Verastar, a leading provider of essential business services to small-to-medium enterprises, was named Business of the Year (Organisations of over 50 Employees) at the Greater Manchester Business Awards 2019. The black-tie event was held at the Imperial War Museum North and organised by innov8 Conference Services.
Verastar started out in 1998 as a unique sales organisation with a focus on small businesses, and gradually progressed into the telecoms and utilities industry ever since, providing essential services to the small-to-medium business market.
With a customer base of over 160,000, Verastar provides telecoms, broadband, mobile, gas, electricity and water services on a one bill solution through their brands kinex, Clear Business, Unicom and Woav. Verastar also provide Business Insurance through their sister company The Insurance Octopus.
The Greater Manchester Business Awards celebrates the Professionalism and Excellence of Businesses and Organisations in Greater Manchester which are judged by a panel of 9 business peers to ensure a fair and open judging system.
Nominations were open in 12 categories for the awards. The category of Business of the Year features three awards – Organisations under 10 Employees, 10-50 Employees, and over 50 Employees. The category looks for companies who meet criteria of growth, overachieving against competitors, innovation in industry, training and development, and business strategy.
Verastar entered the Greater Manchester Business Awards for the first time this year and was named a winner in the category Business of the Year (Organisations of Over 50), having competed against regional competitors across various industries including BJSS, Benchmark International, Cartime, Equilibrium Asset Management, and Purple WiFi Ltd.
Being a national provider, Verastar employs over 1000 colleagues across 14 offices with the majority in the three Manchester offices and the Hamilton office. Continuous growth has been the aim of the company and as such, Verastar remains steady in growing its sizeable customer base, continuing to innovate the services it can supply to those customers, incessant investment in people development, and a unique streamlined one-bill solution.
On winning Business of the Year, CEO Chris Earle commented: “Verastar through our brands has consistently had a strong performance record, thanks to our unique offering which consolidates multiple business services on a one-bill solution. We are proud to be born and bred in Manchester and that we have been able to take our solutions nationwide through our sales-oriented approach and acquisitions. To be celebrated for our progress and named Business of the Year is a brilliant achievement and testament to the hard work from all the team, not only in the last year but since we started over 20 years ago.”
