Mezzanine specialist Hi-Level Mezzanines has won the King’s Award for Enterprise, the UK’s most prestigious business award.
The company designs and installs mezzanine floors for top brands including Amazon, Ocado, Tesco, ASOS, Next and DPD.
The King’s Awards for Enterprise are the only awards to have the imprimatur of the monarch. Hi-Level Mezzanines has won an Innovation award, where competition is extremely tough – across the whole of the UK, only 59 awards for innovation were granted this year.
“The King’s Awards for Enterprise in Innovation celebrates the success of exciting and innovative businesses which are leading the way with pioneering products or services,” the Department for Business said.
The firm’s King’s Award for Enterprise win recognises its “outstanding business performance and commercial success” following the invention of a piece of high-performance engineering software called IQD (Intelligent Quote Designsuite).
A £1 million innovation
IQD evaluates multiple mezzanine design options for Hi-Level Mezzanines’ clients, selects the best option, simulates a design and calculates a quotation – all within a matter of minutes. It has also been expanded to become an integral part of every stage of the firm’s operations.
It has transformed customer service by delivering fast quotes, creating 2D and 3D models, tracking live projects and planning installations so they hit every project deadline, while Hi-Level Mezzanines’ turnover has doubled in the past five years.
IQD is the result of ten years of innovation and more than £1 million investment.
Extremely proud
Angus Whiteman, Managing Director, said: “Hi-Level Mezzanines is honoured to accept The King’s Award for Enterprise in the category of Innovation. This accolade is a distinguished acknowledgment of our steadfast commitment to continuous development, and we are extremely proud to have been selected among such esteemed competition.”
Mr Whiteman, who has been invited to a reception with the King at Windsor Castle in the summer, added: “The award acknowledges the exceptional contributions made by our remarkable team whose diligence, expertise and unwavering efforts have been instrumental in propelling us to this remarkable milestone. For over three decades our business has been based in Hampshire and we take immense pride in our ability to contribute to both our local community and the wider manufacturing, warehousing and logistics industries.
“As we celebrate this fantastic achievement we reaffirm our dedication to the principles of innovation that serve as the cornerstone of our business. Looking ahead, we strive to continue our pursuit of excellence, driving us toward even greater accomplishments in the future.”
The award also recognises Hi-Level Mezzanines as a beacon of good practice through its support of local and national charities, its value engineering to minimise use of steel to reduce environmental impact, its donation of 1,000 trees to Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust and its status as an Employee Owned Trust, securing the future of the business and generating a deeper level of pride, ownership and commitment among employees.
Installing a mezzanine gives a business extra space, from beer storage for a brewery to room for the latest automation at an Amazon warehouse.
Hi-Level Mezzanines has secured more than 300 projects over the past year alone, as forward-looking logistics, retail and manufacturing clients install mezzanines to make the most of their existing vertical space and avoid the costs and inconvenience of moving premises as they grow.
Outstanding innovation
IQD includes a Budget Calculator on the company’s website that allows anyone visiting the site to generate a ballpark cost quickly. It answers one of the industry’s top frequently asked questions, ‘How much will a mezzanine cost?’, based on actual calculations using the location, size and usage of the mezzanine floor rather than simply a cost per metre squared offered by Hi-Level Mezzanines’ competitors. The Budget Calculator computes this in less than 60 seconds.
Long-standing trade distributor customers can use the IQD system to generate quotes and 3D models for their own customers, and 70% of them use it regularly. The Sales Director at one trade distributor, who used IQD to generate 165 quotes in 2023, said: “In a fast-moving business environment, the importance of quick reaction time cannot be understated. The IQD software has enabled us to react speedily to our clients’ needs and win many orders.”
More benefits include allowing Hi-Level Mezzanines to recruit across a wider area because the team can work remotely, and moving to a fully paperless quoting system so the firm is not buying paper and ink or generating waste.
Hi-Level Mezzanines
For more than 30 years Hi-Level Mezzanines has been creating space for amazing things to happen.
The company is an independent supplier of mezzanine flooring solutions with a value-engineered design model that optimises steel utilisation and drives costs down.
It provides mezzanine floors of the highest quality in the industry, thanks to the expertise of a team of qualified structural engineers, an innovative digital design process, an established and trusted supply chain, and advanced solutions.
