Virgin Money, Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banking Group, HomeServe Labs  and Close Brothers Retail Finance scoop awards in what has been an extraordinary year of innovation.

Market Gravity has announced the winners of the seventh annual Corporate Entrepreneur Awards – celebrating big business innovation and the individuals and teams behind these exciting new projects, with organisers remarking that 2016 had been “an extraordinary year of big business innovation”.

The proposition design consultancy opened the nominations and voting out to the UK corporate entrepreneur community with shortlisted entries from big businesses in sectors such as fintech and banking, retail, utilities, automotive, media and wider technology.

Virgin Money scooped the award for Innovation Culture for The Mortgage Lab. This award recognises strong innovation culture and leadership from a big business and Virgin Money overhauled its intermediary mortgage proposition, creating a manifesto for its brokers to deliver on a series of commitments and enhance the mortgage experience for intermediaries.

The award for New Challenger was presented to Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banking Group (CYBG) for the launch of B – a new digital banking app that uses artificial intelligence to help customers manage their finances. With the rise of challenger banks disrupting the financial sector, CYBG demonstrated how an established player can become a challenger, attract a new audience, while still keeping its heritage and loyal customer following.

HomeServe Labs, one of the UK’s leading home assistance providers, secured the award for best new product or service with Leakbot – a smart water leak detector that detects leaks in the home using intelligent technology without the need for professional installation. Part of HomeServe, HomeServe Labs is a smart home technology developer that designs products and services which makes consumers’ lives easier, and is currently working on more exiting new products for connected homes.

The new business launch award went to Close Brothers Retail Finance, a new business that helps retailers of all sizes to grow through an exceptional new finance offering that allows their customers to easily spread the cost of their purchase over time. It aims to help drive innovation in the retail sector to make retailers of all sizes more competitive and to help them grow and adapt in an increasingly digital world.

Innovation has been the buzzword of 2016 with the launch of hundreds of exciting new products and services from big businesses around the UK. With the rise of the Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, omnichannel retail, challenger banks and Pokemon Go, technology is advancing the way businesses and consumers interact, operate, and live their lives.

Robin Scarborough, Partner and Managing Director of Market Gravity in London, says: “These awards recognise game-changing products and services delivered by large organisations. It’s been another impressive year for big business innovation and great to see how they’re using the latest developments in technology in their new ventures and propositions. It’s really exciting to see so many New Challengers coming through and stepping up to the mark, in areas such as fintech, connected homes, and retail.

“The finalists in each category demonstrated creative thinking in response to them identifying a gap in their market to meet their customers’ needs. The level of innovation was so impressive and showed a real commitment to evolving existing business models to better cater to the needs of their customers.”

“Corporate entrepreneurs, or intrapreneurs, are bringing new concepts and ideas to large organisations, injecting a startup mentality, and introducing agile working methods to design and launch new products and services to allow them to maintain a competitive edge. We work alongside some brilliant teams across a range of sectors, helping big companies to create and launch new products and services for commercial growth and it’s always great to get together with these innovators at the awards. Our congratulations go to all the winners and their fantastic projects as well as to all the shortlisted companies.”

The award ceremony took place on 20^th October at Kings Place, London, and around 200 of the UK’s most creative, disruptive and entrepreneurial business leaders attended the unique event.

Read more about the awards on the website:: http://corporateentrepreneurawards.co.uk/.

For further information on Market Gravity please visit http://marketgravity.com/