Looking around our 10th Anniversary celebrations at City Park today, I am so proud at how quickly our presence has grown in Scotland. In just ten years, we’ve grown to have approximately 650 team members, with everyone dedicated in servicing over 2,000 Scottish customer businesses. We’re not stopping there – with our recent role as Official IT Hardware and Data Centre Supporter at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games and the renewed lease of our City Park campus in Glasgow, we’re committed to continued investment in Scotland.
Since we launched in City Park in 2005, we’ve developed areas of strength in the Scottish public sector and we’re well on our way to becoming a true end-to-end solutions provider for Scottish businesses. As a part of this multi-year strategy, we’ve been committed to expanding our presence in Scotland – helped by the acquisition of the Edinburgh-based Security-as-a-Service provider, SecureWorks, in 2011. As we’ve gathered momentum, our team has even gone beyond the borders of Scotland. As a direct result of our business transformation, our team is becoming increasingly highly-skilled and is being asked to take on more EMEA-wide and global roles – a tremendous testament to the drive and talent of our Scottish workforce.
As I look back over the last ten years, it’s clear that the relationship we’ve formed with the local community has been paramount in our success. We’ve been able to demonstrate thought-leadership within the Scottish business community through the acceptance of our team into groups such as Scottish Women in Technology, Scottish Enterprise, SCDI, and Glasgow Chambers of Commerce and ScotlandIS. We’ve also been lucky enough to play an active volunteer role in encouraging future generations through school outreach, such as our mentoring programmes at Alexandra Parade Primary School, and dedicate programmes to support Scottish-based charities such as The Prince’s Trust Million Makers Challenge, Children’s Hospice Association Scotland (CHAS ), Make A Wish Foundation and Byte Night. There is a tremendous sense of satisfaction derived from giving back to communities in the East End and beyond. The highlight of these efforts has to be the Glasgow Commonwealth Games last year – to be involved in a world-class sporting event was a significant undertaking for the team and everyone rose to the challenge.
Today isn’t all about recognising our past achievements though – today, we look to the future with the launch of our new Employee Resource Group (ERG), PRIDE. PRIDE is the latest ERG to join the ranks on the Glasgow site and speaks to Dell’s strong and proud history of diversity and inclusiveness. With Scotland recently ranked number one by the annual Rainbow Index for respecting the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, *** and intersex (LGBTI) people, we wanted to make sure that Dell wasn’t left behind. As part of the ERG family, PRIDE will continue to welcome broader perspectives, contributing to a work culture which values and thrives successfully because of diversity.
As we celebrate our past and our future in Scotland today, we want to share our excitement and commitment to continued success. We want to continue to deliver technology solutions that help customers improve efficiency and productivity and subsequently help the Scottish community and economy reach its full potential in partnership as we continue to grow.