Eye on News
Major tech investment for The Workspace Group One of Northern Ireland’s largest and most successful social enterprises, The Workspace Group, has laid the groundwork for a new era of business growth after investing in a major transformation of its telecommunications network that will support more than 37 businesses and 226 employees in Mid Ulster.
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artially funded by the UK Government’s Gigabit Voucher Scheme and completed in partnership with Northern Ireland’s largest independent telecoms services provider, Rainbow, the company has rolled out a new super high-speed digital and data network that gives it instant access to cloud-based services. The investment provides the award-winning group and the companies located in their business parks with superfast and reliable broadband to improve digital data flows, file and resource sharing and reliability while also dramatically increasing the number of ways in which they can communicate effectively with their client businesses and customers. By converging its landline network with the new high-speed network, The Workspace Group will also start to benefit from greater efficiencies, allowing on-the-go communications, greater productivity, reliability and flexibility. Cost savings from the investment will start to accumulate straight away. Headquartered in Draperstown, Mid Ulster, but operating from 14 locations across Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland and Great Britain, The Workspace Group provides business support services and almost 100,000 sq. ft of office and industrial space to a wide variety of new and growing small and medium-sized
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businesses in their business parks in Draperstown and Magherafelt. Adele McIvor, Marketing & Business Development Manager for the Workspace Group, said: “Northern Ireland’s SMEs remain the lifeblood of our local and regional economy and are vital for maintaining and growing employment and supporting communities. It’s our mission to continue to encourage and support them to set up, grow and prosper and to continually invest in their future. “We are delighted with the transformation achieved and by the confident expertise shown by Rainbow Communications in delivering this major project with us and for their continuous support in helping us to achieve our objectives.” The company appointed Rainbow Communications, one of the leading independent telecommunications companies in the UK and Ireland, with over 10,000 business customers and over 45 percent of Northern Ireland’s Top 200 Companies, to partner with them on the project. Stuart Carson, Sales and Marketing Director at Rainbow said: “SMEs across Northern Ireland are fast realising the full range of benefits which the transition from in-house data and systems management to cloud computing presents. Aside from the capacity benefits which allow organisations to grow, it’s highly efficient, it saves
Adele McIvor, Marketing & Business Development Manager for the Workspace Group celebrates the major transformation of its telecommunications network with Sales and Marketing Director at Rainbow, Stuart Carson.
money and it’s a sure-fire way of future-proofing in uncertain times. “With old-style ISDN lines becoming defunct in only a few years, the time to plan ahead is now. We are delighted that Workspace, which is visionary in its outlook and committed to growth, engaged us to spearhead this important project and we look forward to working even more closely with them in the years ahead.” Established in 1985, The
Workspace Group in addition to providing business support services and business property through Workspace Enterprises, is involved in recruitment, training and employment initiatives, energy efficiency and heat recovery through subsidiary companies MYM Recruitment, Network Personnel, Homeseal and ThermTech.
