We have moved most people out of the office to work at home and it all seems to be going very well. Teamviewer, Skype, Join.me, Splicecomm telephone system, VPN, brilliant products, thanks. Google Hangouts, Zoom, there is something for everyone.
AXLR8 clients may completely drop their office and, subject to their security policies, many have found no change in working at home so long as they have a reasonable internet connection.
Conference calls and screenshares between someone’s conservatory and a desk in a spareroom across town and the client’s mobile in a different country operate like a dream. Always a pleasure to hear a dog barking in the background at someone’s house.
Payback for when weekends spent pottering about in the server room getting all the technology working and maintained every few months for years. Helped a client out with his VPN today so one of his people could work at home.
Look around your office and decide if it is really useful or just a vanity structure. Do you have a disconnect between what different people believe can be achieved at home in back and front office functions? It seems from this netimperative article many do. Extending our practical WoH practices this month because of Corona Virus has gone very well for AXLR8.
In the last few weeks we have been reviewing plans for how AXLR8 deals with the evolving Corona virus threat to all our businesses. We have published information for different markets in which we operate, for example, AXLR8 staffing agency clients. Finance and public sector clients have very different challenges.
Isolation: AXLR8 Staff will be working at home a great deal over the next few weeks (March April subject to review).
Your Support Service: we have a great team of client facing sales and support consultants who have the expertise to deal with any queries. There may be absences (e.g. sickness or care of dependants). However, our sophisticated internal systems mean they can work from anywhere.
Business meetings: kept to a minimum and mostly avoiding crowded transport. There will be an increase in online screensharing which is mostly accepted by clients with the exception of parts of the public sector.
Security of cashflow: AXLR8 will maintain a portfolio of markets rather than consolidate into a few because it is not yet clear if our survival and future cashflow requirements will be better met by, say, public sector or finance clients.
Supply chain security: AXLR8 have a portfolio of data centre suppliers with a wide geographical and commercial spread.
External expert services are hugely valued and the loyalty is two way. However, neither our business nor their services are irreplaceable.
Hiring has been temporarily frozen and budgets tightened “for a rainy day”.
Key people: internal knowledge is shared and expertise overlaps. However, there would be delayed developments in the event that a key person was absent for any reason.
holiday
illness
other
Development resources We ask clients and partners to understand that any developments – especially bespoke designs – will be a little slower than normal. Software development normally follows the axiom: “More haste. Less speed”. We will use the right programmers for each change and resulting version control and testing. If experience is our guide, there are no short cuts. This is your mission critical software.
Bug fixes should be attended to quickly and in the event of sever problems, as ever, other tasks are dropped to start disaster recovery immediately.
Financial stability Frankly, our balance sheet will be adversely affected this FY (to March 31st, 2020). We have invested heavily in new functionality and the new look and feel of our systems. That would have been fine but for some unexpected recent client liquidations in one of our markets. However, AXLR8 has no debt except normal payroll and monthly service outgoings for our low overheads. We are in a strong position to come out of this period stronger than competitors. Many of those will be extending their funding lines and we believe that some of our rivals are already over-extended and will fail leaving the clients that rely upon their systems in a difficult position.
A watching brief is being kept on competitors of our clients entering liquidation to alert our clients so they can pick up the clients and, hopefully, the business from those clients. The business health of our clients is always paramount for us but now is time where we need to add as much value as possible.
AXLR8 are a low risk, no debt company with a creative, hard-working team. (Boring is looking pretty cool right now). Our main duty to our clients is to be reliable, stay in business and keep your SaaS systems and support services running.
Our experienced management team have been through some rocky seas in the past including deep recessions. AXLR8 are determined to come out of this stronger. We also expect this is not the last pandemic we see as our connected planet becomes a village.
We have put on a second training course in March on 24th and 25th. So, don’t worry if you missed out the 10th & 11th dates. The Easter one is also full (April 14th &15th). You can see other future dates here
AXLR8 Support will be working on a skeleton staff over the Christmas and New Year Holiday period. We are in on Monday 23rd and on Christmas Eve (till lunch time) as well as 27th (till around 3pm), 30th and 31st December.
Emails are being answered where necessary as they arrive. For urgent issues, clients operating over that period will have access to a director’s phone number.
Text messaging is ever more used by companies to remind or alert people and organise activities quickly. It is more effective and faster than email.
The reason for this price reduction is the multi-million volumes now purchased by the AXLR8’s “buying club” of clients. Also, to a lesser extent, we reduced administration with small price rises for buyers of lower volumes that cause proportionately more admin. Prices now start at under 2p/unit for our very high volume clients. Very low volume clients buying 1000 occasionally for example pay more than four times that cost per unit but have a low entry point, a low MoQ (1000 for £85 plus VAT to cover admin) and “pay as you go” preference.
Most commonly, staffing agencies or businesses that need to alert clients or others to events, buy 10k units as “stock” for their AXLR8 Text Tank. The price for 10k texts if you are a buying club subscriber is £294 plus VAT from 1st December 2019 (instead of £323 plus VAT till end November 2019). Partly this is achieved by reducing admin costs. The minimum order quantity (MOQ) is 10k for these prices. This has a couple of implications. First, you are less likely to run out and secondly, we suggest you change your low units alert levels to 3000 and 1000 minimum reminder level so you have enough time to order a top up. You can log in to https://sms.axlr8.com to change these parameters and see the level of texts in your tank as well as many other facilities.
Hopefully , you will join other clients who are using AXLR8 apps for iPhones and Android devices so that AXLR8 Chat to reduce messaging conversation costs further.
Use cases
Appointment reminders
Tactical instructions for mobile workers
Tracked assets moved to unexpected locations (usually outside geofence)
Security alerts for night guarding
Stock replenishment in FMCG, warehouses or medical supplies
Informing BSL translators of work opportuities
Power cut alert as UPS kicks in
Refrigerated goods below a pre-set temperature
Alerting staff to new work shifts you need to fill
We are delighted with the field testing of revision 4.0 of this device following client feedback – mostly from the security and retail field marketing industries. More information on the dedicated AXLR8 Event Staffing website.
All weather
AXLR8 Checkpoints are weather resisitant even in a very rainy country like the UK. We will also test them in cold countries soon to see if they can get through minus 30 cold snaps in Canada or Scandanavia. Not sure we will bother testing at 10m under the sea – even if it would make a good picture! The AXLR8 Checkpoint would survive in high pressure salt water for around a year, we believe. We would need to research sealants for longer than that. However, if you had mobile guards or countercover staff down there, then the scanning device would also need military specification sealing. We think about these things so you don’t have to.
Surface Attachment
AXLR8CheckPointV4
It seems that small seemingly insignificant changes are more expensive than you would imagine but also more satisfying for us when done. If your client does not allow you to attach your proof of attendance check in and check out devices on to the walls with screws (the original designs) then we have 100% back surface for adhesive or double sided tape or velcro. Too many options to list. The AXLR8 Checkpoints may be customer installed. Obviously, do a “patch test” on a single device first if you use glue with chemicals that may contain acids or other corrosive chemicals. This caveat applies to the client’s wall or other surfaces too, of course. Some of these devices are under counters and several are in cupboards.
No power or network cabling
These devices are passive and so they do not need electricity or any network cabling. Staff checking in, out or about, just need a BYOD device (reasonably up-to-date iPhone or Android device) which virtually all of your staff carry with them, anyway.
Low deployment costs
Live powered networked intelligent scanning devices are expnsive to install and maintain. Where you need an intelligent networked device internet and electric suply plus battery back up and plenty of local memory, the costs are normally £1000 minimum to purchase, install, wire up and connect to the net. They are then vulnerable to weather, power and internet interruption, vandalism, etc. So insurance and maintenance are necessary. They do help if you have hundreds of staff with swipe cards as the cost per staff check in is low. We have relationships with Paxton and Almas Industries if you need this sort of swipe/ biometric device installed and we keep up-to-date on new products on the market all the time. However, AXLR8 Checkpoints are around £150-£300 installed and maintenance is basically occasional replacement due to landlords or clients restrictions on adesion methods on their walls or other surfaces. There are also cheaper share survices where AXLR8 have identified, for example, that three countercover agencies and one security firm all have staff working at the same location and all need the same check in, out and about recording functionality when their staff are working.
Great new look and feel of the AXLR8 Staffing website at http://staffing.axlr8.com by Alex at Levitate Digital who are also starting out on the social media work for that marketplace.
We are delighted to have completed the work on the new expanded theatre auditorium seating plan for Wokingham Theatre’s seat booking system. We met this morning and set the new bigger seating configuration live for September bookings.
Well done Wokingham Theatre! You could probably double the seat numbers and still sell out every performance!
Everyone at AXLR8 has enjoyed working for you over the years and seeing the club grow and, not least, the many wonderful perfomances we have attended.
Those in staffing will find it useful as there are some pointers about adding the Opt Ins to your staff contracts. It seems reasonable to ask staff to read email in order to see what what work is coming up, confirming/ changing shifts and so on. More is available on our specialist staffing website at http://staffing.axlr8.com.
For example, we will be covering data retention periods and especially applicant data and data about terminated staff (with and without payment history.
Government Clients
AXLR8 are creating special new SAR 30/60/90 Information Request Types. More details are on the way to government users of our FOI systems.
If you have called in on any of our 01344 776500 lines, you may have noticed an intermittent crackle that has worsened over the last few days.
Open Reach are coming in at some point on Saturday aftrenoon 10th March and the 01344 776500 main lines will be down for at least an hour or two as they test and replace.
This problem does not seem to affect outgoing lines (which you should be able to use as well) starting 01344 75354x (e.g. 01344 753540 and 01344 753541 plus several DDL lines.) If we are not answering and it is urgent, please email or use a director’s mobile phone number. Just to confirm, Helpdesk answering times are 9-5 M-F excluding English public holidays. However, for foreign clients and in emergencies, we can be contacted most evenings and weekends and public holidays. I cannot remember a time when this has ever been abused.
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