Ahead4 is an established company office and workshop located in South Woodham Ferrers, we are set up to cover the whole of Essex. Occasionally we venture to locations throughout the UK and even abroad to Europe. We have been actively trading for nearly two decades and staff with many more years of experience. We’ve seen and repaired many varying scenarios, from typical computers, phones and server’s right up to super yachts buoyancy systems and even an oil rig.
Originally, the company was a web development business which brought internet solutions to the local community and businesses. Some of the services include; website design, web hosting, and domain registration to name a few. This has grown into providing clean, professional and modern websites to our customers built in-house and offering fully custom developed CRM software.
Over the last decade, the company has expanded by offering several different IT services including on and off-site PC repairs, home & business networking, PC component sales, Mobile & Tablet Repairs, and more recently VOIP services.
For more information about our sales or computer repair services please call 01245 426163.
So rest assured you are working with friendly professionals who relish a challenge for all your IT needs.
Richard started out in the IT industry back in the nineties, fixing computers and creating websites for loyal customers. Using his expertise, he went on to found Ahead4 at the turn of the new millennium. Undertaking jobs from all around Essex, nationally and further afield in Ireland, Europe and Asia. Growing the business successfully to cover all areas of the industry has allowed Ahead4 to thrive; with plans in place expand the business even further in the near future. On the rare occasion Richard takes a break away from work, he loves nothing more than spending quality time with his family.
Carol deals with all transactions within the business, anything payment related is overseen by her. Ensuring the business is running smoothly and making sure invoices going out and in are dealt with efficiently. Outside of work, Carol runs Bluest Blues Dance Club teaching people how to dance the blues.
Responsible for the admin side of affairs for the business, she keeps track of everyone and everything going on within the business and ensuring the business is kept in a stable manner. Outside of work she likes to spend time with her family and a spot of shopping.
As the head of IT Olly handles everything from remote jobs and PC builds to servers and networking. With many years of fault finding experience he sees all; especially behind his 6 monitor enclosure. Outside of work Olly is an avid motorcycle and car enthusiast as well as a Counter Strike champion. He has a strong love for music and likes playing his guitar.
Heading up the web development side of the web department, Marc handles the build and realisation of CRM systems for our clients, as well as making sure the software and networks are operating with the highest stability and integrity. With experience of many code frameworks, Marc knows the ins and outs and what works best for Ahead4's systems; with experience in networking this ensures our systems are built securely and are easily maintained. Outside of work Marc enjoys gaming and films as well as testing new technologies.
Originally from an IT and networking background, James moved into coding and web design where he found passion in content creation and design. Working in many sectors during his career has allowed him to create diverse, modern and professional looking websites, crafted carefully. He is usually the first point of contact in the web department and aims to help all customers along the way to their new site or CRM system based on their personal requirements. Outside of work James loves to spend time with his family; he is a genuine car guy and has a real passion for engineering, technology and the financial markets.
Hector originally from Dufftown, Scotland was the first employee to join Ahead4. Creating websites initially alongside Richard, however, as the business grew he started to handle more of the sales and purchasing for business as well as handling customers various accounts. Outside of work Hector enjoys tinkering with his AV setup and cycling.
Any customers coming into the South Woodham branch will likely find Greg. Typically carrying out rebuilds and fresh builds of gaming rigs; with many years fault finding and building, he enjoys the challenge of finding and fixing your IT issues. Outside of work enjoys going to the gym, partying and socialising down his local pub.
Will handles the development of CRM systems as well as fault finding and problem solving both in our Platform software and client systems, he ensures the software is functional and regularly tests new implementations to ensure compatibility. Will has worked with many frameworks over the years and builds add-ons for our Platform software using the best methodologies to ensure customers have the best experience. Will is a bit of a Jack of all trades building front end sites, to complex CRM systems. Outside of work Will enjoys gaming and managing his financial portfolio.
Our home overflow onsite engineer, James; also sometimes known as JB, is usually the person you will see ready to put right any home user IT issues or for your business. With a wealth of experience from network faults to ensuring your IT system is maintained correctly, rest assured your computer woes will be resolved quickly. Outside of work James likes to spend time with his family and go for drives in the country.
Our resident from Romford. Rhys is into gaming and enjoys spending time with his Mrs. He is also a budding car enthusiast and enjoys getting stuck in with his tools.
Ahead4's humble beginnings offering quality IT and web services to local customers
The first shop opens up in Trinity Square in the heart of South Woodham Ferrers.
As Ahead4 grew, a larger shop with more space was required. The was achieved by moving to a larger premises still located in South Woodham on Hullbridge Road.
The business started to grow rapidly and a new web office was commissioned at the South Woodham branch.
Our first content management system that was used up until recently which has now been replaced by Platform.
Tenda Cart replaced our existing product 'Cart Four' which a much more advanced system using a MySQL database, this upgrade was adopted by most of our customers. In 2015 it was replaced by Platform.
Microsoft Exchange was set up to aid our business customers. This was the best option to provide a reliable email service with secure backups
The team started to grow larger and the need for a bigger office was soon required. Ahead4 opened a new shop in the Alpha Centre in Wickford as a new location for the web team and another workshop location for the IT side of the business.
We're celebrating our 14th year of trading this year! To mark the occasion we're rolling out a revitalised version of the Ahead4 Logo. We felt the old logo; which has been with us for 13 years, needed a bit of a facelift - so we created something that's modern, easier to read and says what we do on the tin. Funnily, it's been a long standing joke with our regular customers that we're actually called 4.com Ahead but we're proud to re-announce ourselves as Ahead4.
New systems built in-house going forwards using responsive design by default. Although it is not highly adopted yet it is becoming more common in the ever changing internet.
With the ever increasing adoption of mobiles and tablets by all ages, there's also growing demand to repairing and replacing screens, we now offer screen repairs and other services for these devices.
Earlier this year we realised we needed a system that incorporated all web aspects so we could update and improve it without much hassle. Along with that we have released modules allowing us to offer websites at a much faster speed and at a reasonable price.
To meet our business customers demands for a secure, easy to use and reliable telephony system, we chose VoIP. For the many excellent benefits it offers please see here.
A fresh new look for Ahead4 marks the beginning of our major expansion of the business
We are a fulled accredited registrar for UK domain names (e.g. .co.uk, .uk, etc). This enables us to cater for individual customers as well as our B2B client base.
We now offer full business orientated mobile phone contracts. With our Multi SIM mobile phones you are able to keep you connected more often buy changing network when needed, wherever you are. For more information please see here.
With the expansion of the Ahead4 head office complete, we are now able to finally fit everyone under one big roof. We then closed the Wickford shop as it was no longer required and only acquired due to the once limited space.
Is this now one of the fastest fibre connections in South Woodham? With a whole 1 Gigabit connection to download and upload. This was needed to better support our heavy usage; we may be doubling or even trebling up in future as our infrastructure grows in line with our plans. However, for now simply put the speed is amazing.
We made the decision to go solar powered to offset some of the impact the additional servers have made, and even more so once we add to our cluster.
