Member Article

Powering through Covid with 20% headcount growth

North East-headquartered managed IT service provider razorblue has seen 363 per cent growth over the last five years and shows no sign of slowing down.

Due to businesses increasing their investment in IT throughout the pandemic - paired with many companies being let down by other suppliers, demand for razorblue’s wide-ranging portfolio of services remains high.

To meet growing demands, razorblue continues to expand its team on a nationwide scale.

The firm – which works with a growing number of clients on Aycliffe Business Park including Stiller, Finley Structures and UTC South Durham, has continued to recruit throughout lockdown, adding new roles rather than replacing them.

The team headcount is now approaching the 100 mark, with 22 new starters since March and more vacancies in the pipeline.

CEO, Dan Kitchen said: “New roles continue to be added across the business, from our service desk to senior management, marketing and new business team, account management and software developers.

“It’s fantastic that we are able to continue bringing people into the team through a difficult period, especially as a number of our new recruits were potentially facing redundancy. We also continue to welcome new apprentices to the team.”

Believing that there is a huge pool of talent in the area, razorblue wants to promote the North-East as a place for young people to pursue their careers and earlier this year the company invested more than £600,000 in its new head office in Catterick.

Dan continued: “Technology is a fast-paced and exciting industry to be involved in. We think it is important to support young people in the early stages of their career and have several team members who have progressed to senior managerial roles with us since starting their apprenticeship.

“Our new purpose-built headquarters give us twice as much space as we had before, allowing us to expand the team and host more customer events and demonstrations.”

The company has recently acquired a new office space in Edinburgh which has expanded reach into Scotland, bringing the total number of offices to seven including: Wynyard, Newcastle, Manchester, Leeds and London.

The firm specialises in managed IT, security services, super-fast connectivity, cloud and hosting and business software solutions across a broad range of industries. Due to the nature of the business, it experienced a peak in demand for support with home-working solutions and with uncertainties about the future economic climate, business owners are now focusing on survival through improving efficiencies.

Dan added: “We were already accustomed to very agile working practices- so we haven’t learned anything ground-breaking; I think some of our clients have though!

“The forced shift towards a more digital working environment has opened the eyes of many business owners who now acknowledge that through investing in IT services, productivity and profitability levels can be enhanced.

“Tech in general allows businesses to gain efficiencies over their competitors and grow their market share, which going to become ever more important in an economy that’s contracting, rather than growing. We are working closely with our clients and doing everything in our power to help secure the future of their businesses and support them through this period.”

razorblue plans to continue expanding its nationwide coverage in addition to adding more products and services to the current offering.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Peachy Digital .