IT firm offering free help to small businesses

A DERBY firm is offering free IT advice to small businesses in the city to help them make it through the credit crunch.

Mark Jones, managing director of Wytech, based at the College Business Centre, in Uttoxeter New Road, believes IT is one area on which companies cannot afford to cut back and has set up a help-line to discuss how his company can support local firms.

Wytech is now offering small businesses, those which employ a maximum of 50 people, free advice and support regarding their computer services.

Rob Birkbeck is sales and marketing manager at the company and said that a major IT problem could often destroy a small business.

He said: "Statistics show that half of small businesses go bankrupt 24 months after a serious IT disaster.

"For example, if the company's server crashes, not only do they have the expense of buying a new one but they will have lost all the data they had stored. Everything from client information to accountancy data will have disappeared and it can be devastating for a small firm."

Wytech, set up in 2004, aims to help businesses avoid such disasters by taking care of all their IT issues, from day-to-day monitoring, handling security and providing back-up in case of a serious problem.

With all services being run from Wytech's own offices, their clients are spared the expense of hiring an in-house IT manager.

Rob said: "For many small businesses, especially new start-ups, it doesn't make sense to hire a full-time person to deal with IT.

"Instead, they can pay us a small monthly fee, starting from £75 per server and £10 per desktop, and we will aim to handle all their IT problems remotely from our own offices.

"Because we can monitor the company's system from our base, if anything goes wrong we can identify it immediately, fix it ourselves and then just send a report to let the client know what happened."

With security currently a big concern,Wytech also offers technology to ensure a company's information is safe at all times.

Rob said: "The technology we use to protect our client's data is the same standard as that used by the Ministry of Defence.

"It means that, should a laptop or disk belonging to one of our clients go missing, we can guarantee that the information contained within it cannot be accessed."

Wytech also offers a disaster recovery service so that, should a company's system crash, the information can be safely recovered.

Rob said: "It is like insurance really. It can be so catastrophic if anything goes wrong with a company's IT system, which is why we believe it really is worth taking the precaution of covering every eventuality."

As well as helping local businesses, Wytech aims to support the community and sponsors four young Derby snooker players, including World Ladies' Junior Champion Hannah Jones and winner of last weekend's Midlands Junior Tour Alex Anastasiou.

Wytech also sponsor a local junior snooker club, as well as the Wytech World Ladies' Masters Tournament, which takes place at Clay Cross Snooker Centre each year.

Rob said: "Our MD Mark was a semi-professional snooker player and wanted to give something back to Derby by supporting young players in the city.

"We have also recently taken on a new engineer who was recruited from the University of Derby and are about to take on an apprentice who we will train."

To find out more, e-mail derbyoffer@wytech.co.uk or call 0800 011 2636.