Girls doing it for themselves at innovative new Sheffield IT comp
When Jessica Zeun set up her own business for the first time just under a year ago, she was more than a little worried about leaving behind the safety net of a comfortable salary with an established company.
Jessica had an established career as an IT support services manager at city-based business training company A4e before she was inspired to go it alone.
She now runs IT company JD Approach, which offers professional IT support to small businesses.
Jessica explained: “Although I was in a good job at a well respected company, it can be so easy to get lost in a large, national organisation. I decided to do a part time degree in business and that’s when I met Deborah Adshead who is now my business partner.
“At first, we had no intention of setting up our own business and certainly no knowledge of how to go about it. But having identified a gap in the market for the provision of well managed IT services to small business, Deborah and I entered our business plan into an enterprise challenge competition last year. It finished second and that gave us the confidence to set up the business.
“It was actually quite scary. We had both just moved into new houses and Deborah was a single mum with an eight year old son. We were going into self-employment from nowhere and it was like we were entering some sort of secret world.
“That’s why I went to Sheffield Enterprise Agency (SENTA) for advice, who we first heard about at the SHU Enterprise Challenge competition in which we finished second out of more than 100 businesses who entered.
“The main thing SENTA helped us out with was advice on cash flow and financial management which can be one of the most nerve wracking things about setting up your own business.
“We were leaving behind the world of comfortable salaries, paid holidays and company pensions so just having someone there to talk to about any financial challenges we faced gave us a real boost.
“Our SENTA business advisor Duncan Scott has been an absolute star. The level of advice he offered us really went above and beyond the call of duty. If we came across any issue at all that we were uncertain of we rang Duncan and he was more than happy to offer us advice or point us in the right direction, however small the problem.”
Now JD Approach are working with SENTA to help other small businesses through their unique brand of IT support.
Jessica said: “There is a still a massive gap in the provision of technology support for women running their own businesses. Also, access to IT support can be very disparate when you’re a small business, but we offer a one-stop shop to manage assistance for a wide range of business solutions.
“Sometimes small businesses can be very reactive, but we try to help them become more proactive. We help businesses develop plans to deploy technology and have developed a series of workshops to inform them how to make the most of technology. We aim to show businesses how they can get the best out of the equipment and software they already have and point them in the direction of new avenues of support.”
SENTA is part of Sheffield Chamber of Commerce and provides fully integrated support to new business start-ups and businesses up to two years old.
Its start-up programme is funded by Yorkshire Forward under contract with Business Link South Yorkshire.
SENTA Enterprise Director Sandra Edwards said: “JD Approach are a company with a very clear vision and a fantastic business plan. I’m delighted we have been able to offer them the support to help move their business forward and very proud that the company is now in a position to help us help more companies like them.”
For more information about JD Approach visit www.jdapproach.co.uk or for SENTA visit www.senta.co.uk.