Covering Boldmere from our Sutton Coldfield office
Looking after the IT behind the Boldmere Road shops
Boldmere sits in B73 between Sutton Park and Chester Road, and its shops run along Boldmere Road. We work from an office in Sutton Coldfield and travel out to Boldmere, so we can look after the technology behind those shops and the computers in the houses on the streets around them. The gap we are set up to fill is having someone looking after the IT continuously, rather than only fixing a box once it has already stopped.
Who is looking after it, not just who fixes it
Some of this work has to happen where the equipment actually sits, which is why we come out rather than asking you to bring it in. Boldmere Road runs north to south through the middle of the place, and the main shopping area is at its northern end, around the Jockey Road junction. That core is the Boldmere Shopping Centre, known locally as Boldmere High Street, and it mixes independent traders with some national names, with offices tucked above the shopfronts. Towards the southern end of the road there is a second, smaller group of shops that people here call Little Boldmere.
A trading business on a street like that runs on a lot of small, unglamorous equipment, and almost none of it is anybody's actual job:
- The back-office computer with the accounts and the supplier list on it.
- A printer nobody has touched since the day it was plugged in.
- Staff wifi and guest wifi sharing one router.
- The email address printed on the shop sign, and the files behind it.
- The computers, network and broadband that the till and the card machine depend on. We do not work on till software or on the payment terminal itself, but everything those two sit on top of is work we can take on.
Getting one of those going again once it has stopped is the straightforward part. The harder question, and the one an independent trader almost never gets round to, is who is looking after any of it in between. That is the gap we are set up to fill. Managed IT support means somebody is watching the updates, the licences and the backups before they turn into the reason you cannot take a payment.
Moving the email without shutting the shop
Getting onto Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace is the job most small traders keep putting off, usually because nobody wants to find out what happens to the address printed on the shop sign halfway through. It does not have to be dramatic. The move is planned in stages, mail keeps arriving while it happens, the old and the new setups overlap, and the devices are set up at the end rather than the beginning.
Backups, and the machines behind the counter
Backup and business continuity counts for more on a shopping street than people expect. A trading business that loses its sales records, its supplier list and its bookings has lost the one thing it cannot rebuild from memory. Backups can be set up so they run without anyone having to remember them, and so the copy is not sitting on the same counter as the original.
A replacement laptop, a second machine for the back office, a workstation upstairs: device setupis the moment a small business either gets a clean, consistent setup or inherits somebody else's clutter for the rest of the machine's life.
Households on the streets around the shops
Boldmere Road has residential streets on both sides of it, so a trade customer and a household customer can be a few doors apart. The work is not the same, though. At home it is normally one shared family computer that everybody uses, a laptop that has slowed to a crawl, or years of photos living on a single machine with no copy anywhere else. Our home IT callouts cover exactly that. We come to the house, look at what is genuinely wrong, and say honestly whether it is worth repairing or replacing.
Where Boldmere starts and stops, and how to get us out
Boldmere is a suburb of Sutton Coldfield in the Sutton Vesey ward, bounded by Sutton Park to the north, the Cross-City railway line to the east and Chester Road to the south-west. Boldmere Gate, on that northern edge, is one of the main entrances into Sutton Park.
Those borders are worth being precise about, because search results are not. Wylde Green sits mostly in B72, east of the railway. New Oscott shares the B73 postcode but lies to the south-west. Erdington is B23, beyond Chester Road. We cover all three. They are simply listed in their own right on the areas we cover instead of being swept into this page to pad it out.
There are three ways we help, on site, remotely, or at the office by arrangement, and they are set out properly on our Sutton Coldfield IT support page. If it is the till or the card machine that has stopped dead, our guide to what to do when the till or card machine stops working is worth reading before you ring anybody. Otherwise get in touch and describe what is happening. If you have a second site or a house at the other end of the town, IT support in Four Oaks and Mere Green works the same way.
Boldmere questions
Questions about IT in Boldmere
Practical answers for the traders on Boldmere Road and the households on the streets around them.
Can you look after the IT for a shop on Boldmere Road?
Yes, and it is the work we are set up for. That means the back-office computer, the printers, the network, the broadband, the staff and guest wifi, and the email and files that the till and the card machine depend on. It does not mean the till software or the payment terminal itself, which stay with whoever supplies them. The point is that someone keeps an eye on updates, licences and backups instead of waiting for the next breakage. Ring us and describe what your shop actually runs on.
Our office is above a shop on Boldmere Road. Can you sort out the wifi up there?
Usually, yes. Offices above shopfronts often share a single router with the business downstairs, which is why the signal upstairs is thin and why the two networks end up sitting on top of each other. The job is to look at what is actually installed, separate the working network from the guest one where that helps, and add coverage upstairs rather than ripping everything out.
We live on one of the streets near Boldmere Road. Do you come out to homes in B73?
Yes. Home visits across B73 are part of what we offer, and the household jobs are different from the trade ones: a laptop that has slowed to a crawl, a printer that will not connect, years of photos with no copy anywhere, a new computer that needs setting up properly. Call and describe it and we will tell you whether it needs a visit or can be sorted remotely.
Is Wylde Green or New Oscott the same thing as Boldmere?
They are neighbours rather than the same place. Wylde Green sits mostly in B72, east of the railway line that forms Boldmere's eastern edge, and New Oscott shares the B73 postcode but lies to the south-west. We cover both, and Erdington as well, but each is listed in its own right on our areas page rather than being folded into Boldmere.
Someone to look after your IT in Boldmere
Whether it is the shop technology on Boldmere Road or the family computer on the street behind it, describe what is happening and we will quote before any work starts.