Innovation and people investment drive IT business to thrive through hard times

n a former police station in Wortley, Leeds, eight computer specialists are hard at work. They are the first students to enrol in an in-house language school set up by leading specialist IT business SICL.

By the time the course - delivered by an external tutor - comes to an end, SICL’s staff will be fluent in conversational business French. Next on the curriculum will be Italian and more European languages will follow.

The language lessons are the latest in a series of innovations made by SICL, a leading network solutions and services provider, to equip the business for its continued growth.

In an industry which has been hit hard by a 30% decline in trade since the credit crunch began, SICL is bucking the trend.

“Innovations like the language school and investment in our people are vital to our continued success in this economic climate.” says Managing Director Cliff Fox.

“The economic circumstances have been unprecedented. It’s unheard of for some of the biggest names in the industry to be making redundancies and many, many companies are doing very badly even if they are managing to survive.

For us to be growing at such a fast pace is totally out of step with the trend.”

SICL has more than doubled its turnover from £1.8m four years ago to £4.2m in the year to June 2009. Staff numbers have increased from 18 to 32 and further expansion, especially in Europe, is planned.

Fox says: “Our business strategy and plan was written in 2006 before the recession was even anticipated. We got some early indicators though and were able to sharpen our proposition to meet the new market conditions.”

The collapse of investment bank Bear Stearns in particular gave warning of the tough times ahead.

“We were about to start a technology trial for a project at Bear Stearns when its failures hit the headlines.” recalls Fox.

“We sat down, looked at our technology proposition and asked ourselves what would sell in the current climate. The overall sentiment was that people need IT and the essentials would still need to be purchased but also companies would still invest if the returns were fast.”

SICL provides the full range of network services and solutions, from designing data and voice networks, support and maintenance and deployment of IT solutions from leading computer technology manufacturers.

In the UK it numbers Yorkshire Water, Taylor’s of Harrogate, Yorkshire Air Ambulance, Aedas, Optare and the West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Authority among its customer base which ranges from SMEs and public sector bodies through to global corporations.

Overseas, its reputation for technical know-how, customer service and integrity has won the business work in nine European countries in addition to the United States, Middle East and Far East.

“That’s why we decided to set up the language school.” says Fox. “It wasn’t strictly necessary because our customers’ staff are usually expected to speak English. But we thought we’d meet them half way – it’s all part of our commitment to customer service.”

That commitment is paying dividends with 96% of customers rating SICL’s service as excellent in a recent survey.

Running alongside its focus on high quality customer service is SICL’s commitment to the involvement of its staff in developing themselves and the business.

An exemplar case study for Investors in People, SICL has succeeded in developing a company culture that retains and motivates staff whose expertise and experience are highly prized by competitors and multinational IT companies alike.

“What we sell primarily is our skill” says Fox. “Our skill is in our staff and we know that every single employee must feel that they are valued and have a critical role to play in the future of the business.”

The result of this enlightened philosophy is a staff turnover rate of just 6%, which is well below the industry average.

Fox says: “We have a people development and reward policy that is more normally associated with much larger organisations. Our staff are fully involved in preparing our business strategy and it remains the top item on our intranet.

We know how important it is to keep hold of our talented workforce if we are to continue to grow and build on our reputation for excellent service.”

That reputation is and has been a cornerstone of the business’ growth since its launch in Bradford in 1995 by founder and Technical Director Ashley Woodman.

“I joined the business in 2006 having been involved informally for a number of years. I started out as a customer and liked the results we achieved”, says Fox.

“Growth had been organic and based mostly on referrals, which is always great business to get. We’re determined to build on to that for growth but we are concentrating on improving our sales and marketing proposition as well because we know that our brand of service will be attractive to large organisations across the world.

“We have stretching growth targets but they are realistic. We won’t go down the route of growing so fast that we ruin what made the company work so well in the first place. Too many businesses do just that and we won’t make that mistake.” says Fox.

The SME market remains central to SICL’s expansion, especially businesses in the M62 corridor.

“This year our staff have visited more countries than ever before. So whilst we’ll continue to expand our traditional customer base we’ll also look to build our portfolio of larger companies and push geographical boundaries.”

The 90-minute language lessons after work will help with that plan.

“We already have people who speak Hungarian, Russian and French but we wanted to offer something more for our staff.

They are very clever people and they want to keep on learning. That’s a principle that underpins our business and we know it will stand us in good stead over the coming 12 months.” Fox concludes.