IT
2015: No.39 £95m
2014: No.33 £95m
Contracts with retailers all over the world continue to make a success of Coventry-based IT consultancy PCMS, which is one of the world’s leading independent suppliers of IT services and software.
PCMS – founded by computer programmer , in 1982 – supplies its retail software to Unipart, Arcadia, John Lewis, Ann Summers, Bass Pro-Shops, LensCrafters, Waterstones, Marks and Spencer and Smythson of Bond Street among others.
The company also helped drive the 海角视频 expansion of North American gourmet doughnut chain Krispy Kreme. PCMS provided the company’s technological infrastructure.
PCMS has its headquarters on the Westwood Business park in Coventry, as well as offices in Huntingdon. Its international reach includes a North American subsidiary in Cincinnati, as well as operations or distributors in Argentina, Mexico, Italy, Australia, South Africa and around the Pacific Rim.
The company is estimated to be worth at least £70 million. In 2013 it posted profits of £6.8 million.
The US operation returns around 30 per cent of the company’s total turnover.
Richard and Brenda Smith began PCMS in 1982. It started life supplying business applications, before concentrating on a number of industry sectors including automotive and aftermarket, construction and distribution. In 1993 PCMS was contracted to supply back-office computer systems to the Co-op Group and that proved a turning point for the company.
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Richard decided to concentrate on retail and it is now, through its specialist retail systems, that it has achieved significant success, with a strong balance sheet and low borrowings.
The company has picked up several accolades along the way and has been a finalist in the Deloitte Fast 50 a number of times as well as the Family Business Awards. The company made the shortlist again in 2014.
In the States PCMS recorded successes in the influential RIS News leaderboard – the bible for retail software – and was listed as one of the World’s Best Managed Service Providers in the MSPmentor global service report.
The company invests in training young people for a career in IT and business and runs flourishing apprentice and graduate trainee schemes.