A serving police officer and a former PLC director. Completely different industries, decades apart. Both kept spotting the same thing — simple, low-cost solutions that most people had never been shown existed, because they'd already assumed the answer would be expensive.
Across policing and industry, across twelve years and thirty, the same barrier kept appearing — not budget, but the belief about budget. The assumption that a solution would cost more than it was worth. It was wrong almost every time.
Colleagues with access to powerful digital tools — Teams, SharePoint, Microsoft 365 — who were still doing things manually. Not because they didn't want to work smarter. Because nobody had shown them what was possible, and when they imagined finding out, they assumed it would cost something they didn't have. The tool was already there, paid for, completely idle.
Businesses running on manual processes — email chains, printed documents, spreadsheets passed back and forth — that software could have replaced years earlier. Every time the problem came up, the same assumption followed: "that's going to cost more than we have." The solution existed. It was simpler than they thought. And they'd ruled it out before asking the question.
The simplest ideas make the biggest difference. A free digital business card that works better than a printed one. A website that actually shows up when a customer searches for what you do. A flow that handles the task someone on your team does manually every Monday morning. None of these are complicated. None are out of reach. Most people just don't know — because they've decided the answer is no before they've heard it.
That is the gap Digivide and BizEssentials exist to close. Not just between where a business is and where it could be — but between the assumption about what's possible and what actually is.
"The divide isn't a budget problem.
It's a visibility problem."
Most small businesses are sitting on tools, ideas and solutions they don't know they have. Digivide exists to show them where.
Gareth Powell has spent twelve years in policing. It is not the career most people associate with web design or Microsoft 365 consultancy. But it is exactly where Digivide began.
Working across policing for over a decade, Gareth kept noticing the same thing: people sitting on systems they did not understand, and therefore could not use. Not just members of the public — officers too. Colleagues with access to powerful data tools who were still doing things manually, burning time on processes that had been solvable for years. The technology was there. The awareness was not.
That gap — between what people have and what they know they have — became the lens through which Gareth saw everything.
When he turned that lens on small businesses, the view was identical. Owners paying for Microsoft 365 every month, using email and maybe Word, while automation, live reporting, and integrated workflows sat completely idle inside the same subscription. The divide was not one of budget or ambition. It was one of visibility.
Before Digivide had a single paying client, Gareth built BizCards — a free digital business card app. It was made free deliberately. If the divide between a sole trader and a national brand is partly one of presentation and reach, then the tool that closes it should cost nothing to use. BizCards remains free. That decision tells you more about the business than any company statement.
Digivide's first website client went live in May 2026. BizEssentials — the Microsoft 365 arm of the business — follows the same logic, built alongside his father Alistair, whose thirty years in industry provided the proof of concept.
Physical business cards waste money, go out of date, and end up in a drawer. A digital card — shareable, always current, linkable to your website — does the job better. So we built one.
And we made it free. Because the divide between a sole trader and a national brand shouldn't be a budget problem. BizCards is still free today. Anyone can use it. No subscription, no catch.
Digivide Limited is run by Gareth and Alistair Powell, based in Raunds, Northamptonshire. Between them: twelve years in policing and thirty years in industry. The same problem spotted from two completely different places.
Twelve years in policing gave Gareth a clear view of the gap between what tools people have and what they actually use. He founded Digivide to close that gap for small businesses — building websites that work, apps that solve real problems, and digital tools that don't require a big budget to access.
Thirty years in industry — from automotive engineer to PLC director. Alistair built the Power Platform infrastructure that ran a UK-wide operation from a single live dataset. He leads BizEssentials, the Microsoft 365 arm of the business, helping small businesses get the same data and automation capabilities that large organisations take for granted.
BizEssentials is Alistair's Microsoft 365 consultancy — built on the same belief as Digivide. The tools are already there. Most businesses just haven't been shown what's possible.