Bath, UK, November 2023.
Gradwell reaches a significant milestone this November, celebrating 25 years in the industry.
Since its formation in 1998 by founder Peter Gradwell, the business has grown into one of the UKs leading suppliers, serving over 9,000 UK customers with hosted voice and connectivity solutions. Life started out for the company in the web hosting business, expanding into telecoms due to their own requirements to work more effectively, as Peter explains,
“We were building the backends and providing hosting for websites and wanted to create a phone system that would enable our remote team to communicate with each other. So, we thought “let’s try and do this ourselves using the internet.” Once we had built our own phone system, we showed our web hosting customers, and the response was “this is great.” That’s where our first customers came from.”
The crucial nature of the services Gradwell provides for customers was not lost on Peter, and this inspired the team to continually innovate.
“We quickly understood from customers that they used our system to receive calls from their customers to make and manage transactions for their business – e.g. taking a booking or completing a sale. Any issues with that technology can stop our customers serving theirs, so this motivated us to make the technology better for them”.
Over the years, the business has grown through pioneering innovative VoIP technology. The business now employs a growing team of developers from the Bath office, who are focused on improving the in-house platform which includes Wave, SIP, and billing capabilities. Many of the early team members have now been with the business for over a decade, something Peter is extremely proud of,
“One of the things I am most proud of is the workforce I created before I left Gradwell. Initially, the workload was 24×7 but we grew the team to a point where I could take some time out, come back and everything had continued to run successfully and without drama. We created a loyal workforce using homegrown talent, so the business could run day-to-day, and customers were serviced well by the team. Getting to that point was a real milestone.”
Gradwell have continued their growth in recent years through acquisition, most recently adding Leeds-based The Technology Group (TTG) to the business. Together, they are now one of the leading 3CX vendors in the UK, and are looking ahead to continued growth in the future, CEO Jamie Ward explains,
“I’m thrilled to be part of the Gradwell team as we celebrate our 25th anniversary. We’re a company that was born in the cloud; early innovators with a long history of delivering new and exciting VoIP technology for our customers. Following the addition of TTG to the group AND with further planned acquisitions in the new year, the business is committed to achieving both organic and inorganic growth. I am particularly excited about the continued development of our own in-house platform which incorporates our UCaaS product Wave, SIP and billing capabilities. Thanks to the hard work of our proactive team and the trust of our customers, we’re excited for the next 25 years in the industry. The best is yet to come!
