It’s been an exciting last year at Techbuyer despite the challenges we all faced in 2021. As the year draws to a close, we are proud to have continued to grow, to invest in and develop our team globally, whilst serving more customers than ever before.
In Part One of our 2021 round-up, we’re highlighting our latest advancements and what they mean to our customers. Meanwhile Part Two will focus on the wider Techbuyer Group, including Ortial, Interact and the newly launched Techbuyer Enterprise Solutions.
As we move into 2022, we will continue to develop and provide industry-leading services, outstanding technical support, and value-driven products and solutions to ensure we’ll always be on hand to provide you with the sustainable IT solutions, you have come to expect and rely on.
Winning awards and breaking growth records is exciting but our focus, as always, is on you, our customers. Here are just some of our achievements this year, and the impact they deliver for our clients.
Our increased capacity to hold larger stock levels
Our ability to hold a large quantity of stock has always distinguished us from similar businesses and 2021 has seen us consolidate this strength further, with our facilities and team growing around the world.
We have moved into new, larger warehousing facilities in France, Australia and the US, allowing us to heighten our stock levels and availability in Europe, APAC and across the Atlantic.
Despite successive lockdowns and the challenges of Brexit, our ability to continue to adapt and advance in physical size over the course of the year means that the stock we can offer our customers is now bigger and more varied than ever before!
This physical growth in multiple global locations means that we are able to reduce lead times for your deliveries and supply what you need where and when you need it.
This ability to expand our stock capacity will continue to play a vital role in offering our customers the best possible experience when working with us.
Anticipating changing circumstances & meeting customer needs
We recognise that all customers’ needs are different, and what they require from their IT infrastructure is unique to them. However, there will always be industry and technological trends to consider, and our technical expertise allows us to anticipate and advise our customers on these changes.
This year we have seen a shift to more virtualisation in the technology sector due to the pressures caused by the continuing pandemic. Simultaneously, lead times on new equipment have become longer, leaving many purchasers of new equipment waiting for stock. With shipping difficulties and chip shortages, worldwide lockdowns, and the effects of Brexit, the lead times on brand-new technology have continued to increase.
To combat this, we’ve worked with our customers to understand their business needs and maintained a ready supply of high-quality refurbished technology solutions, ensuring that accessible equipment was always available.
In contrast, the refurbished market was largely unaffected by the impact of these events. As a result, refurbished servers, laptops, PCs, phones, and more are becoming ever more popular, and we have seen a huge shift in attitudes towards second-hand technology as a result.
Because of our investment and understanding of the refurbished market, combined with our ability to hold large quantities of stock, we’ve played a central role in helping many businesses and individuals keep operating smoothly during this period. We have minimised disruption by making sure the equipment they needed was right where they needed, with same or next day delivery to most of our customers across the UK.
We’ve also spotted other key trends over the course of the year. For example, we’ve seen an increase in customers looking for memory modules for their servers. With more employees working remotely, companies were finding that they need to upgrade their server capacity and performance to meet the demand on their technology.
It’s a positive shift to see businesses around the world looking to perform component level upgrades on their equipment rather than replacing entire devices! This shift in approach not only extends the product lifespan but it can massively maximise an IT budget.
During this time, we’ve also moved to seven-day customer support throughout the UK. As a Techbuyer customer, we’ll never leave you to face IT problems alone, with our technical and customer support open to all of our UK clients seven days a week!
We’re incredibly proud that despite these global challenges we’ve been able to help our customers meet technology difficulties head-on and keep working towards their business objectives.
New features and services
2021 saw Techbuyer introduce a range of new in-house features focused on delivering maximum customer satisfaction, including our new spray paint shop. This service ensures our refurbished equipment looks as good as it performs, ensuring that all our refurbished products have a high-quality feel.
Our HPE Server Configuration Tool was launched in 2020, however, this feature was adapted and improved upon in 2021 to enhance the service offered to our customers. This software allows our clients to design their own HPE server to meet their exact business needs. By selecting individual components, each customer can choose bespoke server capabilities and performance for an individual server solution for your organisation.
Many customers struggle to know which networking device is the best fit for their needs. Techbuyer’s networking switch selector was launched earlier this year helps our customers choose their ideal networking device, and purchase their equipment with confidence. The tool allows you to choose the features you need from your networking device and narrows down our stock to devices that meet your individual needs.
The networking switch selector saves you time, effort, and money on your computer network!
The launch of new features and services presents our customers with a unique selection of solutions to meet every IT need.
2021 Awards - A year of Achievement
Awards played a big part of our year in 2021 and we were thrilled to be nominated and recognised amongst some of the biggest names in the technology sector!
This year saw our business nominated for a range of different awards in a variety of categories, and we are happy to say that we won a few along the way! We were honoured to be presented with the Queen's Award for Enterprise for International Trade which was awarded to us in 2020.
Autumn 2021 saw Techbuyer win a Gold Stevie Award for Company of the Year at the International Business Awards and presented with the Sustainable IT Organisation of the Year Award at the UK IT Industry Awards too!
Our awards and nominations demonstrate our commitment to strive for excellence in the technology sector and provide industry-leading, value-driven, sustainable IT solutions for the benefit of all our customers.
Sustainability at the heart of all we do
Our commitment to providing sustainable solutions sits at the very core of everything we do at Techbuyer. 2021 was truly the year of sustainability for Techbuyer! Following on from our success in this area in 2020 we continue to create a more sustainable business model for ourselves, as well as advise where other companies can do the same with their technology.
We attended events around the world, both virtually and in-person, spreading the message of a circular IT economy and sustainability in the IT industry. We also launched our sustainability report for 2021 in November of this year, outlining the areas that we have grown, and those that we continue to work hard on to improve.
In 2020 we dedicated our business to support three of the seventeen Global Goals set by the UN. The goals that resonated most with our business were: Good Health and Wellbeing, Quality Education, and Responsible Consumption and Production. We have set our own personal goals in each of these areas to help the world towards a more sustainable future.
A key example of our work towards the Global Goals was the implementation of a new foam packaging across our UK facilities. We worked with our packaging supplier to develop Eco Strata, a foam packaging solution that is developed from 70 per cent recycled materials and is also 100 per cent recyclable for our customers.
We are proud of the effort that our team has put in to improve their facilities and environment for the good of the planet. For example, the German team got their hands dirty on World Clean-up Day 2021 to clear their streets of rubbish!
Being sustainable with your technology is accomplished by making mindful decisions when it comes to your devices, whether that be in terms of purchasing technology, maintaining your devices, or disposing of used IT. We are committed to helping every customer make the sustainable choice with their IT and we can offer a unique range of services you may not have realised are available to you, to achieve this!
Part Two
2021 has been a busy year, full of developments, and success; so busy, in fact, that we couldn’t fit it all into a single article! In part two we will be taking a deeper look into the growth of all companies that fall under the Techbuyer Group umbrella, as well as some select, core areas of our business.
Values driven success
In a recent podcast our founder and CEO, Kevin Towers, talks about how Techbuyer started, how exactly the company got to where it is now and what the future looks like for the sustainable technology industry. Our people-centric view has always been a cornerstone of our business’s success and development; we want to help our employees to become their best selves, we recognise passion, we promote teamwork, fairness and honesty, and we offer support for continuous development.
As Kev says: “There is no point in having huge growth if you do not have a happy team because at some point the wheels fall off. I very much, personally, look to make sure that we have a happy team in place that fuels growth.”
Caring for and building excellent relationships with our employees has paved the way for our growth. Listen to the full podcast below.
Photo by Alexandre Debiève on Unsplash
