Rochdale IT firm emerges as industry trailblazer

Posted by on 2 Aug 2023

Photo © Dean Mason, CEO Teqex

As part of Rochdale Development Agency’s 30th birthday celebrations we’re speaking to some of the region’s businesses that are also celebrating landmark anniversaries.

In 10 years Dean Mason has gone from working on a single desk in Heywood to supplying 10 Downing Street.

Today Teqex employs 12 people, has grown turnover to £3.5m and boasts an impressive list of blue chip clients.

Dean came up with the idea for Teqex while working for three of the UK’s biggest IT retailers.

“I had an understanding of the industry so I could see what they could do better, especially in the public sector,” he said.

“Around 80 per cent of our business is the public sector and we’ve worked with the likes of the NHS, Probation Service, Passport Office, Home Office, Ministry of Justice and Food Standards Agency.

“With the big IT retailers you get an account number but they don’t know you as a person. We do IT sales and service support but with us you have several dedicated account managers. It sounds like a cliché but we think of our customers as friends rather than clients.

“We go out of our way.  We won’t hesitate to jump in a van and deliver something ourselves if it’s an urgent requirement. We’ve done that for several NHS Trusts, especially during the pandemic.”

Teqex are partners with many of the leading electronic manufacturers and distributors including Lenovo, HP, Brother and Dell.

It’s all a far cry from when Mason launched Teqex in 2013 from one desk in Heywood.

“The first profit we made was £333 and I have the framed statement on a wall downstairs,” he joked. “We didn’t employ anyone else for three years.”

The big breakthrough came when Teqex got included on four government frameworks, allowing them to bid for government contracts.

That was how they came to be supplying 10 Downing Street.

“We can deliver everything from a USB cable to a printer cartridge all the way up to servers and WiFi deployments,” said the CEO.

Teqex works across the UK but has remained close to their Rochdale roots.

Rochdale customers include MID Communications and Crown Oil while the company owns its own office in Crown Business Park.

“The majority of our staff are from Rochdale and we have a really good relationship with Rochdale Development Agency,” said Mason. “They do a lot for us and there’s a really good business community here.”

Teqex’s success is all the more remarkable because it’s been completely bootstrapped with zero investment.

In the last 12 months they’ve increased the number of orders they handled from 5,000 orders to 8,000.

The ambition is to grow to 15 staff and £5m turnover in the next 12 months.

Mason said: “There’s still a lot more to do. In my head I’ve got this figure of £10m turnover. We don’t want investors. We’re enjoying the ride.

“We’ve had approaches from people wanting to buy us out but I’ve turned them down.”