Together, Ollie Bartlett and Laurie Probert represent the first franchisees to open a Vodafone Business IT Hub, which offers IT experts the opportunity to launch their own support service for local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Laurie Probert started working for Vodafone in 2016. Back then, he was a retail employee – first in Tunbridge Wells, before moving to a shop in Kent.
Eight years later, he now has six of his own Vodafone franchises around Kent and London, having become one of Vodafone UK’s first ever retail franchisees.
Alongside business partner Ollie Bartlett, the pair are now the first to launch a Vodafone Business IT Hub – back where it started, no less, in Tunbridge Wells – sparking what will eventually become a network of hubs covering the entire UK, run by IT experts local to each area .
This long journey contrasted with the quick decision to get involved upon hearing about the IT Hubs programme – an opportunity that Bartlett now describes as a “no brainer”.
“We really saw what [IT Hubs] could add to our customers,” explains Probert, “and the value that it was going to add to our own business too. We could obviously see that businesses around us needed support with IT, while we really wanted to make a difference to those in the local area.”
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Scale meets service
In what is an increasingly demanding digital landscape, IT and cybersecurity expertise has never been more important for small businesses. Though, by their very nature, these SMEs often don’t have the resources, finances or capacity to keep up to date with the latest best practices.
The IT Hubs empowers IT experts with the support and tools they need to help SMEs better manage their IT, whether that involves hardware, applications, connectivity or security.
Helping existing franchisees or local IT experts to set up their own Hubs – that can offer an outsourced one-stop shop for IT and communications support – is a win for everyone. The Hubs provide enterprise-level services, at a local level.
“A lot of the tools we use would usually only be available to businesses that have 500 or more employees,” says Bartlett. “The size of business that we generally work with just wouldn’t be able to get access to this level of software or tools. Or, if they were, then it would be extremely expensive.
“Whereas we can come into a business and take that [IT] headache away from customers, by helping them stay as up to date with IT and cybersecurity as possible, while really strengthening their business security online.”
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From hardware to soft skills
But it’s not just their local customers that have benefitted from the pair’s transition into an IT Hub. The development has allowed Ollie to follow Laurie’s lead in becoming a Vodafone franchisee himself. And, for both of them, it’s been a welcome education.
“In the short term, it’s given us a real insight into the IT world,” admits Probert. “We’ve gained so many more skills, as well as a really good understanding of what is quite a complex business in just six months or so, which is a credit to the training that Vodafone has given us.”
Perhaps surprisingly, many of these skills fall under the ‘soft’ category, as opposed to ‘harder’ technical tasks. Between a more logical, step-by-step approach to troubleshooting and clearer, more honest customer communications, much of these ultimately contribute towards stronger customer relationships.
“What we have learnt from those at Vodafone who have worked in this industry before is the importance of the relationship you build with the customer, and how that can be our differentiator in the marketplace,” says Probert.
“If you can build that level of trust with the customer, then it opens a lot more doors to you. Because, at the end of the day, you are holding the key to their business.”
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The right tools for the job
Of course, the tools at their disposal make a difference too. These are corporate-grade products that the pair have access to because of Vodafone’s scale and expertise behind them.
This includes a cybersecurity auditing tool that IT Hubs can use to assess their customers’ businesses, generating a range of reports that show any potential issues and highlight those that are of highest priority. From there, a Hub can provide customers with an IT security score, before sitting down to create a longer-term plan together.
“We ran our cyber audit for a potential customer recently,” explains Bartlett, “and found that they had a device with 10 terabytes of unprotected data on it, which they were completely unaware of.
“For a relatively small fee, we can protect their data. Whereas, if a hacker gets a hold of this information, it could put the business under, given the amount it would cost them to rectify plus the fines they may receive.”
British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) research shows that a quarter of SMEs feel their current tools are not resilient enough to protect from phishing, ransomware or password hacking, making this kind of intervention invaluable.
“[IT security] really is something that every business should have as a priority,” concludes Bartlett. “Thankfully, IT Hubs lets us provide much better tools at a much more competitive price.”
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