George Osborne, then shadow Chancellor, first visited Chess in 2005. Since then Chess has grown to one of the area’s largest employers with 180 people serving 28,000 customers. The decision to expand into new offices came following a continued period of sustained growth to over £40m turnover.
David Pollock, Chief Executive of Chess, commented "Chess moved into telecoms following the Conservative deregulation of the market a decade ago, since then we’ve enjoyed rapid growth. The key to our success has been our people who’ve made us one of the UK's Best Companies to Work For and to be a customer of."
Since the Chancellors first visit in 2005 Chess have won many awards for excellence, innovation and service including being listed as one of the Sunday Times 100 Best Companies To Work For each of the past 3 years, the Sunday Times Fast Track 100, Profit Track 100 and Tech Track 100. Chess were the first telecoms company to win the Customer First Accreditation and be named the Institute of Customer Service Quality Service Provider of the Year.
Pollock continued "We've ambitious plans for future growth. George was pleased to hear we are taking advantage of the governments growth stimulation package ‘Funding for Lending’ to secure an additional £5M funding through Barclays which will further boost our acquisition strategy and see more employment created. This year alone we’ve created 37 new jobs."
Chess are the market leading consolidator of small to medium sized telecom resellers, having completed over 60 acquisitions in the previous 8 years.
George Osborne stated "Chess is one of Alderley Edge’s great success stories. I opened their existing office 7 years ago and in that time they have more than doubled the number of people employed by them to become one of the most advanced companies in the country. Opening these new offices points to an even better future and the enthusiasm, energy and optimism of all the staff is infectious.”