Manchester City centre saw the worst snow conditions in decades, with over 6 inches of snow in the centre, meaning that many workers were unable to get to the office, or had to be sent home to avoid being stranded, and businesses were forced to shut down for the day.

ANS Group defied this trend with workers using Cisco’s Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) to access all the systems they required to work from home, including the Cisco Telephony System which allows users to log in on soft phones on their laptops just as if they were in the office.

Paul, who battled for 2 hours to cover 8 miles early Tuesday morning to open the office, said:

"It's a great time to practice what we preach, we invoked our Business Continuity Plan this morning at 7.30am communicating to all office based staff to log on from home and work as normal, all systems are accessible and all DDI's and hunt groups work as normal.

"As many of office staff use Virtual Desktops, it is very simple and secure to connect via a broadband connection and continue to work"

When Paul, who was filmed by himself in the ANS Group office, was asked how he was going to get home that night he said:

"That's a great question, to which I have no answer yet - I've checked the kitchen however, and there is plenty of milk and sugar!"

Watch the clip on the BBC iPlayer  here   – fast forward to around 18 minutes in.

Ends.

Picture caption: ANS Group staff, not smart car, safe from snow