One of Scotland’s leading independent IT companies, prosource.it, has announced that turnover for its last financial year has increased to just under £11million – an improvement of more than 50% on the past twelve months and an impressive 130% on the past 24 months. Profits are also said to have similarly increased to £2.5million for the past twelve months. This dramatic increase in business is being cited by company executives as testament to its year-on-year 95%+ staff retention rate and its strategic approach to tackling the industry wide skills shortage crisis.
This extraordinary expansion has resulted from the consistent and steady growth of the UK economy for the past five years, the result of which has seen industry demands on the IT sector reaching an all time high. As a result, the IT industry is now facing major demand and supply issues, with a current IT skills shortage now said to be reaching crisis levels. According to figures published in The Times online, the UK is facing a shortage of some 39,500 people, which represents an average skills gap of 9.3%.
Prosource.it says its key to success in these challenging times has been a combination of comprehensive people management strategy, the development of a unique company culture and sophisticated forward planning, the results of which have brought the company impressive financial and professional benefits.
Commenting on the company’s success, Personnel Director, Craig Adams, said: “prosource.it is a business focussed and people sensitive organisation. Since our inception in 2003, we have carefully built and reviewed our business strategy to reflect and deliver on both external market and internal staff demands in equal measure. In an industry that relies heavily on the availability of specialist staff with global standard skill-sets, our goal is to create an attractive and productive work environment that industry professionals can gravitate towards and enjoy working within.”
Prosource.it employs a workforce of more than 150 dedicated IT professionals servicing 20 corporate clients. The importance of staff management, client consistency and ongoing service excellence are not underestimated by company executives. Prosource.it’s client portfolio spans the oil and gas, financial services, transport, manufacturing and media sectors, and includes seven FTSE100 companies. Customers are said to have expressed their satisfaction through the reward of long term repeat business with the Aberdeen based company.
In an environment where clients are consuming more IT services and demanding more from the people delivering them, service companies like prosource.it know that they must attract, develop and retain the best people at all levels. Career development timelines are being accelerated – and IT companies in general are obliged to invest heavily in training, coaching and mentoring to equip individuals with the right technical and professional skills.
Prosource.it adopts a proactive recruitment approach, recruiting speculatively ahead of demand, allowing it to fulfil customer requirements with vetted and inducted staff. It is currently recruiting an average of four staff per month, with many new staff stating that their reasons for joining the company are the superior industry reputation in the area of staff benefits and training. Recruitment is predominantly via personal referrals and targeted selection without the use of advertising or recruitment agencies.
The company currently invests £10,000 per month on staff training and expects this figure to grow to double in the next twelve months, equating to around 5% of its net employment costs. The company’s open minded and pro-active training and recruitment policy is supported by an impressive portfolio of employee benefits, including financial transparency; share options (all staff who have been with prosource.it for more than twelve months hold share options in the company); health cover and regular results orientated staff promotion – in a fast growing environment on average 40% of the workforce are promoted each year.
Two thirds of the workforce are educated to degree level, 90% of those who were with prosource.it five years ago remain with the company and, over all, 41% started their IT careers at the company.
Explaining
further, Commercial Director, Stewart Proctor, said: “A shortage of skills
and an inability to exploit technology to maximum benefit prevents companies
from innovating, which hinders not only the individual company but the UK’s
overall productivity and economic prosperity. At prosource.it we can confidently
provide the finest IT professionals to our clients on a reliable and consistent
basis, a promise few other companies either in the UK or elsewhere can make
at this time. We look forward to continued growth and, ultimately, a very profitable
future for our growing and dynamic team.”
