Celebrating 30 years of ILECS

This year, we are delighted to mark 30 years of providing lift consultancy to our clients. The past 30 years has been an evolving journey for the company and our employees and is one we look forward to continuing with some exciting projects on the horizon!

Where did it all begin?

Our journey began in 1991 when a team of three friends decided that they wanted to set up a consultancy of their own. Each had their own skill set and between them they started International Lift and Escalator Consultants (a partnership), which was later changed to ILECS Limited.

After a successful first 5 years with each partner working from home, the team decided on a move to a permanent base and created a head office at Tops’l House located in Mistley, Essex in 1996. Situated beside the River Stour with extensive views down to Felixstowe, this is when the expansion of the business began. The move gave us improved access to the surrounding areas whilst still placing us within touching distance of London, where we have operated regularly throughout our history.

Our Team

Since 1991, the initial team of three has grown extensively and we are now proud to have 37 employees working for ILECS. Our longest serving employee is Phillip Stillwell, our chairman (30 years), followed by Jackie Hawken, a member of our Support Team who has been with us for 15 years, and our newest recruit Ross Sanderson who joined us as a OneVision account manager recently.

As part of our 30th Anniversary celebrations, we asked a couple of our long serving staff, Carl and Jackie, to reflect on their time with us and what the future holds.

Carl, one our Directors, reflected on his time with ILECS and what is yet to come. “Since that first day on the 3^rd July 2006 ILECS has grown in every way. We now have nearly 40 people working with us. The original Lift Administration service has changed and developed into what we now call OneVision and we have also seen growth in our project work with more challenging and bigger projects coming through the door. However, lifts are still lifts and escalators are still moving walkways!”

He added, “One thing that has not changed is the atmosphere that Phil still brings to the company of a family run business, no one is bigger than ILECS and that includes himself. His favourite saying is you look after ILECS and ILECS will look after you.”

Jackie, an Operations Support Co-ordinator, has been a vital cog in the ILECS machine for 16 years. She commented, “As opposed to other companies, ILECS genuinely cares about their employees and treats them more as individuals rather than just numbers. There is a good atmosphere working here and it’s noticeable that people enjoy coming to work each day. Everyone gets on really well together which I think is important to enjoying work.”

Our growing team of talented lift consultants, experienced account managers and operations staff has allowed us to expand our capabilities and expertise, as well as extending our effective reach throughout the UK to clients such as NHS Foundation Trusts, Councils, universities, care homes, as well as commercial and residential property portfolios and large venues.

Building our experience

Our services have developed to continue meet client expectations and we now include asset overview reports and HTM08-02 Authorised Engineer services for hospitals around the UK to our wide range of service offerings.

Our expanding team and growing variety of clients has also meant that we have developed our lift administration service and launched ‘OneVision’, where our team of experts now manage over 4,500 lifts using our bespoke online system. A key focus has been on making the OneVision service transparent to clients and we have achieved this by giving clients access to their data online, at any time.

How did we evolve?

In 2016 we recognised the need for progression within our brand as well as our service offering and undertook a full rebranding project, from the introduction of a new logo and website to a review of the ways in which we communicate as a company. This ensured that we continued to evolve the brand for our changing customer needs and communication methods and put ILECS on the map as the lift experts of choice.

Where next?

We are keen to keep evolving and growing our business over the next 30 years and are kicking off those plans with the purchase of a new head office which is currently in the process of being refurbished with the view to us moving in this Autumn.

The move to our new Head Office will be the perfect foundation to help us to mirror our growth and success of the past 30 years into the next 30. We plan to continue to expand with engineers in different parts of the UK to support our national offering, increasing our OneVision portfolio which will mean more support staff and we look forward to what the future holds for both us and our clients.

Phillip Stillwell, Chairman, says:

“For the past 30 years our team of experts have brought clarity and understanding about lifts and escalators to our customers, working in partnership with them to achieve the best possible results. We look forward to continuing to grow our business throughout the next 30 years to further support our clients and partnerships as well as our staff.”