The Enterprise Factory opened in May in the Hathershaw area of Oldham and used the Government backed New Deal for Community and European Regional Development Fund to create managed workspaces for fledgling firms.
It was expected to take a year to fill, but after six weeks every office was let and there are now 14 tenants.
Director Peter Clothier says: “Before we opened I looked at other similar units and they all said that getting a good telephone communications system was the key to success.
“We chose Plum Communications because their price was competitive and as a telecoms provider the cost of calls through them are cheaper than the larger companies. They also had a sympathetic understanding of what we were trying to achieve.
“What we ended up with is efficient, easy to use and the call redirecting and voicemail facility give young companies credibility and ensures they don’t lose business through lost calls.”
Plum have also supplied an email handling system that gives tenants their own email address, accessible remotely access via the internet.
Sophisticated call logging software was installed, which allows the Enterprise Factory to automatically send an itemised bill to each tenant every month and lets tenants check their bills whenever they like, so they can keep a close eye on costs.
The system also provides hotel style phone billing for anyone who wants to book an office or meeting room by the hour.
Peter Savic, lead consultant on the project for Plum said: “The Enterprise factory is a wonderful resource, which gives a good start to new businesses and we worked hard to make sure that the communications system would provide real benefits to tenants of the Enterprise Factory.
“As a single source supplier we provided cabling, installation and support and we put a tailor made, affordable package together to suit the Enterprise Factory’s needs.
“The system is flexible and it is easy to use. If they have a new tenant, they can be set up with a new telephone number and get them on line within four minutes. It would take days, possibly weeks, if you had multiple providers and that would also be very expensive for a start up business.
“This way they get a best of breed service which costs them nothing but the calls.”
Peter Clothier adds: “One of the best things about the Plum system is that it is also future proof and gives us the capacity to expand, which I can certainly see happening.”