Douglas Gillespie Plant, a long time user of Key Computers service management and mobile solutions, were crowned winners of the Fork Lift Truck Associations (FLTA) inaugural Customer Focus Award, for service distinction at the annual Awards for Excellence held in Birmingham on 16th February. Decided by a vote of FLTA members, Douglas Gillespie took home an Archie – the materials handling industry’s most coveted prize.

Douglas Gillespie have been reaping the benefits of Key’s service management and mobile solutions to provide their clients with the highest levels of service for over 15 years.

Of the 4 companies shortlisted for the Customer Focus Award, 3 are users of Key’s MyServiceManager suite of service management software solutions, proving that Key Computers really can help to take your service to the next level.

The 3 MyServiceManager users up for the Customer Focus award were Acclaim Handling of Norwich, Douglas Gillespie of Glasgow and Easy Truck of Alcester.

The spotlight continued to shine on Key during the event, as they were a finalist themselves in the Supplier of the Year category, in recognition of consistent service excellence in the delivery of its service management and mobile solutions to the Materials Handling Industry.

Jonathan Heaton, MD of Key Computers said “Key have been supplying innovative and tailored service management software solutions that boost efficiencies, optimise engineers and take service offerings to the highest level for over 29 years. I would like to congratulate everyone at Douglas Gillespie, Acclaim Handling and Easy Truck for their outstanding achievement and dedication to raising service levels within the industry. It is great to know that Key’s software has helped them to achieve their goals and I am very proud that out of the 4 companies shortlisted for the award, 3 of them are MyServiceManager users. ”

To find out more about the MyServiceManager suite of service management solutions visit myservicemanager.com

Working across all service industries but with a significant presence in the materials handling market, Key has been supplying innovative and bespoke service management software solutions that boost efficiencies, optimise engineers and take service offerings to the highest level for almost 30 years.

The winner will be crowned on Saturday 16th February at the Birmingham Hilton Metropole, with the victor decided by a vote of FLTA members. Now in its 19th year, the FLTA Annual Awards for Excellence is firmly established as the premier event in the materials handling calendar. Launched in 1995 to encourage and reward examples of excellence throughout the fork lift truck industry and beyond, the Awards have a truly international appeal with Sponsors and winners flying in from all parts of Europe and the Far East for the Oscars-style ceremony.

Jonathan Heaton, MD of Key Computers said “I am very proud that our customers have nominated us for this award for service excellence and that they feel our software and service has had such a big impact on their business. Service management software benefits service organisations in many different ways and I’m pleased that our clients recognise the impact that our contribution has to their own service delivery. It is fantastic to be recognised in this way.”

Do you want to get the more out of your field engineers & business with time saving service management software and PDA solutions?

Key’s flexible & powerful service management solutions optimise your business processes, improve service, increase profits and proven to generate significant time saving and efficiency gains for our clients.

We are confident that we can take your service to the next level, whether through service management software, PDA’s for engineers or helping your existing software systems talk to each other.  Take advantage of over 29 years of service management expertise and request a no obligation consultation today.

The study found that seven in ten British tradespeople work extra unpaid hours each week, which it says equates to around £4.8bn in unpaid overtime every year.

According to the findings, just 26% of workers claim they do not work any unpaid overtime in a typical week and on average, each tradesperson completes 5.29 hours of unpaid work a week, totalling 275 hours a year and equivalent to around £1,702 in wages (based on the minimum wage).

In addition, the research also showed that 11% of the UK’s tradesperson workforce claim to complete over ten hours of unpaid work each week (or 520 hours a year).

Tradespeople who have been in the job the longest are more likely to work an extended, unpaid week according to the research. On average, tradespeople who have worked for up to ten years complete an average of 34.0 hours per week, while those who have been in the industry for more than a decade usually works 41.8 hours per week, it said.

Commenting on the results, Jazz Gakhal, Head of Direct Line for Business, said:

“The research shows that, despite the sometimes negative publicity that surrounds the work ethic of tradespeople, they are doing more than their fair share and setting the right example for the rest of the UK’s workforce. Next time a builder or plumber takes a tea break, be conscious that you are probably getting free hours spent working on your home improvements or repairs.”

How can service management software enable workers to cut amount of unpaid overtime?

Service management software optimises engineer and business processes.  Utilising PDA’s and mobile engineer software into the service management solution enables engineers to service more customers per day and completing more jobs on the first visit.  Ensuring that the stock required to complete the job is on the engineers van before he is deployed and providing the engineer with customer critical job information to speed up diagnosis and repair.  Service management software allows you to increase job processing and job management to enable your staff to work smarter and complete jobs faster negating the need for unpaid overtime.

Find out more about how service management software can benefit your business.

Revenue rise likely for SMEs embracing cloud computing

A new business report has revealed that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) who have embraced the cloud could well benefit from an increase in business revenue as a result.

The report, which was carried out by business management solutions firm MYOB, found that, of the SMEs that were using the cloud, more than half of them would likely see a revenue rise as a result.

Whilst just 14 per cent of such businesses had tapped into the cloud, 53 per cent of them could look forward to an uptick in profit over the coming year.

Fifty-five per cent of those using the cloud reported having more work than usual for the upcoming three months, as opposed to just 25 per cent of those who were not using cloud-based technology.

Twice as many cloud-users as non-users reported an expectation of an improvement in business and revenue as non-cloud users.

The MYOB survey also found that those using the cloud for business were twice as likely to increase the number of staff members over the course of this year than non-cloud users.

MYOB chief executive Tim Reed told News.com.au that it was surprising that more people were not making use of the cloud as yet. “Most people use online banking and that’s really all cloud computing is – accessing applications over the internet rather than having them restricted to one computer,” Mr Reed said.

Demand to grow for IT support for remote workers

IT supportwill be critical as remote working increases in popularity, it has been claimed.

A new survey from Citrix has found that many European business decision-makers plan to reduce their office space by up to 14 per cent by 2020 through implementing remote working.

Employees are expected to use as many as five different devices to access work networks by the end of the decade, which will make remote working easier. However, it will also create new IT support challenges.

Just under half of the 2,000 professionals surveyed said they will have a remote working policy in place within two years.

Some sectors are more amendable to remote working than others. Those in the media sector said they plan to work towards only having one desk per two employees. Government and manufacturing employees see remote working as a less practical option for them.

James Stevenson, area vice-president for the UK, Ireland and South Africa at Citrix, said, “While there are obvious benefits to flexible working, IT strategy and implementation should not be overlooked, especially with the number of devices able to access corporate data on the rise.”

He added, “Ensuring appropriate governance measures are in place – to protect confidential information and ensuring employee support for mobile working – will be critical.”

Add in to this boiler breakdown, burst pipes, school closures etc due to cold and icy weather and winter can be very disruptive to productivity before you even take in to account illnesses such as colds, flu and viruses.

Keep your staff working with a hosted desktop

It’s during times like this, that the remote working capabilities of a hosted desktop solution come in to their own, providing easy browser based access to YOUR OWN data, software and files as if you were in the office anywhere, including at home with the peace of mind that your data is stored securely. 

 The hosted desktop is accessed via the internet providing a complete desktop experience to users on any internet enable device, so users in the office receive access to the same services as those that work from home, their car or anywhere else.

Hosted desktops are also proven to reduce IT spend and increase efficiencies. Take advantage of a free hosted desktop trial to see the benefits for yourself.

Find out more about hosted desktops here.

Christmas Opening Times

We will be open to support our customers who will be trading over the festive period, please take note of our standard service operating hours below:

• Monday 24th December 2012 – 09:30 until 13:00
• Tuesday 25th December 2012 – CLOSED
• Wednesday 26th December 2012 – CLOSED
• Thursday 27th December 2012 – 09:30 until 13:00
• Friday 28th December 2012 – 09:30 until 13:00
• Monday 31st December 2012 – 09:30 until 13:00
• Tuesday 1st January 2013 – CLOSED
• Wednesday 2nd January 2013 – 08:45 until 17:15

If you require support during this time please call 01942 261 671 as usual.

Met Office issues flood warnings as an already sodden UK prepares for fresh rain with severe weather forecasted in south-west England, West Midlands, Wales and a much of Scotland.

Up to 60mm (2.35in) of rain is expected to pound down within a few hours on to ground that is already sodden or flooded, and into rivers swollen by the autumn showers.

How would your business cope with a disaster such as flooding?  How long will it before you get your servers back up and staff working productively?

Hosted desktops help businesses return to business as usual following a flood. 

Having your servers hosted in the cloud enables remote working as well as easy & immediate access to data, software and files to limit the effects of downtime to your clients.

The remote working capabilities of hosted desktops allow you and your staff to work from anywhere from an internet enabled device and ensures your business powers through the challenge with little to no disruption to your clients.   Whilst some of your staff work to set your premises back to rights, the others can work from home or a temporary location to ensure business continuity for your customers.  Other businesses in your area could be out of action for days or weeks and the impact on their clients could devastating.

Hosted desktops are also proven to reduce IT spend and increase efficiencies.  Take advantage of a free hosted desktop trial to see the benefits for yourself. 

Find out more about hosted desktops here.

Meraki offers services that help firms to manage their networks using the internet.

Cisco has been keen to expand in cloud computing, which allows users to store and manage data over the internet, as opposed to traditional hardware.

The sector is seen by many as a future area of growth for technology firms.

Meraki’s services, targeted at mid-sized businesses, are used by more than 10,000 companies.

“The acquisition of Meraki enables Cisco to make simple, secure, cloud managed networks available to our global customer base of mid-sized businesses and enterprises,” Rob Soderbery, senior vice president, Cisco Enterprise Networking Group said in a statement.

“Meraki’s solution was built from the ground up optimized for cloud, with tremendous scale, and is already in use by thousands of customers to manage hundreds of thousands of devices,” he added.

This is the second purchase that Cisco has announced in the past few days.

Last week, it agreed a $125m deal to acquire Cloupia, a firm that specialises in data centre management. 

As reported on bbc.co.uk

Leigh IT experts, Key Computers, were pleased to be involved with Greenhalgh Kerr’s first annual charity supper quiz in aid of local stroke awareness charity “Think Ahead” on Thursday 25th October 2012.  Key donated one of this year’s must have gadgets, a Kindle Fire HD to heat up the raffle. 

The evening was in support of Think Ahead, a Wigan based charity providing support, information and advice to stroke survivors, their carers and families and challenged teams from North Westbusinesses to test their knowledge and pit their wits against each other.  Twenty five teams fought it out in total, with Wigan & Leigh Housing finishing top of the league, whilst Key put up a mid table performance ending the night in 11^th place.

And the winner is….

… Think Ahead.  Besides the event raising over £2,000 on the night for the charity, Mike Aspinall from Think Ahead was also the lucky winner of the Kindle Fire HD. 

Jonathan Heaton, MD of Key Computers said “Think Ahead is such a fantastic cause and we were delighted to be involved with the event when we were approached by our friends at Greenhalgh Kerr.  The evening proved to be a lot of fun and along with other local businesses, helped us to directly benefit a local and worthwhile charity.”