10 November 2015
The Portakabin Group Wins Award for Business Excellence
The performance of the Portakabin Group and its continued success and expansion has been recognised with an Excellence in Business Award at the Yorkshire Post Business Awards 2015.
The award for 'Best Company with a Turnover over £50 million' was presented by Archbishop John Sentamu at a ceremony in Leeds attended by more than 200 guests and hosted by the BBC Today Programme presenter, Justin Webb.
This latest accolade for the Portakabin Group follows a number of significant awards this year which have included Yorkshire's Environmental Business of the Year.
The award judges carried out a thorough business assessment of the company, which looked at its financial performance, and its approach to innovation, customer service, leadership and employee development, and risk management.
Derek Carter, Chief Executive of the Portakabin Group said, "This award is testament to the hard work and commitment of our 1,700 employees and to the Shepherd family who have supported the business for more than 50 years. We will continue to grow our operations both in the UK and in our European markets to ensure we remain at the forefront of the modular building sector."
"Portakabin is a great British manufacturing brand which now operates in seven countries. Our values of teamwork, integrity, commitment and innovation are reflected across the entire business and have contributed to our success and strong financial performance in a challenging economic climate. We are immensely proud to achieve further independent recognition of that with this prestigious award."
The Portakabin Group's successes have included:
- Apprenticeships - a series of awards for its commitment to apprenticeships. Plans are now in place to establish a 'Portakabin Group Training Academy' to attract more young talent into the business.
- Community relations - a range of voluntary projects which have helped 27 schools and universities and more than 1,400 young people in the past year - a significant increase on the previous year.
- Sustainability - a host of new initiatives to reduce impact on the environment, from cutting business mileage by 17 per cent to award-winning cycle-to-work initiatives and work with suppliers to improve their environmental performance.
- Continued investment - A £10m investment to optimise the use of technology. The Group's Hire Division announced a £22m investment in its hire fleet in response to the rising demand for its interim buildings, making the fleet among the newest in the UK and lead times for customers even shorter.
The Portakabin Group offers a range of market-leading modular building brands which include Portakabin, Portaloo, Yorkon and Konstructa, operating in sectors as diverse as education, healthcare, manufacturing, transport, utilities and construction. Its international headquarters and manufacturing centre is based in York.
The Portakabin Group is part of the Shepherd Group.
Editor's Note
Portakabin, Portakabin Group, Yorkon, Foremans, Portaloo, Konstructa and Oecon are registered trademarks. Portakabin must only be used to refer to modular buildings that are known to have been manufactured by the Portakabin Group. Please note, Portakabin is not a generic term.
