Bellshill's Edge Testing aims to double revenues by 2020

Edge Testing Solutions chief executive Brian Ferrie. Picture: Chris Watt

The Bellshill-based firm, founded in 2007, posted a 5 per cent increase in operating profits to £1.3 million, on revenues of £10.1m.

Chief executive and co-founder Brian Ferrie said the company was now on track to generate turnover of £13m this year, rising to £20m by 2020, as he attributed the firm’s growth to the “explosion within the digital age”.

He told The Scotsman: “IT now touches every walk of life, including all public services, so there’s a need for IT systems to be robust.

“The importance of systems that are robust in general, and not just from a security perspective, is critical. We do a lot of work with organisations, particularly in business-to-consumer environments, to carry out predictive tests to make sure their websites can withstand high volumes of traffic, for example in the Black Friday sales.”

Edge Testing recently secured a place on the latest UK government framework – dubbed G-Cloud 9 – to provide its services to the public sector, and Ferrie said the firm’s track record with this system goes back to its fourth iteration.

“The public sector accounts for about 40 per cent of our business,” he said.

In April, Edge Testing was named large business the year at the annual Digital Tech Awards, organised by trade body ScotlandIS.

The company’s headcount stands at 250, of whom 150 are full-time permanent employees, with sub-contractors making up the remainder, and Ferrie said its workforce was likely to grow to about 300 by the end of this year.

Scotland’s digital technologies sector often cites a lack of skilled staff as a particular challenge, but Edge Testing has its own in-house training facility that has brought more than 60 new workers into the industry since it was launched four years ago.

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“In 2013 we had a little bit of foresight and saw this would be a problem so we launched our Edge Academy, our own training capability that brings in graduates, school leavers, modern apprentices and career switchers,” Ferrie said.

“It’s proven to be hugely successful – had we not set it up we would have found it very difficult to sustain our levels of growth.”

The company is also expanding south of the Border with a digital testing “hub” in Birmingham after winning a “significant” upturn in customer numbers across the West Midlands.

Ferrie said competition from overseas rivals operating outsourced testing facilities was a challenge, “but we are seeing a trend where companies are ‘reshoring’ work and looking at different delivery models – we have quite a lot of opportunities in that space”.

The company’s expansion to date has been self-funded, with no debt or external investment, and Ferrie said he was not seeking acquisitions as part of his ambitious growth plans.

“It’s all been organic growth and that’s the strategy as we target £20m by 2020,” he added.

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