For the latest Business Brew podcast from BUSINESSiQ, I talked to Andy Ray, Group Operations Director of the Applebridge Family of businesses, winner of the coveted Business of the Year title at the recent BUSINESSiQ Awards. Andy shares insights into its growth over the past 10 years, and talks about the importance of tackling a looming skills shortages across the region.

The Award

Andy told me: "Winning the BUSINESSiQ title was fantastic. To be rubbing shoulders with some of the other names that were present at the event was just outstanding because it's nice to be invited and it's nice to be shortlisted, but to actually win the award, we were a little bit taken aback.

"It's certainly taken pride of place and reception at our headquarters."

How we work

"We try to win work for each other and self-generate work for our own businesses and really offer a cradle to grave service to our clients to take everything from conception right through to completion.

"We want to be able to offer that additional service to clients where we can take on some of their projects right from inception stage of some of the projects that we get involved with and really try to add value right from an early stage - that's what we're about."

Skills

"We want to train people in a certain way - we want people to come into the business who have the work ethic and the core skills that we want to have and we want to educate them with the right tools.

"We have seen people come into the business who've maybe picked up bad habits elsewhere or come with habits that we want to change, but it's so much easier if we can teach those things from an early age and teach good habits that become repetitive."

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