Introduction to Greenlight Computers University Spinout IT support

Greenlight Computers Ltd has been providing comprehensive IT support to University Spinout companies since 2010.

We have been pro-active with the University community in offering easy start up services in a low-cost model that covers the key IT elements to lay the right foundations for starting a new company.

Our spinout clients are often exceptional at the technology or science they are trying to exploit but lack the corresponding business acumen or IT understanding to get started. University teams are established around the UK to help with the business acumen (IP, legal, financial) and Greenlight Computers fill the IT gap with free consultancy.

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 University Spinouts

Pre-Spinout

Greenlight Computers HQ is within the University of Manchester campus and has developed excellent links with many other universities. We have also had the privilege of delivering IT services in partnership with university and faculty IT teams where additional capacity or skills are needed to supplement the internal teams.

This work has led to Greenlight Computers being a trusted partner in some fantastic new ventures within the Spinout community for more than a decade. Our expertise of both being an SME and delivering a comprehensive suite of IT services and solutions enables us to provide excellent advice and guidance to potential spinouts.

We often find that potential spinouts tread carefully at the beginning and need to operate in a hybrid IT world with both private and University access required. With our specialist knowledge of this hybrid need we can ensure that the cyber security of all parties is maintained during transition and enables the start of the spinout process.

Our Digital Marketing team (Greenlight Web) will often work on spinout branding (logo, colour palette, target audience, domain and hosting, pre-launch website and social media claiming for brand protection).

Our IT team (Greenlight Computers) will pre-design a spinout IT strategy and early-stage data architecture to safeguard your precious IP and prepare you for flexible working. Selecting and configuring Microsoft 365 for email, office and secure collaboration is a low-cost activity if done correctly at the beginning but can be costly to resolve and block investment in the future if done badly.

Our senior team are regularly signed up to NDA’s 6 – 12 months in advance of a spinout to help ensure common mistakes are avoided, often in the pre phase on a pro-bono basis until budgets are in place.

Spinout Early Stage – secure and scalable setup

Early-stage university spinout is often focused on the search for round 1 funding to enable a confident start in the private sector. From an IT perspective the potential funders will look for risks in how the new company has setup and maintains control over any IP that’s core to the business. The Greenlight team has a well-developed checklist of key areas to get right and impress the potential investor. This knowledge has become Greenlight’s IP and differentiates us from the numerous good IT partners a spinout could work with.

Our checklist is geared around seven simple principles that reduce investor risk:

1. Protected Brand – ensuring that websites, social media, email, pitch decks and other digital media have appropriate security measures in place.

2. Professional Brand – ensuring that design work is consistent and flows across all platforms with well written content. Low volume high value communication.

3. Scalable IT – ensuring that initial low-budget choices do not restrict future growth.

4. Segregated Data – coaching the spinout on segregating Management data from Staff data from External Collaboration data at the outset.

5. Cyber Secure IT – establishing corporate level security practices and protections from the beginning.

6. Responsive Support – IT will be designed to predict and prevent issues but inevitably humans press buttons and problems occur, responsive specialist support is essential.

7. Trusted Partners – establishing a mutually beneficial contracted service ensures both parties remain focused and benefit from future successful growth.

The Universities Spin Out Report 2021 https://www.govgrant.co.uk/university-spinout-report/ highlights the potential university spinout businesses have and why its essential to get the early stages right.

The pleasing thing for Greenlight is that the number one sector for university spinout is Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology, a sector in which Greenlight has over 60% of its clients. This positions us nicely to support clients in the early stages and then through into growth and expansion, bringing in our expertise in the Life Sciences sector, for more information click here.

Spinout Growth Stage

After securing round one funding many university spinouts look to finalise their technical split from the university and operate on an independent commercial footing, retaining key links back to academia. At this point we often see the first phase of growth in staff numbers, new premises, new lab facilities etc. We regard this as the spinout growth stage.

By the adoption of cloud-based IT solutions from the outset, Greenlight support the client in making short-term changes to the team or locations without restriction. New computers can be procured, configured with software applications, security protections added and be readied for new members of the team. New locations can be pre-configured with networks and firewalls to enable flexible working. Digital marketing can be accelerated to make the business more visible to potential clients or future investors in the case of drug development. The use of flexible IT solutions is enabling Greenlight Computers clients to manage any change of data flows or storage and backup changes without concern.

The biggest investor in UK based university spinouts is Innovate UK https://www.ukri.org/councils/innovate-uk/ Greenlight has worked on numerous UKRI funded projects. The ability to track the finances to demonstrate the effect of the funding is a key part of the long-term relationship.

Cyber security

The University spinout community remains unstructured at the early stages with businesses in many differing sectors and disciplines. However, the underlying cyber security requirements are similar across all sectors. Greenlight’s primary sector is Life Sciences, a sector renowned for some of the most demanding cyber security standards as they protect patient, client and intellectual property data.

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 Life Science 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 a comprehensive checklist uniquely available to Greenlight Computers and its clients. Each client situation may be different, but the stringent demands for cyber security in Life Sciences are ideal for less demanding sectors. The Greenlight Computers cyber security checklist and toolset can offer the optimum cyber security for any company.

Please visit our cyber security page or contact us to see how we can help your spinout.

Greenlight Computers Group range of services.

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+)

We design, procure, configure, install, protect and maintain all of our IT solutions for clients.

Digital Marketing Services

• 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 Cyber Security (SSL/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 Web has many competitors who can also create a well-presented website, our differentiation comes from the marketing needed to make that a success. Exceptional SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), website and social media maintenance, cyber secure hosting and regular speed testing will make the long-term difference in finding new clients or investors for the growing spinout.

Cyber Security Services

• 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)

An ever-changing threat landscape demands regular review, we see an annual cyber risk audit as the minimum timeframe to plan for. The Greenlight Cyber and Greenlight Computers team work tirelessly to find and mitigate new risks.

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)

Provision of a suitable broadband service or the deployment of state-of-the-art VOIP Telephony are the key deliverables for our Greenlight Telecoms division.

University Spinout – IT solution examples

The Greenlight Computers team brings together IT knowledge, sector experience and vendor relationships to provide IT solutions that enable university spinouts to start and scale effectively. Some of the regular IT solutions deployed or integrated by Greenlight Computers in this sector are covered below:

Brand development

Selecting an appropriate Brand for your innovation(s) is more than just a name!!

Our first consideration when looking at branding is for your future clients, what would appeal to them? In planning for the future, the company name, domain name, logo, colour palette, social platforms, content strategy…… are all considerations when selecting a brand. Don’t forget staff pride, who really wants to work for and promote a company with a “dodgy” brand?

We will help you build a day 1 brand that looks even stronger on day 1000.

Some Greenlight Web branding work that’s made a real impact includes:

https://www.dogdetectives.com/

https://www.cryoniss.com/

https://www.newfound-energy.co.uk/

https://www.simulationtechnologies.com/

All examples are growth-stage brands with significant potential, each of which was developed with a budget of between £3,000 and £5,000.

Office relocation

The relocation of clients from university to starter location or starter location to expansion premises is regular work for Greenlight. Our team can cover all aspects of design, supply and build including network design, structured cabling, network switching, WiFi deployment, firewall configuration, broadband provision, VOIP telephony, shared print and audio visual.

Dealing with landlords, architects, contractors and other 3rd parties can be complicated for many spinouts and Greenlight Computers project managers will try to minimize the stresses involved to ensure our clients move is as painless possible.

Cyber Insurance Audit

The insurance industry is gradually tightening the regulations around their cyber insurance policies to push the risk back to the client.

The questionnaires are becoming both complex and particularly challenging for an early- stage spinout to comply with or respond to. Greenlight consultancy services can interpret the demands of the questionnaire and assist the client with suitable responses and where risks are evident identify suitable mitigations to achieve the required standards.

We have seen numerous organization’s panic in the face of cyber security audits and spend excessive money on partial solutions. There are no single vendors who have a solution to cyber security, each vendor focuses on a sub-set of the challenge and having the experience to knit together a range of effective protections is where companies like Greenlight Computers add real value. You will never be 100% secure as every button pressed changes the landscape, but we can maximise your security and make you insurable and then work with you to establish a risk management process to maintain your protection.

Annual cyber security risk audits can cost as little as £1,000 for a micro spinout and save a lot more in reputation and business frustration.

5 Regular IT issues for University Spinout companies

On behalf of clients Greenlight Computers manages and mitigates against many potential issues daily. We have highlighted some of those in this top 5:

1. Secure VPN access – a regular challenge for users operating in a hybrid environment between university and commercial spinout. Our helpdesk team can usually resolve any challenges with a simple intervention and demo.

2. Device security – at the early-stages computer ownership can be personal, university or business. This creates risk of inappropriate access or control. We can deploy an agent on to the computer that automates the identification of risk without compromising the ownership.

3. Microsoft Teams proliferation – users control access and invite external 3rd parties into Teams, the cyber safety of the 3rd party device can present new risk.

4. User awareness – keeping users vigilant about cyber safe computer use

5. Stable Broadband – becoming a common issue in many locations but essential to the movement of business data

IT (information Technology) underpins every 21st century 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”. We love working with spinout companies and can be flexible on terms.

Case studies & Testimonials

The Greenlight Computers team brings together IT knowledge, IT expertise, considerable experience, and understands the needs of the life science sector. Greenlight Computers provide IT solutions that enable clients to operate and grow securely to achieve their business aims. This can range from single person organisations to companies that employ hundreds of people. Greenlight is proud to support life science from discovery, through pre-clinical and clinical development and beyond

Segregated networks for lab and office data

Dog Detectives – “Our IT was grinding us down with slow broadband, legacy email and a poor website. We engaged Greenlight under a grant funded project to rebrand the business and build a new website. Subsequently they have added value in a wide range of things from new marketing collateral, email migration to Microsoft 365 and responsive IT support whenever we need it.”

Simulation Technologies – “Our business is small and niche providing bespoke engineering simulations to help engineering teams accelerate product development. A very technical service for specific communities of client. Our old website contained the details but was not being seen, the Greenlight team helped us look more professional and the SEO was targeted to appeal to university and industry engineering. A big step forward. Thanks”