In an exclusive interview, Lee Manning, CEO, FUTERA speaks to Michelle Ryder about the company’s four‑decades-long heritage, its recent rebrand to FUTERA and its evolution into a modern channel services business. He also talks about how technology has evolved and transformed the business landscape over time and explores some emerging trends including AI, that he believes will shape the future in the coming years. Here’s an excerpt of the conversation
Michelle Ryder (MR): FUTERA is a new name in the market, but it’s absolutely not a new company, you have in fact got a four-decades-long heritage, Let’s start with a summary of the journey to date.
Lee Manning (LM): FUTERA was born in February 2025, but as you say, we have operated numerous companies under different brands for nearly 40 years. All of our companies really worked in silos before, but the marketplace now wants more than this. We had brilliant foundations with the businesses that we had and excellent reputations, not only with our customers, but within the marketplace too. So, we thought the time is now, let’s launch this business and at the same time, we also became employee-owned.
MR: The employee-owned bit is something I’m keen to explore further. It is quite unusual, particularly in our industry. So how does it work? And what are the benefits to both your own people and your customers?
LM: It is unusual. We are the only business in the MPS arena and one of a couple of IT services businesses in the country that are employee-owned. There are about 350 businesses in the UK that are employee-owned – John Lewis being the most famous one. Although the theory behind it is quite well-established, uptake has been fairly slow. But for us, we found it a bit of a game-changer. We’ve seen a positive, nuanced behavioural change in our staff. It’s built this brilliant, positive culture.
MR: FUTERA is a channel services business, how do you differentiate in the market, and what innovative approaches are you taking to deliver your services?
LM: We’ve now built a business where we think we have the widest range of tech services in the whole of the country. We offer standard stuff like managed IT services, print services and so on, all the way through to PDI and logistics, circular economy and secure disposal all under one roof, all with our own team. The second thing I would say is that we operate businesses that work directly with customers and also for the channel. We’re trusted by some of the biggest names in UK tech to provide services on their behalf and having operated our own direct operation for 30 odd years, we know what these people want, they can trust us, because when we turn up to site, we have their same ethos, we know what works. Being able to operate both businesses in tandem, works really well, but the innovation for us has really come from a pricing model. So, for years, you would have been given the option of a one, three or five year service wrap or warranty product, which you have to pay for upfront in full. This means that the cashflow of your deal is impacted significantly, your service team is in the red from day one and has to claw its way out month by month. We thought there’s got to be a better way of doing this and we’re really proud to launch our flexible pricing structure. You can add devices on, take devices off, month by month, but the key thing is that we charge you for these things monthly, rather than up front. And we think that all of these bits together bring a genuine, tangible difference to FUTERA offering these services.
MR: How has technology evolved and transformed the business landscape over time, and what emerging trends do you think will shape the future in the coming years?
LM: We’ve seen a lot of tech change, right? And I think we’re in this weird mix at the moment between disparate working, where everybody’s working from home more and almost in silos, but at the same time, there’s a lot more collaborative working. It’s up to companies like us to enable that and put the tools in place for people to do it. COVID was the catalyst for this, we’ve been beating the drum of digital transformation for years, customers resisted it and then they were forced to do it, and they went this is good, we should do more of this. Looking forwards, AI is obviously going to be the next big thing, just as video calls has been the thing for probably the last five years. In workplace tech, AI is going to dominate in some capacity. But AI aside, I would say it’s more evolution than revolution. I don’t think there’s anything on the roadmap for the next five years or so outside of AI that’s really going to come and change the way that people work. But actually, can they optimise systems better? Can they be more efficient? Can they enhance usability? Even if you look at things like how people work now compared to how they worked in 2021, software vendors have developed their products for the modern way of working, and it’s great for us to be able to help our customers on that journey as they transform their businesses.
MR: You mentioned AI, which is definitely a hot topic right now. What are your thoughts on AI’s future potential especially around automation, and indeed challenges?
LM: It’s an interesting one; I think we all understand the scope of what’s possible with AI. There’s so much that could be done with it, and there’s so much that’s starting to be done with it. I take a fairly considered approach to AI. So, for instance, I was at a conference recently, and they asked for a show of hands who’s using AI in their business today? Two thirds of the room put their hand up, and then they asked those people, what are you using AI for? And a lot of people used it as almost a shortcut for data analysis. I didn’t think that that was the right way to go, taking all your customer data and throwing it into the cloud, that data is then suddenly someone else’s. And, you know, data privacy over the last six or seven years has become so paramount. So, I think consideration with it, developing internal policies with the use of AI – should you be using it? Should you not? Do you have any approved platforms? Using Gemini or Copilot from trusted sources like Microsoft and Google, I would say is a lot better than downloading a random app on your phone. I’m an advocate for it, and I think it’s great, but I think a considered use of AI is where we have to go as an industry, rather than just letting everyone just go for it.
MR: It’s been a busy start to the year with the restructure and rebrand, now the dust has settled, what’s next for FUTERA?
LM: 2025, I suppose has been our transformative year, getting projects that we’ve wanted to do for a long time done, so everything just works perfectly. We’ve resisted onboarding new customers during this period so that we can get everything sorted in‑house. But now we’re starting to build that pipeline. We want to start working with customers that think the same way we do, that really value the customer experience and so on. We’re also looking to engage with companies that have the same values that we do, that have brilliant staff and excellent customers, that want to do the same kind of things. And we’d love to bring them into the FUTERA brand.
