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Derby is a city that knows the transformative power of technology.

After all, it's a bulwark of the industrial revolution which has powered its way into the 21st Century with global greats like Rolls-Royce, entrepreneurs and small to medium businesses all calling it home.

So it's natural that one of Derby's biggest cheerleaders is a firm renowned for its ingenuity.

RDS Global is championing the Best Digital Transformation category in this year's .

The proved a perfect fit for the company whose catalogue of inventions include a state-of the-art machine which can read customer temperatures and a (a management information system that consolidates data and allows businesses to use it to their strategic advantage).

"Derby is the home of innovation," explains RDS's CEO Andy Flinn.

"Being based in Derby it’s always been important to RDS that we engage with local businesses, and sponsoring the awards enables us to celebrate those local businesses too.

"It seemed obvious that the digital transformation category was the one to have our name against. And the entrants proved that to be the case. Some had used technology to transform their day-to-day activities, whereas others had developed technology to help other businesses with their day-to-day activities.

"Digital transformation has been a hot topic for a few years now - the certainly bought about that transformation in a speedier way than ever seen before.

"The award is an important one in today’s operating environment, whatever your operations are. Having the ability to improve processes, create efficiencies, make operations more effective, understand your data to make decisions and be secure for business continuity are critical things today.

"So those who have put the time in to get digital transformation right, either for their organisation or their clients, deserves to be celebrated.

"Being a tech company which has operated with clients nationally for the past 20 plus years, it’s safe to say we’ve witnessed a lot of IT projects where transformation has been the objective. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got the skills or tools to undertake a digital transformation project; it’s the people that make the difference to the success or not.

"That’s what RDS looked for in the award entries - had the digital transformation ticked all of the right boxes?"

In technological matters, you can rest assured that RDS certainly ticks all those boxes.

"IT is continuously innovating, in the main to make things easier for people who use systems," says Mr Flinn.

"Keeping up with the innovation and understanding how best to deploy tech into organisations for security, usability, process improvements, upgrades and transformation is .

"Our team is full of IT specialists, people with different areas of interest or skill sets. People who fully understand what’s essential for a business to operate in the most productive way from an IT perspective

"There are the safety and security experts - for cyber how to get Cyber Essentials accredited to ensure you are operating securely with your data or physical safety making sure your site has the best in security devices.

"Then there’s the support team which is there to support the people with little niggles to major issues.

"Our client feedback is outstanding and that’s critical for RDS. People matter when it comes to digital stuff.

"RDS talks about making IT work for you. That’s critical. So to all of the award entrants we’d like to say brilliant work on making tech work for people."

• For more about RDS Global limited

Find out more about this special event

The celebratory evening, in association with , will take place at Derby Arena on Thursday, October 21. There are 16 prestigious awards to be handed out to the well-deserved winners, so there is no doubt that the room will be buzzing with success and ambition.

To find out who is in the running for a new, coveted title, click here.

This year’s headline sponsors are , , , and . For more information, visit the

• For tickets to the event, contact Michelle Roberts,