10 Years of Redsquid: Our Past, Present and Future

Thanks to the Support of our Loyal Staff and Customers, we Celebrated Our 10th Anniversary in September

10 years ago, Sohin Raithatha and Vince Mignacca first set up Redsquid from right inside Vince’s own Bedroom. Since then, Redsquid has expanded from a two person venture, to an organisation made up of over 45 employees.

We’ve become a Vodafone Platinum Partner and Trusted Communications Provider in the space of six years. We’ve moved into larger offices and gained better technology such as a greater access to the cloud. We continued to build our customer base to over 550 businesses throughout the UK.

To celebrate this milestone anniversary, we hosted a party for all our employees as a thank you and to share our future plans and aspirations as well as the teams. We also talked about our journey from humble beginnings to where we are now which was celebrated by all of us.

The icing on the cake of our 10th Anniversary, was to being able to celebrate yet another successful year in 2016.

We Acquired 5Com

By acquiring 5Com, we gained an organisation that intergrates perfectly with Redsquid in terms of customer base and unified communications set up. When asked about what inspired the acquisition, our company director Vince explained that: ‘5Com was the perfect opportunity. Both their existing employees and connections has made it a business that’s slotted well into Redsquid’.

Our CEO Sohin has confirmed that Redsquid is continuing to consider acquiring additional companies in the future: ‘we’re talking to numerous parties at present, an announcement will be made some time in 2017’.

Our Customers are Changing, and so are we

Our customers are always looking to improve their productivity and efficiency. More than ever, we are seeing the demand for a more unified communications experience grow. Businesses want to receive all their communications needs from one provider, and that’s something we’ve been working towards providing for the last ten years.

Thanks to Redsquid’s implementation of unified communications and cloud technology, our CEO Sohin can remain productive from his home office in Copenhagen and his desk here. When asked about the arrangement, Sohin explained: ‘With unified communications you should be able to work from anywhere in the world now, as I’ve been able to run my business efficiently with no communication issues at all’.

Our customers are also looking for a more sustainable support service, which is why we are introducing 24 hour unified communications support, 7 days a week.

As flexible employee contracts continue to grow in popularity, we are introducing new technology to help support modern company practices. With the internet of things, Redsquid are supporting an exciting future of data collection and analysis of customer behaviour. The internet of things could soon help small businesses better predict and react to their customer’s needs, with new technology relaying insightful information about purchases and buyer habits.

To help us pioneer this new technology, we’re making some exciting internal changes here at Redsquid.

We’re Expanding Our Offices and Our Staff

In January, we will be expanding our work space by about 7,000 square feet to accommodate for new staff and equipment.

As Redsquid works from an open-plan office, we often encounter unique communication and productivity challenges. The atmosphere of co-operation and connectivity is essential to our company culture, but the nature of an open-plan office can make focusing difficult at times. Which is why one of the main aims of our office expansion is to create a variety of working environments, something that our CEO is particularly passionate about. When asked about his ideas, Sohin said that: ‘Redsquid is creating an environment away from the hustle and bustle of the office, where employees are encouraged to be creative’.

Vince and Sohin’s expansion ideas have been greatly inspired by the modern start-ups found in Silicon Valley. Sheltered booths designed to restrict outside noise, a state of the art kitchen, and a larger recreational area with pool tables and yoga classes are just some of their ideas. Above all, Vince wants to ensure that Redsquid remains ‘a place where employees can have fun, as well as work’.

We’re firm believers in providing flexible working schedules, which is why we’ll be introducing more hot desking opportunities and utilizing unified communications. This will allow us to hire more employees than our offices could traditionally hold.

We want to be a leading example in modern working practices, so that our customers can see how unified communications and cloud services can give businesses more freedom to work how they want to.

Pushing revolutionary technology isn’t the only thing Redsquid are passionate about.

We’re Giving to Our Local YMCA

Throughout the year the Redsquid team have been holding workshops designed to help build confidence and identity, for young people from the YMCA Watford Orbital Community Centre. Our interactions with these young people have inspired us to launch an entire campaign to help raise money and support the community centre.

Sohin will be taking on a world challenge to trek 42 miles through the Himalayas in April next year. He’s looking to raise £5000 for the community centre through his Just Giving Page, which you can visit here.

We will also be donating 24 months of mobile connectivity to 4 YMCA sites from this Christmas. Redsquid will be connecting youth workers throughout Hertfordshire via 4G, which should allow them to create and use charity presentations across the country. This should help the YMCA to spread their message on a greater national scale. We aim to continue helping YMCA to build greater connections with its sites and its donaters in the years to come.

We’re Holding Our Christmas Party This Week

To wrap things up, we will be holding our 10th Anniversary Christmas party tomorrow. We’re looking forward to showing our staff members a good time. We will be sure to raise a glass to all of our customers as a thank you, and to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and successful 2017.

Sohin and Vince.