25 Years of Connexis

This month Connexis is 25 years old! As part of our celebration of this anniversary we look back at the early days of Connexis, or as we were known then Connexion Solutions.

Connexis Ltd was founded by William Rowland and incorporated on 19th November
1997. He had just left his position as Regional Sales Manager at a major telecoms
company to set up his own business. As with most businesses Connexis was
started at William’s home over the dining room table, with little capital and no
resource, he was both the only salesman and only engineer.

In March 1998, we moved into our first offices at Grosvenor House, Central Park,
Telford, just down the road from where we are now, and in 1999 we rebranded as
Connexis. In March 2004, we moved to Pearson Road, Central Park, Telford, where
the business still resides to this day.

“Looking back now, they were interesting times! I’d become frustrated with corporate
life, which although secure and financially rewarding didn’t fulfil my ambitions. With
plenty of energy and determination I knew I could make a success of starting my
own business. And I can honestly say in the earlier years Connexis has had blood,
sweat and tears from me. But year on year we have grown steadily, and every year
bar the first we have traded cash positively and never carried any debt.” says
William.

In 2009, I joined the Connexis team as our first apprentice via TCAT (Telford College
of Arts & Technology). Since then, we’ve taken further apprentices in partnership
with Telford College, as well as recruiting seasoned professionals with the relevant
skill sets.

The first product we sold was a Lucent Technologies (now Avaya) system, and they
were our only supplier. Technology has moved on a lot since then, but we’re still an
Avaya partner, supplying and installing the latest Avaya technology, but along with a
broad portfolio of products from a variety of global manufacturers, including LG-
Ericsson, Wildix, WatchGuard, Zyxel, and Network Service providers including
Openreach, Gamma Telecom, TalkTalk Business and VoiceFlex.

The focus of the business has always been regional small-medium enterprise
business as a target market, offering leading edge Telecoms & IT solutions. When
Connexis started analogue or digital communication was the only option and the
Internet wasn’t really known about, let alone used in general business
communication. Today it’s all about the Internet & VoIP (Voice over Internet
Protocol). Voice was the only medium then while today it’s voice, video, SMS (text)
and everything in real time. Security has also become an even bigger issue,
especially when communicating via the Internet, as everything is in business these
days.

William still works within the business today, no longer with any engineering
responsibility, that is now down to me and my team. In the early years William’s wife
Cheryl handled Finance & Admin however she no longer works within the business.
Amanda Stevens is now Head of Finance & Administration.