Young Playground Equipment Company Wins Wiltshire Business of the Year Award
When Edward Webb first decided to start his own business with a £5000 Prince’s Trust loan, he little imagined that, just eight years on, he would be stepping on to a stage to accept the highly prestigious Wiltshire Business of the Year Award.
Only twenty four at the time, he knew he was taking a risk. With the support of his wife, Rachael, however, and huge commitment to his vision of developing aplayground equipment company that would produce and install products of only the very highest calibre, he succeeded in making a go of it to the extent that now, eight years later, Playforce is turning over more than five million pounds per year and employing 35 staff.
Rachael joined Edward in the business shortly after its launch and, together, they have seen their dream take shape. Determined to become play industry leaders, the young couple have adopted an ethos of listening to customers so that each out door playground conforms to their specific requirements, looking after their carefully-selected staff so that a true spirit of teamwork is evident throughout the organisation and being open to new ideas so that innovation is both valued and encouraged.
In 2006 that ethos won Playforce Beacon status and, in 2007, that accolade has been followed with the heavily contested Wiltshire Business of the Year award.
‘There is no doubt that this is one of the finest companies which has won the Wiltshire Business of the Year award,” said Mark Suddaby, managing director of Newsquest Wiltshire. ‘We had our highest number of entries this year and as usual it was a difficult job selecting a winner.
‘But at the end of the day the judges were unanimous.’
Those judges included Marion Mortimer, Chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses Western Region, Anita Collier, Recognition and Awareness Manager for Virgin Mobile, Chris Elias, Senior Manager of Nat West Commercial Banking and Michael Williams, Chief Executive of the Wessex Chamber of Commerce.
‘Rachael and I are absolutely thrilled that Playforce has won,’ said Edward Webb. ‘Our biggest strength is undoubtedly our team of employees who are open-minded, committed and energetic towards taking our business further. We do have ambitious growth targets but these are possible with the key staff we have – in 2006 alone they smashed company records.
‘Our biggest opportunity is the UK commercial playground equipment market. Traditionally it has lacked innovation but, with our stronger design process and marketing, it presents a huge opportunity. Whilst our focus has always been education we intend to widen our market place in 2007 to playground specifiers. This will require a different approach but, as a company, we now have the resources to enter new markets and profit from them.’
