What Do IT Do
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Focussing on our IT Department
In this age of ever changing customer requirements and faster communication, every company relies on some form of Information Technology (IT) no matter what size of business or industry. Years ago, the perception of IT was a department that fixed computers when they went wrong. Now, IT forms the foundation of business infrastructures and processes, much of which will not even be seen by the outside world.
The main areas that IT departments cover today include the governance and development of a company’s technological systems and the maintenance of the infrastructure and functionality of the systems overall. IT teams work with computer hardware and software in so many ways, which help support a business to be successful.
What does IT mean to JCW?
Our IT Department has grown over time as our business has developed, expanded and evolved. Not only does our IT Department provide the foundation in which our business is run, it does this always with customer service in mind. When we say customer service, we don’t just mean ensuring that the systems we use enable us to provide a high level of service to our customers, we also mean the exceptional internal service they provide to their colleagues. They treat our staff as their customer, and make sure that the service they provide internally exceeds expectations, just as an engineer would do for a customer on their site.
What does IT mean to our customers?
JCW look after over 10,000 customer sites, from all kinds of industries, all with very different needs when it comes to Computer Aided Facility Management (CAFM) systems or other software. Some customers use external CAFM systems and our IT Department work hard to develop integrations between these and our own to ensure a smooth flow of information from our customer to us and back again. This development is bespoke to each customer as their requirements differ. As part of our internal suite of software and systems, called JCW Keystone, our IT Department have developed our CAFM system which some of our customers already utilise.
Future Development
CAFM systems are becoming far more sophisticated and can provide far more in-depth information than ever before. Historically a planned maintenance programme has been preferred by businesses, however, there is a shift towards embracing the Industrial Internet of Things / Industry 4 and Smart Building Technology to optimise the way companies maintain their assets. They are looking to be able to predict failures and only maintain as required, as the strain on assets can vary considerably depending on the environment and the footfall of a building.
With this move to being more proactive, our IT Department are further developing our CAFM system, to adapt to more sophisticated requirements. These include compliance dashboards, SLA conformance reporting and insight and trend analysis capabilities with real-time, data driven intelligence which will enable us to help our customers reduce their overall maintenance costs.
Not bad for a department that used to just fix computers!
IT Manager
We spoke to Matt, our IT Manager, who joined us in 2006, about his experience working in the IT Department:
“I only joined the company as maternity cover! Six months later it became a full-time position and I worked my way up over the years to manage the department.
“IT is continually changing! We have moved from office servers to cloud based systems. We have seen the evolving mobile phone offerings from simply making calls to smart phones. The recent pandemic instigated a change from office working to flexible home/office working. We have always provided support to our mobile workforce, but we also now need to consider people working from home and the support they require. This also meant a complete review of our security, which of course is paramount to our business.
“The programming work we are completing to move our CAFM system into the future is very exciting. It will mean that JCW can offer a full suite of asset maintenance software to our customers, providing them with an enhanced level of service together with transparency in the condition of their systems and equipment - within their whole property portfolio.”
Thank you IT!
IT Departments are quite often the forgotten heroes for businesses, and we wanted to take this opportunity to thank ours for their tireless support of our company, infrastructure and customers - all completed quietly in the background!
A Career with JCW
If you are an aspiring engineer or administrator who are interested in a career in the building services sector then please get in touch with us. We fully support work experience and apprenticeships and believe that the young people we recruit today really will continue to provide a firm foundation for our company in the future. We welcome individuality and enthusiasm and reward with our full support in your career progression.
If you would like to know more about a career with JCW then please get in touch by clicking here.
