Aquatic Receives IACCM Innovation Award

Aquatic Engineering & Construction Ltd, an Acteon company, was a runner-up in the Strategic Direction category at the prestigious IACCM 2013 Innovation Awards in Phoenix, Ariz., in October.

This is the second year that the International Association for Contract and Commercial Management (IACCM) has included awards to celebrate excellence and innovation in contracting. The Strategic Direction category recognises business initiatives that have significantly raised the strategic profile and contribution of the commercial or contracting process or function within an organisation.

The IACCM received 68 entries from organisations large and small, public and private, including many of the world’s top brands. An independent panel of judges identified winners and two runners-up in four categories. They selected individuals and teams who have raised the profile of contract and commercial capability within their organisations in the past 12 months.

Aquatic’s submission focused on a new business structure that was instigated to provide a more business-development-led approach and to help the company meet its growth targets. Following the introduction of the new structure, which was achieved without increasing the overhead budget, the company’s proposals-to-award conversion ratio more than doubled in the first six months and its ambitious turnover growth target was brought forward by 12 months.

Tim Cummins, chief executive officer of IACCM, said, “We would like to congratulate the winners of this year’s Innovation Awards for their tremendous achievements and also to thank all those who submitted entries for the 2013 awards: the number and quality of entries this year were very high indeed and demonstrate the increasing innovation and skills we are finding in our industry.”

Commenting on the result, Aquatic’s vice-president commercial, Jenny Bamford, said, “We are delighted to have been placed so highly in our first ever entry to this award. It is further evidence of the way in which we have comprehensively optimised our approach to commercial decisions, training and risk management. Aquatic’s continuing strategic growth necessitates a systematic approach to business that follows a global model. The IACCM’s rigour and standards ensure that we are benchmarking against other leading international organisations, which is essential in the industry in which we operate.”

She continued, “Aquatic has experienced significant growth over the last five years and by tasking each department to develop policies, processes, toolkits and reporting mechanisms that focus on enabling evidence-based commercial decisions to be made at the right level, they can be tracked and monitored to measure the quality of the decision. In essence, we can then feed back to that department the lessons learned and bring about organic continuous improvement.

“Through having our corporate membership of the IACCM approved last year, we have ensured that, across the business, any employee who has the ability to influence commercial success is a member, not just those that form part of the commercial department. Simultaneously, the commercial team has been enrolled into the accreditation programme of the IACCM to achieve excellence in the level of competencies and skills across the department,” Bamford concluded.

The IACCM was founded in 1999 with support from British Telecom, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Lucent Technologies, Marconi Communications and Siemens. It now has members from more than 140 countries and in more than 10,000 corporations.

Aquatic is part of Acteon’s wider risers, conductors and flowlines offering and joins the other Acteon companies in linking subsea services across a range of interconnected disciplines. Combining the strengths of a major global organisation with those of independent market specialists, all Acteon companies have complementary skills, experience and technologies that link seabed to surface across a range of interconnected disciplines.

Press Release, November 13, 2013