Invate set to soar

Chris Quickfall, Managing Director of assistive technology suppliers Invate Ltd, and a fantastic ambassador for If we can, you can and the Entrepreneurs' Forum, has recently fulfilled several exciting developments with his company. We caught up with Chris to get the low down:

"I established Invate in early 2006 to support people with Dyslexia in Higher Education. Since then we have repositioned the company to become a Disability Services company. We’ve expanded the business to support all types of disabilities including Autism, Muscular-Skeletal, Mental Health, Visual Impairment, Mobility and Dexterity, and we have over the past 12 months began supporting complex needs also.

Within this remit we also built the North East’s only Assistive Technology Training School to train people in the use of the products we supply, the School is now exceeding all expectations.
After expanding the products and services offered by Invate I then wanted to the move into new markets; Further, Secondary and Primary education and well as Employment, Healthcare and the general public.

After conducting a lot of market research I found that the people buying these types of products were not sure what was available to support their needs. As such we designed a filtering mechanism within our website so that users can input their personal challenges and the site proposes solutions aligned to their needs.

In simpler terms we reverse engineered the online selling process so that instead of pushing products we ask for challenges and then suggest which products are more likely to help. It meant a lot of complicated algorithms but it is the only such facility in our industry. The site is also the most accessible website in our industry gaining 97% Triple AAA and 100% Double AA accreditation.

However, as a new entrant into a lot of these markets I knew that to make a strong and immediate impact we would be better positioned if we could bring something to the industry that has never before been attempted – a business weapon.
After nine months of development we are now in the final testing phase of a product that will propel Invate into Europe’s most technologically advanced Assistive Technology business. We are due to launch this at the world’s largest Education Exhibition in January... So watch this space!"

We wish you the best of luck Chris! See the new site at www.invate.co.uk and to read Chris' If we can, you can story, click www.ifwecanyoucan.co.uk/entrepreneurs/chris-quickfall