Reflecting on the year that was 2024

As we approach the shortest day and the onset of the festive break it’s always a time when many of us will start to wonder where the past 12 months has gone!  It’s no different for us here at Podfather HQ but what a year it has been and here’s why.

Biggest sales year on record

We are proud to report that 2024 has delivered our best sales performance in our 24-year history.  We operate in a competitive market place so sales success is not always easy but with more and more companies opting for our solution, it shows that we must be doing something right.  Our sales team are committed, kand nowledgeable and will always go the extra mile to ensure we understand your requirements.  After all, you don’t need a solution that doesn’t really work for you; what you need is a supplier that understands your challenges, and can provide a suitable solution with a fast ROI. 

So many new companies to work with

Off the back of our sales success, we are delighted to have welcomed over 30 new customers, and thousands of new users, to the Podfather community this year.  Our customer base spans a wide range of industry sectors but a large proportion of our business growth has come from the food & drink and construction materials markets, where we have a long history of customer satisfaction and success.

Happy customers in the press

Our PR machine has been busy working away in 2024.  In the last 12 months, our fantastic PR team has interviewed over 40 Podfather customers, written over 41,000 words, and secured press coverage in a wide range of logistics and vertical sector publications.  We’d like to thank each and every one of our customers who were happy to be part of our PR process.  We are so grateful for all the positive comments and great anecdotes that we’ve been able to share about your Podfather system user and the benefits it brings. 

Peak in PODs processed

As you’d expect with more customers joining, our user and associated POD numbers hit a record high this year.  If you’ve ever visited the Podfather HQ in Edinburgh you will know that we are always tracking the number of completed PODs, the associated paper savings and the total number of trees saved as a result. At the time of writing this story, we are on track to have processed 20 million PODS in 2024, which equates to having saved over 4,500 trees worth of carbon from paper savings alone.  That’s before we even start looking at the mileage and associated fuel savings that our customer base will be experiencing on a daily basis. 

New software solutions across our product suite

Here at Podfather, we develop all our software solutions in-house so unsurprisingly the biggest department in our organisation is our software engineering division.  This year our bright and dedicated teams have delivered a wide range of new functionality, system improvements and benefit boosting features that our customers are loving.  At our core, we remain committed to developing solutions that tackle the very real problems that logistics operators are facing on a daily basis. Our clear development roadmap will ensure that our development trajectory continues, with us delivering a steady stream of new features, and existing product enhancements, to our growing customer base. 

New team members across all divisions

2024 has been a year of new faces here at Podfather and, in another first for the company, our employee numbers increased to over 50.  We are now a 52-strong team, all based out of our company HQ in Edinburgh.  We were able to strengthen our engineering teams with a number of new hires but we have also bolstered information security, sales, customer success and finance functions with new faces.  Although we may be small compared to many of the Edinburgh-based tech giants we remain a steady employer of tech talent in this part of the country and it’s great to see our teams flourishing as a result.

Information security and IIP successes to celebrate

Information security is one of the pillars of our business and is something that we all take very seriously. We are proud owners of the ISO 27001 accreditation for information security and were delighted to successfully retain our status following this year’s audit.  Our ISO success was followed by the renewal of our Cyber Essentials certification, giving us a cause for a double celebration earlier this year.  In addition our commitment to company culture and personal development saw us retain Investors In People silver certification with the addition of a shiny new plaque on our office wall. 

So, what next?

If you are a Podfather customer or are currently talking to us about using our system, you’ll be happy to hear that we are committed to continuing on our growth trajectory, delivering software solutions that are even better, easy to use, deliver fast ROI and really help fleet operators tackle the everyday challenges that everyone working in a logistics environment has to face.  We are committed to working together as a team for the benefit of all our system users, so watch this space!