Today, Vectis Refrigeration serves a broad mix of sectors: education, healthcare, supermarkets, hospitality and advanced manufacturing. Our work spans Island manufacturers in composites and aerospace, as well as schools, hospitals, hotels and hospitality venues, including restaurants, pubs and yacht clubs. With major offshore wind manufacturers based on the Island, there’s also a clear opportunity for refrigeration and FM to support the renewable-energy supply chain. We’ve expanded beyond refrigeration and air conditioning into heat pumps, catering equipment, and facilities management. The tools and clients have changed, but the principle remains the same: local response, dependable service.
Anniversaries are a time for reflection, and after ten years, I’ve been asking myself: what have I learnt and what comes next?
That’s where the story takes a twist – it involves sacking my business advisor, asking AI for a £10m exit plan and realising that my first lesson in running a service business still applies today: plans are easy, but execution is everything.
From one van to full service
Running a business on the Isle of Wight comes with quirks. The ferry is both a lifeline and a bottleneck. Mainland contractors often underestimate the lost time in travel and logistics, leaving Island customers waiting. That gap was our opportunity.
We began with refrigeration installations, service and maintenance. Over time, clients pulled us into air conditioning, then heat pumps, catering and most recently full facilities management. The variety is broad; one day it’s a school kitchen, the next a manufacturer’s process cooling. The technical challenge is high, but the real differentiator isn’t technology. Its reliability. Turning up when you say you will and fixing the problem properly. That’s what’s grown our business more than any marketing strategy.
Looking back, three truths stand out:
- Plans are easy, delivery is hard. Perfect maintenance strategies mean nothing if you can’t get engineers on site.
- Trust is earned in hours, not years. Clients remember the 10pm rescue forever. Lose that trust once, and it’s gone.
- Resilience beats flashy growth. Surviving tough winters and staffing gaps matters more than chasing headlines.
The AI experiment
Business advisors have their place, but they’re expensive. At one point, I was paying more for a month of advice than it now costs for a full year of ChatGPT Pro licences for my entire team.
Out of curiosity, I asked AI: “Write me a business plan to exit with £10m in five to eight years.” It delivered in seconds, pages of milestones, projections, and strategy. The kind of thing consultants would take weeks to produce.
At times, using AI has felt less like a strategy and more like trying to drink from a pint glass while someone points a fire hose at you. The sheer volume of possibilities, prompts and directions is overwhelming. But hidden in the torrent are real gems, insights that can accelerate planning, challenge assumptions, and give you an edge if you’re willing to do the work of filtering.
That’s when it hit me: AI isn’t replacing me. It’s just giving me homework at scale.
The plan wasn’t wrong, but it didn’t crawl into a freezer at 2am, wrangle procurement delays, or motivate a team after a tough week. Execution still belongs to people.
That doesn’t mean AI isn’t valuable. Used right, it can be transformative. The challenge is bridging the gap between theory and practice.
To push forward, I created a new role in the business focused purely on digital innovation and efficiency. For a small Island firm, that’s unusual. A partner told me we’re only the second company they’d seen do this, the other had 4,500 employees. That comparison made me smile. Why should modernisation be reserved for giants?
The aim isn’t gimmicks. It’s practical wins:
- Cleaner reporting and transparency.
- Engineers supported with the right information at the right time.
- Stronger compliance and documentation.
- Less admin, more service.
If digital tools strip out friction, the engineers and the clients benefit most.
Building partnerships and trust
Innovation isn’t done in isolation. We’ve strengthened ties with an international wholesaler, giving us sharper access to parts, knowledge and supply resilience. We’ve also built a reputation for supporting national contractors, keeping their satellite sites on the Island running to the same standard (or better) as mainland operations. That peace of mind has earned us trust with major players.
Technically, I’m proud that we’re the only company on the Island certified to deliver CO2 installations and service. We recently completed a coldroom project with that technology, proof that we can deliver sustainable, low-GWP solutions, not just talk about them.
There’s plenty of hype about AI replacing jobs, but I don’t buy it. Refrigeration and FM are too grounded in reality – food spoils, patients rely on chilled storage, and clients demand uptime. Those are non-negotiable.
AI won’t replace engineers, but engineers using AI will outperform those who don’t. The danger is letting outsiders define what that looks like for us.
The opportunity and responsibility are to make sure AI reflects the real world of plant rooms, kitchens, and chillers, not just PowerPoints.
Looking ahead
So, where am I after 10 years?
Proud of building a business that started small, stayed resilient and now supports both Island clients and national contractors. But also restless, aiming for growth, innovation, and yes, that bold £10m exit in five to eight years.
The next decade won’t just be about vans on the road. It will be about how our industry chooses to adapt digital tools and AI. The headlines will be big, but the real test will be whether those tools actually help engineers deliver better service.
AI gave me a £10m plan in 40 seconds. That was nice. But the next decade will still come down to people. Because when the freezer fails at 2am, no algorithm is going to turn the spanners. Engineers will.