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Another Strong Year for Chess

Chess has announced its annual results with another year of turnover and profit growth. Chess’ financial highlights include an increase in turnover of 23% to £44m, an EBITDA increase of 49% to £11m and a growth in gross margin to 45%. The Chess Group currently employs in excess of 250 people.

David Pollock, Chief Executive of Chess commented “We achieved our 2013 vision by continuously improving the knowledge, skills and performance of our people, including the introduction of our new ‘Academy training’ for all new starters which strengthens our ability to provide great customer service. We are, and have always been, an ambitious organisation with a desire to grow and be great at what we do. We strive every day to be the best of the best and to make Chess a great place to work and a great place to be a customer.”

Steven Dracup, Manager Director at Chess stated “Chess is an energetic, hard-working, success driven, fun and exciting place to work that attracts, retains and inspires people to give their best. The focus we place on our people has had a major impact on the level of service we provide our customers, resulting in 76% of our customers entering into contracts for 2 years or more, guaranteeing our revenue streams and strengthening our long term ability to best serve our customers. By providing our people with exceptional training, support and facilities our financial growth has continued to flourish. Our success in 2013 was rounded off when we acquired The CRM Business, the leading European partner of Microsoft Dynamics.”

Chess’ growth in revenue and gross profit was driven by their strategy of acquiring 16 customer bases in 2013, complimented by their focus on reducing churn, increasing cross sales in their existing base and improving web sales offerings for new customers. Their approach has resulted in 84% of their customers sourcing two or more products from Chess and 63% with three or more.