Do you feel like you’re playing IT whack-a-mole? One problem goes away, and another one appears? Worse, the same one comes back?

Proactive IT support from Fresh Mango Technologies is designed to stop the problem from occurring in the first place! And when you do get a problem, we fix it AND the cause. So you won’t have to ‘whack’ it again!

Stop playing whack-a-mole with your IT support with proactive IT support from Fresh Mango Technologies UK.

You’re not alone. ‘IT Whack-A-Mole’ issues affect the entire IT world. Many modern professionals in IT use the term ‘IT Whack-a-mole’ to refer to processes or pervasive problems that just keep occurring, even after you think you’ve fixed them.

These types of problems are common in a lot of businesses, with hardware & software that fails routinely such as printers, monitors or email. These sorts of issues have become so commonplace in many places they’re the expected norm. We want to change that.

We understand that these are critical tools you need to get your job done and losing them, again and again, sets your business back exponentially. Failure in even one of these areas can bring work to a halt for many businesses, costing you time, resources and money.

We believe the route of these issues lies in poor IT support from companies or individuals who lack the expertise and knowledge to offer truly proactive IT support. Support from Fresh Mango Technologies UK, however, is different. Our team is reliable, dependable, experienced and professional, offering a unique approach to support.

Our approach to IT support means our technicians not only resolve the issues at hand but go above and beyond to ensure the stability of your system even after we’ve stopped working on it. We answer why and how a problem occurred and better yet, provide you with professional experienced advice on how your systems can be improved and adapted to never experience this issue again.

With over 30 years of successfully providing computer, website and IT support across the UK and Caribbean, you know you’re in safe hands. We pride ourselves on rapid response and our friendly, professional, highly qualified engineers who are trained to understand your needs and deliver sound advice and the right solution the first time.

You may also be interested to read our blog piece on the ideal IT System setup.

If you enjoyed this article you may also be interested in Children & Technology: Cookies, Webs & Touchscreen.

I thought it may be interesting to write up what a typical day in my life as an IT Support Technician at Fresh Mango Technologies is like. So I worked with one of our team members on a random day (a Tuesday last month) and kept a diary of everything he did that day.

It turned out to be a lot of fun and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it!

IT Support Technician – a ‘typical’ day

Well let’s put something to rest immediately – there’s no such thing as a typical day for an IT Support Technician! We certainly plan the weekly work for the team, and so on a day-to-day basis, they always have a clear schedule in place. However, we never know when a customer may have an urgent IT matter that requires a ‘DER’ (Drop-everything request) and so all plans are fixed in stone until they aren’t!

Fortunately, we don’t get many DERs – with continuous monitoring of customer systems and regular ‘patching’ and other health checks – we keep problems to a minimum. That doesn’t mean they don’t occur though, as we were to see on this particular Tuesday… Here’s how it played out. It’s written in the first person from our technician’s perspective.

Leaving Home

I left home at 730AM to ensure I could beat the traffic and be at our customer premises near Leeds for an 8 AM scheduled onsite visit. The relatively early start was to ensure minimal disruption to the customer (their staff mostly start at 9 AM). This particular customer has quarterly visits and their systems are relatively new, so I anticipated a pretty smooth visit.

After checking in I went to the server room to conduct physical checks and updates of systems. This took around an hour, and then I did a ‘touch check’ of every PC and laptop available. This entails simply talking to every member of staff and asking if they have any IT issues. We find that sometimes people will suffer an annoying issue and they don’t raise it as a support request. By ‘touch checking’ everyone we can iron out any niggles whilst on-site and it’s always appreciated.

At the same time, I handed out special offer cards, ensuring each PC is labelled and had ‘How to contact us’ stickers on them. I found a couple missing and added them.

10 O’Clock

Back to the Leeds office and to my desk to conduct scheduled work and to help deal with any tickets (support requests). It was a busy day. Microsoft had issued an ‘Emergency patch’ update overnight. This means that Microsoft has found a security issue with their operating software, and so the software needed to be updated on all customer computers as soon as possible. So I set about scheduling overnight updates for the customers that had been assigned to me.

Lunchtime (1230)

Having gotten through all my updates, I headed for some lunch. I usually bring something into the office, but I had another scheduled on-site visit with a customer south of Leeds so decided to eat ‘on the hoof’. This was for a straightforward installation of 2 new PCs.

I arrived at the customer premises at around 1 PM and installed the computers. I asked the users to ensure they were set up to their liking (they were) and also did a quick check of their server (not scheduled but I think it’s good practice). Just as I was getting ready to head back to the office, I received a call from Bruno (our Technical Manager). He wanted me to head straight to another customer just a couple of miles away. They had just called to say they thought they may have been hacked. OK, foot-down time!

245 PM

Arrived at the customer’s premises. Bruno had briefed me en route and one of our senior technicians was also accessing their systems remotely to run security checks. Strictly speaking, we didn’t necessarily need someone on-site, but when a customer thinks they have been hacked we always establish an on-site presence as quickly as possible. This is in case we need to isolate a device, or the entire network if a sustained cyber attack is underway.

Fortunately, that was not the case with this particular event. We quickly found the source of the hack – a single PC – and so I immediately quarantined it. This is of course disruptive for the individual using it, but we can’t risk a hacker gaining access to other systems, nor do we wish to see ransomware spread across their network. Having confirmed with Bruno that all scans were negative, I headed back to the office with the quarantined computer so we could diagnose what happened and clean it of any malware.

4 PM

Arrived back at the office, and with assistance from Bruno, we began the diagnosis. As is so often the case, we found that the user had clicked on a ‘phishing’ email. This particular link took the user to a convincing, but fake, Microsoft login screen. This in turn asked for credentials that they had entered. So, the first thing to do was to reset their password, which I did. We then ran a full security sweep of the PC and confirmed no other ‘nasties’ were on it.

That was a close shave for the customer – fortunately the individual who had clicked on the link had the presence of mind to realise something may have been untoward and had notified us accordingly.

545 PM

Time to head home. I arranged for another member of the team to return the quarantined PC to the customer first thing tomorrow since my schedule was taking me to see three clients in North Yorkshire.

So there you have it – a typical day for an IT Support Technician. And it’s still only Tuesday…!

Computer tax relief – New temporary tax reliefs on qualifying capital asset investments from 1 April 2021

The Chancellor recently announced an extension to the super-deduction corporation tax relief measure, effectively providing computer tax relief.

This means when you purchase (not lease) qualifying investments you can claim 130% tax relief on them until 1st April 2023. This means you should be able to obtain computer tax relief on any computer systems you purchase until that date.

Of course, you should check the position with your accountant before claiming computer tax relief.

So, don’t delay, now’s a great time to commence your computer system upgrades!

You can read the full report from HMRC here.

What you should consider for your IT systems

First and foremost you should review your computer server and determine if it is time to upgrade. If you are still operating on Windows server 2012 then you really have no choice, since this will soon be out of support by Microsoft. Notwithstanding that, if your server is (or will be) 5 or more years old, it’s really time to consider a new one.

Associated with servers is network equipment. Lead times for this equipment, notably switches, are hugely problematic. You should plan on a 6-month lead-time. That means you should start planning now if you wish to have your new IT system in place before the April 2023 deadline.

Finally, you should consider upgrading all your PCs and Laptops. If they are still operating on Windows 10, keep in mind that Microsoft will end support for Windows 10 in 2025. At that point you will need to upgrade to Windows 11. Note that in order to run Windows 11, PCs require a minimum hardware specification. So it is worth considering making the change to Windows 11 now.

Excerpts from the report

General description of the measure

This measure will temporarily introduce increased relief for expenditure on plant and machinery. For qualifying expenditures incurred from 1 April 2021 up to and including 31 March 2023, companies can claim in the period of investment:

• a super-deduction providing allowances of 130% on most new plant and machinery investments that ordinarily qualify for 18% primary rate writing down allowances
• a first-year allowance of 50% on most new plant and machinery investments that ordinarily qualify for 6% special rate writing down allowances

Policy objective

This measure is designed to stimulate business investment. It does so by increasing the incentive to invest in plant and machinery by offering higher rates of relief than were previously available.

In this blog piece, I’ll discuss how to add extra security to your systems with two-factor authentication (TFA). It’s actually very straightforward and provides a step-change improvement to your security.

What is Two-factor Authentication?

Two-factor authentication protects your applications by using a second source of validation, like a phone or token, to verify user identity before granting access. It is engineered to provide a simple, streamlined login experience for every user and application, and as a cloud-based solution, it integrates easily with your existing technology.

Add extra security to your systems – Our recommended TFA solution

We have tested several solutions for TFA/MFA and have chosen ‘Duo’ as our preferred offering. Duo is fast and easy for users to set up, and with several available authentication methods, they can choose the one that best fits their workflow. No headaches, no interruptions — it just works.
Because Duo functions like a gateway for your existing and future IT infrastructure, it’s the perfect solution for growing businesses of any size. Set up new users and support new devices at any time, and protect new applications almost instantly — without impacting legacy technology.
Duo natively integrates to secure any application or platform, so whether you’re adding 2FA to meet compliance goals or building a full zero trust framework, Duo is the perfect addition to your security portfolio.

• Multi-cloud, hybrid, or on-premises environments
• SAAS tools, critical infrastructure, custom applications, and even SSH
• Secure remote access

Add extra security to your systems – An example deployment

We use a bespoke management system called JIM. We continuously maintain and improve the security of the system. We implemented Duo so that, even in the unlikely event that a hacker cracks one of our encrypted passwords, they would still not gain access. The account owner would receive a TFA push request on their smartphone, and be immediately alerted to the attempted unauthorised access. So a double-win! Hacker prevented from access, user alerted to attempted hack.

Get Started with TFA!

So why not get started and add extra security to your systems with TFA? It’s straightforward to set up and for your team to use. What’s more, you’ll sleep that little bit easier knowing you have significantly improved your online security.

Data breaches are very common. A data breach is an intentional or unintentional release of private or confidential information to the dark web. They do happen regularly, with emails and passwords being made available for hackers to access. Why is this a problem? Well, people often reuse their passwords for various online accounts. Reusing passwords makes your accounts vulnerable for hackers to access.

To prevent yourself from a data breach, it is best not to reuse passwords. This does sound easier said than done, but it is vital that you have a different password for all of your different accounts. You will be very thankful that you have done it. Here are all of the features that your password should contain:

• The minimum amount of characters use should use is 6, but to make sure your password is very strong, we recommend using 12 or more characters.
• Include a combination of uppercase and lowercase characters
• Use at least 1 number
• Use at least 1 special character

A tip that we have for creating a strong password is to think of a sentence that you will remember and use the first letter of each word for the password. For some of the letters, change them to a special character or number that looks like the letter itself. Also, change some of them to a number. Here is an example:

Humpty dumpty sat on the wall, humpty dumpty had a great fall

H4$OtWHDHaGf

This will help you remember the password, but also avoid having to write it down, which can also be dangerous to do.

What do I do if my online account has been released in a data breach?

The best question to ask yourself is: how did this happen? This will help you understand the purpose and ways to tackle it. Secondly, you should think why did the hacker launch the attack? Most breaches are a result of hackers trying to steal data, but it could have been caused by an employee, either by accident or maliciously.

Next, you should identify and interpret the clues by carrying out digital forensics, which means the collection and interpretation of electronic data in an attempt to preserve the evidence. Technical tools should be used and expert understanding of how to use them.

If all defences fail, every second counts. You must be quick and follow a structured approach for the recovery process. If you don’t have an IT team or Cyber Security expert on hand to do this, be sure to contact us immediately and our cyber security experts can help you save your data. You can visit our cyber security website to learn more about data breaches and other cyber security risks.

We hope this advice has helped!

Why do Hackers Hack?

Victims of hacks and attempted hacks often take it personally. Why did they come after me? I’m not famous or rich. Why did they come after my company? We’re just a small business.

That’s a perfectly natural human reaction. The fact is that cyber-attacks are rarely personal or business-specific.

Hackers are ready to exploit any security crack without taking into consideration who you are or what you do. Here are some of the things that motivate them:

Money

Cyber-attacks do not often result in immediate monetary gain. Hacks allow cybercriminals to extract information that can be exploited for financial gain. For example:

1. Credit card information
2. Contact information to be sold to unethical marketing lists.
3. Username and password logins, to access and take over server resources, and to attempt dictionary attacks.
4. Sensitive or proprietary information to sell or extort.
5. High-security information to compromise the premises of a facility

Resources

You might think that your business is not big enough for someone to be interested in tapping into your traffic or your authority. However, cybercriminals will often attack an entire web server.  As a result, your small website might just end up being a part of a big hack.

Cudos

Some hackers break into targets just to prove they can. They also show off their craft by forcing access and stealing valuable information.

Social Justice

Hackers may pursue a religious or political agenda and use their skills to deface targets.

So if (when…) it happens to you, try not to take it too personally…

Why don’t I have Administrator Credentials?! We’re asked this question from time-to-time, and the short answer is it is standard IT policy for any professionally managed IT network. If you’re keen to understand why this is the case then read on!

IT History – Standardisation

In any business or organisation, standardisation in your IT systems is an essential factor in ensuring smooth and efficient operation. Imagine a situation where every single device was set up in a bespoke manner. No standardisation, differing password policies, differing software, differing access rights to directories and so on. Every user of any device able to make amendments to their PC/laptop as they see fit.

Now try to imagine administering and managing such an IT system from an IT Management perspective. Any time a staff member had a problem, the IT technician would have to run a huge amount of diagnostics in order to figure out what may be going wrong. This is because each PC/laptop has a non-standard setup and settings may have been changed by the user since the last time the computer had an issue.

It shouldn’t be too difficult to realise that managing such a chaotic approach would make the IT management nigh-on impossible. This would lead to significant knock-on effects, not the least of which would be dramatically reduced inefficiencies in the workforce.

So, in keeping with any operation, standardisation is the watchword for efficiency. IT is no different.

That’s the backdrop for why standard IT policies are so important. To the specific issue raised in the blog-title, standard users don’t have the ability to change settings on their system or download software. The former is part of IT standardisation, the latter relates to cybersecurity, which I will come onto next.

Why do you need Administrator credentials?

If a user is insisting on Administrator credentials, the question you need to ask is ‘why do they need them?’ Most people leave car maintenance to the experts. In these days of electronic engine management, it takes an expert to conduct a full car service or repair.

In other words, just because you can drive the car, you don’t mess with what’s under the bonnet (the hood for our US readers). Just because you know how to use your PC/laptop – why do you want or need the ability to mess with ‘what’s under the bonnet’?

Administrator credentials are best left in the hands of professionals who, to be blunt, know what they are doing.

The Cybersecurity problem

Let’s say you, the user of your computer, have Administrator credentials. Let’s also say you don’t go near the operating system or settings. What you do, however, is download software. It may be perfectly legitimate software. So what’s the problem?

Imagine you click on a link in an email. The email looked legitimate. Nothing happened when you clicked the link. No foul no harm, right?

Wrong. The link has opened up a channel to a hacker, and because you are an Administrator, they too can download software to your computer. Be assured that the software they put on your device is not there to help you – it’s there to get your data and to steal funds.

I can provide numerous references of businesses who have fallen victim to cyberattacks that could have been avoided by the simple measure of removal of Administrative rights for all staff – including directors.

Still think you want Admin rights for your computer? Then don’t take my word for it – take a look at the National Cyber Security Centre website. It’s a standard recommendation. It’s worth noting your organisation will receive an immediate-fail on any Cyber Essentials assessment as well.

As we say to all our customers – please listen to our advice. We’re offering it in your own best interests!

PS – in case you’re wondering – I’m a standard user at Fresh Mango Technologies. Just because I’m the MD I neither want nor need ‘Admin rights’. If I need software to be installed on my computer, I do the same as we ask of our customers – I log a support request ????

We’re often asked if it’s best to switch your computer off every day. Our answer is ‘no’, and in this article, we set out why we recommend leaving PCs switched on is the good practice today.

Switching a computer off is something of a hangover from the early days of PCs. When desktop computers were first introduced they were power-hungry. Their monitors – which were usually integrated – were huge and consumed a lot of electricity. Similarly, the computers generated a lot of heat and needed power-hungry internal fans to keep them cool.

All of this added up to a big electricity bill, especially for larger companies with lots of staff and computers. So the message was drummed into all computer users – switch off before you go home.

Fast forward to the present day and we have a very different scenario. Monitors are now separate devices to computers, with their own power supplies. Monitor technology is LCD, which means they consume far less power than monitors of old.

The PCs themselves still require fans (unless you have a Mac or tablet) but the miniaturisation of components means the power-demand of cooling fans has also decreased.

So all this means that concerns over power-consumption have been largely alleviated. Of course, there is still some power consumption, so why do we recommend leaving PCs switched on? Isn’t there a cybersecurity issue to consider as well?

These are all good points, here is the rationale for leaving your PC switched on when you leave the office (or kitchen table if working from home) for the day:

1. It ensures your IT team can conduct updates, health-checks, anti-virus scans and other remote work out-of-hours. This minimises disruption to your business during working hours
2. It allows your IT team to conduct emergency security patching out-of-hours in the event of a cyber-attack – an increasingly regular occurrence
3. It prolongs the life of your equipment. Turning your PC on and off every day shortens its life.
4. As for your electricity bill, your IT team should ensure all displays (the biggest drain on electricity) automatically go to sleep after a few minutes.

So far as cybersecurity is concerned, your IT team should ensure that your login credentials are ‘standard user’ only – ie non-Administrative. So, anyone who successfully hacks your login account remotely won’t get very far – a Standard User has very limited rights for this very reason.

So there you have it – the rationale for leaving your PC switched on! By the way, if your current IT team don’t have your PCs set up as described above, it may be worth getting in touch with the IT professionals at Fresh Mango Technologies!

Home working – some additional recommendations

The ongoing situation with Coronavirus restrictions means many of us are still working from home. We have previously written recommendations for setting up your workstation for remote working from home, in this blog piece we will recap some of these and also suggest some further ideas for making your work-from-home life more productive.

Equipment

Laptops remain in high demand. The complete stock wipe-out that was experienced in Western Europe and North America in March 2020 has yet to be fully alleviated. As a result, there continues to be model scarcity and also price fluctuations.

It is worth conducting a home DSE assessment (The HSE website link is here) – the cliché of hunching over a laptop on a kitchen table is all too real for many people, and it really isn’t a healthy long term proposition.

Consider obtaining a docking station, separate keyboard and mouse and at least one external monitor. You may not have a lot of room but at least during the day, you will have the feeling of a home office. Dismantling it at the end of the day also serves as a useful psychological ‘switch’ to tell yourself that you have finished work. It is all too easy to get into an ‘always-on’ habit which studies show are deleterious to health.

If you have back problems, consider a stand-up desk or similar. For example, monitor arms that extend upwards and downwards for standing/sitting are readily available and allow you to mix-up sitting and standing.

Network Access from home

If you are accessing files on your office server remotely, you have a couple of options. One is a remote desktop connection where you remotely-control your office PC. The other is a Virtual Private Network (VPM) which allows you to connect directly to your server and work on files as usual. Each option requires software and/or additional hardware depending on your arrangements.

Most people connect to the internet at home using Wi-Fi. This is fine of course, but if you have a VPN link to your server, you may find it regularly drops out. This is because your Wi-Fi connection often drops, albeit just for an instant. In the normal use of email and internet browsing, this would usually not be noticeable. In the case of VPN access, the slightest drop in internet connectivity will cause the VPN to drop.

Therefore, if possible, it is worth connecting your home laptop/pc directly to your home modem/router with a network cable. This is exactly the same kind of cable you have for the connection of your PC to your office network. A ‘hard-wired’ connection like this will improve your VPN connection significantly.

Take care of yourself

Many people find working from home to be excellent – fewer interruptions, no commute gives you more work time and so forth. The flip side of this is it’s all too easy to sit in front of your laptop or PC for hours. The advice we give to our staff is as follows:

• Have a break at least once an hour. This means physically getting up and walking around, away from your computer.

We were made aware of two cyber frauds that we were asked to assist within recent weeks, and thought it would be helpful to share them.

In the first of the 2 cyber frauds, our client received an email from their supplier advising a change of bank account details for invoice payments. They acted on the email and made the payments. Frequent followers of our blogs will know the rest… Yes, it was a scam email and the new bank account was not from the supplier, but from the scammers. Our client lost £5k in the incident.

In the cyber fraud, our client received an email instructing new bank account information from their client (This is a B2C company). They called the client (whom they had never met, since they were overseas) to confirm the email, and having received the verbal confirmation transferred $21k. Unfortunately, it was a scam and the person they called was the scammer, not their client.

We are assisting both clients and the relevant authorities in tracing the emails in the hope that the perpetrators can be tracked down, in the meantime our clients are seriously out-of-pocket. Of course, there is no guarantee of success, especially if the scammers covered their electronic footprints.

So what can be learned from this? Well, very simply businesses should have a policy in place for a change of bank account information. The policy should include calling the supplier using the number you have on record for them – NOT the number they provide in the email. Ideally, you should request a video call with them, especially if you know the person(s). You can also run a second check with another member of their company, ideally someone you know.

People are naturally trusting and it’s all too easy to trust an email from what appears to be a legitimate source. Nonetheless, it’s a simple matter to pick up the phone and speak to them, and nowadays no one should be offended that you are checking, in fact, you will find they are pleased that you did.

These basic policies, and much more, are covered in our cyber hygiene courses. Highly recommended for all staff along with regular refreshers, they highlight the need to remain diligent.

You can also visit our FAQs page to learn more about the importance of staying diligent.

Stay vigilant everyone!

With the move to home working in recent weeks, we’ve seen quite a few new types of working from home requirements and also, sorry to say, that old bugbear cyber security is raising its unwelcome head in new ways. I thought it would be helpful to share some of these.

• Microsoft Teams – many businesses are getting to grips with video meetings, sometimes for the first time. If you need some help with getting setup on Teams and how it works just let us know. It’s a great tool for keeping in face-to-face contact and integrates with your Microsoft calendar too. Zoom is also a great tool, and there is a plugin for Outlook to help integrate it with your calendars too.
• Productivity Monitoring software – if it’s important to your business to measure staff productivity and effectiveness, it can be very difficult with staff forced to work from home. Productivity monitoring software provides the solution to this, and we have installed it for several businesses. If you think it may be useful for your business please let us know.
• I was speaking with one of our customers recently, and he was a bit fed up with working on his laptop. He was delighted when I pointed out you can attach an external monitor, mouse and keyboard (the latter two wirelessly if you like) and the laptop becomes a second monitor. As someone who battles back problems, I know only too well that hunching over a laptop is about the worst thing I can be doing. Do let us know if you would like external equipment for your staff working from laptops at home.
• Cyber – we have seen two hacks in recent days resulting from people working from personal devices which did not have the same protections as their work devices. Just a reminder that your email and network become exponentially more vulnerable with each additional device attached. If a personal device does not have the same security software as the standard company software, you are open to a local and possibly company-wide breach. It’s worth reviewing/updating your Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies with so many people working from home. Let me know if you would like some advice on this, we have some standard policy templates available.

If you would like any advice or support on working-from-home arrangements and requirements, managing geographically-dispersed teams, or IT in general in these challenging times, just let us know.

If you enjoyed this article you may also be interested in Children & Technology: Cookies, Webs & Touchscreen.

Find our more about our IT services here.

Working From Home Guidance

I had some down-time over the Easter break which gave me some time to take stock and think about things. (My staff will all testify to how dangerous this is – it’s why they like to keep me busy!).

Anyway, I was listening to a few radio stations – my favourite rock station out of Austin in the USA and Stray FM much closer to home. I was struck by commentary and call-ins about people giving back and doing what they can for their communities during this incredibly difficult time. It was interesting to note that the desire to help was incredibly strong on both sides of the Atlantic, and I have no doubt it’s the same everywhere.

So I tried to figure out if there was anything that I or my team of IT-Geeks (Sorry guys – experts!) could do to help, and this is what I came up with.

We’ve spent the past few weeks absolutely buried with client requests to assist with home working. The volume of clients moving from an office-based operation to home-based operation was huge, and I’m blown away by the diligence and hard work that all our technicians have put in to assist them. We’re still fielding requests, but the initial wave of demand has calmed down.

It follows that anyone working from home or self-isolating is absolutely dependent on technology to keep working and simply to stay in touch with colleagues, friends and family. It also occurred to me that there are people compelled to stay at home, namely the 1.5 million people who are ‘Extremely vulnerable’ and have been advised to stay at home for 12 weeks.

And there was the answer I was looking for. I’ve therefore asked our marketing team to start promoting free remote IT/computer support to anyone classified as ‘Extremely Vulnerable’ and living within our office postcode districts. They absolutely need to stay in touch with the outside world, and we’ll do our best to help them keep it that way.

If you’re reading this please share it with anyone you think this working from home guidance may help.

Do stay safe and well.

Our office postcode districts are:

LS11

HG1 HG2 HG3 HG4 HG5

YO1, YO7

Working in the digital, cyber and IT sectors I tend to think of high-technology in computing/electronic terms. Unsurprising I suppose, and I imagine that when most people think of high-tech then this is what they would be drawn to. But is the digital sector the only high-tech sector? Does high-tech exist in unexpected industries?

A few months ago I was fortunate to have a guided tour of a plant-growing facility in North Yorkshire. The tour was part of helping us understand their business before building their new website. I was struck by the level of science and technology that is applied to an industry that, from a layman’s perspective at least, doesn’t appear to be high-tech at all.

On an ongoing basis they have:

• Soil imports from Lithuania – apparently it is the highest quality soil available across Europe (who knew?!)
• A temperature-controlled system for cultivating specific plants
• Light controls for growing plants across different seasons

plus much more. (As an aside they used to work on the basis of four seasons, but no longer – climate change has created what is effectively a single season for them. But that’s a matter for another blog.)

More recently I watched a documentary on the manufacture of tins (yes I know this doesn’t say much about my social life). Specifically tins for food and drink storage – peas, fizzy drinks etc.

Is a tin high-tech? Well, I’d never thought about it before, but once I did the answer is ‘of course. It’s absolutely astonishing that we can put food stuff into a sealed tin and preserve it for years. Apparently, the key is down to the coating used on the interior of the tin. Moreover, the coatings aren’t ‘one-size fits all’ – specific coatings are required depending on the contents of the tin. This is because different contents can react (chemically) differently to the coatings (you don’t want them to react at all).

Going further back, I recall my ten years spent at Rolls-Royce. They are a hugely diversified power generation company, yet their core business – jet engines – remains the same. The level of R&D, design, material science and testing that goes into building a jet engine is astonishing. Did you know they ‘grow’ the turbine blades from a single crystal for example? High-tech? For sure.

So, next time you look at your Apple Watch or Android phone, maybe spare a moment for the high technology industries. They’re hiding in plain sight.

Feel free to share your own examples of high tech in the comments!

Happy New Year!

During the festive break, I was fortunate enough to visit the Jack Daniels Whiskey Distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee. I took a guided tour and it was both fascinating and enjoyable; unfortunately, I was driving so I had to forego the tasting sessions at the end…

I always enjoy finding out how other companies do things, no matter how disparate they may be to the IT and website business. For Jack Daniels I think there were two particularly interesting highlights:

1) Whiskey is relatively commoditised – anyone can make it. How did a small distiller in mid-South Tennessee build a global brand that is now one of the most recognized and popular in the world? There are numerous reasons for this, but the primary one is genuineness.

• The brand has always remained true to its values – a specific recipe with high-quality ingredients. During World War Two, when high-quality grain was at a premium and being diverted to the war effort, the company refused to compromise on quality, and cut back production rather than use inferior ingredients.
• They were undoubtedly helped by word-of-mouth marketing – Frank Sinatra (if you don’t know who he is Google him!) took a sip of JD before every concert and carried a bottle with him when touring. When he died and per his Will, he was even buried with a bottle!

2) Ensuring the commitment to quality was – and is – instilled in every worker. There are signs everywhere in the facility which state very simply ‘Every day we make it, we’ll make it the best we can’.

I couldn’t come up with a better statement of intent than that. In 2020, I’ve asked everyone in our Group of Companies to ensure that every single ticket, prospect and customer support request is dealt with as best we possibly can.

Have a great 2020 everybody.

Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) first came into common business parlance and usage in the manufacturing industry post-World War II.

Simply put, an SOP is “a set of written guidelines or instructions for the completion of a routine task, designed to increase performance, improve efficiency, and ensure quality through systemic homogenization”*.

So manufacturers set about writing procedures, training their workforce in following them and then monitoring the same to ensure procedures were followed consistently. This brought huge benefits to manufacturers, including:

· Consistency of production – by following the same procedure every product and component would be the same. This brings huge benefits in terms of quality control, reduction in defects and therefore customer satisfaction

· Improved efficiency – no need to try and figure out how to do something – staff are trained on the procedure and then follow it. Eliminating guesswork streamlines processes and makes production faster

· Continuous improvement. With a procedure in place, consistently adhered to, it’s much easier to improve on it. If everyone ‘does their own thing’ best practice is almost impossible to determine. With a standard procedure and a feedback culture in the workforce, it’s possible to improve procedures and processes continuously.

McDonald’s famously adopted an SOP approach to ensure consistency in food production and service. As a result, a Big Mac in New York looks and tastes the same as one served in Tokyo. This doesn’t mean the menus don’t also reflect local tastes – you can order a Teriyaki burger in Japan – but the importance of consistency remains key.

So what does this have to do with Information Technology and IT support for customers? Well, I’ve found that as our business has expanded so too has the need for consistency. As a start-up 11 years ago (in the British Virgin Islands) there was pretty much nothing written down – we were focused on building the business. Then as we grew and we recruited technicians, it was possible to explain procedures to them individually and advise them on an ongoing basis. With a co-located handful of staff, this was entirely possible and also made ongoing improvement communications possible too.

Then we expanded and acquired a company in England (CCS2000). We now had a choice – allow the businesses to operate autonomously and ‘go their own way’ – or standardise. We chose the latter route for several reasons:

· We wanted to ensure best practice could be shared across the companies

· First-class IT management requires knowing about the same expertise, training and knowledge no matter where you operate

· We wanted technicians on either side of the Atlantic to be able to provide support to customers no matter where they (the customers) were located

· We wanted to adopt a proactive-support model that minimised client IT issues – to move away comprehensively from the ‘Break-Fix’ approach which (to my astonishment) is still prevalent in the industry.

In adopting this approach we were also mindful of the need for flexibility of approach on a local basis (as for the McDonalds teriyaki burger example). This meant we needed to adopt a dual approach:

1.  Operational standardisation – consistency of approach on all IT-related matters. So for example, setting up a new PC for a staff member in one of our customers

2.  Non-standard standardisation – an oxymoron that means ensuring any non-standard requirements for a customer are recorded and written into a procedure accordingly. Customer ABC may require their PCs to have some additional configuration in addition to our standard approach from (1).

So how did (do) we do this? Well, by the adoption of SOPs in Information Technology.

I can tell you from experience, it’s much easier said than done! We have been working on it for several years and it’s fair to say that it will always be an ongoing activity. There’s always a new procedure to write or an existing one to amend or improve upon.

Nonetheless, when we acquired another IT business in England (IDT) in 2019, it was clear that all the hard work had paid off. We were able to standardise working practices in a matter of weeks. Furthermore, we were able to adopt best-practice from within the new business to our existing procedures.

It’s worth noting that it isn’t just a matter of writing (and updating) the SOPs. Underpinning standardisation is the need for:

· Ongoing training – existing staff refreshers, new starters all need to be trained and monitored for process adherence

· Open culture – openness to feedback from the technicians following the procedures is key to continuous improvement. It also has the added benefit of participation which lends itself to a healthy work culture

· Integrating tools – we have the benefit of a bespoke business management system that we have developed ourselves (JIM). This allows us to deploy and monitor SOPs accordingly, with the flexibility to amend our processes thanks to the bespoke nature of our BMS.

It’s been a challenging and fascinating journey to move from ‘start-up in the sun’ to a Trans-Atlantic IT business. No doubt it will continue to be so, but without the adoption of SOPs, I know it would not have been possible.