68 | SME News Greater London Enterprise Awards 2023 Best Family-Run IT Support & Telecoms Business 2023 - South East England Founded in 1992 by a husband-and-wife team, Gregory Micallef Associates Limited (GMA) is a family-run business with a philosophy of trust and partnership at its core. We speak to Greg and find out more as the firm celebrates success in the Greater London Enterprise Awards 2023. When the firm was initially established over 30 years ago, the Gregory Micallef Associates team consisted of just Greg and his wife, Debbie. As the business began to take on more clients, it gained Microsoft Partner status, hitting the gold standard by 1998. Having been given the opportunity as a sandwich student himself, Greg decided a student placement programme would be a great way to begin employing a team, and the tradition of taking on students in their sandwich year started in 1994 and continues to this day, with many returning after graduating. This growing team of seasoned engineers and placement students prompted a move to larger offices in 1997. In 2007, GMA made the Microsoft Top60 list and became a 3CX Partner. By 2010, the firm had achieved 3CX Platinum Partner recognition. In the following years, the business won several awards from technology partners, with two of them being for ‘Partner of the Year’. As awards were collected and the business continued to grow, the number of areas supported increased and in 2019, larger office space was needed again to accommodate a bigger team. Shortly before the pandemic, GMA moved from an office block in Penge to premises in Beckenham, which proved to be extremely beneficial throughout the pandemic. The new space gave the company, and the team, greater flexibility which assisted in their response to the developing situation and was key to them being able to quickly facilitate secure homeworking for staff and customers. “From the first day of business the partnerships GMA has built have been key to creating strong and long-lasting business relationships, with both clients and technology partners,” comments Greg. “These partnerships see us well placed to guide businesses through the new challenges they face today. We have seen recent technological advances not least with communications and collaboration during the pandemic, but we have also witnessed an increase in malicious activity. With hybrid or flexible working being adopted as a viable business model by some organisations, secure access to business data has never been more crucial,” he adds. After 31 years in the industry, GMA is one of London’s longest established and leading family-run professional IT services and telecommunications providers. Today, the team consists of 21 people, including son Andrew Micallef, and has a wealth of experience and technical expertise. As a family-run business, the ethos of trust and partnership carries through to everything that GMA does and influences all areas of the organisation on a day-to-day basis. The dedicated team work closely with each other, and this culture of teamwork is vital to the overall success of the company. Likewise, the relationship between the firm and its clients is also of the utmost importance. “The partnership between a business and its IT support company is critical,” Greg elaborates. “When technology works as it should, it can be liberating, but constantly battling big problems and small frustrations is exhausting and costly, and that impacts everything.” Not only does GMA partner with clients, but it also carries this ethos of partnership through to the world-leading software and hardware companies, and, combined with the wealth of experience in the team, it enables GMA to bring the very best that IT and telecoms has to offer. Of late, Greg has noticed certain challenges emerging, including issues with recruitment. With a growing number of people no longer willing to commute into London GMA looked at this area to successfully attract more experienced team members, alongside their continued sandwich placement programme. Another obstacle that GMA has faced is that of educating SMEs on the risk to their business from a cybersecurity incident. The cybersecurity landscape is vast and attack vectors are always changing, so Greg believes it is critical that organisations are supported to ensure their systems are secure. “Most SMEs don’t think they are on the cybercriminal’s radar,” he states. “But the truth is that cybercriminals know smaller businesses are likely to have less protection. They see them as ‘low hanging fruit’.” At GMA, cybersecurity is taken very seriously and the company has been actively engaging with businesses in London and the South East to raise awareness and provide clarity. They have also heavily invested in researching, testing, validating, and customising a range of the industry’s leading tools to provide excellent protection for their clients. Recently, thanks to its collaborative ethos and commitment to clients, Gregory Micallef Associates gained recognition in the prestigious Greater London Enterprise Awards and was named Best Family-Run IT Support & Telecoms Business 2023 - South East England. The future for GMA is looking strong, the rest of 2023 will see them continue to grow their team and increase engagement with local business networking groups including BNI, GittGo and The Beckenham Business Association. “Our quest to add both new and experienced talent to strengthen GMA continues as the firm welcomed a new team member recently, and greets another in September!” Contact Details Contact: Greg Micallef Company: Gregory Micallef Associates Limited Web Address: www.gmal.co.uk
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