Say it with flowers

  • Company Culture
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Say it with flowers

ComXo Founder and Managing Director Andrew Try is also Chairman of the Royal Windsor Rose and Horticultural Society, run by a team of passionate volunteers.

The society’s charitable remit is to encourage the enjoyment of gardening, nature, cookery and traditional crafts as a community, and something which Andrew is hugely passionate about. Andrew first got involved with the Royal Windsor Flower Show 13 years ago. Although it was a Royal Show founded by Queen Victoria, the show had fallen on hard times and was in danger of being lost.

Slowly, over the last decade, a committed, passionate and skilful group of local Windsor people have resuscitated the show and have created the best boutique Flower Show in the country. Horticultural guru and RWRHS Honorary President Alan Titchmarsh commented

"What you have witnessed here today is the very best of English tradition, in the heart of Windsor countryside!”

More importantly every penny generated by the Royal Windsor Flower Show feeds into the Royal Windsor Rose and Horticultural Society’s charitable fund that works with homeless charity Centrepoint, to springboard young disenfranchised people into the gardening and landscaping industries. The society also supports the schools gardening initiative.

This year ComXo proudly sponsored The King’s Garden, the great showpiece maze at the centre of the event. The garden was designed and produced by Chelsea Flower Show legends Alan Williams and Mark Gregory, and reflects our new King’s passions and celebrate this new Carolean age.

The tale of the show’s revival, its hard-won success and its focus on sustainability, the circular economy, and as a charity that is changing people lives, aligns perfectly with ComXo’s values.

Andrew says of the show's success:

"ComXo are proud to support an event which has been reinvigorated and with the investment of time, money and passion, helped to create a show with purpose and in doing so changed lives for the better in our community."

Why is sponsorship of the Kings Garden so important to ComXo?

  • We’re passionate about actively supporting our local communities with virtuous circles
  • The funds raised from the show’s success enable the Royal Windsor Rose and Horticultural Society to provide charitable support to others.
  • It brings together people with a shared love of nature.
  • This year’s ‘Kings Garden’ designed by award winning Alan Williams of Landform UK, is a glorious celebration of our new King and his love of the environment.
  • The garden design uses recycled and sustainable materials which aligns with our own commitment to looking after our planet.

The show took place in Windsor Great Park where ComXo guests and some of our team celebrated in a shared love of all things community and gardening.

Written by
Amanda

Top Tips to protect your business during a cyber attack

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Top Tips to protect your business during a cyber attack

Following our experience and learnings gained in supporting a major Global law firm who were severely impacted by a cyber attack, here are 10 top tips how you can prevent an attack paralysing your business.

Protect your brand at all costs. Perception is reality

It is unacceptable for a customer focused firm to be unavailable for any length of time. Being able to demonstrate that regardless of the situation, you are open for business and capable of maintaining high service levels builds trust, customer loyalty and professional respect.

Enable your teams to focus on the crisis

When a crisis hits, you will require total focus, concentrated effort and coordinated teamwork to survive. Create space and mitigate risk by ring-fencing the front line experience. Triaging internal services, information updates and escalation requests engenders an atmosphere of uninterrupted calm and control, and puts you back on the front foot.

Provide a serviced virtual meeting place for stakeholders

Continuous communication is the single most important factor during a crisis. An easy-to-use voice conference room that can be accessed at any time is key. A managed audio conferencing service can facilitate requests to ensure agility and fluidity as the situation develops.

Keep your staff informed. Duty of care is essential

Defined, well-rehearsed communication channels minimise confusion and insecurity amongst stakeholders and staff. It is vital to have access to up-to-date stakeholder and staff contact lists for consistent communications (e.g. text, email, voice, hotline). These comms can be invoked through a managed service in the cloud.

Ensure access to your knowledge asset

Having an external switchboard provider that understands your processes could enable you to maintain access to key information and business services even during a crisis, ensuring ongoing efficiency and information flow.

Keep your IT help desk functioning 24/7

Minimising confusion as a crisis unfolds is vital. Getting and keeping key IT capability up and working is a pivotal step to achieve this. ensuring clear lines open to your IT help desk gives your workforce assurance that the situation is under control. Using a triage capability to answer calls and service requests; fact find, prioritise and escalate - enabling your own IT staff to focus on the higher level problems.

Provide your staff with the right tools for remote working

By providing alternative, company sanctioned and network independent communication tools, staff can stay productive rather than having to second guess the company's risk, security or compliance regime, A BYOD (bring-your-own-device) technology that's simple to use and allows easy billing will encourage staff to continue communicating.

Think global

For global corporates a cyber-attack could mean that all world-wide communication becomes disrupted. Do you have global resilience plan in place for communication? It is tested around your key risks and invoked on regular basis?

Create strong supply chain relationships

When a crisis hits, relationships with key operational suppliers become even more important. Maintaining strong connections with the right people in these organisations will help ensure your problem is prioritised. Share your BCP plans with your supply chain and include them in your scenario planning.

Protect new business opportunities

Industry statistics show that up to 55% of switchboard calls to professionals service firms are existing or new business calls. A crisis hits customer confidence and keeping lines open to answer questions, escalate requests or give advice will ensure your customers do not seek out new suppliers.

We are trusted by top Global firms to provide outsourced support, including crisis lines and helplines which can be initiated during a cyber attack. To learn more about our work, contact our consultants today.

Written by
Harris