Member Article

Fire fails to burn business hopes

An Alnwick-based software development and consultancy business has proven that it can overcome disaster by breaking into the European market only two years after a fire devastated its headquarters.

Tagish, which was formed in 1995 as a spin off from an existing company, had to rebuild itself from scratch after a fire destroyed its head office in Alnwick in February 2006.

Within days the company was back online. One year later, the company was working from new offices with a new brand image. Now, two years since the fire, Tagish are making inroads into the European market. They have recently secured a contract with a well-known, online travel business.

Managing Director Andrew Fisk, who runs the business along with his wife, Sharon, said: “In the days following the fire, staff worked remotely from a back room in a house, desperately trying to keep all our systems and websites running. It’s a testament to all those guys that we were able to retain excellent relationships with the vast majority of our clients.”

During the past two years, Tagish has restructured the business, working with public sector clients throughout the UK.

Andrew Fisk said: “We have no plans to move our head office from Alnwick as it’s such a wonderful place to work, and I’m not sure we would have survived in a big city after the fire. It was a pivotal moment for the business, but we wanted to carry on and now Tagish has passed that crucial 18-months point and is flourishing more than ever. I’m not saying that the fire was a good thing, but we’re certainly proof that with hard work, a business can survive anything!”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .