Gloucestershire is a great place to do business and for the last 25 years, the GloucestershireLive Business Awards have epitomised that innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship.
The awards celebrate theirwith the continuing support from lead sponsor and accountants, .
To celebrate the awards' anniversary, Gloucestershire director of Business West Ian Mean MBE has been talking to some of the past winners of the main award—Business of the Year.
, Gloucestershire’s largest private sector employer was a winner of the award in 1999.
Then the engineering giant's annual turnover was £100m, and now, in the last reported year, the turnover was £671m.
A real engineering powerhouse, Renishaw now employs 5,200 people globally with around 2,600 employed on its sites in Gloucestershire.
Chris Pockett, Renishaw’s head of communications, told me: “Winning awards like the GloucestershireLive Business of the Year is a very good thing for us because it gives the company some profile and an opportunity to flag our own success.
“I think Renishaw’s role now is very much to support the rest of the business community and encourage others.”
Renishaw, whose headquarters are at Wotton Under Edge, have been a big supporter of apprenticeships and the GloucestershireLive Apprenticeship Awards. The firm currently has 227 apprentices in training.
Renishaw’s mantra is innovation, and it has a built-in confidence that it can make things work and always find a solution.
It’s also because the team has a real understanding that behind every problem lies an opportunity.
The company are this year celebrating their 50th Anniversary and they now export around 95% of their products worldwide.
“I always describe us as being just below the level of public consciousness”, said Mr Pockett.
“All those precision things you have in your home, in the car you drive, the plane you fly in and on the trains you use—they all have parts on them made using Renishaw kit”.
Accountants Randall & Payne are the lead sponsor for the awards on Thursday October 12 at The Centaur, Cheltenham Racecourse.
This year’s 25th anniversary awards are on Thursday, October 12, and to get tickets, visit the event website at
*Ian Mean MBE is the Gloucestershire director of Business West and former editor-in-chief of the Citizen and Gloucestershire Echo and the Western Daily Press.
Business West - celebrating 200 years of success
Managing director of Business West, Phil Smith
Business West has given voice to, supported, and lobbied on behalf of businesses since 1823.
It exists to create long-term prosperity for our businesses and our region so companies can grow, innovate and export and also tackles challenging business issues on behalf of organisations - delivering tangible results.
Gloucestershire's companies are ambitious, entrepreneurial and fiercely passionate about their work - and so is Business West. Which is why it equips them with the support and tools to fulfil their potential and turn their vision into reality. Everything it does contributes to making our region the best place to live, work, learn and prosper.
In 2021, Business West became a Certified B Corp. In other words, it meets exacting standards of verified social and environmental performance, balancing profit and purpose, which makes it well placed to advise the businesses of the future, as well as lending credibility to its message that business can be a force for good.
As part of its celebrating ‘200 years of future thinking’, Business West is sponsoring the Growth Award at this year's . To find out more about Business West, visit
