Tech for Small Business

By Paul Taylor

Published: September 22 2010 10:19 | Last updated: September 22 2010 10:19

The closest thing Knight Corporate Finance has to an office is Home House, a members club in central London, where co-founders Paul Billingham and Adam Zoldan can host meetings if required. Other than that, all team members work from home, which Paul and Adam, both with young families, see as an advantage.

Knight Corporate Finance is a boutique business advisory firm which has advised on the sale of more than 20 companies in the IT and Telecoms industries in the UK since it was set up two years ago.

“Setting up our own business means that we do not have set working hours, but we do work a lot of hours,” says Paul who is based in Warrington - 200 miles north of Adam who lives in London. In addition to the two partners, there are three other employees.

“Working from home gives us the flexibility to be involved in family life and then launch straight back into business. Our team also benefits from that flexibility and we are lucky to have employees who are mature and responsible enough to motivate themselves and do what needs to be done.”

Because the partners are constantly visiting clients around the country, they decided that the business would not own any infrastructure – only devices – and that the IT services it required would be hosted using cloud-based infrastructure from specialist providers.

For example, the two partners have hosted IP telephony at home which allows them to redirect calls to their Manchester and London phone numbers, to their mobiles or to a landline at any location. If they are not able to take a call, it is routed to a live answering service where the call is answered in the company name, details taken and sent by email.

Smartphones are certainly the most used technology – Paul and Adam both have iPhones. “Being on the move a lot and working long hours means you need a device that enables you to connect in every way possible and do some non-work things,” says Adam. “The iPhone is essentially a consumer device I personally like that also connects me for work.”

Knight CF also uses a pay-as-you-go conference call service for client calls and the weekly team catch up. Email is provided by a hosted Microsoft Exchange server which can be accessed through PCs and mobile devices and allows the team to share calendars.

When it comes to documents, all information is stored and shared on a hosted Microsoft Sharepoint server – Knight CF’s central collaboration site. Sharepoint also allows client access to a secure team site - secure partitioned areas of the server accessed via the web that allows each client or approved party to share information and interact with Knight CF.

If work is stored on a user’s PC, it is backed up using an online back up service. Any working documents required on the move are saved on a cloud server so that they can be accessed from any device with a web connection and a browser. Wireless cellular antennae enable internet connection when out and about.

Adam has recently swapped his laptop for an iPad while on the move because he was experiencing shoulder ache from carrying the heavy laptop around all the time: “The PC is still essential for creating new presentations or in-depth spreadsheets but for viewing and making minor changes the iPad is fine. For email, internet and providing content it is perfect and for giving presentations it is excellent as it still provides the “wow” factor as an interesting new bit of kit.”

Because of firm’s business, the partners have a natural interest in telecoms and IT and are always on the look-out for new products for personal use and to enhance the way the business works. With everything hosted, Knight CF’s infrastructure is flexible and can easily be updated and changed if an aspect no longer works well or a new gadget catches their eye. They also know exactly how much it will cost each month.

Paul says: “Work is part of our lives and the boundaries between work and family life have become blurred. Hosted technology means we can access our virtual office as frequently or infrequently as we need and interchange with family life at different times of the day. We’re always working but also always living our lives – the two are not separate.”

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