One of Wales’ leading IT consultancies has announced details of record year-on-year growth, with the company’s turnover on track to double in size over the course of 12 months.
The turnover of Newport-headquartered Certus Technology Group is expected to reach £9.5 million by the end of its financial year December 2015 compared to £4.2 million last year.
In the past four years, the company has increased its turnover by 400%, making it one of Wales’ fastest-growing technology consultancies.
Certus TG, which also has offices in Hemel Hempstead and Warrington, now employs 70 members of staff – 40 of whom are based in Newport. As part of its growth ambitions, the group will be creating 30 new jobs over the next three years, thanks to a £240,000 repayable business grant from the Welsh Government. The jobs, which will be based in Wales and distributed through all areas of the business – including technical, sales and marketing – will be advertised over the next 18 months.
Economy Minister Edwina Hart said: “It’s good to see a company working in one of our key economic sectors is experiencing such significant growth and winning new business. I am pleased the Welsh Government is supporting its expansion and helping to create a range of new jobs.”
The group’s growth has mainly been fuelled by the acquisition of Sage solutions provider, Warrington-based Ensphere Consulting earlier this year. In a deal worth £2 million, Certus TG has been able to extend its IT support and data centre offerings to cover the full spectrum of enterprise Sage software solutions, as well as its geographical reach.
Another boost was winning a major contract with software developers, Careworks, to provide data storage and infrastructure support for its new all-Wales CareDirector Community Care Information Solution (CCIS). In the largest, enterprise-class infrastructure project that Certus TG has delivered to date, the information system will be rolled out throughout Wales over the next three years across 29 NHS local health boards and council social services departments, in a project that has been funded by the Welsh Government to the tune of £6.7 million.
Nigel Griffiths, chief operating officer of Certus TG, said: “This has been an incredibly exciting and successful year here at Certus TG. The acquisition of Ensphere was an important milestone in our expansion strategy and has helped us to increase our geographical footprint and service offering.
“The Careworks contract win was a noteworthy achievement and, together with some other recent successes, contributed to a 15% growth in our business and the recruitment of an additional six staff.
“We’re really excited about growing the business further, and look forward to welcoming an additional 30 new recruits over the next 18 months thanks to support from the Welsh Government. This will enable Certus TG to maintain its position at the cutting edge of the technology sector”.
Certus TG provides more than 200 clients across the UK with infrastructure and services – ranging from managed IT support and security to advanced storage solutions, cloud services and desktop virtualisation.
To cope with the expansion and new recruits, Certus TG is undergoing a £100,000 office refurbishment to make better use of space
This year, Certus TG launched a new data security software package, known as C-Assure, which aims to safeguard computers against all elements of data loss, which can cost the UK economy £6.8 billion a year, and provide on-going data protection through off-site cloud backup.
As part of its commitment to quality, Certus TG has also been awarded the prestigious Dell Premier Partner Status – the highest level of Dell’s Partner Direct programme. This is awarded to select companies who have demonstrated the highest level of commitment to their customers and to Dell solutions. Working with Dell at this level allows Certus TG to offer clients a higher level of service in addition to on-going support.
Certus TG is headquartered at Celtic Springs near Newport and was founded in 2001. Current clients include the Millennium Stadium, Freshwater, Broomfield & Alexander, Premier Global, Julian Hodge Bank, Tenovus and Watts Gregory LLP.