During the early 1980s ICL had been going through a difficult time. It had almost gone bust and new management had been brought in to transform the companies fortunes. Fortunately, we were living though a period of phenomenal growth in the IT industry and through the efforts of the management team led by Robb Wilmot, ICL survived.
Once ICL had been put on a more sound footing, it had attracted the interest of networking and communications company called Standard Telephones and Cables (STC). STC wanted to expand its capability into computing and launched a bid to buy ICL. The management of STC saw the “mega trend” of convergence between communications (e.g. telephony, TV etc) and Information Technology (computers), and had a vision of a converged company. STC had pioneered the early development of fibre optics as a means of transmitting voice and data communications in a converged manner and so on paper, ICL and STC was a dream combination.
I remember the day of the take-over well. By a complete co-incidence we had a visit that day from a representative of a subsidiary company of STC called IAL, which made modems (IAL was based in Basingstoke and I have a feeling, although can’t confirm it, that the later ICL/Fujitsu office in Basingstoke was that IAL office). The representative was on our premises in Wakefield when the news came through that ICL was now owned by STC and that guy certainly had an interrogation as to what being part of STC was like.
Perversely, once it had taken over ICL, it was STC which ran into financial difficulty. I think its profits took a dive after spending so much on ICL. ICL ended up being the most valuable part of STC and so it was “ring fenced” to protect the asset. The only real evidence on the ground that STC owned ICL was the bold “An STC Company” which had augmented the ICL logo.
Because of this trend of convergence between IT and Communications, I was “head hunted” by a new department called “Networks Region”. This was a part of ICL which didn’t sell computers, but the networking and communications technology that linked computers together and encompassed voice communications too. As Networks Region, we could sell to new customers who wouldn’t necessarily be interested in buying ICL computers.
This was a very exciting time because we were told this was at the leading edge of what the company wanted to do and the direction it wanted to move into. The office locations were also in exclusive sounding places, like Elstree (of studios fame) and Wilmslow (a Cheshire town where the local car dealership was a Porsche). The products were also exotic and included stuff that you would normally associate with computer companies. During this time I worked on my first bid with a value of over £10M.
The networks capability that was built during that era survived and became the core of a capability that was still around when I left the company in 2020.
Networks Region however, wasn’t to survive the next reorganisation (a common and recurring theme of ICL and Fujitsu). The company wanted a “vertical market” structure which meant that instead of dividing up the country in terms of geographical regions, they created divisions specialising in different industry types, like retail, manufacturing, financial services, central and local government. The theory was that you would be able to talk the customers language and have products designed with their need in mind.
Everyone would end up into one of these “verticals” and I said that I would be happy in any except Local Government so you can probably guess where I ended up!
Richard Mann 