Business case studies
The Western Inn
Malcolm Putko, who is known as 'the fat landlord' of the Western Inn in St Austell, is excited by the opportunities superfast broadband is bringing the pub.
Malcolm says: "Our superfast broadband connection is fantastic. We are getting speeds of practically 40Mbps on the PC now. As well as saving us time and money, superfast broadband has been a catalyst for us. It has spurred us on and given us the confidence to introduce some more exciting innovations.
"We have always seen ourselves as a village pub in the centre of town and superfast is helping us give our customers of all ages an even better experience, We are now offering free superfast Wi-Fi access which has helped us attract some new trade as well as provide an enhanced service for our regular customers. It's amazing for us to be able to offer the highest spec that is available just about anywhere in Europe. We have a lot of live music events here and now we can carry out live streaming of these and more use of video in our marketing. This will help us reach out to more new customers.
"Inspired by the potential of superfast broadband, we have now launched a completely innovative service. Picture this: You walk into your local, enjoy a pint of the finest local ale ..., and get your haircut! 'Ronnie's The Barber's in the Bar' is a new venture for us. We are offering haircuts, wet shaves and shoe shines in the pub."
Malcolm continues: "We thought this would be a novel way of boosting day time trade whilst also combining two of men's most important pastimes - getting a haircut and enjoying a pint!
"Superfast broadband is at the heart of the way we envisage this experience. All our clients will eventually be given an iPad to browse, while they are having their hair cut. At the end, the barber will show them the back of their head by videoing it with the iPad and projecting the image onto a large screen in front of them, which will be like a Harry Potter mirror. The Barber's in the Bar is a brand new concept, as far as I know, and we would not have progressed it now without the extra impetus that superfast broadband has given us.
"Superfast broadband is also helping with all the back-office side of running the business. It is making so many things easier - everything from internet banking to stock control, saving us lots of time and money. I am now making more use of Skype, for example I was talking to a supplier in the U.S. this week. We are also backing up all our data remotely via the cloud now, which is so much faster and easier than our previous system.
"One incredibly useful benefit is that we can now link to our EPOS tills via WiFi, which means that I can link to them from anywhere in the pub, whereas before I had to be in the office.
"Superfast broadband really is turning out to be an amazing step forward for us in so many ways and we are going to go for it and make the most of this golden opportunity."
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