Agile ICT

A Message from Lord Pickles and Lord Blunkett, followed by Agile ICT's best practice article

The ability to listen and learn from one another has always been vital in parliament, in business and in most aspects of daily life. But at this particular moment in time, as national and global events continue to reiterate, it is uncommonly crucial that we forge new channels of communication and reinforce existing ones. The following article from Agile ICT is an attempt to do just that. We would welcome your thoughts on this or any other Parliamentary Review article.

Rt Hon The Lord David Blunkett

Rt Hon The Lord Eric Pickles

www.agileict.co.uk

49AGILE ICT |

BEST PRACTICE REPRESENTATIVE 2018

Richard G Jones, founder and

managing director

Agile ICT’s new office building, purchased

in 2017, as part of its continued expansion

Agile ICT is a specialist provider of ICT and related solutions

exclusively to education. Effective ICT is critical for the

day-to-day operations of schools and the education of

our children. It is vital for our nation that our children are highly

educated in IT for when they enter the work place – employers

and our economy depend on it. Richard G Jones, founder

and managing director, explains how their customer-focused

approach, superior engineering skills and quality service have

enabled them to grow and prosper continuously for ten years.

We focus on providing the platform and services necessary to enable schools to do their

jobs well. The greatest compliment we receive from our customers is “It just works”.

Different in what we do, different in how we do it

An ICT infrastructure is a complex beast. Constructing and engineering a stable

and high performing ICT platform is akin to that of a racing car. It is formed of

many complex components which need to be blended together then optimised

end-to-end to deliver a dominant victory. A further complication is the constant

change; the IT industry is pretty much unique in that you buy a product, but the

manufacturer keeps updating and improving it while you own it. Keeping every

element in harmony and at peak performance is a never-ending journey, which is

why ICT requires regular maintenance to keep it at its best.

We think differently about everything we do – it is not possible to totally outperform

the competition if we do the same things, in the same way.

FACTS ABOUT

AGILE ICT

»Founder and managing

director: Richard G Jones

»Established in 2008

»Based in Segensworth,

Hampshire

»Services: A full range of ICT

services and related solutions,

exclusively for education

»No. of employees: 21

»www.agileict.co.uk

Agile ICT

THE PARLIAMENTARY REVIEW

Highlighting best practice

50 | AGILE ICT

»CASE STUDY

A large Federated School had 100 laptops and PCs.

They required one full day of support per week yet

the users were still unhappy with the performance

and reliability of the system. The school’s ICT is led by

an Advanced Skills ICT Teacher who has a high level

of expertise and is far more demanding than most.

We were invited in and were chosen to replace this

school’s infrastructure with our design. They now have

600 laptops, PCs and other devices on their network

- but only need a couple of hours of support per half

term and users are now happy – “IT just works…”

This has delivered a vastly superior platform for the

school along with a significant cost saving

By design, we choose not to impose

long-term contracts on our schools.

This means that every day our team

wakes up knowing that we must

recompete for every school’s custom.

This keeps us razor sharp in delivering

on our promise, and ensures we never

take our customers for granted or

become complacent.

We provide a “one-stop-shop” for

schools in respect of their ICT needs. We

provide everything from a single cable

through to a custom-built ICT suite,

and everything in between. We hold

ourselves out as being experts, so we

believe we should put our money where

our mouth is – we offer our services on

a “fixed price, money back guarantee”

basis so we reverse out the risk for our

schools. We are the only supplier who

has the confidence to dothis.

Cathryn Butcher, Head of Sales &

Operations, is relentless in her demands

of our team to ensure we always deliver

on our promise and the service, that our

customers expect from our brand. This

has been fundamental to our success.

We conceived a game changing

support service with clear

differentiation against our competitors;

we engineer our infrastructures and

servers in a unique way which means

they perform better and last longer,

thereby delivering the lowest possible

total cost of ownership for our schools.

Our account managers don’t have any

form of sales target, therefore there

is never any incentive for them to do

anything other than what is best for

the school. We believe that if we offer

the best solution at the best price, our

schools will ultimately choose to buy

from us whether it is this week or next

year. We are independent of all product

suppliers and rapidly become a school’s

trusted advisor helping them make the

right decision and extract the maximum

value from their limited budgets.

We place a huge emphasis on

customer service with our “Delight

the Customer” model. Our account

managers are often online late into

the evenings and weekends, engaging

with our schools, which is often when

teachers have the time to do this.

Being passionate about doing the right

thing for the customer is fundamental

for everyone in the company.

Left to right: Ryan Fletcher,

account manager,

Cathryn Butcher, head of

sales & operations, Karen

Hodkinson, account

manager, Joely Cooper,

purchasing manager

Part of the Agile ICT

technical team

It is not possible

to totally

outperform the

competition if

we do the

same things in

the same way

“

51AGILE ICT |

BEST PRACTICE REPRESENTATIVE 2018

We rejoice at being a disruptive force

in the industry and are pleased that we

have forced our competitors to raise

their game and reduce their prices. We

embrace, and welcome, competition –

it only makes us stronger.

Navigating shrinking budgets

successfully

It is no secret that school budgets are

constrained. We believe that more

funds could be released to the schools

themselves if they weren’t being

consumed by inefficient back office

functions.

Our focus is all about total cost of

ownership and transparency. We go

to great lengths to help head teachers

and business managers understand

what they are spending their scarce

budgets on, and why. When a head

teacher properly understands, they

make good decisions which deliver

the optimum solution for their school

in the most cost-effective manner.

Sadly,there are some school decision

makers who only focus on the headline

price and don’t appreciate the real

total cost. We try to help them see

the light, but some are simply not

interested and to these we wish them

well and quietly withdraw.

We concentrate on innovation and

efficiency to drive our growth –

bringing new solutions to market and

delivering them in a highly efficient

way. Despite the pressure on school

budgets and the fact that we have

not increased the cost of our services

for five years, we have continued to

achieve year-on-year profitable growth.

We focus on profit rather than revenue

as anyone can sell a £10 note for £5 –

that’s not a real business.

Giving back

We believe in helping those schools

who help us. We focus our marketing

budget on tangible things that

benefit our schools and their pupils.

Examples include funding the cost of

sports kits, buying trophies for events

such as coding, spelling and sports

competitions and donating feature

prizes for school raffles.

Investing in our future

In 2017 we made the significant step

of buying our own office building, in

addition to our existing premises, to

give us the capacity for our next stage

of growth.

We are very excited about the future.

We have assembled and developed

a strong team of focussed and

highly motivated individuals, unique

product and service offerings and an

obsession with customer service that

runs through the entire DNA of the

company and guides everything that

we do. Our brand is very strong, and

we continue to win most of our new

business from the recommendation of

existing schools.

We may now be celebrating our

10thanniversary, but we are just as

hungry to deliver the best performing

and best value solutions to our schools,

as we were when we started. The

future is bright.

Despite the

pressure on

school budgets

and the fact

that we have

not increased

the cost of our

services for five

years, we have

continued to

achieve year on

year profitable

growth

“

Agile ICT developed

software application -

ASAM Dashboard

www.agileict.co.uk

This article was sponsored by Agile ICT. The Parliamentary Review is wholly funded by the representatives who write for it. The publication in which this article originally appeared contained the following foreword from Rt Hon Kwasi Kwarteng.

Rt Hon Kwasi Kwarteng's Foreword For The Parliamentary Review

By Rt Hon Kwasi Kwarteng

This year’s Parliamentary Review reflects on a tumultuous and extraordinary year, globally and nationally. As well as being an MP, I am a keen student of history, and I am conscious that 2020 would mark the end of an era. It will be remembered as the year in which we concluded Brexit negotiations and finally left the European Union. Above all, it will be remembered as the year of Covid-19.

In our fight against the pandemic, I am delighted that our vaccination programme is beginning to turn the tide – and I pay tribute to the British businesses, scientists and all those who have helped us to achieve this. But the virus has dealt enormous damage, and we now have a duty to rebuild our economy.

We must ensure that businesses are protected. We have made more than £350 billion available to that end, with grants, business rates relief and our furlough scheme supporting more than 11 million people and jobs in every corner of the country, maintaining livelihoods while easing the pressure on employers. The next step is to work with business to build back better and greener, putting the net zero carbon challenge at the heart of our recovery. This is a complex undertaking, but one which I hope will be recognised as a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Through the prime minister’s ten point plan for a green industrial revolution, we can level up every region of the UK, supporting 250,000 green jobs while we accelerate our progress towards net zero carbon emissions.

With our commitment to raise R&D spending to 2.4% of GDP and the creation of the Advanced Research & Invention Agency, we are empowering our fantastic researchers to take on groundbreaking research, delivering funding with flexibility and speed. With this approach, innovators will be able to work with our traditional industrial heartlands to explore new technologies, and design and manufacture the products on which the future will be built – ready for export around the globe.

And I believe trade will flourish. We are a leading nation in the fight against climate change. As the host of COP26 this year, we have an incredible opportunity to market our low-carbon products and expertise. Our departure from the EU gives us the chance to be a champion of truly global free trade; we have already signed trade deals with more than 60 countries around the world.

As we turn the page and leave 2020 behind, I am excited about the new chapter which Britain is now writing for itself, and for the opportunities which lie ahead of us.

Rt Hon Kwasi Kwarteng
Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy