| Business: | Julian Thompson Designs |
| Sector: | Upholstery design |
| Location: | South Yorkshire |
| Technology: | Skype/Broadband telephony |
“I recommend any small or medium business sets up Skype immediately - the cost savings can be enormous.”
Julian Thompson
MD, Julian Thompson Designs
Julian Thompson Designs work with upholstery manufacturers around the world to create luxury sofas and seating. Discussing sketches, plans and prototypes with foreign manufacturers is an everyday part of the job but the prohibitive cost of international calls meant that in the past Mr Thompson tended to rely on email. The problem was that text couldn’t always do the job. As Mr Thompson puts it, “email is a wonderful technology, but problems come up that are difficult to explain in writing. In my business, like so many others, one to one communication is essential.”
The answer came in the form of Skype, a telephone and media conferencing system that anyone with a broadband connection can use. Skype is what’s known as a “Voice over IP” system; it basically turns a computer into a telephone with crystal clear digital sound quality, enabling users to call anyone with the Skype software anywhere in the world for free.
Calling a mobile or landline does incur a small charge, but even this is negligible compared to standard telephony rates. “Being a small company we have to be extremely cost conscious. International phone calls are expensive, so using Skype I can speak to people all over the world for hours at a time for almost no cost”, says Mr Thompson.
Skype can save small businesses many thousands of pounds a year by drastically cutting or even eradicating the cost of both domestic and international phone calls. It can also slash travel costs thanks to easy to use video conferencing facilities.
Mr Thompson comments, “I can easily be on the phone for several hours talking to a development upholsterer in China or the Far East, so Skype can save me up to £150 a week. With manufacturers so concerned about savings, the more competitive I am compared to my competitors, the better.”
“I run my business from home and the way I see it, making telephone calls over broadband is a better, more efficient way of doing business. The bottom line is it’s a smarter way of working.”
Julian Thompson
MD, Julian Thompson Designs