APH helps J. Bishop & Co solve IT problems

J. Bishop & Company is one of the UK’s leading independent distributors of cleaning and hygiene products and systems. Formed in 1970 by Roger Morgan, the company operates in the commercial (non-consumer) marketplace. Their customers are professional organisations in the private and public sectors, while the users of their products and systems are people from all walks of life. The Company’s comprehensive product range includes: washroom, housekeeping, floorcare, catering, laundry, electrical, industrial, maintenance, personal protection and personal hygiene.

They have built their success on providing a high level of service to their customers. Monitoring, measuring and providing customers with feedback on the level of service they are providing is an essential part of ensuring J. Bishop & Co achieve their business mission: "To support our customers to achieve Better Hygiene, Better Health".

The importance of a stable IT platform
Investment in IT has always been a key factor in enabling J. Bishop & Co to provide a high level of service to their customers. However they quickly came to realise that any IT problems could have serious repercussions on the business and needed to be solved quickly to minimise downtime, prevent poor customer service and potential financial loss.

Bishop’s had been dealing with a local IT company for a number of years but had been suffering from increasing problems and inconvenience. This led them to look for a new supplier and after a thorough evaluation they decided to work with Stockport based APH Computers.

APH have many years experience of supplying and supporting reliable and secure business solutions that enable organisations to maximise their investment in IT without the need to employ dedicated staff.

After a thorough review of J. Bishop & Co’s existing IT infrastructure they recommended upgrading their platform to a more modern and secure solution based on Microsoft Windows Server 2003. This network comprises of a central server together with over 15 desktop PC’s and 5 laptops, all running Windows XP. Tracey Ives, commercial director at J. Bishop & Co explained:

"Our IT systems are integral to the way we do business and help ensure we can always provide a high level of customer service, so to be without them for any length of time is simply not an option.

APH implemented a new network and installed the Global3000 business management software suite to deal with our accounting, sales order processing and stock requirements. Together with Microsoft Office and Outlook this takes care of all our computing needs."

Choosing the right partner
Although many of J. Bishop & Co’s previous problems were solved by implementing this new infrastructure, problems do still occasionally occur. The sheer complexity and diverse functionality of even the smallest network means that no matter how well designed and implemented at some point things will go wrong. When they do it is important the problems are quickly identified and rectified.

Larger organisations usually employ an in-house team to handle these eventualities, but for the smaller organisation this is not feasible. With businesses having to look at every expense, the option of having a permanent employee on their payroll who may only be utilised a very small percentage of the time is just not cost effective.

Coupled with this is the need to keep up to date with all the changes that regularly occur with both hardware and software. Even larger organisations do not expect one person to know everything about all their systems, but spread this knowledge throughout a team.

Faced with this scenario a small business owner needs to find the right partner who employs a team of IT professionals with the technical know-how and experience of how this is applied to the real world. This ensures that the root cause of any problem can be quickly identified and fixed.

Tracey Ives commented:
"We have been working with APH for over 4 years now and whenever we have had a problem with our IT, they are always able to solve it for us, instantly. When we ring up, their help-desk will work with us to identify whether the problem is hardware or software based and then we are put through to one of their specialists who can dial-in to our systems and fix it remotely in most cases. If the problem is hardware based or the consultant needs to visit our site to resolve the problem this is done within a matter of hours, ensuring minimum disruption to our business."

As IT becomes more pervasive in organisations of all sizes the problem of what to do when things go wrong increases. By partnering with a reliable IT specialist this problem can be removed and business owners can get on with the day to day tasks of running and growing their organisation without having to worry about being IT experts.

APH set aside a significant budget each year to ensure their staff are trained to the highest standard and are up to date with the latest problems they are likely to encounter. This investment ensures that their customers receive exceptional service and can view their IT systems as an enabler for improving performance rather than a problem waiting to happen.