Evolve, Ratby
Leicester-based company Evolve provide their clients with a wide range of business consultancy, project
management, process improvement, IT infrastructure and application services. Evolve’s continuing success means they needed to establish a broadband system which would match the growth of their business. Adam Willett and Lucy Berger (Marketing and Finance Coordinator) told us more….
How important is technology to your business?
Adam: Very important. For my side in infrastructure, we support our external customers with their IT support, backups and service monitoring. Whenever we develop new customer applications which need a platform, we identify the best infrastructure and design for their specific requirements.
We work across many sectors, helping with project implementation, bespoke software development, data cleansing and migrations, plus systems integrations. Technology is vital for sharing information and data with our customers in an effective way. We have a lot of data to shift around in the course
of a day – with copies of databases and huge files to download. The speed of our broadband service is
crucial to our customer service. Internally, we rely on a robust connection as we use broadband to support our communications in terms of email and IP telephony.
What were the challenges before you got Superfast Broadband?
Adam: Previously, whenever our team needed to electronically transfer data from a customer site, they
had to schedule this out of hours and run an automated process to copy it overnight. Now, we can kick the process off during the working day. Implementing Superfast Broadband has significantly reduced the time we need for this – instead of the 8 hours a job would have taken, it’s now down to just an hour.
What difference has it made in your business?
Adam: The time we save means we’re able to react to customer needs more quickly and this has led to better customer service all round. It also means we provide a more resilient phone service for our team.
Our developers can copy huge amounts of data to and from customers in much less time. It is quicker for staff working from home too. Our team can now use our systems as quickly as if they were in the office. Before, it would take much longer to get things done from home. It is now so much more efficient and flexible.
Broadband is also helping us to work with international companies. At the moment, we are supporting a new application that is going live for one such company and we are offering support 24 hours a
day for the next 3 month ends. Now, our team can just connect in from home to provide this support – so we can work with the international clock.
Also, we have an IP telephony system which uses the broadband line. We used to get problems with interference and crackling. Since introducing broadband, our telephone service is so much clearer
and more stable. This has had a big knock-on impact on sales and service.
Are you getting the most from the technology?
Lucy: I have attended quite a few of the Chamber’s eBusiness Club workshops, most recently google
analytics and video marketing.
Have you been able to use the learning?
Lucy: I have plans to create more videos for marketing purposes, going forward. I was able to put the google analytics training into practice straight away and it gave me a better understanding of the details I could gain from it. For instance, using the demographics to tailor our marketing focus.
What’s Next for Evolve?
Adam: We’re currently developing some exciting new products and are looking forward to working with more customers in the future – with more data flying around, more companies to support and importantly, more time to do it all in!