Red Paint Multimedia

Putting a digital agency on the super-highway.

Tripling your business in just three years is no mean feat. But with a digital strategy and a ton of extra #VOOM, that’s exactly what Red Paint Multimedia did.

The Glasgow-based digital agency specialises in website development.

Today, it’s a lean machine with a laser-guided focus, but that wasn’t always the case.

Red Paint’s story starts in the industrial past. Based in a renovated mill in the Charing Cross area of Glasgow, their office possesses loads of character and location, but not so much internet connectivity.

Paying for two ADSL lines to maintain a barely acceptable level of bandwidth, storing and backing up business-critical data in an onsite server, struggling to collaborate with clients and third parties: Red Paint Multimedia needed a digital makeover.

For a business that lived and breathed the power of the internet and digital communication, Red Paint had outgrown its connectivity. 

With ultrafast broadband, the business jumped from download speeds of up to 6Mbps to up to 200Mbps, while upload speeds increased up to 40 times.

It’s a leap that meant Red Paint could unleash the full power of digital, embracing the cloud and working faster. But for founder and director Andy Watson, it’s not just about the speed – it’s about the transformation:

“Our previous internet connection was not viable for our business. We had pestered our suppliers, for years, and were giving serious consideration to moving premises. We eventually spoke to Virgin Media Business and they were willing to take on our challenge.

“We are now working a lot more collaboratively. We literally used to do everything in-house. But with the cloud now a staple, and with much faster systems, we’ve been able to shift our focus as a business and fundamentally change our strategy. And as a small business, this has taken us to a new level.

“We now focus solely on development, outsourcing any design work to others. Effectively this means we focus on our core strength of developing, removing time intensive processes, and setting off on a growth trajectory in the process.”

And the admin around the business has changed, too. Where Red Paint previously had an in-house server, they now have the more reliable and flexible VoIP and Office 365. Where they previously used Sage, they now use Xero for accounting. They back up to Amazon’s Glacier, not flimsy USB sticks, and for client meetings they use Skype for Business.

And remarkably, the three developers in the business each gained an extra hour a day because of those collective efficiencies. So, within a month, the business had unleashed an extra two days’ worth of productivity a week with no additional people and no additional spend.

With output at an all-time high, a saving on multiple lines, and the most cumbersome processes outsourced, #VOOM is coursing through this business’s veins. It surely won’t be long before more businesses across Glasgow decide to make the same move.