Why British PC manufacturing matters

We asked British PC manufacturers whether it truly matters if a PC is assembled here or elsewhere. Here’s what they said.

Marco Della Vedova, marketing manager at London-based Dino PC, said: “I don’t think it matters so much for the production process, but I’m positive that it matters when it comes to customer and technical support, and pre- and after-sales.”

John Medley, marketing manager at Huddersfield-based PC Specialist, said: “We feel it’s vital that our PCs are made in Britain. Our main objective is to deliver the best buying experience for our customers – if we outsourced the production of our PCs, how would we achieve this?”

David Scott, production manager at CyberPower, a PC maker with 20 employees based in Gateshead, said: “Being a global company, we feel it’s important to build PCs for the UK market in the UK. The UK has a unique standard of quality that needs to be upheld. The custom-built side [of PC manufacturing] needs to be controlled, even to the point of knowing the builder and quality-control engineer who will be working on the PC and explaining what the customer expects from their PC.”

Peter George, co-founder of Wired2Fire, a five-person PC manufacturer in Dorking, listed a host of reasons: “You can choose exactly what you want. With us, you can change anything. If it goes wrong, you can speak to someone here, who isn’t in a call centre, which means they are easy to communicate with and know the subject. If it needs to come back for repair, you’re returning it within the UK. Also, knowing a UK workforce is employed and the profits of that company go directly back into the UK economy has to be a good thing for the consumer.”

Ben Miles, spokesperson for Poole-based PC manufacturer Chillblast, added: “Many of our customers tell us that buying British is an important part of their purchasing decision. Customers find it reassuring that they have the peace of mind that the equipment they’re purchasing is built to the highest standards by professional system engineers here in the UK.”