Brightec in 2024: Seasons of Growth and Change
As 2024 draws to a close, we take a moment to reflect on another incredible year at Brightec; one of growth, change, and preparation.
You might remember reading that at the end of 2023, Josh likened business to farming. How has that been growing for us?
Our vision for 2024 and beyond was categorised into four key pillars:
Relationships
Nurturing long-lasting relationships with our clients, partners and team members has always sat at the heart of Brightec.
With three of the team celebrating their 10 year anniversaries of working with Brightec, and another three marking their 5 years, we know we’re getting something right. From a day away in the woods testing our firemaking, shelter building and wood carving skills, to an away day exploring our individual strengths as a team and an evening of hot dogs and sparklers, this year has been overflowing with moments of fun and connection within the team.
There’s also been plenty of highs and froze with clients, including an ice bath challenge in a client’s office during a new business meeting with Monk, and a four day design sprint in Switzerland for Petlink.
A particular highlight this year was our first-ever client gathering; The Brightec Exchange. We brought together diverse perspectives from our amazing clients (and some good friends too) to share their wisdom and knowledge within e-commerce. Including:
Mark Plowright shared insight from Virgin Trains Ticketing; how they deliver a great customer experience, going beyond the platform with campaigns to influence policy and government.
Catrionia Morrison spoke passionately about the challenges of keeping a store experience front and centre in Waterstones' e-commerce strategy.
A panel session on ‘Life, Leadership and Legacy’, with David Ramirez (Wonderpak Eco), Caroline Evans (FutureLearn) and Brightec’s very own Josh O’Riordan speaking with inspiring honesty about their personal lessons and daily rituals that help them show up well in their workplace. It was such a success that we’ve already followed up with a Lunchtime Leaders Interview; Developing emotional resilience in the workplace.
Bench Depth
We were thrilled to win Best Employee Development Programme at the UK Company Culture Awards early this year; a testament to our dedication to building a company and culture that has room for everyone to stay and grow. Our head of engineering, Rob put in hours of thought, research, consideration and coffee drinking to develop this framework to ensure our team have what they need (and know what not to do!) to progress. Using this framework, THREE of our Engineering team have been promoted; huge thank you and congratulations to Mo, Alistair and Jonny for your fantastic work.
We also welcomed two brilliant additions to the Brightec team this year.
For many, Simon will have become the first contact with Brightec as he joined the team to steer our business development operations. With an aim to sprinkle happiness wherever he goes, he’s loved finding new ways to showcase the best of Brightec (including the Brightec Exchange mentioned above!).
Our new delivery manager, Bianca has brought her love for organisation to meetings, budgets, project communications and even R&D, having pioneered the latest iteration to our monthly development days. Click here to read more about research and development at Brightec.
For Good – Outside of Brightec
Inspired by our good friends at SearchSeven, we wanted to do more with expanding our commitment to ‘doing good’ beyond our team, clients and their customers.
This year we introduced Volunteering days, enabling the team to take additional paid leave to take part in charitable and community work. Through this initiative, some of the team have designed and edited an e-zine for Survivors Network, helped deliver a hot meal and activities for families during the school holidays with Chomp, provided tech and admin support for a church group and helped serve at our local Foodbank.
Exploring Our Future
We know that we can bring our expertise to areas of our client’s business that feel confusing to them so we’ve launched our Audit and Accreditation service to help clients ensure their digital products are inclusive and compliant, ahead of the European Accessibility Act. Click here to find out more about our work on ensuring accessibility compliance.
We’ve also had a seemingly giant, yet internally almost gentle reshaping as Brightec has taken on a new venture; Joyned. With Andy stepping over to lead this new communications platform for organisations, he became the founding director of Brightec, welcoming Josh into the role of managing director at Brightec. If you haven’t already seen it, head over to Josh’s LinkedIn for some serious, and some silly, insights to the 10 lessons he’s learned in his 10 years at Brightec, and journey to MD. You may never wear a white shirt to work again!
S’now we reflect
Taking time to look back at the events of 2024, we realise it’s been another bumper year at Brightec!
As we prepare to wind down for Christmas, we wish you all a peaceful festive season and look forward to returning on January 6th (undoubtedly full of mince pies but ready to dive into the joys and challenges of 2025).
We’re excited for the new season ahead at Brightec - a place where great work happens and great people thrive. Thank you for being a part of it.
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