Our website now lives on its own dedicated server at Rackspace – world leader in hosting – who guarantee 100% network and infrastructure uptime and many other business-critical support features.

Their customer service philosophy, Fanatical Support^® has won much industry recognition and they were recently voted with the best customer focus in the country, in the 2008 National Business Awards.

MAPS decision to select Rackspace was obvious – a like-minded organisation with very strong environmental credentials!

When we moved, as a result of successful business expansion, into our own larger office building in Bath Street we decided to retain our Stanley Street offices as a disaster recovery site.

We backup our data securely using different methods and locations ensuring maximum protection and reliability. The benefit of our own ready-to-use alternative offices nearby provides invaluable flexibility and assurance.

Last month Brother asked local businesses in the North West to help them attempt to create the world’s largest classified advertisement to help celebrate the launch of the world’s first compact A3 multifunction inkjet printers.

The ad ran live until the 16^th November but the web pages, www.brother.co.uk/manchesterad, will continue until the end of December 2008.

Can you find our logo? It’s on the top line!

Did you know that we have been a paperless office since 2001?

In December 2007 we switched from PC’s to thin client terminals which are kinder to the environment because they use a fraction of the electricity. They run silently which was rather strange at first because we were all so used to the noise of our PC’s. Benefits also include improved remote working, ability to work from any workstation, greater reliability and easy setup of new users which used to be tiresome!

We were winners of the ‘Green Award’ at the North West’s Sefton Business Awards 2007/08. Sponsored by the National environmental charity Groundwork, judges described MAPS as “role models” and were impressed by our “comprehensive and robust environmental policy”.

All businesses can benefit by operating in an environmentally friendly way. Though some initiatives may be more expensive, others prove far cheaper and so your business bottom-line will be improved.

Even options which, on the face of it, seem more expensive can turn out to be otherwise by looking into them a little further. When we switched to green electricity sourced from wind farms initially, when doing the maths, it appeared to be more expensive. We then saw, however, that the climate change levy is waived when the monthly unit threshold is exceeded. We worked out that we could in fact make a substantial saving. It sometimes pays to do your homework!

For all things green try search engine www.greenmaven.com