This year marks Vision ICT’s 20th year in business, and what a year it has been. One we are unlikely to forget in a hurry. While we’ve been working from home we’ve had some time to reminisce about what has gone in to making Vision ICT the success that it is, and although we aren’t able to celebrate this milestone with the big bash we were planning, we can use this as an opportunity to thank everyone who has contributed to our success. The first big thank you goes to all our clients and councils, because without you we wouldn’t be where we are today.
The world, and especially the online environment, has changed so much since we opened our doors in 2000. At the time it may have been considered crazy to think about starting a web design company (especially considering that only 38% of households had a computer at the time!) but we always knew that before long everyone would have a computer and be surfing the internet. When we started Vision ICT, our main goal was to create websites that were easy for everyone to use. They had to be easy for visitors to navigate and find the information they wanted and easy for our clients to keep updated using our bespoke content management system. That remains our goal even today.
Looking back over the last 20 years some highlights include launching our first council website for Rockbeare in 2003. After that we quickly became recognised as a leading supplier of websites for councils and local authorities. We worked hard during the early days to gather as much knowledge about how councils and local authorities operate and adapted our services to ensure what we could offer was useful and made our clients lives as easy as possible. In 2005 we developed our email hosting service and in 2008 we undertook a major redevelopment of our CMS meant that it was easier for councils to take control of their own websites.
As the number of websites launched increased to 60 in 2011, the Vision ICT team also grew to five members. We’ve always strived to be professional but also provide a people first environment for our employees. Our staff are both a team and a family and we often receive compliments on how easy they are to talk to. Nigel, one of the founding partners of Vision ICT, sadly passed away in September 2019 but we continue to run Vision ICT on the principles of family, transparency and fairness that he helped instil.
Vision ICT is best known for creating websites, but in 2013 we added graphic design to the list of services we offer. We could now make our websites even prettier and support our clients by producing engaging offline media as well.
The past 5 years have been extremely busy for the Vision ICT team as we continued to grow. We realise how lucky we are to be in this position so wanted to give something back to those who are less fortunate. In 2017, our Director Daniel partnered with SlumAid to help children in India who live in terrible conditions. The trip was an eye opener and it was great to see the impact that the support has on the local communities.
We continue to adapt to the ever-changing online landscape by improving our services and systems. By 2018 over 50% of internet users were on mobile devices and to accommodate this shift from desktop to mobile we made all our websites responsive. We’ve also added new services to our roster with the introduction 360 photography, videos and virtual tours in 2019. Councils can now attract visitors to their website by adding engaging content or perhaps by including a 360 virtual tour of a place of interest.
We are proud of what we’ve achieved over the past 20 years and can’t wait to see what the next 20 years hold in store for Vision ICT. Hopefully, we’ll get to have a big bash to celebrate our 21st birthday next year. We hope you’ve enjoyed finding out a little more about Vision ICT and our history. If you are interested in any of the features above or in one of our websites, please contact us via email at info@visionict.com or on the phone 01392 669497.