Drinks manufacturer Innocent made its first sale in April 1999 – 24 bottles of fruit smoothies to a local sandwich shop. Nearly eight years later, the company sells half a million smoothies a day, with revenue of £100m, and operates internationally in five countries.

From the start, technology has been vital to Innocent’s growth.

‘Right from the outset we have always been looking at how we can use technology to hunt the human, not to replace the human, and to engage with our consumers,’ says co-founder Richard Reed.

One of the most straightforward technologies was central to the company’s early days.

‘If we did not have the ability to communicate with a large group of people for free, we would not even have got the money to start our business in the first place,’ says Reed.

‘We went through all the regular routes of applying to banks and investors to raise capital, and time after time, they sent us away with a flat “no”.

‘It was only at the 11th hour, out of desperation, we emailed every single person we knew who had an email address. There weren’t that many in those days. We just sent a subject line: “Does anyone know anyone rich?” From 40 emails we got two back, one of them from someone who introduced us to someone that invested in the business.’

IT has continued to underpin the way Innocent works, by providing detailed information on the company’s sales.

‘We have been building our own databases from day one. For every retail outlet, we can see exactly what was sold. To have that level of sophisticated insight is tremendous. You would not find many startup companies doing that,’ says Reed.

‘Having that information raised our credibility with retailers. Later we didn’t use our home-made database, we bought one off the shelf and tailored it.

‘Now, every time a smoothie is scanned in a shop, we get that bit of information. We can see at every store that stocks Innocent how many of each recipe has been sold, and how many of our competition has been sold, and that provides real insight.’

As the drinks maker moves into the next phase of growth, IT is still playing a part in a major business process review.

‘The number one initiative for the company this year is what we call “sexy, sexy process”. We are pushing this across the business to include our ordering systems, forecasting, CRM and recruitment,’ says Reed.

This process highlights Reed’s focus on using technology to make things as easy as possible for staff.

‘I mean sexy because this is what it is going to mean for you as a group of people,’ he says.

‘You are going to get your time back. You are going to go home earlier. You are going to be able to deliver better insights to customers. You are going to get a better sales performance. You are going to get paid more. It is about using simple language, communicating to people the benefits for them individually and for the business overall.

‘It is unbelievable what technology can allow you to do,’ he says. ‘You just have to remember what you are trying to achieve in the first place.’