A long-established company which provides IT support and solutions to 150 businesses is expanding operations into Portsmouth and Southampton.
Weald, headquartered in East Sussex and founded nearly 30 years ago by Mike Nelson and Barry St John Poulton, is the latest firm to sign up to a serviced office at Portsmouth Technopole.
Nick Simon, Weald’s customer success manager for Hampshire, said: “Our customer base has very much been in Sussex, stretching as far west as Chichester, and the time is now right to expand operations further west into the city regions of Portsmouth and Southampton.”
The firm, which has 21 full-time staff across East and West Sussex and Hampshire, acts as the internal IT department for small-to-medium enterprises, including accountants, law firms, media companies, charities and manufacturers.
Customers include accountants Knill James, for 20 years, Welland Medical, a manufacturer of medical consumables, for 15 years, and sparkling wine producer Ridgeview, for 10 years.
Nick said: “With our new base at Portsmouth Technopole, which has a buzzing entrepreneurial atmosphere, Weald is ideally located to develop a Hampshire customer base and complement our activities in our traditional heartland of Sussex.
“Our focus in Portsmouth and Southampton will be on doing what our 150 clients tell us we do best – providing fully tailored IT support services, with professional and proactive support.
“In essence, acting as the mission-critical IT department but without the salaried in-house cost of an IT team.”
Richard May is the innovation director at Portsmouth Technopole, which is located at Kingston Crescent, just off the M275 gateway to the city, and is utilised by nearly 60 businesses.
His role is to provide advisory support, at no extra cost, to business owner occupiers with strategic advice, impactful introductions and ecosystem development.
Richard said: “Weald is a great example of a long-established IT business which is financially strong, looks after its clients and does what it says it will do.
“Every growing business will be faced with the decision to expand core services or products into new territories and or develop new offerings for existing or new customers. Some fail to take action and just tick along. Weald has chosen to grow into a new territory.
“By setting up an office at Portsmouth Technopole, they get local introductions to partners and customers in our well-organised ecosystem, making entry into a new territory less risky.
“Yet being an innovation centre, they will naturally be challenged and supported to consider new offerings as well.”
Weald, a Microsoft Cloud Solution Partner and Office 365 specialist, is a business-focused IT company, committed to helping clients extract maximum business value and competitive advantage from technology.
Portsmouth Technopole supports Weald with telephone answering and message services, reception services, mail handling, use of meeting and conference rooms and providing access to networking events and business support.
Owned by the University of Portsmouth, the centre is managed by Oxford Innovation, which runs 24 innovation centres across the country on behalf of freeholders and investors, with the emphasis on supporting start-ups and early-stage firms.
There are more than 1,000 businesses across all the centres.
