REALITY, the company formed a year ago by Great Universal Stores (Gus), to provide Internet, customer care and logistics to UK companies, has finished its first year with profits in excess of £5.1m on turnover of £476m.

The UK market leader provides an integrated business solutions service to customers, with more than 20,000 staff in 68 locations nationwide.

It employs more than 200 people at delivery depots in Newcastle and Stockton, servicing its North-East customer base.

Reality is responsible for delivering more than 100 million parcels, taking 40 million orders and handling 75 million customer contacts every year.

Since it was launched in May last year, Reality has secured more than £130m worth of contracts for outsourcing services with various household names, including Readers Digest, home shopping channel QVC, Britannia Music, First National Retail Finance, and Barclaycard.

The contracts do not include the work already being done for Gus's internal clients, Argos and Home Shopping. The company also operates ten out of the top 20 e-commerce websites in the UK, generating sales of £2m a week on those sites. Its IT systems process more than 350,000 items ordered by customers every day.

Martin Trees, 42, is the chief executive of Reality. He was recruited by IBM straight from university, where he became industry director. He followed that by becoming marketing director of the Sema Group, and marketing strategy director at EDS.

It was when he tabled a bid for information solutions company Experian, a subsidiary of Gus, that the parent company instead asked him to become its president.

Martin, who sits on the foundation board of the Royal Shakespeare Company, using his business acumen to successfully market productions, said it was a passionate desire to make a difference that has been his driving force.

Of the past year in business, Mr Trees said: "We have seen positive growth in our first year, securing work for more than 20 companies and tackling a range of diverse activities that no other UK company could handle.

"These include delivering millions of parcels, developing entire online retail systems, providing call centre services and offering enormous print and mail capability."

He said: "It has been a year of extreme challenges for a new business, involving the continuation of deliveries through floods, fuel protests and foot-and-mouth disease.

"But above all, we have demonstrated how the market can benefit from a fully integrated business services company such as Reality, by helping other businesses to improve their market reach and polish their overall reputation for customer service."