Bristol Business Network members – Avagio, the award winning, IT managed services provider head-quartered in Chippenham have some tremendous news that can help businesses including yours!-

• free resources – including business connectivity
• free 24/7 monitoring service
• assisting in cashflow

Latest free business guides explain how SMEs can improve their broadband connectivity, cash management, and professional practice productivity

As always these Avagio guides focus upon topics of particular interest to small and medium size businesses and how IT, or IT management, can be used to address common business issues. The three guides cover:

– how to improve business broadband connectivity
– how to manage your IT to improve cash management
– how multi-site professional service businesses can lever IT to improve productivity

Guide 22 recognises how SMEs depend upon their broadband to empower their staff, to effectively reach out to potential prospects, and to communicate with customers. It addresses the frustrations that many businesses have with their broadband speeds, especially those in rural areas, by providing 10 top tips on how businesses can improve their broadband connectivity.

While Better Business Guide 23 provides insights into how SMEs can manage their cash flows and provides information on how one of Avagio’s services can help in smoothing expenditure on hardware, software and IT support.

Guide 24 focuses upon the multi-site professional services such as accountancy, legal and architecture and describes both the advantages and disadvantages this brings and goes onto explain how a well-designed, managed and fully exploited IT system can make the most of these advantages, whilst mitigating the disadvantages.

Adam Morris, Avagio founder and MD, commenting on the latest guides said ‘Our popular, unique, Better Business and Stress Free IT Guides reflect are focus on helping SMEs with their IT challenges and opportunities. Avagio is the human, friendly face of IT and we work hard to provide services that exceed the expectations of our many and growing client base across the South West of England.’’

The guides can be downloaded free at http://www.avagio.co.uk/about-us/resources/

along with many other guides in the Avagio ‘Better Business’ and ‘Stress-Free IT’ series that include topics such as how to improve your IT, buying cloud based services, IT security and data back-up, hosted telephony, choosing an IT supplier, and how to outflank competition through great IT.

Free service enables businesses to know the moment their web site goes down  

Every business needs to make the most of their web site and be aware when it goes offline and now they can with Avagio’s 24×7 web site monitoring tool Avagio SiteScout, absolutely free, forever.

Adam Morris, Avagio Managing Director commenting on the new free service said, ‘’Small and medium size businesses are under pressure in the current economic conditions and they need to make sure they don’t miss a trick when it comes to the contribution from their web site. Particularly those with 24 x7 operations and those who depend upon online sales. Avagio SiteScout checks web site availability every 15 minutes and automatically notifies the user by email should their site go offline. Users nominate the site url and the email address at which they wish to be notified. Avagio SiteScout even sends a reassuring email every 3 months to reaffirm that the free service is still live.’’

Avagio SiteScout is quick, easy and free to set up, and registrants can cancel anytime, all by email.

Business owners and managers who would like to take advantage of the free web monitoring facility from Avagio can register at http://www.avagio.co.uk/about-us/avagio-sitescout/

New service that can assist SME cash flow  

The new service reflects the unfortunate fact that smaller businesses are more prone to experiencing trading difficulties due to cash flow issues as generally they do not have the capital reserves to bridge delays in receiving payment for goods and services provided to customers, or to fund rapid growth.

For SMEs ‘cash is king’ and while making a healthy profit is preferred, a healthy cash flow is essential. Start-up businesses can be particularly vulnerable to cash based problems, but any SME that does not control cash effectively can get into trouble, especially in these tough economic times.

Ideally every business should have a ‘cash cushion’ to fall back on if circumstances require it and should actively pursue ways to manage the cash flows out and into the business. This can be done in a number of ways – through the careful management of expenses, credit control, margin/demand optimisation, and the building of repeat business. For instance borrowing and supplier terms may be renegotiated, and inventory reduced. Headcount and costs associated with staffing is another area requiring effective management. While factoring can be yet another option, on the basis that 90-95% of invoice value in 30 days is better than 100% in 90.

Uneven cash flow can be smoothed through tactics such as adjusting current customer credit and payment terms, agreeing milestone payments for longer projects, retaining ownership of products until payment is made, offering early payment discounts and creating new revenue streams by expanding the service offering.

But we can add to these many strategies the opportunity to capitalise business IT costs.

And this is where new Avagio Capex can come into its own, as hardware, software and IT support is provided for a fixed monthly cost, making budgeting more accurate and easier to manage.

By providing IT as a service Avagio NoCapex provides IT with zero capital expenditure. So it’s particularly ideal for small and medium size businesses looking to stretch their cash. With Avagio NoCapex businesses just pay a fixed monthly fee and the benefits include:

•           No capital costs for your IT infrastructure •    Complete peace of mind

•           Full Avagio service desk support •     A competitive fixed monthly fee for all your IT support

•           Regular reports on your network performance •        Free regular reviews to ensure your IT strategy is sound

Avagio NoCapex includes all on-site and remote support, and unlimited Avagio service desk support too. Issues are fixed quickly through the use of remote monitoring. While our free quarterly telephone, and annual face to face reviews ensure IT strategy is sound today, and in the future. We also provide reports so businesses are aware of their network performance.

There is more about new Avagio NoCapex at http://www.avagio.co.uk/support/avagio-nocapex/

Avagio are Small Business of the Year Winners in the Chippenham Business Awards 2013

Avagio – Switched on IT – Small Business of the Year Winners, Chippenham Business Awards 2013, Award Winners Wiltshire Life Business Awards 2013, and finalists in the Wiltshire Business of the Year Awards 2012. Also CompTIA Trustmark+ Quality Certified awarded.