View Full Version : IT/computer people, would you be interested...
in all of us pooling our resources and setting up a quality company that provides
IT support, consulting and training
PC/server etc repair
Computer hardware
Networking
we could work from home, if call out is required then person who lives closest can go.
if someone orders a computer from us then the closest person can do it etc etc
as i know a lot of us IT people are getting pissed off with where we are at the moment then it might be a good idea to go into a venture together.
people interested?
I'm seriously thinking of chucking job in at the mo.
My skills lie in networking, mainly cisco stuff.
Trouble is, to make this work would be extremely difficult / unrealistic :(
im not sure really if its all workign from home stuff then depending on what peoples skills lie within then they can continue in their day job. i.e. pc building, doesn't take long and you recieve the orders when you get back from day job then order the parts if necessary etc then next day after work once they've been delivered build it,test it and ship it out when ur dun.
like wiht ur skills you could eb able to focus on ur tuning company and then if someone needs some networking out ur way then bobs ur uncle.
thing is need to get known.
organising the company could be the tricky part people treading on each others toes. but so long as there is a clear business strategy and plan and layout of who is in charge of what etc etc then it could work really well.
it wud definately be a Ltd company(ithink so long as u can have as many partners as you like) as everyone knows the majority of people on this forum have work related in computers so finding the staff will not be a problem. and we kknow alot of people live in different counties etc so it will be a nationwide company. as i saw in another post someone is runnigna payroll at the moment so i'm assuming that they being a payroll oficer must have at least an ATA or AAT what ever its called so we can have our own accountant, finding our own chartered accountant shouldn't be a problem. there must be someone on here who works in loan company or somehting similar so they we can setup our own Lease purchase system, which would be very desirable by companies for cash flow say £10k's worth of equipment spread over 3 years at X apr workign out to be... £50 a week or soemthing
Yeah, in principle, its a good idea, but the logistics of actually doing it might prove a bit pie in the sky ..............
I can do your tech support type of thing BTW :)
Sounds good to me:D
I'm a trainer/consultant and I already do a bit of working from home if I'm not booked to do anything else:D
realityx
11-04-2003, 14:55
not bad idea,
but theres too much comp
from established firms like
the one i used to work for (on a slef employed basis)
www.pctrouble.co.uk
they do pretty much
everything you mentioned and more.
but if the start up costs
are next too nothing or
worth the gamble...then go for it!
advertising would be the main
expense I,d imagine,
but you could keep costs
very low if all the field engineers
worked on a slef employed basis.
yeah that PCtrouble thing is pretty much exactly what i had in
mind.
problem being with the self employed malarky is that you'd have to sort out ur own tax and stuff, which wud be hassle.
overheads that i could think of are:
Internet ordering systems blah blah like the PCtroubles website
Travel costs
advertising
wages
since we are all IT bods then the only thing thats going to cost with the internet setup is the peoples time who put into that.
with clever designing etc then the system will auto-relay the jobs/orders to the relevant people in the relvant area. so this would cut down on admin costs.
advertising, META tags and lots of them in the website wud be a good start after that then local advertising in newspapaers and radios
wages- this could be sorted thru a contracting sort of way. e.g. if the order is regarding networking or soemthing then we could charge (dunno whatgoping rate is) £35 per hour per engineer required and the "engineers" used can get a rate of £15 per hour plus travel expenses (does that sound reasonable?)nds the rest goes in to the kitty
or for PC building then if there was an average £100 made per computer after direct costs e.g. sell price - cost price of components - delivery to us and to customer. then £40 or £50goes to the builder the rest goes into the kitty
could also do bespoke software/databse etc
marty_t3
11-04-2003, 15:27
I'm very interested in this idea...... i think there are more than enough resources to get it up and running... but, it'll need some perseverance and commitment to get it going.
There's a huge market out there for a cheaper replacement to PC World/Dixons etc. One company covering all aspects of pc ownership would be something customers would like...especially if they're not being charged 50p a minute to call a support line. Localized engineers would give the company a face to put to the name...rather than being put through to some faceless helpdesk.
just had a thought, we can't really be using our SX's for the Company cars now (petrol!)
Transits are RWD aren't they ? ;)
realityx
11-04-2003, 15:46
pctrouble used to pay £15+petrol ph,
problem with this was 80% of the jobs
were done in an hour...and if your living in london
it could easy turn into 2-3 hours including
time it takes to get there and back, it just wasnt worth £15,
that was the main reason i quit.
Having said that we made more ££
from selling parts to custmers,
as the way it worked out,
the engineer was responsible
for whatever parts maybe needed himslef@trade
and selling them at pcworld prices +10%
e.g bog standard pci 56k modem
i used to pay £15 sell to customer for £45
split the profits 50-50 with pc trouble.
as far as direct hardware selling online
etc...you,ll have a hard job beating
the prices you can get online at places like
dabs or komplett or ebuyer etc
advertising online is good too,
but you cant beat advertising
in local rags, yellow pages , loot etc
put that on a national scale and it will cost ££
wages if using a contract basis
wont really cost u anything
as the engineers only get paid
for time worked....there the ones
that will pick up the cash, cheques etc
to pass onto you.
btw we used to work on a no fix no fee basis
(good advertising gimmick too)
not keen on the £45 for a 56k modem which can be picked up for a pitance. i think that wud just p!ss off customers.
could you not charge traveling as well (obviously at lower rate) but also because there wud be engineers based around the country, hopefully that wud cut costs of travelling quite a bit. agree with no fix no fee. for the reason that this wud basically be a "think tank" company so if one of the engineers went out to a custoemr they could do a sneaky call to one of the other engineers whocud talk them thru it.
i suppose called out work had a minimum charge of 1hr rate?
because this wud be a nationwide Co. i wud assume that there wud be a lot of people wanting to buy thru the local advertising. so not to be effected by the Ebuyer prices, however because we'#d hopefully be buying so much bulk we'd be able to climb very high up the supplier scale and get some very good prices as in either becomeing a manufactureres main UK distributer or being supplied by the main distributer like AVNET is for AMD. so instead of us going to current suppliers go past them and their supplier and go strait for avnet, and if our demand for components is high enough then get supplied directly by amd or intel etc. (or am i being rediculous?)
marty_t3
11-04-2003, 16:22
I'm not sure what sort of number you'd be talking to get that high up the scale but your principal is sound....
To give you an idea of how much money goes into parts on some bigger companies....
A company i worked for before ordered 6 milllion quid worth of one particular simm to cover 4 days of orders. They ordered them directly from the manufacturer. I think we'd need to start a little further down the scale....
oh.. an i agree about the charging 45 quid for a modem... to make it successful we'd have to undercut everyone else until the name got around... last thing we'd want to do is rip of the customers
interesting... I know a few people round the Blackburn-Burnly area including me who would be interested and are competant
ScoobyDoo
11-04-2003, 16:59
Good luck if you do guys, I must be one of the few IT bods here thats happy with my job.
Great company to work for too!
realityx
11-04-2003, 17:07
I,m going back2-3yrs boys:D
in those days £45 for 56k was pretty much
retail high street rate.
having said that you have to
decide wethier.
a)u supply all parts yourslef with no profit going to the engineer
b)the engineer supplies the parts, with 50/50 split of profit
from parts....whatever markup u decide.
take into consideration, whatever parts the engineer
needs he has to have striaght away, as most customers
will want there pc,s repaired asap.
yep it was min 1 hr fee,
dont matter if the jobs done in 10mins
full hr rate applies,
pctrouble used to charge £45 p/h
the thing about a travelling fee,
each engineer has his own specified
area....5-10 mile radius of where
they live usually, if for whatever reason
an engineer worked outside there given
area.. a £10 fee applied..otherwise its
just £3 petrol..this is how pctrouble used to do it.
lol vipers m8, ya not being ridiculas,
your just thinking big, which is good:D
obviously all the main retailers on and offline
spend millions and buy massive bulk,
but even they had to start somewhere,
its just the bubble has to some extent
burst.
AshT_200
11-04-2003, 17:08
Originally posted by Jez
I'm seriously thinking of chucking job in at the mo.
My skills lie in networking, mainly cisco stuff.
Trouble is, to make this work would be extremely difficult / unrealistic :(
My skills are in Enterprise Computing.
Pretty much the same as Jez, for our skills to be required, you'd be doing work for customers who are more likely to go to an established solution provider.
Martin T
11-04-2003, 17:21
Well if you can put some work my way, then i'll do it as I get plenty of days off when there's no work.
Sounds like a good idea, but you have to plan it well.
I can get parts at trade prices, and they do discounts for 5+of each item aswell.
Eg AthlonXP 2400+ for £82.50
You have to select your market carefully, this sort of thing is best aimed at small businesses who dont want tot go to the big boys.
You've got to really start small, I.E. a two or three man band, one with the technical skills and the others as network cable running muppets and then build from there.
Its no good just getting a load of poeple together with the required skills but not having the income to support vast staff.
Oh and forget the internet site too, that'll cost you mega bucks to setup, start small, aim at small businesses, use word of mouth (this really does work) get a select client base, enough to be doing four jobs a week (four days) then expand from there!
Originally posted by realityx
I,m going back2-3yrs boys:D
in those days £45 for 56k was pretty much
retail high street rate.
having said that you have to
decide wethier.
a)u supply all parts yourslef with no profit going to the engineer
b)the engineer supplies the parts, with 50/50 split of profit
from parts....whatever markup u decide.
take into consideration, whatever parts the engineer
needs he has to have striaght away, as most customers
will want there pc,s repaired asap.
yep it was min 1 hr fee,
dont matter if the jobs done in 10mins
full hr rate applies,
pctrouble used to charge £45 p/h
the thing about a travelling fee,
each engineer has his own specified
area....5-10 mile radius of where
they live usually, if for whatever reason
an engineer worked outside there given
area.. a £10 fee applied..otherwise its
just £3 petrol..this is how pctrouble used to do it.
lol vipers m8, ya not being ridiculas,
your just thinking big, which is good:D
obviously all the main retailers on and offline
spend millions and buy massive bulk,
but even they had to start somewhere,
its just the bubble has to some extent
burst.
oh yeah, like diamond supra's and things like that, i know when u mean now!
Not sure baout profit going to eingineer or what yet still far too early days
but i think what wud be happening is we choose some standard parts and just buy bulk in that to start with, i.e. 20 of each component to build a PC of most specs and have the networking equipment aswell instock etc etc.
charged out £45 p/h! blimey thats quite a bit, but your paying for a skill really so it should be expected, i'd assume we wudn't charge that much
like the idea of 10 mile radius of closest engineer that's pretty cool and if further than that then petrol call out fee is applied or somehtign.
yeah i agree you have to start somewhere like i just said buy 20 of most common parts etc that wud mean our prices could be real low or just make that wee bit extra profit
only think about going up the supplier scale once we're odereing 100 of each item but to be being supplied by AVNET i think its about 500 unit orders upto 3000 after 3000 i think its then being supplied direct form AMD so that is looking into the future
Originally posted by AshT_200
My skills are in Enterprise Computing.
Pretty much the same as Jez, for our skills to be required, you'd be doing work for customers who are more likely to go to an established solution provider.
I agree that your skills are more suited to the big businesses etc. i think thats where things need to be aimed at to start strait away getting lots of business.
as someone said earlier if this is done we'd have to hit the road rollign fast as in a very quik setup and strong marketing scheme
i would aim for this company to be an all round solution provider for most concievable IT requirements.
Originally posted by Martin T
Well if you can put some work my way, then i'll do it as I get plenty of days off when there's no work.
Sounds like a good idea, but you have to plan it well.
I can get parts at trade prices, and they do discounts for 5+of each item aswell.
Eg AthlonXP 2400+ for £82.50
all the more interest the better i say, makes me think the more who are interested the less of a crazy idea it sounds and more likely to work cuz there wud be quite a few people wanting to drive this forward, where as if it's someone try to go sole trader they might put it off longer and longer and may loose interest where as lots of people interested in getting this going etc more likelyhood fo it working and workign well i'd hope.
Martin i think neerly all of us have contacts in trade suppliers the price you qoute there is good if it includes VAT.
Originally posted by Vez
You have to select your market carefully, this sort of thing is best aimed at small businesses who dont want tot go to the big boys.
You've got to really start small, I.E. a two or three man band, one with the technical skills and the others as network cable running muppets and then build from there.
Its no good just getting a load of poeple together with the required skills but not having the income to support vast staff.
Oh and forget the internet site too, that'll cost you mega bucks to setup, start small, aim at small businesses, use word of mouth (this really does work) get a select client base, enough to be doing four jobs a week (four days) then expand from there!
i think the intention is to have it as the employees are contracted would self employed contractors son the constant overhead is reduced if theres no work coming in.
mega bucks really~? how much would you estimate? £1k,£2k or £3k?
thought of some other things that need to be thought about
ISO9002 (or whatever number it is now)
INsurance: third party liability, employee(contractor), etc etc
Quality Control
Health and Safety
Also what about trade union and a pension scheme? ;)
I'd be up for this, I do IT Support during the day and build/fix/upgrade PC's in my spare time. A website shouldn't be too tricky either. All it would need in the beginning would be an outline of services and contact details. Fancy content management systems can wait til later, although I wonder how a company website would look using PHP Nuke...
I think marketing smaller companies who can't afford their own full IT department would be a good idea. It's fair enough building PC's for personal users but the money will come come from businesses with a network. At work we pay £100/month for an external consultant and we've only spoken to him once in the past year :eek:
marty_t3
12-04-2003, 18:44
Vipers, the ISO stuff is not too much of a preoblem. I dealt with all the documentation for it in my last job.... it's almost impossible to fail to get certified.
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