As we bring the year to a close, I’m reflecting on the last 12 months and, as always, considering the exciting changes to DCE Group that we made earlier this year, and the immediate impact we’ve seen as a result.
In January, Tony (Chairman), myself (Chairman) along with our Senior Management team, ran a number of workshops that analysed our progress, the economy, our customer’s wishes, and our own objectives. These workshops were conducted over a period of weeks, and at the latter part of the first quarter we were delighted to announce that Matthew Cox, and John Cox would be promoted in to significant roles within the DCE Group.
In March, Matthew Cox was promoted to Managing Director of DCE Group and during the following months he has begun shaping the departments, building communication channels internally and externally, and developing strategies for steady growth over the coming years.
Peter Sumner was promoted to Vice Chairman, and works closely with Matt to drive the vision of the Group. Pete has also brought his son Harry to join the company, and this has underpinned the core of DCE, in that we are a family run business.
In July, we launched the DCE Agency, a division of the DCE Group. Having listened to our customers, and understood that, to stay ahead of the emerging trends, we needed to look at augmented reality technologies, and additional media services, to provide a full solution to our clients. John Cox took the role as Managing Director of this division and is building his team to deliver a full solution to our clients.
As we look forward, it shouldn’t go unnoticed that we will have been trading for 30 years in June 2020. Over the next 18 months we will be running some interesting marketing campaigns that show how times have changed over this period. Not least it will highlight our flexibility in riding the ever-tumultuous tides governed by the rising and falling economy during those years.
In 2019, it would be wrong of us not to consider the impact of Brexit on our trading, particularly as a large percentage of our work is in Europe.
The recent news has been filled with daily bulletins of the considerable challenges surrounding this historical moment. I’ve been closely monitoring those debates that cover the impact on family run, small businesses nationwide.
David Cameron was the first to highlight that entrepreneurs (and small businesses) are the backbone of Britain’s economy, and supported this by appointing the first small business minister in May 2015. The multi-nationals will, of course, survive, but after Brexit it will be on their shoulders that the small business will need to lean, in order to survive the potential risk of post-Brexit higher taxes and challenged available resources.
DCE Group have taken a number of steps to ensure that we maintain the excellent response to European enquiries, and ride the waves that will surely follow the outcome in March 2019.
Along side the expected challenges that Brexit will undoubtedly bring, I firmly believe that there will be many new opportunities and we, at DCE, will be ready to embrace them both with energy and anticipation, working together as “One Team One Vision”
“Together we are strong, divided we will fail” is a motto that we hold dear in DCE. It is one that the nation needs to adopt to ensure that we all offer support to our fellow business owners and, in doing so, underpin our Economy as it finds a new, and strong, foundation. It will be this foundation that creates a healthy environment and commercial platform that will allow our children, and their children, to build secure futures, and we should do what we can to assist.
One final note. I am proud to have been appointed as Ambassador to the Dreams Come True Charity. This is a charity we have supported for the last few years, and have raised almost £70,000 through the generous donations of our team, and our partners whilst having a lot of fun along the way. My dream is to continue this great work and provide more happiness for terminally ill children, creating the chance for them to experience their own dreams coming true.
I’d like to offer a big thank you to all our customers who continue to make our job enjoyable, and our fabulous team who always go above and beyond to ensure our customers receive the best possible services from the DCE Group.
It just falls to me, on behalf of us all, to wish you all a Very Happy Christmas.
David