During the recession many organisations have been hit hard, not least charities, which have seen donations fall and are now facing severe cuts in funding by the government. Their challenge is to work within tight budgets without compromising the quality of their services. Bolton Young Person’s Housing Scheme, which houses homeless young adults, recently tackled this dilemma by seeking smart IT solutions to upgrade its software and reduce overheads following a review with its long term IT consultancy, Smarter Technologies.
Bolton Young Person’s Housing Scheme operates a ‘hot desking’ system with staff sharing computers – as they regularly work out of the office – and to enable them to bring in freelancers to cope when the workload is particularly heavy. In addition, the team often work until late in the evenings requiring access to key documents on the server. Smarter Technologies evaluated the system and suggested several recommendations to cope with these demands more effectively, including an upgrade to the latest versions of Microsoft Windows from its current software, Windows XP, as it was no longer suitable.
Smarter Technologies also introduced Bolton Young Person’s Housing Scheme to the Microsoft Software Donations Programme administered by Technology Trust which meant that it paid a fraction of the price than if it had bought off the shelf.
Lynne Sprigings, director of Bolton Young Person‘s Housing Scheme, explained: “Changing our IT systems really enhanced our way of working which includes late hours at home. The upgrades now mean we can access our data with remote access technology quickly and securely to continue working when required. It has also allowed us to utilise freelancers more effectively.
“As a small business it’s really important for us to have reliable and responsive IT support, which Smarter Technologies supplies.” she added.
