we developed core competencies in application and software development as well as infrastructure and managed services to run and support the technology platforms we help build for our customers. Our goal was to offer customers a choice: ioko could provide an end-to-end service that takes away all the technical headaches or we could provide a modular and flexible set of services that meet specific requirements. The model has proven to be successful and we continue to make investments in our business to ensure it stays that way.

Innovation and technical adroitness was never optional within ioko. The technologies being used at the time the company was founded 10 years ago were cutting-edge, as were the solutions that our customer asked us to build and run. This hasn't changed. In fact, the number and complexity of technologies is increasing as are the opportunities to exploit those technologies to create new business models. It is no surprise that we have developed a deep core competency within the Telecommunications, Media & Entertainment market. A market where the rate of change in technology is only outpaced by the demands that consumers place on the companies providing media and entertainment. The stakes within this vertical are high, and the complexities of the projects we undertake are immense, which is why we are the leader in the market. We have always focused on engaging on the "game-changing" and difficult projects - they are fundamentally tricky but they are challenging and keep us (and our customers) ahead of the curve.

For our employees, working in these types of environments is not easy. Actually, it is very difficult work because the stakes are high. Delivering great technology demands constant attention and we attract recruits that are interested in something other than a "ho-hum" job. The rewards, however, are big and we celebrate as a team when we accomplish great things on behalf of our customers.

Our global expansion began in 2006, which quickly mushroomed with projects being delivered across three continents and the opening of our US operation in 2007. We had our first $2m annual client in 2000; our first $2m monthly billings in 2002; and our first $10m annual client in 2006. We are proud to say that all our growth has been organic - we're investing in quality and longevity and won't do anything that might dilute or distract us from our work, our customers and our future.

Although we have grown a lot, we work very hard at remaining un-hierarchical. We have many talented individuals who are at the top of their game so our approach is to focus this talent by empowering them. We emphasize teamwork and customer delivery above false internal goals and unnecessary management layers.

Today we are the only specialist media and entertainment technology services organization with deep skills across the whole domain and a raft of high-profile clients and projects. We've still got big plans and we need more energetic, capable technology professionals who can continue to shape and grow ioko.