Hull & Scunthorpe Based Experts Celebrate 30 Years in Business

HBP Systems Ltd

Hull and Scunthorpe based IT specialists HBP Systems are celebrating their 30th year in business this month which has coincided with the opening of a new office, the launch of a new product and further expansion.

Following a management buyout of Humber Business Products in 1991, HBP Systems Ltd was formed by David Smith and Sue Dixon who relocated the business to Scunthorpe and began providing accounting software and IT services to local businesses. In a fast moving market, the business grew quickly as many organisations computerised their accounts for the first time and HBP hit a turnover of £1 million within just 4 years.

The 90s ended with huge fears around the “millennium bug” which threatened to cause major issues with software and once again saw a increase in interest towards HBP Systems’ services, quickly making them one of the largest software providers in the local area and the UK.

The early 2000s saw HBP Systems diversify further into IT support and managed services, becoming a Microsoft Gold Partner in 2007, the highest level of partner status available from Microsoft, and putting them amongst the leading IT companies in the country.

Since then, the company have gone from strength the strength and now provide a wide range of business software and IT solutions to organisations across Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and the whole of the UK.

Whilst David Smith still heads up HBP Systems Ltd and The HBP Group as Chairman, Sue Dixon retired in 2006 and sadly passed away in 2019. Today, HBP Systems Ltd is led by her daughter Joanne Dixon, who joined the business in 1992 and became Managing Director in 2007.
Joanne has continued to drive the business forward and today HBP Systems turnover is around £6 million and support over 600 customers.

Following the relaxing of COVID restrictions HBP Systems decided to open a brand new office to serve Hull, situated in full visibility of incoming and outgoing traffic on the A63, supporting their office in Scunthorpe. In addition to this they have added Microsoft Dynamics 365 to their product portfolio, providing a cloud based accounting and ERP option for small and medium sized business to their already extensive range of solutions.

The addition of a new office and new product has also meant growth in terms of staff with six new members of staff joining since the summer, increasing the total number of staff to over 50.

Joanne is proud of the achievements of the business over the last 30 years, but is confident that the business can still grow significantly in the future,

“The last thirty years have flown by and we’ve achieved an awful lot but we still think we can go much further. We’ve always committed to getting better at what we do every single day and are confident that very few IT companies can match the level of service we provide which is all due the caliber of IT Engineers we employ. Our next steps are to engage with more local companies where we feel we can add value and increase our customer base and our staff levels even further. The last thirty years have been amazing but I’m more excited for the future than ever before.”

However, the COVID-19 pandemic created one of the biggest challenges for the company, allowing Joanne to reflect on the reason that HBP Systems not only survived it, but has emerged as an even stronger business,

“During my 29 years with HBP Systems I have seen the business grow from strength to strength, looking to grow and evolve at every opportunity. But now I’ve also seen a time when we’ve had to temporarily close our offices, batten down the hatches and adapt to a global pandemic which had such a big impact on the economy. We didn’t manage to get through the pandemic or stay in business for 30 years due to luck, it was down to the hard work of every single person in the business and that’s exactly what we’ll need to do in order to continue for another 30 years. Who knows, by that time maybe my daughter could be running HBP!”

For more information about HBP Systems Ltd please visit www.hbpsystems.co.uk