One of the things I admire most about my colleagues in other Zure countries is their openness. Each year Sakari and Glenn write about the achievements, trials, and hopes for the future in their organisation, and Zure as a whole.
Well folks, it’s January 2026 and that means Zure UK has completed its first year. That means it’s my turn!
Let’s be clear: We are not some startup rushing for growth so the founders can exit within four years. We are committed to building Zure UK as part of a group that believes in developing a fantastic team of people to increase our capabilities over the long haul. I’m also a cautious Yorkshireman (and to be fair that caution can sometimes be a negative rather than a positive).
Luck was on our side with hiring in our first year. We set ourselves a conservative target of being five people by the end of the year, expecting to still be a two-man band in the first half of our trading year, because finding good people is difficult. What actually happened was that the power of personal networking showed itself early on, and two people that Riccardo and I knew well, trusted, and valued the expertise of, expressed an interest in joining Zure UK from the outset. I think that showed an amount of confidence in Riccardo and I that is pretty humbling. Riccardo and I were very open about our plans for the business, how Zure Group is structured, and what we hoped to achieve, and Peter and Joe both made informed choices to get onboard early. That certainly wasn’t in our plan! It meant that we were four strong early in Q2 and we’d need to find work for us all.
We never did reach that original goal of being a five-piece by the end of the year. Our excuse is that life intervened (in a good way), meaning that Riccardo had less time available, particularly in the last month of the year. Combined with my own workload, we just didn’t have the time to recruit more talent.
That’s changing in year two, though. In December, we announced that we are looking to expand our Azure team here in the UK and that we are looking to build a data practice as well. We’re taking a soft approach to that process; again, getting the right people is more important to us than getting people quickly. I’d like to see Zure UK reach at least a headcount of ten by the end of ’26 and if circumstances allow us to exceed that, then great!
When Riccardo and I started this journey, we knew that we needed a strong team to help us grow in our first year. I remember being cautious when discussing staff targets and the customer engagements we would need to win. Whilst people are the engine powering any business, they must be paid, and clients must be found with projects that can challenge and engage the team
We began with confidence, since we knew that Zure Group had a solid track record of staffing projects with appropriate experts from several countries. Riccardo and I knew that we had skills that would be valuable in projects outside the UK if we struggled to find work from the outset.
You should always be honest with yourself and acknowledge when luck is on your side. We were fortunate that right from the beginning we had a customer that would ensure Riccardo and I at least would generate revenue. That gave us a strong foundation to go looking for the right team members. Looking back, I think it also helped that Riccardo did not begin working at Zure from day one because of his commitment to his previous role. Scaling gradually allowed us to do things like find the right office space, get used to managing our accounts, and doing payroll when it was just one person and the risk of messing up was low.
In the end, I am frankly, chuffed to bits! Our first-year numbers have a turnover around fifty percent higher than our higher estimates, and a profit margin that is also higher than we expected. In fairness, that last part is because we have kept our overheads low in our first year. The turnover, however, is down to the hard work of our team.
It’s very clear to me that being part of Zure Group is a key factor in our successful first year. Peter was quickly engaged on a project run by Zure Denmark alongside wonderful colleagues from Zure Belgium. That was a great benefit to us commercially and helped us build relationships with our colleagues in other countries.
The second clear benefit was having the capability to win work that Zure UK was either not big enough or did not itself have the skills to deliver, but that existed across Group. That capability is a key factor in how we exceeded our turnover projections, because we were able to deliver two projects (both ongoing) by drawing on the skills of our Finnish colleagues. It’s also been an important factor in our decision to build a UK data practice as we need to staff these engagements more directly, and we see an opportunity to grow alongside our sister companies.
We were also pleased that we could help with internal tooling development to make a positive impact across Zure. Delays in onboarding Joe to another project meant that he had time to work on integrating our UK accounting system with the Zure timesheet and project management system, as well as making other improvements as part of a team run by Finland. Having that integration has been a great benefit in reducing the time taken for administration and removing the chance of copy/paste errors in what is one of our most important business processes.
Several people have asked me why I didn’t just start a completely new business on leaving my previous organisation (and several others asked more bluntly why I didn’t just contract!). My experience with Zure UK has always been my response: I wanted to build something for the long term, with a business partner who will still be a part of the organisation after I retire. I was attracted to being able to lean on, and contribute to, a larger organisation that thinks the same way as Riccardo and I do. And let’s be honest: Taking this approach removes some of the stress and worry that comes with starting a new business.
One of the biggest events in the Zure year is Zafari. Over a long weekend in September then entire organisation heads to a single location for a mixture of activities – some around sharing knowledge, some around building teams, and some very much focused on relaxation and celebration. It was fantastic to look back at how, over several days, our company chat channels were bombarded with pictures and messages as the UK team enjoyed building solid relationships through spending time with their colleagues from Finland, Belgium, Denmark, and new kids on the block the Netherlands.
Meanwhile, strategy is also a team effort. Twice a year the leadership from each country, along with practice leaders for the different areas of the business, gather. It was great to be able to make a positive impact here, as we looked forwards and shape the strategy for Zure Group, identify the goals we wanted to shoot for in the coming year and how we would measure success as a team.
That challenge, and sense of accomplishment, is a regular thing for myself and my fellow founders. We meet virtually each week to update each other on how our countries are doing, how we are progressing towards the goals we set at summit, and how we can help each other to achieve success for us all, not just our own country.
If, like me, you’re a comic book fan then you know that there have been some great Year One stories, but that often the Year Two follow ups can be a disappointment. It’s very important to me that Zure UK’s year two is a success. That means we need to make sure of a few things: Firstly, that our goals are realistic (but that doesn't mean they can’t be challenging); it means that Riccardo and I need to manage our time effectively to build the business structures we will need. It also means growing the team with people that we can rely on, empowering those people with the necessary authority and delegating decision making where needed to them.
This time next year I would really like to be able to say that we have the foundations of a successful data practice: That we have managed to recruit a talented and diverse team of experts who can provide the foundations for growth in this area, and that they have helped us deliver successful customer projects.
I’d like to double the size of our team this year and expand the scale of projects we deliver by at least fifty percent. Of course, I’d love to set targets like doubling our 2025 performance overall, but I expect growth to bring with challenges as we hire new team members and onboard new customers. We’re not going to just magically double the size of the team and project delivery immediately, so my conservativism prefers a more realistic target.
Directly linked to growth is profitability. I’m confident we can grow our profit in 2026 over our 2025 numbers, but I expect the profit margin to drop for the same reasons as I articulated for growth.
Enabling that growth means building a healthy sales pipeline. Our first year leaned heavily on personal networks when it came to finding projects. That’s great, but if we want to grow then we’re going to have to put effort into finding new customers and winning work. That’s got to be a key area of focus for me, personally, this year whilst Riccardo continues to focus on successful delivery.
Most importantly, however, our goal must be that Zure UK continues to be a rewarding place to work, with challenging projects that enable professional growth. We must ensure that we invest in our people and reward their investment in us.
When Riccardo and I began this journey, we wanted to always be honest with our customers. We wanted to treat our colleagues with respect as those customers bring us challenging projects that we will work together to deliver. We endeavoured to treat people fairly both personally and commercially.
In 2025 we have expended our team with people who we believe in and that believe in us. We have delivered projects for customers that are a pleasure to work with, and that appreciate the efforts and skills of our team (and often say that to me, which is lovely).
At the same time, we have learned to make sure that our team are OK, too. Sometimes the team need to recharge and must be supported as they do so. I strongly believe that if you do the right thing by your colleagues, staff, and customers, that approach brings success.
As we enter Year Two of Zure UK’s journey I’m looking forward to being challenged, learning new things, overcoming the obstacles we encounter, and solving problems in partnership with my friend and co-founder, Riccardo. Yes, we want to be successful, but the most important measure of that success is how it is built on the collaborative efforts of the whole global Zure team, and that the fruits of that success are in turn shared with the members of that team.
I really hope that his time next year I’ll be able to tell you about that success!