OBBI Solutions, is on cloud-nine after scooping the highly coveted award for Best Use of Cloud Services at the Belfast Telegraph’s inaugural IT Awards.

The growing, multi-award-winning team were also Highly Commended as Small IT Team of the Year at the awards which represent the very best of talent in Northern Ireland’s fastest growing sector.

The awards come hot on the heels of OBBI picking up the Enterprise Software Company of the Year award, at the recent INVENT AWARDS 2019.

The software was created by Gareth Macklin, Director of Macklin Group, who employ over 650 staff in healthcare, hospitality and construction after he failed to find any existing solutions that would allow him to integrate their key business processes. This included HR, Operations, Health & Safety, Compliance and Facility Management to drive productivity and deliver peace of mind in a user friendly, simple and efficient platform. A new technology coupled with an existing problem and a big idea turned into innovation and the revolutionary, first of its kind, OBBI Solutions was born.

The Belfast Telegraph IT awards were independently judged by an expert panel, led by chairperson Professor Karen Rafferty, head of the School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Queen’s University.

OBBI has been categorised into core “Guardians” that tackle the main pain points associated with Training, Staff Engagement, Communication, Audit & Checks, Compliance, Quality & Productivity, Facilities & Estates, Accident Management and Health & Safety. This is all on a cloud-based, intuitive, digital solution that can provide any personalised content to anyone, anywhere, at any time, in any organisation, on any web-enabled digital device. This is all done regardless of the existing IT infostructure, there’s no need for team members to have a company email and it’s completely personalised to the organization, whilst building in all of the appropriate alerts and reports.

The system is having huge success with a diverse range of businesses so far. These include manufacturing, construction, retail, hospitality and healthcare with interest in other sectors including government and charity in recent weeks. It is an exceptionally user-friendly platform, irregardless of technical capability, giving business owners, managers and staff a real-time, 360-degree view of their obligations within the business.

Gareth said: “We are so overwhelmed and delighted to pick up our third award win in four weeks and to beat such stiff competition from our respected peers is simply amazing.

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank our amazing OBBI team who have developed such a first-class product as well as our external advisors and partners. However most importantly, I’d like to thank our customers across the UK and Ireland who faith in our product to help them achieve the common goals of simplifying, increasing productivity, profitability and delivering peace of mind.

“I am especially pleased that the judges recognised the operational expertise of our senior team. This is something we’re particularly proud of, having this experience allows us to understand the challenges of every one of our customers from much more than just a technical or IT perspective – we know exactly what challenges companies and organisations have and the solutions they need,” Gareth said.

Gareth concluded: “To win this Belfast Telegraph IT Award amongst the very best talent in Northern Ireland feels absolutely phenomenal.”