A Head Teacher recently approached Az Ashraf, owner of A2Z Computing, with a computer to be repaired. She said he had fixed her computer 22 years ago. This was a bit of a puzzle for him, since he had only been in business for 18 years. Eventually it clicked – he had fixed her computer when he’d been in school. His computer teacher had driven him round to her house during lunch break.
Things have moved on a great deal since then, but Ashraf has maintained an ongoing contact with the world of educational computing and technology, since that day 22 years ago when one of his school teachers had spotted his talent in the field of digital technology and encouraged his interest. That teacher eventually became a business partner. These days a large part of A2Z’s almost £1m turnover business is in the educational arena, and not just with schools in the local area.
One of his largest clients is in Liverpool, and his systems – he has his own brand of notebook computers, among other things – are in use as far as Switzerland and the USA. The company now has a headcount of 15, including ten engineers, and has a branch office in Swansea.
“One of our engineers gave me a reasonable business proposal for us to run a digital photography course,” says Ashraf. “We did that, and ran training in Photoshop and other aspects of digital imaging. Now our conference room doubles as a photography centre and is used by several photography clubs. It makes use of our premises when we don’t need them, and you wouldn’t believe the amount of sales and maintenance business that comes out of it – as well as licences.”
Q1 of 2010 was an exceptionally busy time for A2Z, as education authorities worked hard to spend their budgets ahead of the end of the financial year. Quite a few of the orders were for the companies ISCSI systems, as well as for electronic whiteboards, but Ashraf is well aware of the potential vulnerability of the education sector and continues to develop other aspects, with servers being a major area for profitable new business. A2Z has it’s own server farm in Canary Wharf – but Ashraf has other irons in the fire as well.
“We are currently working very closely with Intel on the development of the Fizz Book for schools,” he continues. “We have developed several unique elements of the control software in conjunction with Intel’s design team in Egypt as well as the sales and technical people in the UK. We are one of just four system builders of the Fizz Book, the other three being Argos, Littlewoods and dabs, but the key difference is that we have the capability to actually deploy the product.”
So, what’s Ashraf’s vision for the future? “More branches and partnerships. We are always looking for good resellers who can take on board our products, and who are capable of really looking after customers in the same committed way that we do.”
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