Excellence IT puts its future in employee hands with ownership transition

Excellence IT, one of Wales’ leading managed service providers of IT support to SMEs, has transitioned into employee ownership.

The business was set up by Andrew Beer and Andy Green in 2002, after they worked together in various departments at Hewlett Packard in Bristol, before leaving and setting up Excellence IT together to offer small businesses outsourced IT support.

Since then, the business has grown to a staff of 20 from its base in Pontygwindy Road, Caerphilly, and works with large Welsh businesses such as Halo Foods, Edwards Coaches and Cwmpas by supporting their IT services.

Excellence IT is one of the first Managed Service Providers in Wales to transition to an EOT in recent years.

Co-founder Andrew Beer said: “Andy and I now feel that it’s time to pass the baton of our company to the younger generation within the business and for us, after examining all the other options, we felt that an employee ownership trust (EOT) business model was the best move for us.

“There has been an increased trend in the IT service industry for smaller businesses to be consolidated into bigger companies, and so a trade sale didn’t appeal to us.  We were concerned that all of our big contracts would be swallowed up and could risk Excellence staff losing their jobs – something that we really didn’t want to happen as we want to keep those skilled jobs in Wales.”

Andy Green added: “We were also concerned about the customer service that our clients would receive from a larger managed service provider. We work with a lot of small businesses and many in the third sector, and pride ourselves on a one-to-one approach, but if we were bought out then we might lose that, and we didn’t want our customers’ loyalty rewarded with bad service.

“That’s the way our sector is going unfortunately, with smaller businesses being taken over by much larger organisations, and customers being frustrated by the lack of customer service they receive. Some of our clients, such as Edwards Coaches, have been with us since 2008 and so we want to look after them.”

Andrew and Andy have no immediate plans to leave the company and it will be very much business as usual, but did say that eventually, in three to five years they would start stepping back and let the younger members of the team progress into management roles.

Andy Beer explained: “There are no plans to take our foot off the gas just yet, we want to ensure that this transition into employee ownership works for all and secures the future of the business. That is our priority right now.

“The move has been received positively by many in the business, although there was some uncertainty initially, having learned more about the benefits of employee ownership the team is now fully on board and is excited about the future, just as we are.”

Excellence IT’s EOT board comprises of Operations and HR Director Anne Beer, Finance Administrator Emma Vaughan and independent trustee Chris Simpson, former Director at Business Doctors.

Darwin Grey and Berry Smith provided legal advice to Excellence IT and its founders on the business’ transition.  Azets also advised Andrew and Andy on the commercial side of the deal, while Social Business Wales, delivered by Cwmpas, helped it through the process from start to finish.

The Employee Ownership Wales service from Cwmpas is part of Social Business Wales and of the Business Wales family, both funded by Welsh Government.

Branwen Ellis, specialist EO Consultant for Cwmpas, said: “It was great to work with the team on their transition into employee ownership in Wales.

“Andrew and Andy had a clear vision for the future of the business, that included them in the medium term, but with the view that to secure Excellence IT’s future, as well as that of its employees, it had to make provision for its future management and ownership. That’s exactly what they have done with this EOT and it’s a perfect fit for Excellence IT.”

Of Cwmpas’ support Andrew added: “Whilst we were aware of EOTs, we didn’t completely understand the process until our conversations began properly with Cwmpas. Branwen made the whole process so straightforward. She’s been with us every step of the way answering our endless questions and helping our team understand what it means to them and how they will be able contribute. I’m not sure we would’ve known where to start without her support and we are very grateful.”