Client Server's future is in its own hands despite everything elsePosted almost 2 years ago by Nick Boulton

A client asked me how we had found Brexit and its effect on our European clients, candidates, and team. What was the impact? Did I wish we were still in the EU?

It took me a little by surprise. I hadn’t given Brexit another thought. So much has happened since.

I have never really been one to look back with regret. You can control the things within your ability to control, and the rest adapt and deal with.

Over the last 22+ years, Client Server has been through its fair share of ups and downs. Have we learnt from our mistakes and adjusted? Of course, we have, but you don’t get everything right first all the time.

Our business has been through recessions, a pandemic, and a fiercely competitive market.

We have three offices, about 100 staff, and we’ve never made a single person redundant.

We don’t have a single external investor - we are privately owned, and through a stringent fiscal budgetary plan, we are still going strong (long may that continue) and only plan on getting stronger.

So, why did that question rattle me so much?

Here was a hugely successful entrepreneur who founded and sold a couple of technology businesses and asked me about Brexit and if it was still affecting us. Didn’t we vote on this thing in the summer of 2016, or did I miss something?

My outlook is on the future of technology recruitment and Client Server’s position in that market. With a solid management team in place, all our attention has now turned to growth, growth of teams, offices and revenues. We will capitalise on a technology market that will only grow locally, nationally and internationally. Yes, it will have its ups and downs, and there may be an underlying feeling of doom in the economy, but that is beyond our control.

What we need to do as a business is concentrate on the things we can control. My ability to do anything about Brexit, inflation, rising interest rates, an impending recession or who our next PM will be, is ZERO!

Along with the growth, consolidation and strengthening of our London teams, Europe and Client Server Regional (CSR) will see some of our most significant rises over the next 12-24 months. As businesses grow their technology teams remotely and the draw of European talent is strong, the demand for talent in these areas will increase. Both teams saw significant revenue jumps last year, but we are now focused on ramping up the consultant capability and headcount. We are massively ambitious as a business and are determined to continue capitalising on growing our market share.

How businesses adapt to a post-Brexit, post-pandemic, post-recession (still to come) will be the most telling and the ones that can come out of all of that, stronger and more reliable, will be the biggest winners in our market, something we are striving to achieve.