Traditional telephony accounted for around 90 per cent of Armstrong Bell’s business as recently as 2010. Today the Bromsgrove company supports more than 400 organisations with managed IT, cybersecurity, cloud and communications services, and is building AI voice agents capable of completing customer transactions.
The contrast captures the scale of change Armstrong Bell has navigated since William Copley founded the business in 2001, when its work centred on cabling and office telephone systems.
Armstrong Bell now employs around 20 people from its Greenbox headquarters, with managed IT and cybersecurity at the heart of a business that has expanded through acquisition as well as organic growth.
Its latest work includes AI voice agents that can answer calls using natural speech, understand enquiries, collect information and, crucially, carry out actions within customers’ systems.
Copley said: “Truly useful AI still seemed like witchcraft not so long ago, and now it really is here as a reality.
“The most important thing is that it can take an action. If you can take an action on a website, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to do it on a phone call with an AI agent. It should have exactly the same capabilities.”
Armstrong Bell has developed through successive generations of business technology, moving from physical installations and conventional telephone systems through hosted voice, mobile and unified communications to cloud services, managed IT and cybersecurity.
Even the Armstrong Bell name was chosen with technological change in mind. When the business moved on from its original Ocean Data and Voice identity, Copley deliberately wanted a name which sounded established but did not tie the company to a technology that might quickly date.
He said: “I wanted to find a name that sounded like it had some heritage and some weight behind it, but didn’t necessarily tie us to a particular technology. Technology changes so fast.”
One of Armstrong Bell’s most significant commercial moves came in 2022 with the acquisition of managed service provider Control & Shift.
The deal brought an established IT helpdesk, Microsoft 365, hosting, technical expertise and additional customers into the business after Copley concluded that managed IT and cybersecurity should become a primary focus.
A subsequent partnership with global technology distributor Arrow gave Armstrong Bell a scalable platform for Microsoft, Sophos and other cloud and cybersecurity services.
Copley said: “Rather than build that from the ground up, we were able to acquire the smallest viable unit of a fully functioning MSP with heritage, history, knowledge and experience, bring that in and then develop that offering within Armstrong Bell.”
Some of the relationships behind the business have lasted almost as long as Armstrong Bell itself.
Ian ‘George’ Emmett, one of its longest-serving employees, joined around 23 years ago installing systems and cabling.
Copley said: “He still treats the business like it’s his own, and he’s irreplaceable.”
Armstrong Bell’s relationship with 9 Group, now Onecom, also stretches back more than two decades. Copley has previously said there “wouldn’t have been an Armstrong Bell” without the support it provided as the young company developed its telecoms services.
Copley’s own route into technology was unconventional.
Before starting the business, he spent a decade as the lead singer and guitarist with Stourbridge band Fretblanket, signed to PolyGram and touring Britain and America.
During gaps in the band’s schedule he learned the telecoms trade with a friend’s company, travelling around the country installing systems and cabling. The work included putting additional seasonal tills into Toys “R” Us stores before Christmas and returning in the spring to remove them.
That engineering background also shaped the way he wanted his own company to operate.
He said: “As an engineer, you see the customers’ problems and their journey very clearly.
“I felt the important part was on the day, engaging with the customer, and then the next two or three days afterwards, making sure that they had a seamless transition. We felt we could do that part of the job better.”
Armstrong Bell will celebrate its anniversary at 24 Stories, on the 24th floor of 103 Colmore Row in Birmingham, close to the city’s now largely redundant BT Tower.
From the venue, the top of the tower sits almost at eye level across the skyline. Copley remembers the tower and its microwave dishes from childhood, when his father worked in Birmingham, but today describes it as “a monument to a previous age”.
The view neatly frames 25 years in which Armstrong Bell has moved from physically wiring businesses for communications to managing technology in the cloud and using AI to handle the conversations themselves.
Copley said: “I’m proud of still being here after 25 years. I think we’ve done a good job. Our customers say they enjoy doing business with us, and that’s not a given.
“We’re well set for growth. We’re well set for the future. I’m really excited about what the next five years brings in IT, AI and cybersecurity, and we’ll follow what our customers need.”
