Video Q&A: Spherica, UK IT Industry Awards finalist

'The biggest opportunity is actually harnessing AI and automation to deliver real, tangible improvements in IT operations'

https://youtu.be/ZsrKIQbacko

We talk to Scott Littlehales, Sales & Marketing Director at Spherica, to find out more about the company's biggest challenges and achievements over the past year.

The UK IT Industry Awards are the largest and most well-known event in the technology industry calendar. Owned and operated by BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, and Computing, the awards enjoy a level of professionalism and industry knowledge not seen at other shows.

This year's winners were announced at a live awards ceremony on Wednesday 12th November in London.

Spherica was a finalist in AI Innovation of the Year category.

Scott Littlehales is a seasoned commercial and IT services leader with a career spanning over two decades in the technology and managed services sectors. Currently serving as Sales & Marketing Director at Spherica, Scott has previously held senior roles where he led initiatives across retail, transport, logistics, and manufacturing.

His career highlights include:

Scott is known for his values-driven leadership style, emphasising honesty, empathy, and fairness, and is a strong believer in collaboration as a catalyst for growth.

Why do you think awards like the UK IT Industry Awards matter?

I think awards like the UK IT Industry Awards are important because they celebrate innovation and the people behind it at the highest level. The IT industry moves so fast that it's easy to get caught up in the next challenge or project; so taking a step back to recognise what's being achieved across the sector is hugely valuable. It also helps shine a light on SMEs like ourselves that are genuinely making an impact and a difference with technology.

A great reminder that it's not just the big tech giants that make a difference. There's a real David versus Goliath element in IT these days where smaller agile companies like ours can be just as innovative, and these awards give us a great chance to showcase that.

What would winning this award mean to your company?

It means a huge amount to us. We're a small business and while we don't take ourselves too seriously, we're incredibly serious about the quality of what we deliver to our clients. The team has worked so hard to build something genuinely innovative with ServiceHive, so to have that recognised by the wider industry will be a real moment of pride for us. It's that external validation that tells the team what they've built really matters.

What would you say is your company's proudest achievement over the past year?

Without a doubt, launching ServiceHive. We've officially launched it in February this year and it's been such a milestone for us as a business. ServiceHive represents years of experience distilled into a project that genuinely changes how IT service management works. It's built around our belief in automation-first IT, helping to make service delivery smarter, faster and more seamless by taking away all the manual and repetitive tasks. Seeing it go from an idea to a live platform that's transforming how teams operate has been an incredible journey and we couldn't be more proud.

What have been the biggest challenges of 2025 so far and how have you overcome them? How have your people helped with that?

I think launching a new product is always a challenge, especially when you're balancing that with the day-to-day client delivery as a managed services provider. For us, the biggest challenge has been managing that balance while maintaining momentum but our team really rose to that challenge. Everyone bought into the vision for ServiceHive and pulled together to make it happen. There's a real all-hands-on-deck attitude in the team and throughout the business and that's what got us through, that collaboration, creativity and a shared belief on what we're building and why we're building it.

How do you think the industry has changed over the past year and what changes do you think it still needs to make?

I think the biggest shift we've seen is the growing acceptance of AI and automation. As we're all aware, these are not just industry buzzwords anymore. They're real enablers of productivity and better user experiences. Businesses are realising it's not about replacing people, it's about empowering them. That said, I think the IT industry still needs to focus more on simplifying IT. We've seen it time and time again, too many tools, too many silos and sometimes we make things complex more so than they need to be. For us, it's not about putting a quick patch on a problem, it's about going back to basics, identifying the broken processes, fixing them properly and the future of IT is about streamlined, intelligent solutions that just work.

What do you see as the main opportunities for the industry in the coming year? How do you plan to capitalise on those opportunities?

I think the biggest opportunity is actually harnessing AI and automation to deliver real, tangible improvements in IT operations. The potential to reduce repetitive tasks and improve response times, free people up for higher value work is huge. That's exactly what we're focused on with ServiceHive, using innovation to make those in IT more visible, proactive and genuinely people centric. We'll be continuing to develop the platform working closely with clients to shape new features and make sure it keeps evolving to meet real world needs.