Here our MD Andy Millard gives us a personal insight into the history of AMC, visions of the future and what motivates him!

Name: Andy Millard

Position: Managing Director

What do you find the most exciting and rewarding part of your role?

Seeing people develop, grow in confidence and build lives for themselves as a result of their work, especially the younger members of staff that come in on our apprentice program.

I love being able to share my experience and skills with others and help where I can. And having the ability to create a working environment and culture that I always wanted as an employee.

As a result, I’ve got an office full of nice, genuine, honest, hard working people, but we do have a good laugh as well at times! I enjoy being a role model!

What is your proudest achievement?

I’m lucky to have quite a few business-related achievements and personal ones, but I am most proud of the first two years of AMC.

I started AMC at the age of 20, from my bedroom. I was so determined and so driven and didn’t take a single day off in 2 years. I managed to stay motivated and worked 50-60 hours a week and I didn’t take any cash I was making from the business during this time. By the end of my second year, I was turning over £700k.

I look back now and am so proud of the 20-year-old I was. Whilst all my friends were going on lads holidays and to the pubs and clubs 3 times a week, I focused on my business. I stayed humble and for someone at that age and turning over that revenue, it’s not common. However, I believe that is why AMC has become the business it now is.  

You’ve recently changed your name from AMC Computer Supplies to AMC-IT Solutions, what was the driver for this?

Our customers! When I started out back in 2005, I was selling computers and supplies and chose a name to reflect this. However, credit to the AMC sales team and the relationships they have with their customers, we found more and more customers came to us for services and solutions.

Therefore, we invested in a technical team and watched that sector of the business grow.

It soon became clear that ‘AMC Computer Supplies’ no longer encapsulated who we are, and we needed a name change.

Your website states that by “providing an exciting and enjoyable working environment brings out the best in your employees” – how do you ensure this?

We have several company-wide events each year, such as horse racing, summer BBQ’s, Christmas parties. During Covid, we ran a weekly quiz to ensure we kept in touch with everyone, particularly those who were furloughed.

When we hit our yearly sales target, we celebrate with a company holiday! 2018 was Magaluf and 2019 was Marbella! And for those that couldn’t attend, we arranged a London day trip.

I try my best to support and develop my teams too by encouraging training and taking the time to have one-to-one catch ups with everyone.

I also find the little gestures are so appreciated – it never fails to amaze me how people’s eyes light up at the sight of bacon rolls in the morning.

How did Covid-19 affect AMC? What are your plans moving forward?

This year was unprecedented territory for everyone, and it was difficult personally and economically. Luckily, we were prepared to work from home, so we were able to continue with a ‘business as usual’ approach. Of course, we felt the same peaks and troughs that most did and in April we did make the decision to furlough some staff from both Operations and Sales. I’m so proud of how hard my team worked and thank the furloughed staff for their patience.

With regards to moving forward, all staff will have now returned from furlough, and we are raring to go! We’re in our new office, we’ve had an internal restructure, we’ve got a new website and of course we have our new name!