Tech business expands into new Coventry office after 2020 growth

A specialist in developing point of sale systems and e-commerce apps for the hospitality industry has seen major growth during 2020 – despite the sector being hit hardest by Covid-19.

Epos Anytime has been trading for several years, but during the past six months and adapting to the pandemic it has seen its fastest rate of growth.

This has led to the company establishing a brand-new base of operations at the University of Warwick Science Park’s Business Innovation Centre in Binley, Coventry.

The growth comes from the hospitality businesses seeking out the expertise of Epos Anytime during the first national Coronavirus pandemic lockdown with the ‘Yummy Takeaways’ channel the company offers.

The company, which has employees and clients based within Europe, provides point of sale till systems and merchant services for the hospitality sector, which can be integrated with online ordering facilities and mobile apps which the team develops and supports in-house.

At a time when the industry was forced to close its doors and look for alternative avenues to keep their business operational, firms turned to Epos Anytime to help them diversify and remain profitable.

Prior to the lockdown Ahmed Sadeeq, Technology Delivery Lead at Epos Anytime, was working as a full-time engineer in Central London for a worldwide retailer firm, however with his entrepreneurial skills and having recently graduated with his Computer Science degree, now was the right time to put his full focus and attention into projects available with Epos Anytime and the Yummy Takeaways platform.

He said: “We have seen our fastest growth over the past six months and it comes down to businesses not being able to trade in their usual way. This can even be something as simple as providing our clients with merchant services such as a sanitized and wipe-down card terminal.

“We develop our own Point of Sale software, online ordering and mobile apps – which are perfect for restaurants, so at a time when it was the only way for many hospitality businesses to operate, they were coming to us for swift and knowledgeable assistance.

“As a company we understood this was a difficult time for restaurants and we decided to support the industry by offering them free services until the lockdown period ended and I feel this allowed new clients to trust us and resulted in our growth.

“Since the last quarter of 2020 we have also started preparing online marketing campaigns for our clients, completely free of charge, encouraging their customers to keep ordering from local restaurants. We have seen this has had a great benefit in keeping restaurants busy with orders and it’s something we’re going to continue to provide until situations start to normalise again.

“Because of the increase in demand, it has meant that we have been able to develop new apps and technology to grow the business further as well.

Epos Anytime has been based in the Business Innovation Centre for a matter of weeks, but it is already feeling the benefits.

“We did look at other places, but the Business Innovation Centre just felt like the right fit,” said Ahmed. “It’s a central location, it’s incredibly professionally presented and we are a tech company so it feels right.

“We have clients who are franchises, so we needed somewhere that we could bring them for meetings, so it is great.

“There are all the other benefits as well such as the services that the science park offers and its connections to the university as well that we will be looking to tap into in the future.”

Penny Robb, Business Innovation Centre manager, said it was great to hear positive business news coming out of the pandemic.

“This is an exciting time for the company and great to see a new tenant growing along with several of our existing ones during what has been a tough time for many businesses.” she said.

“We look forward to working with them in the future and seeing the business grow and flourish further.”