A Lincolnshire IT business – which started life in a understairs cupboard – is celebrating its 21st anniversary.
LCS IT Solutions has grown from a one-man band to a business employing 10 people – and it continues to focus heavily on future expansion.
Today the busy specialist, whose staff work on a hybrid basis, is based in professional premises in Washingborough from where it services micro enterprises, SMEs of all sizes and also supports a range of schools.
Celebrating its achievements, Managing Director Anthony Bryant said: “Thinking back, the business had a rather Harry Potter-esque start in life, but our brand of magic must have worked, when I stop and realise where we have got to today!”
After being made redundant in July 2002, Anthony and his wife Claire headed down to the pub, then camped out overnight, whilst mulling over their next move.
That September Anthony, a former IT manager with a large muti-national company, immediately started work on creating the LCS brand from scratch despite never having had any experience in brand creation.
In 2006, the fledgling venture switched up a gear. Anthony moved his business into a spare bedroom and Claire joined him to help with the rising number of accounts. It was a busy time all round as this tied in with the arrival of their first son, Louie. His brother Charlie was born two years later.
By 2012, with the arrival of surprise son number three, Ted, the Bryant family had run out of bedrooms! LCS IT had also grown to employ four people, so it was time to find a new home for the business and they rented a little office nearby, in Washingborough.
By 2015, further success led the firm to relocate to its current home in the village. Claire said that the fact that it is straight opposite the local pub is “pure coincidence!” That milestone also saw the couple tweak their business’s name to LCS IT Solutions, to reflect its growing range of services.
2020 turned out to be a memorable year for every company as Covid breezed in and acted as a major disruptor. In common with others, LCS IT Solutions examined the way in which it was working and took action to ensure it could continue supporting and delivering to clients during what ran into several lockdowns.
“We responded by getting all of our clients up and running from home – and that entailed working with over 1,000 users. Sadly, our own team members were also forced to work remotely for the best part of the year,” said Anthony.
“In line with the way in which hundreds of companies are still working today, we organised two Teams meetings each day to catch-up with everyone and keep our staff fully in the loop about the latest developments,” said Claire.
“We are still doing that today and, depending on the individual needs of individual staff, hybrid working continues to be the way forward.”
LCS IT’s core services include IT support, project management, consultancy, Cyber Security and managed telephone services.
“The technological developments since we started out are massive. The largest growing area is Cyber Crime, but we are proud to be Cyber Essentials Accredited,” said Claire.
“We’ve been building a close working relationship with the police and the East Midlands Cyber Crime Unit who were our partners in an educational event we ran for clients earlier this year.
“We are keen to keep educating our clients, which is why we constantly create new resource they can use to educate their staff in ways to help safeguard against hacking attempts.”
