Region’s digital stars shine bright
THREE North West companies entrepreneurial talents recognised at a national awards ceremony.
Altrincham-headquartered Printerland was joined by city centre-based parcel delivery comparison website Myparceldelivery.com and Bury firm Adepteo as winners of the national Digital Entrepreneur of the Year awards, designed to celebrate online business excellence.
Printerland, which is a reseller of printers and consumables, led by joint managing directors James Kight and Graham Vickers, walked away with the E-commerce Entrepreneur of the Year award.
The firm has increased its conversion rate of website leads by 40% this year alone by investing in new web software to improve its back-end system.
David Grimes and Paul Haydock, founders of myparceldelivery.com, received the Young Entrepreneur of the Year award. The company allows businesses, eBay sellers and personal users to compare discounted prices from a range of the UK’s leading courier services such as DHL and UPS.
Director David Grimes said: “We’re over the moon. This is the result of a lot of hard work – we took the idea from a problem we had with our first business and decided to come up with a solution.
“Blood, sweat and tears have gone into the last six months to develop what is now a great business. We are looking to push forward all the time so hopefully next year we will blow our predictions out of the water.”
Telecoms firm Adepteo, which picked up the award for Digital Employer of the Year, provides cloud-based services including VoIP, fax, SMS and e-commerce to SMEs across all sectors.
The winners of all 19 awards were announced last week at an event at the Palace Hotel in Manchester.
Now in its second year, the Digital Entrepreneur of the Year awards, which are organised by Manchester-based web hosting company UKFast, are imed at discovering and rewarding the best businesses on the web.
Errol Damelin, founder and chief executive of wonga.com, an the online short-term pay-day lender won the Digital Entrepreneur of the Year award.
Lawrence Jones, managing director of said: “It’s been a privilege to be involved in an event that recognises the innovators and entrepreneurs that are changing the face of the net as we know it.
“We’ve received a record number of entries this year from some pioneering businesses and the fact that so many are from the North West is something to be very proud of.”
