Dec 2023
A year in Waterstons
2023. The year that Taylor Swift ruled the stage, everyone was asking if they were Ken-ough, and King Charles III’s Coronation was watched live by over 18 million viewers worldwide.
The past 12 months also brought developments in AI, some serious cyber attacks across the globe, and plenty of updates when it comes to using tech to better businesses across every sector.
At Waterstons, it’s been a very busy year – check out what we’ve been up to since January:
- Growing our client base by almost 45%
- Welcoming 61 new employees
- Increasing sales 10% year on year to a forecasted £28 million
- To focus on supporting key industries, we appointed Sector Principals to support the social housing, higher education, private equity, AEC and manufacturing sectors
- Being shortlisted in nine awards including Woman of the Year and Innovation of the Year at the Cyber Security Awards, and Employer of the Year (250+) at the Investors in People Awards
- To ensure we’re at the forefront of new technology, we created our Innovation Team (sign up to their weekly substack here to find out what they’re getting up to)
- Jessica Hall winning Young Digital and Technology Professional of the Year at the North East Young Professionals Awards 2023, taking the title from our own Keira Hall
- We retained our Investors in People Gold accreditation for another three years
- INGENUITY, our software hackathon with Teesside University entered its second year
- Team members Helen, Lora and Shannon were appointed to charity boards across the UK
- Data scientist and Innovation Consultant, Andrew Blance, was invited to speak at the Databricks Data + AI summit in San Francisco
- We welcomed over 50 tech experts to our office to host the Women in Tech June meetup
- Adam Lisik, Head of Software Operations and Automation, was named in the DL100 list
- Shared monthly detailed cyber security insights through our Cyber Threat Landscape Report, offering advice for businesses and learning from attacks worldwide (make sure you receive this direct to your inbox here)
CEO Michael shares his thoughts on the year:
“This year has taught us many things, and I’m proud of the whole team for getting where we are today.
“We were concerned to be above the industry average for employee turnover, but we’ve hugely invested in recruitment, and putting people first, to reduce this by almost 8%. We’re now focusing on softer skills as well as technical expertise across all areas of the business to ensure we can truly get to know our clients to help solve their business problems. It also means we can start to push our clients to be more innovative, try new things, and work with us to be at the forefront of new technologies that otherwise may not be considered.
“Part of our people investment is the Trusted Advisor programme. Something we’re encouraging all our team to get involved with so, no matter what area of the organisation, we can support each other and our clients in the same way.
“Ultimately, this year we have cemented our goal and our purpose to translate business problems into technical solutions that help organisations to grow, add value and thrive.
“As we head into 2024, and our 30th anniversary year, I’m looking forward to seeing newer and younger members of the team flourish in their roles, bring fresh ideas to the table, and understanding how the Waterstons of the past can inform the Waterstons of the future.”
If you have any questions about what we’ve been up to this year, how we could support your organisation, or ideas on how we can use technology to solve your business problems, get in touch at info@waterstons.com