WHAT began as a backward-looking printing facility serving British Rail in West Offices, Station Road, York, has now flourished into DocQwise – one of the fastest-growing and most successful privately-owned document service organization's in the North of England.

Now Danish Jan Eskildsen, the man who four years ago acquired the business on the back of a management buy-in after coming to Britain to work for photocopying giant Xerox, has entered the Small Business of the Year and Progress Through People categories as a way of achieving recognition for the hard efforts of his growing staff.

Where there were nine people working for a business “entrenched in the past”, said Mr Eskildsen, there are now 22 employees in a forward-looking enterprise.