Category: News

Whether you are working from home or a busy office, it is easy to feel under pressure when taking telephone calls.

There is something about a telephone conversation that can put you on the spot. Perhaps it is the lack of visual input because you can’t see each other’s faces or body language.

In a face to face conversation, you can frown or look up to show that you are thinking about your response. On the telephone, there is just silence, so there can be a tendency to keep talking to bridge the gap.

It is important to keep a clear head in a telephone conversation. Give yourself time to think, especially if you are being asked to give out any personal data, even to confirm or deny information that relates to clients, customers or colleagues.

A useful tip to get a minute or two to think is to say that you need to check the situation with a colleague or manager. Another good tip, if you are in doubt as to whether or not you should pass on information, is not to do it. Ask the caller to put their request in writing, on headed notepaper if it is an organisation rather than an individual.

Trust your instincts. You will know the routine data disclosures that are made as part of your job. So, if a request is out of the ordinary, that is enough to warn you that you should take extra care in your responses.

Article courtesy of Mandy P Webster, Data Protection Consulting Limited

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Interactive electronic whiteboards offer many benefits to teachers and pupils in today’s smart classroom environment, but in the current climate, with COVID-19, self-isolation and online learning affecting day-to-day classroom activities, digital whiteboard technology can really come into its own. 

Interactive whiteboards with touchscreen displays can make a huge difference to education, allowing teachers and lecturers to connect with students whether they’re in class or at home, helping to increase student performance and comprehension.

One of the greatest benefits of this smart classroom technology is that it offers the ability to save, re-play and share entire lessons on screen. Not only does this allow teachers to pre-plan lesson content, including any corresponding videos, images and tasks, but also allows any self-isolating students access to the recording. This offers a relatively simple solution for what is becoming an ever-increasing occurrence. Smart whiteboard technology allows those children who can’t come into the classroom the chance to still learn and engage with the same materials as their attending classmates.

A digital whiteboard also offers the ability for students to engage with their learning much more deeply than they would ever be able to if they just had access to notes. These days, interactive whiteboards are an essential tool for delivering online e-lessons, offering a seamless presenting solution to deliver smooth, organised lessons to keep students engaged.

In the digital classroom, with internet connectivity allowing access to endless online resources and technology, there are now countless ways to collaborate with students in schools, colleges and universities. Smart, interactive whiteboards can help bring lessons to life no matter what the circumstances, or where the students are viewing from.

To learn more about the types and ranges of smart, digital whiteboards available, just get in touch with First Class Technologies on 01543 414152.

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On the first working day of May 2017 we received instructions to proceed from a new client based on our enterprise park in Lichfield. FCT will be providing them with managed IT support and monitoring services for their network infrastructure, servers, laptops and workstations, and take on overall management of their IT infrastructure, incorporating FCT cloud onsite/offsite managed backup system, Microsoft Office 365 licencing, web hosting and managed Anti-Virus services.

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We have just received the go ahead from a new client based in York to provide them with remote managed IT support and monitoring services for their network infrastructure, servers and workstations. We will provide advanced hardware monitoring of their servers and take on overall management of their IT infrastructure. We will be helping the company adopt a hybrid cloud setup and look to move essential workloads to the cloud, such as their backup system and Email system.

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We very pleased to welcome on-board an insurance group based In Sutton near Birmingham who specialise in health care insurance. Our new client is the perfect model of a cloud based business as they have fully embraced and adopted Microsoft Office 365 as their main system for email and document storage.

FCT will be managing their Office 365 environment, looking after their workstations and we will provide cloud based managed anti-virus.

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We’re pleased to announce that a Leicester based insurance group have chosen FCT to provide second level IT support and monitoring to compliment their onsite systems manager. The insurance group operate out of their head office in Leicester and use Microsoft Office 365, Hyper-V server infrastructure and a Veeam backup system. FCT will provide advanced server monitoring and second line support. We will also be involved a project to use Microsoft Azure server hosting to setup a secondary DR site for them.

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First Class Technologies, the award winning IT Managed Service provider, has secured the services of a new Non-Executive Director, Phil Partington.

Partington joins the team to help guide the Company to achieve its ambitious growth plan, following a very successful career in the Managed Services industry.  As well as being a founder of ServiceTec, he held senior Sales and Marketing roles in global giants like Fujitsu and medium sized players such as Calyx Managed Services.  His last role was as Europe, Middle East and Africa Services Sales & Marketing Director for Lenovo – the world’s largest PC manufacturer.

“He brings an impeccable track record of Services Sales & Marketing achievement to First Class and we know that both we and our clients will benefit from his expertise, experience and contacts In the industry” said Tim Rookes, First Class Director.

According to Partington “When I was invited to join the team at First Class, I was thrilled to accept.  I had witnessed the work that the team here does for the past 12 months and I knew that this was a team that could really go places with the right support. Their commitment to customer satisfaction is exemplary and I instantly felt we had a cultural compatibility.  I am really excited to be joining the team to help them realise their goals for the Company.”

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One of our latest projects is to migrate a Derby based accountancy firm from their remote desktop hosted platform, to a hybrid cloud system including Microsoft Office 365.

You may be thinking why move from a fully hosted desktop environment? However the firm were suffering from slow performance from the hosted desktop environment as it was running on shared hardware, they had no control to make changes resulting in costly charges to alter anything and the system just wasn’t flexible enough for their needs.

We recommended a hybrid cloud solution giving the best of both worlds. Their email and personal documents are now stored on Office 365. They have a small file and app server located on premise which they have total control over. This server is backed up by our DR and Cloud backup solution powered by Microsoft Azure.

We also provide the Derby based accountancy firm with remote and onsite managed IT and IT support services.

 

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3CX-Partner

We have recently installed and setup a 3CX VOIP phone system for one of our clients based in Nottingham. This was an interesting project because our client already had a hosted VOIP phone system. However they were getting frustrated with the lack of flexibility of the current system and when the VOIP hoster had an issue and they were without phones for four days, they decided it was time to change. FCT have installed the latest 3CX VOIP phone system on their network utilising a spare PC they had, as the new 3CX phone system server. They are now benefitting from much better control of their own system, a more reliable system and they are saving money every month with our SIP trunk package, which includes free phone calls!

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Our latest managed IT client are a firm of charted surveyors based in Nottingham city centre. FCT will be providing them with remote managed IT services and monitoring for their IT infrastructure. We will also be working on a project for them in 2017 to migrate their file data to Microsoft Office 365 SharePoint Online. This will give the firm much needed remote access to important documents and files, as well as providing great disaster recovery options.

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We have recently added a Derby and Burton based accountancy firm to our list of Managed IT clients. This particular client has around 30 users and we will be providing remote IT support for them. In addition to managed IT services, we have carried out a number or projects to improve their IT systems, including migrating their email to Microsoft Office 365 and installing a Datto backup and disaster recovery system.

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We have just completed a project for a national charity with headquarters based in Nottingham, to make the move to Office 365 for their email.

The charity had 90 users and over 100 mailboxes on their existing Exchange email server, which they managed in-house. Using our special Office 365 migration system, we were able to perform a cutover migration so that their email was migrated over to Office 365 in just one day! This made for a smooth and quick migration for the charity.

If you are looking to move to Office 365 then please get in touch to see how we can help with your migration project.

Office 365

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Lets Do Business

…well ok, it’s not exactly a race meeting, but it’s definitely worth you making a date to attend the “Let’s Do Business Expo” – Chambers of Commerce event on the 23 June at Uttoxeter Racecourse!  You can join us for a fantastic opportunity to hear some great speakers, attend seminars and network too.

We will be on hand to discuss getting the most out of your IT, as well as all things ‘Cloud’ related. After 20 years of being in business, we know a thing or two and are always pleased to advise on how to design and develop a robust and resilient computer network, bearing in mind critical matters such as disaster recovery should the worst occur. Details of the event are attached herewith for your perusal.

Please let us know if you will be attending so we can look out for you or, alternatively, if you can’t make it but would like a visit to discuss your IT.

http://www.letsdobusinessexpo.co.uk

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We are delighted to have been chosen by a Leicester based charity to provide them with complete managed IT and support services as well as manage an Office 365 migration for them.

The charity based in Leicester, East Midlands, help schools, children and young people get into creative opportunities and the creative industry. They were looking to work with a managed IT provider (MSP)  who could provide them with a fully managed IT services and act as their IT department. As well as providing managed IT services the charity were also looking to work with an MSP that had extensive knowledge of Microsoft Office 365.

With our track record of excellent customer service, our advance IT support systems and our many years experience with Microsoft Office 365. FCT were able to demonstrate that we were the right choice for the charity.

We are looking forward to developing a long standing IT partner relationship with them.

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First Class Technologies have just completed a successful Office 365 email migration for a local insurance firm based in Lichfield, West Midlands.

The migration sees the firm move from and antiquated POP3 email system to the state-of-the-art Microsoft Exchange technology.

The firm are now benefiting from increased anti-spam protection, shared calendars and synchronisations between all of their devices.

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First Class Technologies, as an established and time served IT Solutions partner, continually reviews security matters and cyber threats such as Spear phishing.

Please ensure that your staff are vigilant about not publishing information on Social Media that will mean they can be profiled.

Here is a short news article shown on local East Midlands BBC evening news where David Benford, who has worked for a number of FCT clients, starts to highlight the issues…

Please take care out there, it can be a dangerous place if you are careless!

If you want any advice or assistance to maintain and improve your business security, please telephone or email our team.

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Great news for Small to Medium-sized Businesses (SMBs) in the Midlands has arrived in the shape of a merger between two specialist IT Managed Service companies, First Class Technologies based in Lichfield and Red Cloud IT Solutions of Castle Donington.  The result is a company with an unrivalled portfolio of services specifically aimed at the SMB community. The beginning of February marked the completion of the merger.

Richard Hinton, MD of First Class Technologies said “This new partnership strengthens our portfolio of IT Managed services with the addition of Red Cloud’s specialist Cloud knowledge.  This means we can now offer our clients an enhanced level and range of services, including in-house, hybrid and cloud solutions”.

Tim Rookes, MD of Red Cloud IT Solutions said “I believe that our proposition to the market place is one of the strongest in the area and I’m really looking forward to working with the First Class team.  We both have ambitious plans for growth throughout the Midlands.  By focusing on local businesses, we believe we can bring a much needed range of advanced support services to this sector, often ignored by the bigger players in the region”.

The company will continue to trade as First Class Technologies, with the Head Office in Lichfield, along with the addition of an East Midlands office in Castle Donington.  Richard Hinton said “First Class Technologies has a successful heritage stretching back over 19 years and has always prided itself on providing excellent customer service and building long term relationships.  This merger makes perfect sense for us and our clients, so I and the management team couldn’t be happier”.

Tim Rookes commented “We’ve already started work on streamlining our support service to ensure we continue to provide an excellent customer support experience.  We have also invested in a new cutting edge monitoring and help desk system to enhance our customers’ experience, as well as rebranding the company and launching a new website. This will focus on our strong partnerships with Microsoft and their cloud solutions, such as Office 365 and Azure, and also with Datto, one of the industry’s leading hybrid cloud backup and business continuity systems.

The Company will continue to focus on small to medium-sized businesses and not for profit organisations located within the East and West Midlands.  The managed IT market is growing at a rapid rate due to the adoption of cloud technologies and less reliance on in-house IT teams.  With the excellent team we have at First Class, we aim to be the region’s leading managed IT provider, adding significant value to our clients.”

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