We’re passionate about our unique team spirit and we own our vision, culture, and values.
Every day, we encourage, motivate, and support each other to maintain a friendly positive atmosphere where everyone feels valued and cared for.
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Customer Charters
Chess help you
Chess is one of the UK’s leading independent and trusted technology service providers, employing 300 skilled people across the UK, supporting over 20,000 organisations.
By leveraging world-class technology, Chess helps you to connect your people, protect your data, grow your business, reduce your costs and work better together, which means your business, your people and your customers can thrive. At Chess, we’re passionate about our unique culture and our continuous investment in our people to be industry experts.
We’re extremely proud that our people voted us No.1 in ‘The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work for’ list 2018, and we continue to celebrate more than ten years in the top 100.
Our Blueprint for Success
Our Blueprint sets out the reasons why we want to grow, our vision for the future, the areas we want to focus on and the importance we attach to our culture and values. All our people use it every day and at every opportunity; with suppliers, customers and in recruitment.
It helps us explain who we are, and we use it to make sure we remain true to our values. Every Chess person uses the Blueprint to challenge the business and our leaders, if they feel we are not living up to our beliefs.
Our History
2020's
2021 Chess Acquires Additional Cybersecurity Expertise
Chess acquires Armadillo enhancing their Cybersecurity capabilities with 15 of the UK’s top Penetration Test experts
Armadillo are a CREST approved Penetration Testing, Vulnerability Assessment and a STAR and GBEST Attack Simulation testing company, accredited by the NCSC as a green light company authorised to perform CHECK ITHC assessments for government departments.
Chess‘ product portfolio includes security, managed and professional services. The Armadillo addition will enhance their pen testing capability, with security now representing over 20% of the group sales.
2022 Chess Acquire The UK’s Best Number Company
Chess acquire TTNC - The Telephone Number Company to kick off their ambitious growth plans in 2022
Leading technology provider Chess announce the acquisition of TTNC - The Telephone Number Company, ranked as the number one telecommunications service provider on Trustpilot with over 600 reviews.
TTNC is a provider of end-to-end communication solutions, boasting the UK's most comprehensive range of telephone numbers. Their services also include call management packages, cloud numbers, Voice over IP Services, SIP Trunks, Call Tracking and bespoke telephone answering services.
2022 Chess is 8th in the Top 100 UK Best Companies to Work For 2022
Chess has been in the top 100 for 14 years and top 15 for the last 7 years, having placed #1 in 2018 and in the top 3 for four years. In 2022, we also received the highest accolade 'world-class to work for' 3-star accreditation rating and placed #5 in the Technology sector awards.
Chess Executive Chairman and Founder David Pollock said:
"Our Chess Blueprint vision is to build a business we can be proud of. Easy to say, much harder to deliver. It's something that takes hard work, determination, bravery, constant change, evolution, positive attitude, loads of energy, belief, desire and above all, passion. Chess is a great place to work because of our great people. Everyone wants to work for a great company but it's those people working together as one team who make it great. I'm so proud of our people and their commitment to our culture. They are as passionate about making Chess a great place to work as they are passionate that we are a great place to be a customer. We thank all our customers, partners and employees for their support."
2010's
2010 BSI Environmental Standard
“To play our part in the wider community by minimising our impact on the environment.” – Our Blueprint for Success
In 2010 we decided to take our commitment to supporting our community and the environment to the next level by acquiring a BSI Environmental Standard. This accreditation is given to companies that want to manage their environmental responsibilities and make their day-to-day operations more sustainable.
2014 Avenir Telecom
With the formation of Chess Partner Services, we purchased the UK airtime division of Avenir Telecom Group. With their excellent reputation across the industry, this offered a real opportunity for partner and mobile growth, adding knowledge and expertise to our business.
2015 IRW Acquisition
Continuing our buy-and-build growth strategy, we acquired leading Scottish Microsoft Partner and specialists in bespoke software design, development and support, IRW Systems. This resulted in the formation of Chess Digital and allowed us to be uniquely positioned to deliver a range of consulting and software services to our existing and new customers and partners. This foundation is essential for enabling the next wave of technological change for customers focusing on the transition to cloud-based technologies and applications.
2016 2nd in The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For
Chess marked its seventh consecutive year in the list by rising from 3rd place in 2015 to 2nd place in 2016.
“Everyone at Chess is committed to building an energetic, hard-working, fun and exciting place to work that attracts, retains and inspires people to give their best. It is this total commitment by our people to Chess Culture that makes us one of the Best Companies to Work for in the UK and “a great place to be a customer” As it says in our blueprint for success, as proud as we are of our past achievements we’re excited by the future…. A great start to 2016.”
- David Pollock, CEO and Founder
2016 Lanway Acquisition
In a move to strengthen our ICT proposition Chess acquired Lanway. Lanway provided a full range of hosted and cloud solutions, ICT product supply and installation, storage, managed services, networking infrastructure, data security, professional services, business continuity, unified communications and systems management. This acquisition took Chess people to over 550, maximizing the talent, knowledge, experience and skill set within the business and strengthening our ICT, network and mobile capabilities.
2017 Foursys Acquisition
Expanding our business into the cybersecurity market we welcomed multi-award-winning cybersecurity provider Foursys.
Named a Top UK Education Partner for Sophos, the Foursys’ team of experts service customers across the UK and have 20 years’ experience delivering cybersecurity consultancy to public sector, SMB, corporate, and enterprise organisations.
“Cybersecurity is of upmost importance for any modern business. Foursys share our passion for delivering technological advantage and, importantly, this acquisition enhances our security offering to our customers. Together with their expertise, we have the talent and technology needed to deliver truly integrated solutions across enterprise, mobile and cloud environments.”
- David Pollock, CEO and Founder
2018 Officially #1
‘The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For in the UK’, following nine consecutive years in the list, having come 3rd in 2015 and 2nd in 2016 and 2017. Chess’ Founder and CEO, David Pollock, also wins the award of being named ‘Best Leader’ for the Second Year Running.
“I'm so proud that we've finally made it to first place. I was also thrilled to be named 'Best Leader' for the second year in a row, an award for all our great leaders at Chess. We couldn't achieve half of what we do without the support of our people, our loyal customers, our partners and our suppliers. We are passionate about making Chess not only a great place to work but also a great place to be a customer.
“It is this total commitment by our people that makes us the Best Company to Work for in the UK and I couldn’t be more proud. A great start to 2018 and a great way to celebrate our 25th year in business.”
- David Pollock, CEO and Founder
2000's
2005 100 People and the First Blueprint
After 12 years of growing and acquiring companies that buy into our ethos, we decided that if we carried on expanding, we wanted to make sure we protected all that we wanted to be as a business. We needed a plan.
For six months, we worked with a business growth consultant. During that period, we took the business on a journey to establish who we were and who we wanted to be. We talked to everyone, ran workshops, did surveys and took absolutely everything on board. What came out of that was our first Our Blueprint for Success.
2006 The Sunday Times Fast Track 100
Reflecting our outstanding growth, Chess is featured in The Sunday Times Fast Track list for the first time. The Sunday Times Fast Track 100 league table ranks Britain’s 100 private companies with the fastest-growing sales over their latest three years.
1990's
1993 Chess Born
Born in 1993, Chess is the invention of CEO, David Pollock. He’s so passionate about Chess that he christened the business after his first two children, Charlie and Jess.
Originally a utilities reseller, Chess started out in water, then moved into gas, then electricity. In the late nineties, with deregulation in the industry, we started focusing on telecoms, purchasing fixed-line, mobile and broadband telecoms products from operators such as BT and Cable & Wireless, reselling to 10,000 small and medium-sized businesses, including Sale Sharks rugby club and Bargain Booze.
1995 Investors in People
Investing in People for over 20 years. Culture, opportunity and leadership — these standards epitomise Chess and in 1995 the foundation was laid when we received the Investors in People accreditation.
OUR ESG Commitment
At Chess, we are committed to creating a sustainable future and being a responsible corporate citizen. We recognize that Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors play a crucial role in our business operations, and we strive to integrate ESG considerations into our decision-making processes.
We proactively manage our environmental impact through energy-efficient technologies and sustainable practices. We support our local communities through charitable giving and employee volunteering. We maintain high ethical and governance standards through established policies and a culture of integrity and transparency.
