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INTERVIEW
TUNBRIDGE WELLS BUSINESS MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 2024
Meet the I.T. crowd...
Nick Brandon of tecwork tells Tunbridge Wells Business Magazine about his revolutionary I.T. & Telecoms business that puts the client first When did you start tecwork? It was established as a new brand in 2017. Previously, I had worked at another company, First Office Systems, who traded in Tunbridge Wells for 25 years. A few years ago it was purchased as part of a private equity acquisition and was swallowed up by a much larger company in 2016. Although we were all taken on by the new owners none of us really liked working for a much bigger company and so a few colleagues and I launched tecwork to fill the IT and Telecoms service gap that had been left as a result of First Office Systems going. Can you tell us about your business's key USPs? At tecwork we have replicated the ‘wow factor’ we had in the previous company - for which we won two Local Service Excellence Awards. We are proactive which is probably the opposite of most of our competitors, some of whom simply ‘take the money’ and might not build the customer relationships until it’s time to renew the contract.
LinkedIn. We can’t reveal too much about our future plans as it’s a long game but it’s certainly critical to keep doing a great job for our customers. Getting a good reputation takes time…getting a bad one, through bad service, takes around five minutes!
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In terms of telecoms, we know from 30 years’ experience, who to partner with. Our collaborators are all global, mainstream leaders in their fields
When it comes to providing stressfree and simple comms what’s your speciality? In terms of telecoms, we just know from 30 years’ experience, who to partner with. Our collaborators are all global, mainstream leaders in their fields. They include 3CX, Gamma, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services. The key is using those brilliant ingredients and adding a sprinkling of the aforementioned ‘wow factor’. In terms of a specialty, we don’t have one particular area we focus on apart from a geographic one. We like to keep it all as local as possible…
ideal client would be a professional firm or manufacturing business in Tunbridge Wells with 30 or so staff. We deal with some of the best-known local businesses and organisations in Tunbridge Wells and the surrounding area and a lot of less well-known ones too including charities, schools and quangos.
Can you give us an idea of some your clients? We try to keep really local so most of them are in a 30-mile radius of Tunbridge Wells. They range from one-person businesses and residential customers to companies with over 150 staff. Our
How have you grown your business to reach customers elsewhere? I guess just by being on the radar and doing a great job! We do get quite a few customers referred to us, so word of mouth is a great source. We are very active on social media - particularly on
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How many are in your team and are you looking to expand numbers? There are essentially five of us who work full-time and we also have one part-time person who helps with admin. We outsource some jobs and rely on our key partners to take the burden off us for much of the non-customer facing tasks such as bookkeeping and accounts etc. And yes, we will be looking to grow further. We very nearly hit the magic £1m turnover mark last year (we started from 0 in 2017), so I expect we will increase our tech team in the not-too-distant future. We are not interested in growing a sales team though. Do you feel the local business community is a collaborative one? I do, although having said that I am not a fan of the networking entities that meet weekly. I did that for years a long time ago but I can see how it works well for some sectors. I prefer to go to events that have no strict commitments, requirements or criteria, like enTWine, The Sevenoaks Chamber of Commerce and so on. Groups of people and friends in business that meet regularly on a more informal basis is my preference and I am involved with a few of those. What do you think tecwork brings to the local economic and tech landscape? I think we definitely offer something different. I think our people really do work at the coalface and have brilliant knowledge and expertise. Our people are the most important thing in our business – and they always will be. www.tecwork.co.uk
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