I SPENT a day during the summer visiting the ex-tremely successful National Eisteddfod at Tred-egar Park in Newport.

It impressed upon me the wide-ranging impact that information and computing technology (ICT) can have in the most unusual of places.

The Eisteddfod was packed with stalls and exhibits from businesses all over Wales, and what particularly interested me were the number of people making use of the technology available, such as the wireless broadband internet connections.

Many people could be seen using their laptops or PDAs to access and record information while connected to the Internet by wireless.

When staff are not at the office it's important for them to be able to stay in touch with their work and colleagues. At the Eisteddfod this was achievable.

It goes some way to proving that more and more businesses are identifying the commercial benefits of investing in ICT, and realising that there is external help available to them. That's particularly true in the five authorities of Gwent.

The Corus ICT programme forms one element of the Assembly's steel regeneration strategy, and is managed by the Welsh Development Agency (WDA).

One of the local businesses to have recently benefited from it is Ebbw Vale's Sears Seating.

With three factories located on the same site, Sears manufactures seats for agricultural and construction machinery such as forklifts, JCBs and large plant.

Phil Jones is the financial controller of the company and is also responsible for the ICT systems. He said: "When I joined the company there was no clear ICT strategy, several people were looking after various parts.

"Our problems came to a head six months ago when we were victims of a malicious attack by hackers, resulting in our email server crashing.

"With extra problems at our sister company in the USA, the email server ended up being down for almost four days. This was the final straw, so I decided to investigate what help was available to Sears externally. This is when we first came into contact with the Corus ICT programme."

When Sears contacted us for help, we knew that time was a critical factor.

Having already had their company network seriously damaged once, they wanted to move quickly to ensure that it didn't happen again. We immediately arranged for a specialist ICT consultancy firm to provide them with advice and a course of action, at a substantially reduced cost.

A comprehensive ICT audit from the consultants not only identified that Sears was suffering as a result of an unsecured network, but was also spending vast sums on communications links among the three factories.

"We installed firewall software onto our network to combat the hacker threat, and we built an air-conditioned, secure storage room to house the server.

"To increase cost effectiveness we removed the eight leased ISDN lines that were connecting the factories and implemented a wireless network in its place.

"As well as increasing our efficiency and saving money, these changes also provided us with a much more flexible and future-proof system than we had previously.

"Due to the expansion of our business we are looking to move premises.

Now we can simply take the wireless network with us, whereas previously we'd have needed to reinstall the ISDN lines at a very high cost."

Sears has also employed a dedicated ICT manager to implement and maintain any future requirements the firm may have.

It's a rewarding feeling to think of the benefits that the Corus ICT programme has provided for Gwent businesses like this one.

If you'd like to arrange a meeting to discuss your ICT requirements contact me by telephone on 08457 775577 or email at corus.regeneration@wda.co.uk