When you get to know it a bit better, Bradford's business community is full of surprises.

The Valley Group is one of those hidden gems: a truly Bradford-based, family-run firm which is at the forefront of its industry and working with some of the biggest and best-known companies in the world.

Few would expect that the marketing expertise and creativity behind the launch of products such as Microsoft's Xbox games console was dreamed-up here in Harden.

Tucked away alongside the bubbling Harden Beck, the Valley Group has its headquarters in a fabulous old mill building which provides a picturesque backdrop for the creative talent at work.

Valley started out as one of Bradford's many successful, fairly small-scale printing firms, but just taking a step inside Harden Beck Mill, it's clear that this is a business that has truly redefined itself over the century.

The stylish reception area, complete with its widescreen plasma televisions, says a lot about the Valley Group - today an £8 million turnover operation employing more than 100 people.

Since the 1960s, the firm has focused its energies on the "point of purchase" (POP) - the production of display units for promoting and selling products in stores. It has turned out to be a hugely profitable move, with its list of blue-chip clients now including Shell, Microsoft, Reebok, Gillette, Proctor and Gamble, Bentley, General Motors, United Biscuits, T Mobile, and Britvic soft drinks.

The story has been one of innovation, pioneered in the 1960s by Robert Haggas, who invented the process of four-colour process printing onto flexible plastics. The discovery prompted items like credit cards and, for Valley, its launch into the POP sector.

The firm has been at the cutting-edge of its field ever since and is one of the UK's top ten POP manufacturers.

The revolution kicked off in the early 1990s with a pitch for the contract to manufacture stands for the sale of merchandise from the hit film Jurassic Park. Valley beat eight rival firms for the £2.5 million deal, which was followed by a move into the use of plastics to make the display units.

The concept took off so successfully, the firm was soon bidding to make similar units for the launch of Sega's Dreamcast console, winning an £8 million order. More than 12,500 of the units were used around the globe.

That led to a joint contract to help Microsoft push its groundbreaking Xbox console, including a sophisticated interactive demonstration unit for the pan-Asian launch.

"Invite, inform and inspire" is how sales director James Haggas, great grandson of founder Robert Stansfield, describes the function Valley's products perform. With the consoles, it is about enticing the customers towards the display, getting them to try the product and then, hopefully, buy one. And it seems to work.

The company recently won a contract to design in-house merchandising units for Microsoft's 100 Xbox specialist shops across Belgium and created a curved design housing 168 games - 20 more than a conventional unit. The steel and acrylic design, in Xbox's distinctive black and green, helped sales grow by up to 35 per cent. Valley's success has brought industry awards - and really wound-up some London-based competitors.

"When there's a big launch, we tend to get picked," said James, 37. "We are very much design-focused and we have got a very good team here. But it is a very competitive industry and there are some very good designers around. Many like to spend their time in London, ideally, and it can be difficult to entice them up here. We often have to bring on good trainees we have taught ourselves."

James, of East Morton, speaks proudly of the firm's heritage, and there are family portraits on the office walls. The company chairman is John Haggas, Mr Stansfield's grandson, and the production director is great grandson Jonathan Haggas. Great granddaughter Julia Heywood is an account manager in sales.

But the business is anything but traditional in its technology. It was one of the first in its field to invest in 3D modelling software to help make prototypes and has recently invested in a £500,000 flatbed digital printer.

Yet it's the nature of the work - helping promote some of the most famous and innovative brands in the world - that really keeps the business going.

"It is a very exciting sector and I think that is why we have gone down this avenue as a company," said James. "Every day you have a different product to deal with and that's where the buzz comes from.

"It is a massive growth industry and we got in there at the right time. We have upset the southern-based competitors and they are now very, very wary of us. When we pitch for a job, there is an 80 per cent chance of us winning."

And the firm's enviable reputation means that it tends to win repeat business. "I have worked with the global marketing director of Microsoft and, because we have performed as a company, they remain very, very loyal. Bill Gates has hammered that into them - if one company does a good job then use them again."

Valley owns a 45,000 sq ft assembly and finishing plant in Keighley from where the products roll out. eanwhile, the maze of rooms inside Harden Beck Mill house a combination of hi-tech printing technology as well as design studios where the creations come together.

And, although it might not have the pulling power of London for top designers, James said the mill was an ideal home to grow the business from.

"It is the worst manufacturing place on earth because it is simply not big enough. But it is also the most fantastic selling point and when people come to visit us they are flabbergasted," he said.

"Yes, we could do with a massive 90,000 sq ft factory, but that wouldn't reflect what the business is about. We have the family values and the passion and this place complements that."