It all started with a random meeting of minds
It’s been 18 years since our founding directors first met, completely by chance, at a charity dinner. From the crab salad to the lemon and lime meringue dessert they found themselves chit-chatting about family, work and the things they did in their all-too-rare downtime. Then, despite starting the evening as complete strangers, sometime between coffee and something a little stronger, the conversation turned to collaborative what-ifs.
It was a conversation that turned into a meeting, which generated an idea, that launched a business.
A totally new
approach
The idea that excited them that day was the creation of a totally new approach to a sector that had been stuck in a ‘traditional’ way of doing things for far too long (for traditional, see ‘dark ages’!)
While most of the parking sector was still reliant on manned attendants, G24’s core focus has always been on innovation and advanced technology to revolutionise and simplify the way clients manage their car parks.
And, what do you know, it took off. Starting out in 2005 from a kitchen table, winning those first few clients, hiring our heads of IT and sales – who we’re happy to say are still with us today – we set to work building one of the UK’s leading full-service parking management solutions firms.
The difference
we created
When we launched, ANPR technology was relatively new, costly, and highly complex. We developed our own in-house software to make it simpler to use, more accessible for all clients, and more powerful as a data intelligence and analysis tool. Oh, and we also offered it for free.
That was just the start. As time went on we developed more and more innovative solutions, new ways of protecting restricted-use parking spaces, of improving car park security and reducing retail fraud. We created technology to put the power of parking management in the hands of our clients and we gave them the means to make more informed strategic decisions about their car parks. The goal…? To help our clients to extend the customer care they already offered out into their parking areas.
Our biggest
innovation
However, as far as we’re concerned, the biggest innovation we have developed here at G24 is a low-tech one, that of always-on-hand consultancy.
We may be known for our hi-tech solutions, but we’re a hands-on team, so we work with our clients, helping them to determine how best to use our hardware, software and services, how to analyse the data they collect and interpret what it says about customer behaviour and preferences in order to assist with all car park related commercial decisions.
G24 today
Almost two decades later, we are a firm of 40 staff with a fleet of company vehicles, highly trained in-house engineers, a dedicated customer care team and, most importantly, we’re self-funded. With no investors to please we can run our business in a super-agile fashion, just the way we’ve always liked it, allowing us to become industry disruptors, leading the way in quality of service.
We may have exchanged the kitchen table for a nice big office, but our purpose for being remains unchanged – to be the innovative lead for our sector, creating solutions that make our clients’ lives simpler and their car parks less congested and more customer/tenant-friendly.