Former Client Jason Holloway Owned a Cyber Security Business
An Update by Jason Holloway, Director of Security at Conosco Group, and formerly MD of Bridgeway Security Solutions.
In January 2022, Prism facilitated the merger of Bridgeway with Conosco.
We knew the two businesses were a good fit in terms of complementary service offerings, but also shared the same culture and a relentless focus on customer service. I could see that the future as one single business would be great for everyone, however I did not expect the process of merging them to be quite so time consuming!
Integration of the teams, processes, products, internal systems etc. has taken 12 months. We’ve also recently made fundamental leadership changes to some core functions within the business, which, once they’ve bedded in, will also be transformative.
The integration did cause some disruption in the sales process, not least as we began the merger at the start of calendar Q4, with Q1 typically our busiest quarter. In retrospect, the timing of the merger wasn’t ideal, and we have definitely learnt that there is a limit to just how many balls we could each individually and collectively juggle at the same time.
We also were not helped by the on-going effects of the pandemic and that our then CEO (now Chairman) was off for several months with long COVID. However, after this period of disruption, I believe we’ve emerged a stronger and more focused organisation, and we’ve brought our focus back to our services and customers. We’ve been able to cross-sell to existing customers – so, for example, the existing Bridgeway customers now have access to a wider range of IT services than just the cyber security aspect that we previously offered and vice-versa. The creation of brand new managed security services has also allowed us to address markets that previously neither organisation would have independently been able to.
Perhaps most significantly, we are continually standardising and simplifying the processes, services and reporting across all our services and all customers. This has been momentous in streamlining our capabilities and, for instance, for one service we now receive just 1% of the support tickets that we used to and yet we have tripled the number of customers for it!
I have learnt a lot going through the process. Whilst at the outset I feared lifting up the next corporate rock to see what was beneath, I now positively relish it, for the sooner we find the nasties, the sooner we can fix them! The pace of change is ever increasing and the team are wholeheartedly embracing the challenges. The overall process was hard at first, but the results are now evident for all to see. I strongly feel this is just the beginning of what we will be able to achieve.
On the personal front, life is good, though I have not spent quite as much time in the air as I would like – I’m a glider pilot – but then part of that is also down to the UK weather!
Overall, I’m delighted with what we have achieved so far and I’m excited for the future of the Conosco Group. It was definitely the right choice for us to merge.
Find out more about Conosco here: conosco.com