The Cambridge-based digital manufacturer scooped the night’s top accolade in a ceremony that took place on 10 March at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel.

The award was presented to Domino group managing director Nigel Bond and finance director Andrew Herbert, who fought off stiff competition from speciality chemicals company Croda International, property business Shaftesbury and engineering solutions business Weir Group.

Bond said he was "over the moon" following the award, which uses public votes to shortlists companies rather than allowing companies to enter themselves.

"It’s the first year we’ve made it onto the shortlist and clearly there are some fantastic companies represented in the awards so to win was fantastic."

Bond added that the Company of the Year award reflected not only his firm’s strong financial performance in 2010, but also the fact that it has a strategy for long term development as shown by the 35% increase in its R&D spend last year, up to £15.6m.

He said:  "Clearly we don’t want to be a one-hit wonder, we want to build on the success of last year and really go from strength to strength. This year we need to capitalise on that R&D investment - we’ve got a big global roll-out planned this year to realise the value that went into developing those new products."

Judging criteria for the category stated that the winner would be a company that has "clearly demonstrated that success is not just a short-term phenomenon".

It added: "The winning company will undoubtedly be successful in share price terms, but with full realisation that share price is but one method of measurement."