From start to finish 2018 has been a whirlwind of activity, we just don’t know where the year has gone. It is always good to look back on what has been achieved over the last 12 months to see how far we’ve come as a business and a team, so here are our 2018 highlights.

In February we received national recognition and were amongst Property Week’s Top 50 Best Places to work in Property. Some of our team went down to the awards ceremony at The Brewery, London, where we got to hobnob with and be amongst many other property industry greats.

The awards theme continued into March, when we heard that we’d been shortlisted in the ‘Let’s Grow’ category of the Teesside Heat of the North East Business Awards. Unfortunately, on this occasion, we were not announced as category winners. It was a strong category and we were up against market leaders Quorn Foods and MotorVise Automotive, we were extremely proud to have been shortlisted.

In April we learnt that we were in the Financial Times’ Top 1000 Fastest Growth Businesses in Europe for the second year in a row. On closer examination of the list, we found that we were the fasted ranked in the Tech Sector within the North East and one of only two companies in the Tees Valley to have made the list.

The summer was a busy time too. We saw our Cyber Security division, Landscape, being incorporated into the Communicate brand and we received a £500k investment from NPIF - FW capital to enable us to expand our services into additional buildings and create new jobs.

We received a visit from Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen too. Ben took the time out of his busy schedule to speak with us about our growth plans and aspirations for the future, and also spoke with our apprentice, Jordan Woollett.

We expanded our Wynyard team in August with the appointment of Client Manager, Wayne Russell, to support our existing and future growth plans.

In October we were included in the FT Future 100 UK list in the ‘Consistent Growth’ category. The feature stemmed from the FT’s Top 1000 and focused on finding fast growing UK companies that ‘are also making an impact on their industry, or wider society.’

Our team expansion continued into Autumn with the appointments of two team members for our Cyber division. The first to join was Jon Fisher, who was appointed as Cyber Sales Manager. He was swiftly followed by Cyber Sales Director, David Johnson. Both David and Jon have been brought in to help to grow our Cyber Security division and help to develop our support services, which are high in demand.

We have continued our support of the Scarborough & Ryedale Mountain Rescue Team to provide them with funds to help them to purchase much needed vital emergency equipment.

Our team made us very proud throughout the year too. Colworth Park manager, Andrew Archibald, received some glowing feedback from new client HMY Group for his work on their new office move and our Kent manager, Mark Styles, took part in the inaugural ‘Halloween Downwinder’ to raise monies for the RNLI.

Other highlights include the connection of 20 buildings across the UK, featuring in the North East Times magazine ‘Building the Future’ issue, exhibiting at IP Expo, Tees Valley Business Summit and MIPIM UK.

So, as you can see, it has been quite a year. We’d like to wish all our clients and contacts a very Merry Christmas and here’s to a very successful 2019!