Fareham: It's business as usual following city fire thanks to Taylor Made

Staff at IT firm Taylor Made Computer Solutions have been thanked for helping a firm of city accountants get back up and running after a huge fire which continues to cause disruption in central London.

Taylor Made, based at Cams Hall in Fareham, manages IT and backup services for Alliotts, a firm of Chartered Accountants based in Kingsway in Holborn.

Businesses including Alliotts were evacuated from the area and offices were left without power after an electrical fire broke out under the pavement at midday on Thursday April 1.

Alliotts quickly put into place its Business Continuity Plan, which involves a facility managed by Taylor Made to allow staff to log in and work remotely while the offices are closed.

This was possible because Alliotts’ data is kept in the cloud in Taylor Made’s data centre in Hampshire and as a result was not affected by the blaze or the power outage.

Ian Gibbon, Alliotts chairman, has thanked Taylor Made staff for enabling the firm to continue working despite the crisis.

Gibbon said: “For situations like this we have a business continuity plan in place to keep disruption to a minimum. Our IT strategy is working well and enabling staff to work remotely while still having access to our central servers, so even though we aren’t on site, work is continuing.

“I am exceedingly relieved our IT servers are in the data centre and not sitting in Kingsway with no power.”

Tim Walker, Taylor Made managing director, said: “This fire is precisely the kind of scenario our hosted platforms and data centres are designed for.

“Storing vital data off-site means it is possible to work from anywhere even if the worst happens at a company’s offices. At a time when businesses in the Kingsway area have lost thousands of pounds due to the road closures and power outages, I am pleased that we were able to help Alliotts keep disruption to a minimum.”