A COMPANY in the village of Barham, near Canterbury, has beaten giants like Land Rover and Perkins Diesel to win a national award. Jali Ltd won the prize for best practice in IT in the Manufacturing Excellence awards and took second place overall in the section for small and medium-sized businesses.

Nick Showan founded the company 10 years ago and it has grown from there, designing and making DIY furniture for domestic and business clients. He said: "We were very hopeful that we would win the award, but it is always difficult to be too confident when you are up against companies like Land Rover which employ 14,000 people. The prize reflects performance against resources, so the judges obviously felt we had done better with what we had than the giants."

Mr Showan received the award from Katie Ledger of Channel Five at a ceremony in London. He was joined at the celebration by computer chief Jim Reid and general manager Jo Pearsall, who has recently retired.

Jali has moved into a larger workshop in Church Lane to accommodate its growing business, much of which comes designing items for film sets which have included Harry Potter. It has also just launched a computer programme which allows people with no knowledge of designing furniture to create the blueprints of a bespoke item.

Mr Showan said: "If they are looking for shelves or dresser to fit a specific area of their home they can type in the sizes and the programme will present a series of options for them. The programme will be available to download from the Internet in a few weeks, or we can send customers a brochure and a disk."