IT support for the UK Engineering and Net Zero Economy

Enabling businesses to sustain the future.

Greenlight Computers Ltd is pro-active in its desire to support companies working toward a carbon neutral outcome. There are many ways IT can be used to enable this direction of travel and we seek to work with companies with similar ethics to our own.

We only need to read the UK Governments Net Zero Strategy: Build Back Greener published in October 2021 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/net-zero-strategy to understand the depth of the challenge and how developed economies need to deliver on their promises.

In 2006 when Greenlight Computers Ltd was formed we set out goals to try and minimise our carbon footprint by operating remotely and locally, minimising our travel was great for the environment and good for business. When we looked at the ways government supported companies it was often about exporting and globalization, the Greenlight mindset was always focused on localisation and the benefits of local trade. Why can you get funded government support to export but not to trade locally??

In 2018 we launched MBH (Mpostcode Business Hub) to encourage Northwest businesses to network and trade with each other. By 2021 we had over 1,000 businesses as members, despite the covid lockdowns, demonstrating the demand for localisation of trade. MBH networking events regularly attracting over 100 businesses, many of whom will walk to the events. Many have now earned the coveted Northwest Carbon Heroes award for their efforts in moving toward Net Zero for the business, each winner seeing business opportunity from the 1,000’s of views on social media as a reward.

We will always remain passionate about trying to help companies head toward Net Zero and look forward to talking to any company looking to change or working in the Net Zero economy.

Introduction to Greenlight Computers Net Zero IT support services

Greenlight Computers Ltd has been providing comprehensive IT support to UK business since 2006.

Greenlight Computers Ltd has four divisions within the group to enable the delivery of a “single point of service” to those clients who wish to have comprehensive IT support.

How Greenlight Computers supports Net Zero economy

Engineering company IT support

Greenlight Computers IT support of Engineering in the UK is focused on the cyber security and cyber safety of the supply chain. It is essential that all suppliers interacting with engineering companies operate to the highest cyber security standards to minimize risk for their large clients. For most of our engineering clients IT support is multi-site and our team is set up perfectly to deliver a responsive and cost-effective service, UK wide.

Greenlight Web our digital marketing arm has successfully delivered new and updated website and social media platforms for numerous engineering concerns. Our B2B focus and expertise in WordPress is the cornerstone of these services, and we offer discounts to businesses committing to the Net Zero objective.

IT support for Engineering spin outs

Early-stage engineering innovation is a core output for most UK universities and Greenlight Computers is very active in supporting these spinouts with the fundamental IT products and services to launch a successful business.

Top 10 of the key steps to launch and protect a new engineering business:

1. Well implemented Microsoft 365 with the key cyber security configurations.
2. Computers with operating systems for business not home.
3. Secure and backed-up central storage for internal and external collaboration.
4. Physical or virtual networking to create a secure company network.
5. Cost-effective and comprehensive cyber security protections deployed.
6. Professional IT support.
7. Brand development.
8. Brand protection – claiming all social media platforms (even if you don’t intend to use them).
9. Professional starter web presence.
10. Google local, analytics, tag manager SEO setup to establish your domain authority.

Greenlight Computers works with the engineering SME’s from day 1, providing baseline IT, design and deployment services to get all the essential IT tools in place.

Cyber security

The UK Net Zero and Engineering sector operates to a strict regulatory framework, and this demands the highest level of cyber security for all companies independent of scale.

Greenlight Computers recently commissioned a cyber security research project with the UK Cyber Foundry and four North West Universities (University of Manchester, MMU, University of Salford & Lancaster University). The study looked at best practice cyber security for the sector by taking the requirements of large pharma, ISO27001, Cyber Essentials Plus and leading cyber insurers and creating an ideal set of protections. The study then compared that ideal set to the cyber toolset deployed by Greenlight Computers and the leading cyber protection products on the market.

The outputs of this study were then consolidated into the comprehensive Greenlight Computers cyber security checklist uniquely available to Greenlight Computers and its clients. Each client situation may be different, but the principles of cyber security are largely the same, the Greenlight Computers checklist and toolset can offer the optimum cyber security for any Engineering or Net Zero company.

Greenlight Computers range of services for our Net Zero economy clients

IT Support Services

• IT Consultancy (Data Architecture/Network Design/Resource planning)
• IT Outsourcing (IT Support/Managed Services/Specialist Skills Rental)
• Network Services (Cabling/Switching/Routing/WIFI)
• IT Transformation (Office Moves/Mergers/Acquisitions)
• Computing Solutions (Servers/Virtualisation/Storage/PC’s/Laptops)
• Cloud Solutions (System Maintenance/Software Subscription/Data Backup)
• Application Services (Selection/Integration/Support/Development)
• Big Data Management (Co-Location/Azure/AWS/Broadberry/PB+)
• Emerging Technologies (AI/Blockchain/Internet of Things)

Cyber Security

• Cyber Protection (Anti-Virus/Encryption/MFA/Firewall/VPN/Backup & DR/Advanced Threat Monitoring)
• Cyber Investigation (Digital Forensics/First Hour Response/Incident Response/Insurance Reporting)
• Cyber Compliance (Vulnerability Testing/Cyber Essentials Plus/ISO27001/Policies/Audit/Outsourced DPO)

Unified Communications

• VOIP Telephony (Cloud Hosted Telephony ideal for Multi-Site Operations & WFH)
• Broadband Services (Fibre/Leased/Line/MPLS)
• Conferencing Solutions (Voice/Audio-Visual/Virtual)

Digital Marketing Agency

• Brand Design & Print (Logo/Digital/Video/Stationary/Promotional)
• Website Design & Development (WordPress/Magento/Shopify/PHP/UI-UX)
• Domains & Hosting (Register/Host/Backup/Caching/SSL Protect)
• Website Maintenance & Support (Regular Maintenance/Helpdesk/Content Update/Performance Reporting)
• Email Marketing (Template Design/List Admin/Safe Send/Analytics)
• SEO – Webmaster Services (Lead Generation/Google Ranking/On Page/Off Page/PPC/Content Copywriting)
• Social Media Management (LinkedIN/Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/YouTube)
• Digital Marketing Benchmarking (KPI comparison with key Competitors)

Greenlight Computers Engineering client clusters

Engineering IT solutions

The Greenlight Computers team brings together IT knowledge, research experience and vendor relationships to provide IT solutions that enable engineering clients to grow securely. Some of the regular IT solutions deployed or integrated by Greenlight Computers in this sector are covered below:

Segregated networks for research and office data

There are many great IT companies in the UK, but very few who specialize in the Engineering and Net Zero research sector, Greenlight Computers has been doing that since 2012. Network segregation has become an essential part of most large engineering companies IT infrastructure set up.

Creating separate network VLAN’s & WIFI SSID’s for differing user groups and functions is core to the cyber protection of life science datasets. The typical engineering SME will require a minimum of three distinct network zones:

1. Office staff network – used to access internal company data.
2. Research network – used to run lab operations, often with restricted internet access.
3. Guest network – for visiting users, contractors & non-work device internet access.

In addition, the research network may be split into two with temperature monitoring technologies often requiring dedicated network ports or separate VLAN’s.

Cloud based solutions for distributed Engineering businesses.

The key to using cloud technologies effectively for a modern engineering company is exceptional planning of your data architecture. Greenlight Computers consultants specialize in helping clients model their datasets to enable flexible working, regulatory conformance and maximise their cyber protections. Whether your challenge is big data storage, maximizing computing performance or secure collaboration, the Greenlight Computers team have potential solutions.

Cloud computing can be transformational to an engineering expansion enabling home working, multi-site operations and potentially reducing the carbon footprint of the business.

TOP 10 Regular IT issues in Engineering companies

On behalf of clients Greenlight Computers manages and mitigates against these potential issues regularly. We have highlighted some of those in this top 10:

1. Corrupt or lost data – robust onsite and cloud backup and recovery are essential. Users make mistakes so having a secure backup is called on to recover files/folders/versions.
2. Cyber-attack – common targets for spoofing/phishing attacks as considered a wealthy sector. Our protection toolset minimizes the risk.
3. Research data storage – this is the core value in most engineering businesses, secure permission controlled and backed-up storage is key.
4. Integration of new technologies – the cost of integration can often overshadow the initial outlay, planning is essential.
5. Microsoft Teams proliferation – users control access and invite external 3^rd parties into Teams, the cyber safety of the 3^rd party device can present new risk. The Greenlight Computers quarterly M365 security audit watches the back doors.
6. Secure VPN – when operating from home, shared locations etc. accessing company data needs to be secure and multi-factor authenticated.
7. User awareness – keeping users vigilant about cyber safe computer use.
8. Resilient Broadband – In most UK locations Greenlight Telecoms can provide a resilient broadband service through 2 alternate providers and exchanges. It’s cost-effective so why risk a single connection?
9. Outdated Software – engineers use a variety of software applications unique to the industry, Greenlight Computers deploys a tool called Cyber Smart to identify any security vulnerabilities associated to the software and recommend a solution.
10. Insecure Websites – engineering companies typically have brochure style websites and the security is not maintained. Greenlight Web takes on this responsibility to ensure your website is not your cyber security backdoor weakness.

IT underpins every Engineering company and weaknesses in tools and processes can present serious risk to operational viability. Preventing and mitigating against risks needs to be high priority for any company.

Please contact the Greenlight Computers team for confidential advice if you have concerns, don’t wait till the “horse has bolted”.