We recently sat down with Paul Tomlinson (Group Finance Operations Director) and Cameron Neary (Business Support Manager) at JLES Group.
JLES Group, a nationwide civil engineering and infrastructure project management organisation working with major house builders across the UK, relies heavily on robust, responsive and secure IT systems to keep operations running smoothly. Increasing cyber security threats and the need for dependable day-to-day support, JLES required an IT partner who could not only safeguard their business but also understand the urgency and fast-moving nature of their work.
After experiencing unreliable support from previous third-party providers, JLES turned to Apex Computing as a trusted technology partner. What followed was a relationship built on responsiveness, practical problem-solving, and a genuine commitment to keeping JLES operational, secure and supported at all times.
Cameron: Data security and our cyber security on the whole is probably the biggest issue that we face at the moment.
Paul: Remote threats, malicious links. I witnessed these first hand.
Paul: I'd say it's superb, it's fantastic.
Cameron: Building the relationship, whether it be with Simon, or Laura, or Kate, or whoever it is, or just engineers, I do know, genuinely know, that if I pick up the phone and say there's an issue, can you solve it? It gets done and it gets dealt with.
Paul: If you're IT is that critical to your business, when something goes down, you want to be able to speak to somebody. You want to be able to get hold of somebody. You want to be able to try and find a fast solution, knowing you can speak to somebody pretty much straight away and knowing that you can get the solution turned around and that they've got a bit of lateral thought when it comes to solving a problem, they won't necessarily sit there and go, "oh, it's going to take 48 hours to get something". They might look and see if there's a local provider, a local IT equipment provider, that they can order it from where it can be done and collected and then brought here within a matter of hours, rather than waiting 24 or 48 hours. They understand the urgency and the need for us to continue operating as a business. Without your IT basically you just grind to a halt.
Cameron: Yeah, I would recommend Apex, definitely. We've had other experiences with other providers - not necessarily IT - but just sort of third parties where you feel like just a number and you feel like you're not valued, really. And you know that if you pick up the phone, you're going to go into an endless queue where they might get round to looking at some point int he day. Me knowing that I've got a provider that I can rely on and that I can trust to deal with it and pick it up and help me is the main thing, which obviously we get of Apex.
Paul: Apex are great, you know, they're a really, really good provider. They're very local to me. I've got really good relationships with everybody. I need to have good relationships with Apex, and that's not going to change. I don't see that changing.
Paul: Go for it. Let them in. Tell them the truth. Listen to what they've got to tell you because they know what they're talking about. Apex are an IT solutions provider. Let them solve all your IT problems, all your IT issues, and then you can go on and carry on making money at what you do best. Don't try and mess around with IT in-house because it's just an absolute minefield.
Stay tuned for more videos coming soon where we discuss cyber security and modern workplace with JLES.