30 years of Bywater

Bywater was originally formed in 1982 and was based in Hungerford for its first year. After a few premises moves locally between 1983 and 1987, Bywater purchased the stunning Highlands House near Reading, which became an excellent training venue as well as company offices.

From the beginning Bywater’s main focus was consultancy and training in Strategy and Management Systems. Working with the Oil and Gas industry, with a base in Stavanger, Norway, we were heavily involved with many North Sea Oil and Gas developments.

Following the Alexander Kielland oil platform disaster in 1980, the Norwegian Oil and Gas industry were keen to set up a new system of internal control which, although industry specific, had close synergies with BS5750, the precursor to the global and hugely successful Management Systems Standard ISO 9001. From this early experience within the Oil and Gas industry, Bywater was very well placed to provide training and consultancy services as the use of Management System Standards became widespread.

Training and consultancy on Strategic Planning and Management System Standards has been and still is Bywater’s main area of work. Throughout the 1980’s the business expanded its operations with bases in Europe, the Middle East, the Far East, Australia and the USA.

Bywater grew a strong client base of FTSE & Fortune 500 companies and frequently worked with an organisation called Axon, a leading SAP consultancy that fulfilled the IT requirements of large organisations while Bywater undertook the Strategic Planning and transformation support. Axon plc acquired Bywater in 2002.

This synergy was pivotal to the growth and success of Axon, growing from a relatively small domestic implementer of SAP at its beginning, into a £250 million turnover company.

In 2008, the global technology company, HCL, saw Axon as a strategic acquisition and bought it for £450 million. It was decided prior to this acquisition that a former director of Axon and a long standing consultant at Bywater would partake in a management buyout.

Since August 2008, Bywater has once again became a stand alone, privately owned company, still working with its original owner providing Strategic consultancy and training to some of the major global players in the Oil and Gas industry.

Now based near Milton Keynes with training venues across the UK, Bywater is proud to continue serving its existing clients and ever expanding new customer base with world class Management Systems training and consultancy services.