Hadleigh Chamber's new website

A rapidly increasing amount of business is undertaken these days through collaboration of two or more organsiations rather than the single contractors of the old days.  This way, smaller, highly focused companies (or individuals) can win business from which they have previously been excluded. There may be some big contracts out there that you could win part of through similar partnerships.

The new website came about from just such a venture. Free-rein, an Internet solutions builder, is a relatively new business based in Hadleigh's Business Centre on Crockatt Road.  When the company moved here last year it sought out the local Chamber of Commerce to help promote its business but found an organisation planning to join the Internet age.

Free-rein builds sophisticated systems that allow companies to take complete control, and exploit, their websites, email, mobile messaging, ecommerce, event management, CRM ...... (the list goes on). These are the sort of systems that would normally be outside the Chamber's reach.  Free-rein saw this as a local showcase and offered a website system to the Chamber (pro bono) provided the Chamber could raise the resources to help design and configure the site. Enter Suffolk College in the guise of Adam Pooley, a Business System student interested in some hands-on business experience before starting his final year, and Natalie Russell of Crush Design.

Natalie undertook the website design which moved on to be a partial rebrand for the Chamber. Something simple, eye-catching and strong.

Adam took on a part-time role in Free-rein to be trained up on its system and the programming languages it uses. "Adam was the second placement student we have had working with us. The first is here now full-time and Adam has been back since to work with us during the summer as a full team member", explained Tony Addison the Operations Manager at Free-rein. "We're hoping he comes back when he completes his course. Having had two very good experiences working with colleges we would strongly recommend this sort of collaboration to any business."

The website is based on Free-rein "channel independent content management system", the very latest thinking in solutions that allows staff with simple desktop application skills (word processor) to take direct control over updating and expanding their own websites - to include publishing, controlling access, managing the look and feel of the site, extending to include multimedia, forms and surveys, creating polls and forums, closed user groups, generating and broadcasting emails, enewsletters, ezines etc - all without needing to go back to the deisgners or site builders.

Some of the more sophisticated versions, including CRM (customer relationship management) and event management systems, are used by BT Wholesale and a number of departments in BT Global Services, Suffolk County Council, ExDRA (Essex Development and Regeneration Agency) and Nissan amongst many other local, national and overseas organisations.  Free-rein has clients in the Far East, East and South Africa and is negotiating a project on the US West Coast and in the Carribean - all from its Hadleigh base.

Thanks Suffolk College and Free-rein for your support and we look forward to taking things further in the coming months. If you would like to learn more, visit www.suffolkcollege.ac.uk and www.free-rein.net or contact Shauna Bilson at shaunabilson@suffolk.ac.uk or on 01473 343606 and Tony Addison at tony.addison@free-rein.net or on 0870 770 8757