On Friday 28th June 2024, over 150 gathered for Eaton Smith’s Business of the Year Awards 2024 at the John Smith’s Stadium. The 12 monthly winners from the 2023/24 series of the Business of the Month Awards were all in contention for the Award which celebrates the hard work, brilliance and innovation of businesses throughout Kirklees, Calderdale and Wakefield.
The winners of the Business of the Year Awards 2024 were France & Associates Ltd, an award winning specialist registered architectural practice based in Huddersfield, operating on a national level. They provide an all-encompassing architectural and surveying service, being instructed as property finders to help and assess a property prior to its purchase and take on a property project from inception and manage the process to completion.
The business was started by Jonathan France, who saw a business opportunity to provide exclusive services to those requiring home improvements due to access issues by providing beautifully designed spaces to those affected by disability. Jonathan had originally found his love of working with individuals with significant access needs as early as 2008 when supporting clients via disability facility grant schemes, thereafter supporting individuals requiring significant changes following catastrophic injury in the insurance market.
In addition to Eaton Smith’s Business of the Year Award, France & Associates Ltd have won other awards such as the LABC Building Excellence Awards and the Modern Law Awards (Supporting the Industry).
In second place were Wayland Additive. Boasting a combined 150+ years of industrial electron beam manufacturing expertise, the company was born out of a high precision engineering team with a long and distinguished pedigree in the semiconductor industry, where electron beam widths are measured in nanometers and process instabilities are unacceptable. The use of and experience with eBeam technology in semiconductor manufacturing indicated that its use in additive manufacturing could be improved. Thus, since 2015 a team of eBeam experts from the lithography world began to coalesce around solving the single most serious problem inherent in the eBeam AM process, the charging of the powder.
The dedicated and diverse Wayland Additive team works pragmatically with customers on application and material development and repeatability.
In third place were Sam Teale Productions Limited. Founded in June 2020, Sam Teale Productions was first established bursting with life, energy and ambition. Sam Teale found his love for video production at the age of 14, where he began uploading videos to YouTube reviewing various products, one of those being the GoHenry debit cards for kids.
Following years as a freelance videographer, Sam had big ambitions to take his self-taught skills to the next level and start his own videography business. Within such a short space of time, Sam Teale Productions has won other awards such as ‘Young Entrepreneur of the Year’ with Great British Entrepreneur Awards & Community.
In the past 4 years, since being founded, Sam Teale Productions have worked with major companies such as Booking.com, Santander, Budweiser China, Capri-Sun, Co-Op and Heatable and have recently become affiliate partners with the Championship football club, Huddersfield Town. Amazingly, last year they made one of the biggest Christmas Adverts ever made, beating John Lewis’ famous Christmas advert for number of online views.
Deborah Melluish, Eaton Smith’s Senior Partner, spoke of the winners: “The Business of the Month awards recognise businesses from across Kirklees, Calderdale and Wakefield and this year’s winners are from all areas of that region.
Our range of monthly winners this year is once again a reflection of the diverse nature of businesses across the region. There is no question that they are all very different.
It was a great pleasure to present Sam Teale Productions, Wayland Additive, and France & Associates the Third, Second, and First Place awards respectively. These three businesses shown incredible innovation, business growth, and contribution to the region. A huge congratulations to our winners and of course all of the other Business of the Month winners”.
The other nominees for the Business of the Year Awards 2024 included Lu’s Place, Towndoor Limited, Mark Flynn Photography, Aqualand Industries Limited, Fusion IT Management Limited, Majestic Site Management Ltd, Juice Personnel Limited, EarthThings Florist Yorkshire Ltd, and Hitchfields Ltd.
Established in 1995, the Business of the Month Awards are open to any business in the Kirklees, Calderdale or Wakefield area and the Awards are run in conjunction with the Mid Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce and UK Trade & Investment.
