Baytree IT Services are very experienced in working with large multinational companies but we are ourselves a small business so we have an understanding of what it means to run a small business from day-to-day. This enables us to work with other small businesses and bring large corporate IT expertise to bear on small business problems. We already work with a number of small businesses and provide them with quality IT solutions but working within affordable budgets. With our policy of open honesty we discuss the business and IT issues that our customers have and help them to make informed choices about their IT needs.

Some examples of our work with small businesses:

Cambridgeshire Classic Cars are a small business selling cars world-wide via the web. For a number of years they had managed to keep the stock list up to date within a week or so using part-time resource to refresh the site, having previously been badly dealt with by a web development company. With the acceleration of the business this was clearly not the way forward as the stock was updating more frequently and visitors were becoming frustrated by the web being out of date. The site was also getting a little outdated in style and was in need of a refresh. Baytree IT undertook a review of the site and advised on a number of areas that could be improved and also outlined a mechanism whereby a small Access database application could be produced to manage the car stock list and automatically produce the web pages for publication. On working through this with the customer the web site was redesigned and the application delivered all tied in to the business plan for advertising and web link creation. On putting the site live the response from customers was tremendous and the number of hits per day more than doubled. The application has proved a great success and allows the site to be refreshed several times in a day if required, this has now become a positive marketing point for the business. The cost of this work was around £1k, the benefits are yet to be quantified but for a mainly web-based business the hit count improvement is evidence of the likely results. (Visit www.classiccarspecialist.co.uk to see the results for yourself)

Another customer needed help to move into a new remote office but also wanted to reduce their telecomms and IT infrastructure overhead. We created an action plan for the office move and tied it into the replacement of expensive ISDN links with ADSL technology. With other changes to the IT infrastructure and the introduction of a new server to replace the existing very much overloaded server we managed to achieve a cost saving of around £20k per year from a spend of around £5k plus £300 per year. The new infrastructure also has within it a number of flexibility points which will make it much easier to grow the business and will allow a greater integration of the remote office to the main office systems.

Signpost International are a charity based in St Ives (www.signpost-international.org). Baytree IT were initially asked to help maintain their existing Access database application which they were having difficulty getting support for. On discussion we found that there was also a need for more general IT support and help desk assistance and so we have developed a relationship with Signpost International to provide these services. To date we have fixed numerous day-to-day issues with PC hardware and software, performed an upgrade of all machines to Windows XP (not without some pain) and solved some reporting problems within the database. In addition we have set up a virtual private network between the St Ives and Dundee offices, this allows the offices to communicate using videoconferencing facilities and enables Dundee staff to operate the database. Major database enhancements are in progress to allow more information to be stored and allow further growth of the charity. All of this has been achieved on a small budget.

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