Bowland IT founded in 2013, has announced a whopping 200% growth in the past twelve months with vision to grow by a further 300% in the next twelve months. The company that was founded from the boot of an estate car, has now obtained a 1000 sq foot office premises on the prestigious Padiham based Industrial Estate, Shuttleworth Mead.
The business has managed to achieve this growth by focusing their offering to three core sections; IT Support, Telecoms and WIFI systems. Bowland IT have recently onboarded two new large contract clients, covering IT Support, Cloud Storage and Data Backup, VOIP Telephone System, Leased Lines, Fibre Broadband, Cyber Security, and Microsoft 365 services.
2022 has been a year of fantastic news for our Directors Oliver Alcock and Jenna Healey, announcing their news on a new born son due to join them in 2022. Oliver says The timing that has happened this year couldn’t have been better, we have built a fantastic team of staff, the company has grown significantly and baby Alcock is soon to join us also. I am looking forward to seeing more magic happen within the next twelve months. I would just like to thank our team, together we couldn’t have achieved what we have without each other.
Bowland IT have just been selected as one of four partners to join a multi million pound partnership with Faster Britain to provide the area of Burnley with dedicated Business broadband, with the scheme recently securing a £100m investment to roll out dedicated business fibre networks throughout the UK.
We are blessed as a company to have such a fantastic team, managed by Dan Thompson our head of IT services. Dan joined us during covid as an engineer, and due to his persistence to drive the business forward, together we have achieved this fantastic growth.
Our plans over the next twelve month is to continue building solid partnerships with the right service partners, recruit quality team players and continue onboarding clients. Oliver says; Some may say we are in competition with so many different big fish companies causing us to be in a tight market. This isn’t the case at all, as our clients will never be a number to us. This sounds contrary to the topic of this article, but we aren’t interested in rapid growth. If rapid growth happens, great! But we never want to sacrifice quality that our clients receive. It is also important to me that our team are always happy and as soon as they aren’t I want to know because to me my team are my family and I always make it clear from interview stage that our team members are not just a business asset to me.
So even though this article has suggested that rapid growth wasn’t our focus, how have we achieved this? Oliver says: This could appear to be quite a controversial answer to this question, but just like people are not right for each other in personal relationships, clients are not always the right fit for us as a business. If you see your business I.T. expenditure as a negative outgoing and not a profit tool, we probably aren’t the right IT company for you. Your IT systems should save you time, increase productivity and allow companies to stay on top of the game in their industry. These three aspects should increase company profitability and automatically cover your I.T. costs. If you hate the fact that IT is needed for your business to operate, and you aren’t willing to embrace IT systems to grow your company, we are most probably not the company for you.
Where does Bowland IT plan to go from here? Our vision is to recruit two new telecoms executives to join our team within the next twelve months, along with continue to build relationships with quality businesses throughout the UK. We have recently onboarded a sales executive who has joined our team to help us to continue to grow. Since also moving into Ribble Business Centre on Shuttleworth Mead, we have had fantastic support from Howard Rigg Properties (our landlords) who have promoted our services massively to their contacts.
Oliver started the company in the back bedroom of his first home in the centre of Burnley, whilst working for Ribble Valley Borough Council at the same time in the council’s IT department. The company has always been primarily a Ribble Valley firm, but due to lack of initial funds Oliver started the firm from his first home on St. John’s Road, Burnley. Oliver now lives with his fiancé (who is also Bowland IT’s Accounts Director) in Whalley, Clitheroe.
Oliver says; This journey has not been smooth, I risked everything in the early years of the business and even sacrificed having a home at one point, just so that I could have a business premises for a couple of years. The two biggest challenges have been finding the best team members, and finding the right business premises. Even though we are now located in Padiham, we have built a reputation to be known as a household name throughout the Ribble Valley. We wanted to stay located within our roots, but office space never became available with adequate car parking for our team members and our company vans and cars. We have now found our perfect location, giving us a large open plan space, board room facilities, communal work areas and our own video conference facilities for Teams and Zoom meetings.
Bowland IT have recently bought their first Smart Car vehicle which has been branded up, and has been spotted already by lots of people on the road. Previously having a fleet of vans, the company have now started to change their vehicle fleet to cars due to the difficulty of insuring team members under 25. The company graphics were carried out by TCB Designs in Burnley.
Bowland IT’s location is now perfectly located on the M65/A56 corridor giving ease of access to Clitheroe, Blackburn, Preston, Haslingden, Manchester, Burnley, Rawtenstall, Blackburn, Nelson, Colne, and all surrounding Lancashire and Manchester locations. The company shares the industrial estates with well known large company names such as Graham & Brown, Fagan Whalley and Wham (Whatmore).
Oliver says: We love our glass fronted modern building, which we share with some fantastic businesses. Having the support of fantastic landlords has been extremely helpful. Donna our business centre manager always greets our clients and visitors with a smile, first impressions always count and Ribble Business Centre certainly gives off a fantastic first impression.
Bowland IT have heavily focused on working with community causes over the past twelve months, supporting Burnley FC in The Community, The Salvation Army, Child Action North West, Clitheroe Rotary, Ribble Valley Foodbank and Clitheroe Wolves Football Club. Bowland IT have called their recent involvement ‘Our Community Focus’. Our Accounts Director, Jenna says: We are so grateful for everything that the community has done to help us grow our business, it’s now time we gave back. We have allocated funds to continue supporting the community, and also wish to continue donating refurbished IT products to The Salvation Army to help with the Job Clubs that they hold to help unemployed get back into work through giving them access to the internet.
