About

Like many founders, Nick and Andy had big dreams when they started ITexpress, and wanted to become the next Dell. However, starting with only £1500 and also at a time when it seemed almost everyone had upgraded their computers for the 2000 bug, it soon became apparent that this wouldn’t happen overnight!

As Nick and Andy were both talented management accountants, it wasn’t long before businesses started to approach ITexpress to help them with problems other than hardware, including accounting and payroll software, and also some bespoke programming. By looking after these customers we managed to grow our business through those early years

A significant event happened in 2003 when Andy was contracted by Yorkshire Forward as an IT consultant for the Rennaissance Market Towns project. Andy worked on projects in the Upper Calder Valley, the Colne Valley, and also Skipton and Settle. ITexpress also ran a number of IT pilot projects for Yorkshire Forward, helping small businesses with IT and marketing, and also helping farmers diversify using the internet for additional income streams.

During this period of time ITexpress started reselling various software packages from Access Accounts and Goldmine, and moved into new offices where we could provide better training and a more business focussed environment. We grew headcount to 10 and also became Gold Resellers on ebay, turning over £250,000 per year through internet sales alone, although it has to be said ebay was the only company making a profit from that relationship! Looking back, it’s almost as if ITexpress was in Business School during this time, trying all sorts of products and following everyone else’s dreams, without really spending enough time on our own brand. They call this ‘muddling through’.

On our tenth anniversary we took stock of what we had achieved and learnt, and made a number of decisions. We stopped selling hardware over the internet and decided to use our internet experience by helping our customers with their websites and web marketing. We acquired a Payroll Outsourcing company and made Payroll one of our core products, dropping the accounting and crm software products. We also stopped doing outside consultancy for other organisations, deciding instead to focus on our own customer base. Finally, we also looked at our software development skills, bringing them into line with the new world of internet and mobile technology.

Our plans for the future are now to expand our business through our four core specialities, and by ensuring that we can consistently provide great service and simple solutions, faster than anyone else in our industry. Once we have cracked that particular conundrum, we aim to replicate it across the region and nationally.