Sagittarius Secures Bronze Award at UK Digital Experience Awards 2019.
Last week Sagittarius attended the 2019 UK Digital Experience Awards where Alex Lee, UX Lead and Lucie Beer, Multi-Channel Marketing Lead presented to a panel of 4 judges in a bid to secure an award in the Best SEO Strategy category for our work with healthcare brands Sunrise Senior Living and Gracewell homes.
The UXDX awards celebrate digital innovation and excellence used to create seamless user journeys; recognising brands and agencies that deliver outstanding work in digital.
Unlike other awards, the UK Digital Experience Awards span the whole day from 9 am to 6 pm during which each finalist has 30 minutes to present and answer questions from a panel of judges as to why their work should win an award in their respective category. Categories start with 5-6 brands with Bronze, Silver and Gold awards up for grabs the presentation stage is crucial.
I caught up with Lucie to find out a little more about the presentation stage and what we did to stand out from the competition.
“The award presentations ran from 9 am to 12:30 pm, we were the second to last in our category to present and I was surprised at how strict they were with timings; ‘5 minutes to set up’ ‘15 minutes to present’ and ‘15 minutes to answer questions.’
"Our presentation had an edge and that’s where Alex came in, we spoke about SEO as part of a wider strategy as we don’t see it in silos, instead we talked about how the user was at the heart of our strategy, with user experience and content integrated with the SEO strategy. This project started with a full brand immersion, with every member of the team working on the project having visited the homes prior to writing the strategy giving them a better understanding of the differences between the brands and an emotional connection to the end-users.
"We also learnt that each presentation is marked individually and independently by each judge with the overall scores adding up to determine the winners of each category! This was especially important as you need to be sure to give each and every judge as much attention as possible in such a small amount of time.
"Overall it was a fantastic experience and we really enjoyed the face-to-face element as it really gave us the opportunity to let our passion shine and convince the judges that the project was award-worthy!”
The team were thrilled to be presented with a bronze award for their efforts with Sunrise and Gracewell; a well-deserved project worthy of recognition.
Congratulations to everyone that received an award at the ceremony!
Today award-winning digital experience agency Sagittarius is proud to have been certified to ISO 27001 Information Security Management systems standard by business improvement company, BSI.
Leading brands demand first-class information security from their agency partners and the only real proof of this is achieving the ISO / IEC 27001 Certification. If you’re in sectors such as Financial Services, Healthcare, or even working with Government and Third Sector you’ll know that regulation and compliance are essential throughout your supply chain and that the top priority is guarding information and data.
Nick Towers, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Sagittarius said “We wanted to ensure that brands can come to us in the knowledge that we take data security, data protection and privacy very seriously. Our mantra is ‘remarkable’ and this applies to not just what we do but how we do it and ISO 27001 is an internationally recognised best practice framework for this. To achieve this in six months’ pay testimony to the hard work and commitment to security and privacy that prevails at Sagittarius and I’m very proud of the whole team who have made it their mission to exceed the high standards needed.”
Sagittarius wanted to meet the very highest standard and so decided to work with BSI whose mission is to ‘share knowledge, innovation and best practice to help people and organizations make excellence a habit’.
Achieving ISO 27001 certification clearly demonstrates that the Information Security Management System at Sagittarius meets international best practice and demonstrates to our customers and partners that we handle information securely throughout the business.
The agency accepted that by embracing the implementation process they were actively encouraging their team to delve into internal processes and rather than accepting these as ‘the norm’, firstly making sure they were all documented sufficiently. Then as part of that process, they challenged and questioned each process to pressure test validity and innovate and improve where necessary. BSI then rigorously audited Sagittarius’ policies, processes, and approach to data security. Through the audit stages, BSI shared opportunities for improvement and have helped refine the Sagittarius InfoSec roadmap.
Data is the most valuable asset any business can have and to achieve peak performance through a truly connected strategy and digital experience it’s imperative that data and information is shared with the agency partner. Trust plays a pivotal role and assurances of confidentiality can only be achieved through an ISO 27001 accredited organisation.
Initiatives like the GDPR have raised the bar on compliance and the associated fines for having gaps in governance leading to breaches are significant. At Sagittarius we operate a single source of truth using tools and systems such as Confluence and Jira to provide documentation quickly and accurately and this was complimented by the auditors.
Nick goes on to say “We are delighted to create even more value for our clients and prioritise the things that matter to them and their customers. This ISO 27001 certification bolsters our class leading NPS score of 85 adding deeper quality to our services. It sets us apart from other agencies when brands are looking for a partner with deeper credentials. We wanted to take the next step and ensure that Information Security became baked into everyday processes and the way we function as a business. We set an ambitious timeline of achieving the ISO 27001 certification and to meet the highest possible standards through independent auditing and we’ve nailed it. We pride ourselves on ensuring the data of our clients, team and partners are handled in the most responsible manner.”
Gigi Robinson, Regional Product Manager – Information Security & Business Continuity, said: "Protecting information is becoming increasingly difficult for organizations. Achieving ISO 27001 demonstrates Sagittarius' commitment and proactive approach in ensuring their information management processes are robust, secure and resilient for the future. We are thrilled to have supported Sagittarius in achieving this certification which demonstrates to customers and suppliers an ability to handle information securely."
Additional Notes
ISO 27001 is an internationally recognized best practice framework for an information security management system (ISMS). Sagittarius has designed a set of adequate and proportionate security controls within the ISMS to help protect our internal and our clients’ information against cyber-attacks. We have used the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the NIS Regulation as part of our framework.
