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At Manchester Digital we like to interview our members to find out a bit more about what they do and their work in the Greater Manchester digital and technology sphere. This week we're speaking with Tom Crump, Head of Sales at Sync, an evolution of GBM Digital Technologies Ltd to support organisations across the UK, aiding in the adoption, deployment, and ongoing use of technology in the workplace.
What does your organisation do?
Born from GBM Group in 1992, Sync have a proud heritage, supporting Manchester’s thriving creative industry.
The Sync brand itself represents an important part of GBM Digital’s story; the future of GBM. As the creative and technology industries continue to evolve at a rapid pace, Sync have made huge investments into its business in order to develop the company’s brand - and inline with this, develop incredible new ways of supporting Manchester businesses.
This includes taking on a beautiful three-level location in Deansgate that houses an experience centre, Apple service and repair centre, and city-centre training and conference suite - as well as investing upwards of £100,000 in a new, state of the art website and e-commerce store, giving customers access to our services on a 24/7 basis.There has been a specific focus on working with Manchester businesses, offering tech support, training and employing a holistic approach to the way company’s use tech.
What is your organisation’s biggest achievement?
As you can imagine, the business has changed dramatically over the past 28-years - and has had to in order to ensure that it stays at the very cutting edge of the technology space. Naturally, the mass adoption of the internet for example has revolutionised modern life, and completely transformed the technology space.
Whilst the technology and deployment practices have updated through the years however, our mission statement has continued to stay the same; delivering customer-centric solutions via a consultancy-lead approach.
Sync has made substantial contributions to education initiatives, including working with Oasis Community Learning Trust in the largest Apple education deployment in England. Overseeing 30,000 iPads delivered to primary and secondary school students and staff over the course of the academic year. This programme, named Oasis Horizons, is just one of several national activations designed to improve tech-assisted learning.
What would you consider to be your organisation’s biggest challenge?
Prior to the pandemic, our teams were working at National scale, running and supporting over 280 days of face-to-face training and informational events per annum - all at zero-cost, in order to support businesses and schools. Trying to retain the kind of conversations created from those events is going to be a challenge, but it is one we have tried to address straight off the bat. This includes our current training and webinar series.
During the peak of the pandemic, we took our training online, delivering over 110 free skills-based training sessions to businesses and key-workers, focussing on how to pivot aspects of your organisation in order to continue working and communicating through lockdown.
Furthermore, our technical teams have continued to support key-worker organisations in an onsite capacity, helping to keep their IT fully functional, and making changes to accommodate remote or hybrid-working solutions.
What do you think the future looks like for Manchester’s digital and tech sector?
We love working locally and supporting our local community. Manchester has always been a creative Hub in the UK and continues to find new ways to create and innovate in the most trying of times.
Following years of success and sustainable year on year growth, we are continuing to invest in our business, further enhancing our incredible consumer, business, and education support vehicles - including our online services.
I think that digital and tech are going to continue merging, and as a result, we will start to unlock even greater ways to interact and connect - using technology as a tool to deliver user-centric experiences. As a result, we will also continue to see a growth in requirements for UI/UX, coding and development roles - one that Manchester is well prepared to deliver.
Tell us something we might not know about your company?
We’re incredibly proud to be authorised by the world’s leading manufacturers and software developers, including Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Adobe. Being authorised by global tech leaders requires strong product, sector-specific, and organisational knowledge,
We are very proud to have started offering funded places on some our acclaimed training courses.
Thank you Tom!
Want to raise your business's profile? If you're a member, contact thom@manchesterdigital.com to discuss featuring your content on our site, social media or newsletter. If you're not a member, get in touch today to discuss the benefits of membership.
