Unlock The Lockdown

When Northern Insight last caught up with Paul Sykes and the team at The Unite Group, the first Coronavirus lockdown had just been confirmed. We spoke about how things would soon be sorted out and quickly return to normal. How wrong we were. A lot of you reading this probably had the same impression.

Thankfully, that’s where The Unite Group in

Newcastle can help.

“We were in a similar situation,” said director

Paul Sykes. “We suddenly had to work out a rota

system where 20% of the team could socially

distance in the office while the rest of us worked

from home. At least it allowed us to show clients

how effective technology can be at keeping your

business running smoothly. In effect we could

say…’what we’re doing is an example of what you

could do’…we were practicing what we preach.”

The Unite Group have over the past couple

of years continued to increase the amount of

products and services they offer such as a greater

range of IT, web design, social media management,

communications systems, data backup and

business continuity solutions. In a nutshell, they

take care of the ‘behind the scenes’ technology as

well as the customer facing experience in terms

of a website and social media. They keep your

company running and help you adapt to these

new and rather uncertain times.

There’s a wind of change blowing through the

way we work. People are forced to work from

home and, let’s be honest, for many it’s gone

well and at some point a decision will have to be

made; do you go back to commuting and working

in an office or have you discovered that working

from home should continue?

“It’s probably a generation thing,” said Paul Sykes,

“but for those people who decide to continue

working from home, the temptation is to

update at great expense your lump of computer

technology. Don’t. You no longer need any of it. All

you need is access to the internet. We can set you

up so that you have access to more storage space

and security than you can ever imagine….and it’s

all accessible via a laptop, tablet or smartphone.

We can provide you with a Cloud-based telephone

system which means when someone dials your

normal landline number, it will make your phone

ring no matter where you are. You may have an

0191 telephone number, but if you are working

from an office in Manchester, or Madrid or Outer

Mongolia, it will ring like a normal phone and the

caller will be none the wiser. There is no danger of

you missing out on an important business call.”

The Unite Group help businesses of all sizes work

remotely. They use Microsoft Cloud and Office

365 extensively. Instead of having expensive

servers at home or at work, The Unite Group

migrates everything to Microsoft SharePoint,

which has recently been fully updated, giving you

access to your data from anywhere. Your entire

business can operate via the Cloud and it will

have the ultimate levels of security. You no longer

need an expensive IT system which constantly

needs updating with software and antivirus

protection. Large computers lose their value very

quickly; with Unite Group you won’t need worry

about that.

Emma Crowe leads the web design and social

media side of The Unite Group. “If you wander

along any High Street, you can see what the

problem is for businesses”, said Emma. “They

have products to sell and services to offer, but

the general public has no access to them via

traditional face-to-face methods. Those firms

must adopt a new approach to the way they

operate otherwise they won’t survive. They need

to integrate a digital aspect to their business

and create an online presence. We help them by

building a website that provides a way of selling

and viewing products and services. We can build

their social media output and then train them

how to update it themselves and ensure they

have a way of interacting with customers.”

The best idea is to have a chat with Paul and The

Unite Group team. They’ll look at your business

and explain how they can help. You probably

know that you should be doing something, so do

it before it’s too late.

The Unite Group can provide you with on-line

support and ensure that your business potential

is fully unlocked….even during lockdown.