Retailer of the Month: Expert Tech

Founder James Fouracre tells Laura Barnes how Expert IT is planning to work with more businesses, how it will grow its IT management services and why the new Apple iPad Pro could be a game changer in the industry…

How and when did the business start?

The business was established in 2014, after I had been working in the technology industry for over 10 years. I began working in a local computer repair shop when I was 18, and from there made a lot of business contacts. Even after leaving and moving to another tech company, I maintained a good relationship with these clients. 

The decision to open the business came from a combination of my love of technology and wanting to diversify into other areas, as well as already having a strong client base.

What products and services do you offer?

We offer a complete IT management service for businesses, which includes our managed web hosting, online back-up, remote support and computer repair and supply. 

We also offer our cloud services (web hosting and online back-up) on a national scale – and remote support for software issues. 

We also offer computer and gadget repair to consumer customers from our office in Barry. 

What’s been your most popular products and services over the last year?

Definitely web hosting. We work closely with a marketing company and offer our web hosting on a white label basis for them as well. 

Businesses are becoming a lot more internet savvy these days and realising that they need to be online to maintain and attract customers, so web and email hosting has definitely become the most popular product for us. 

What’s the split between your business and your consumer customers? 

Most of our customers are business clients. However, we do have a great deal of home users who we regularly deal with too.

Do you plan to grow either of these groups of customers? If so, how?

We plan to grow and focus on our business customers over the next few years as the IT management services grow and develop. 

For example, we are looking at plans for business cloud telecoms and growing our web hosting services across the UK. Another focus for us over the next few years is going to be selling custom made PCs, laptops and components. 

We do this already, but we have plans in place to start growing this side of the business too.

What products and services do you think will be the top sellers in 2016? 

Web hosting and cloud back-up. It is a huge market already, but as people start to move their businesses online, web hosting will become more and more in demand. Plus, with all the latest data security scandals, cloud back-up is another service businesses will be looking for. 

What new tech are you looking forward to finally seeing at retail?

The iPad Pro was released recently, so we’re looking forward to seeing people’s reactions to that.

After reading a few reviews of the new iPad Pro, there is a chance that this could be a game changer for laptops – particularly for those who use MacBooks. So it will be interesting to see how this one pans out for Apple. I’m looking forward to getting my hands on one myself to have a play around with. 

I’m also looking forward to seeing OLED displays becoming more widely available in retail stores. We recently carried out some tests on one – and the display is amazing. 

What plans do you have as we approach Christmas and the New Year?

We are planning on developing our IT management services for businesses in the New Year.

With our focus on growing our business clients, a lot of our efforts will be on cloud services such as web hosting, online back-up, cyber security and telecoms. We have some exciting plans for all of these areas, as well as selling tech online to our customers.

FACTFILE

Year established: 2014
Number of staff: 1
Address: Cardiff House, Cardiff Road, Barry, CF63 2AW
Telephone: 01446 327 329 
Email: info@experttech.uk 
Website: www.experttech.uk