Business News
Chamber bolsters cyber security
Managed Enterprise Technologies (MET) have been engaged by Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce (GBCC) to monitor and protect its IT systems using the CYBERShark cloud platform. CYBERShark is developed by
Blackstratus, a US global company and leading provider of cloud-based security and compliance technology. During 2016 GBCC started
investigating solutions for cyber security monitoring and reporting. The investigation focused on security monitoring solutions, as well as gaining a degree of expertise that could be shared with members. GBCC began a pilot project with
MET and BlackStratus to evaluate the effectiveness of CYBERShark. The pilot project ran for 30 days and was a success. It was adopted as an operational service to provide GBCC with real-time security monitoring, incident alerting and reporting. Shakir Whayeb, director of IT
and corporate services at GBCC, said: “CYBERShark has delivered on both cost and functionality. The customer portal gives us all the supporting data that accompanies the remediation tickets. The dashboard visualization and reporting makes the system our own and all for a monthly fee.”
Historic jewellers take on a modern approach
Birmingham-based Davran Jewellery are still shining in the Jewellery Quarter after more than 40 years in the trade – despite the loss of 5,000 jobs in the neighbourhood. The firm, run by identical twins Alan and Andrew
Grose, are proudly flying the flag for manufacturing and skilled handiwork in the world-famous Birmingham quarter in an era when many rivals have fallen by the wayside.
‘We have never borrowed money on a whim, we have grafted, made money and spent money on machinery’
But the brothers, who learned the trade from their
late father David, admit the last 10 years have been tough as a triple whammy of cheap Far East imports, rising gold prices and the decline of the High Street has hit the Jewellery Quarter hard. But the Grose brothers have adapted to survive,
including utilising the internet to help sell their goods rather than simply relying on High Street customers. Faced with declining turnover the Grose brothers
decided to move away from the big multiples while interest from the internet in the Hylton Street firm helped boost turnover, underlining the quality of the firm’s products.
Jewel in the Birmingham crown: Alan Grose The brothers are proud that Davran’s reputation
for quality triggered internet attention. Alan said: “We have never borrowed money on a
whim, we have grafted, made money and spent money on machinery – we have bought our building rather than pay rent.” Andrew added: “We get phone calls every day
from the UK and Ireland asking ‘can you do this, there’s nobody around to do the manufacturing?’ Our name is known.”
20 CHAMBERLINK February 2017
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68
