Sponsored by Azets
TURNOVER
OVERALL
FINALIST
Nouveau Legal: increased turnover from £ 122,000 to £ 414,000- 239 %
Winner – Unity Network Technologies MD Gavin Scotchbrook( left) receives his firm’ s second VelociTees award from Azets’ Graham Fitzgerald.
WINNER
Unity Network Technologies
Increased turnover from £ 135,000 to £ 1,700,000 – 1,156 % increase The winner of a flagship VelociTees award says part of its success is down to not being afraid to fail.
IT and communications specialist Unity Network Technologies clinched two awards at the ceremony – the Turnover Small Business and the Turnover Overall prizes – after recording a remarkable annual growth of 1,156 %.
And after picking up the Turnover Overall prize, Unity Network Technologies MD Gavin Scotchbrook felt it was a real achievement for a firm performing superbly in a tricky economic environment.
He told Tees Business:“ This is fantastic because being a small business or SME is tough and people need to be open and honest about that.
“ Thanks to great support from my brother( Unity CEO Simon Scotchbrook), we’ ll always pivot if we have to – we’ ll keep trying and not be afraid to fail.
“ It’ s a tough environment at the moment – everyone in that room knows it is. Whether you’ re on the Tees, Wear or Tyne, the North-East is a tough place to do business in, but we’ re tough people and we’ ll do well because we always keep going.”
With an HQ in Middlesbrough and a state-of-the-art data centre in Marske, Unity Network Technologies is a specialist unit within the Unity Group.
And that policy of specialist divisions, said Gavin, is another reason for the firm’ s success.
He said:“ We focused on splitting the business and being very focused on set divisions – finance, service and commercial. In small businesses, you overlap a lot – people get involved in the day-to-day firefighting and that type of thing.
“ But by doing what we’ ve done, everyone knows their specific job, what they’ re in charge of, what their targets are and what they’ re expected to achieve.”
And with contracts recently secured from the likes of the Newcastle Red Bulls rugby union club and the headteachers association, the future continues to look bright for the company and its 22-strong team.
Gavin, who’ s spent 25 years in tech, added:“ What’ s next? To keep pushing on – it’ s always been about growth.
“ We’ ll keep going and keep trying to grow. We might fail at certain things but the great thing for us is that our owner understands that we’ ll try stuff which mightn’ t work, so we’ ll change it. Failure in the UK is classed as something bad – in America, they are more open to it.
“ Try something and if it doesn’ t work, learn from it and move on.”
GLC Projects: increased turnover from £ 750,000 to £ 2.24m- 214 %
TU Online: increased turnover from £ 1.05m to £ 1.87m- 178 %
Elite Energy Eco: increased turnover from £ 4.8m to £ 12.2m- 150 %
Cavendish Northern: increased turnover from £ 18.74m to £ 39.8m- 112 %
SPONSOR’ S MESSAGE:
Graham Fitzgerald, partner, Azets: Once again, it was inspiring to see the diversity of businesses, sectors and people represented in the turnover category- a true reflection of Teesside’ s heritage and our future. Congratulations to all of the finalists and a deserved winner.
The voice of business in the Tees region | 135