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With such a wide range of solutions, and engagement just a click or two away, the managed services industry faces a challenge in how it chooses which products and which other partners to work with, according to IT Europs.

"In recent months we have seen many initiatives from distribution, vendors and managed services players to help build a co-operative approach to solving customer business issues, but it is not easy," says John Garratt, director of the Managed Services & Hosting Summit to be held in London on 20th September.

"The managed services market is in a very healthy state, but needs to evolve further to meet the challenges posed by rising customer demand for digital transformation."

The scale of the challenge and the opportunities it creates will be the focus of the first keynote to be announced for the event: Mark Paine - Research Director at Gartner will present on 'Do You Have What It Takes To Sell Digital Business Solutions?'.

Most digital business solutions, especially IoT, comprise products and services from a number of sources. No one provider can do it all, he says. "So how do you choose the right partners and how do you shape your go-to-market strategy? This presentation will explain why a co-ordinated approach is so important in digital business and how to go about it," he says.

The demand for IT provision as a managed service continues to rise. The pace of change of technological advance also continues to accelerate and with over two-thirds of enterprise customers planning to review and change their IT sourcing in the next two years, competition amongst Managed Service Providers (MSPs) looks set to be severe.

With more vendors now entering the sector this year's Managed Services & Hosting Summit is attracting record levels of both delegates and sponsors. Leading industry names already signed as sponsors include: SolarWinds MSP, Highlight, Mimecast, Datto, Kaspersky, ConnectWise, Kingston Technology, Autotask ESET, DataCore Software, Cisco, WatchGuard, Continuum, Deltek, RapidFireTools, Altaro, APC by Schneider Electric and Kaseya.

For many in the audience, the interest will be in learning how other MSPs successfully built their sales and business models and the agenda will feature several presentations from MSPs themselves on how they have grown their business and partnered to deliver new technologies or extend coverage and support.

The Managed Services and Hosting Summit-UK 2017 will take place at 155 Bishopsgate, London, on 20 September 2017 and is organised by IT Europa and Angel Business Communications.

Despite their awareness of a widening skills gap within their workforces many organisations are struggling to find solutions to narrow the gaps, according to a report from CompTIA.

Nearly half (46 percent) of the 600 executives surveyed for the report 'Assessing the IT Skills Gap' believe skills shortcomings within their organisations have grown over the past two years.

Skills gaps are not confined to technology alone, the surveyed revealed. Executives also reported skills issues in areas such as marketing, sales and business development, operations, customer service, and accounting and finance.

"The 'skills gap' is often a catch-all phrase for other workplace challenges, such as a labour supply gap or generational differences in work styles," said Charles Eaton, CompTIA's executive vice president for social innovation and CEO of Creating IT Futures.

"But whatever the cause there is clearly a wide chasm between the skills employers want and their perception of the skills their workers have."

The consequences of workforce skills gaps can affect many areas - lower staff productivity, lower sales and profitability, delays in bringing new products and services to market, and losing ground to competitors.

Yet just one in three organisations said they have a formal process and resources in place to address their skills gap challenges. The remaining companies reported having only an informal process or no process at all.

"More than half of organisations acknowledge they struggle in identifying and assessing skills gaps among their workforce," said Amy Carrado, senior director, research and market intelligence, CompTIA.

"Knowing what to fix must precede discussions of how to fix it, and to fix it soon. The breadth and pace of innovation point to a widening skills gap, putting further pressure on organisations."

The speed of innovation is one of the biggest challenges companies face in keeping their employees skills up to date, a challenge that show no sign of abating.

"Organisations testing the waters with the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, robotics, and other emerging technologies face even greater skills gaps due to the fast-moving nature of these innovations," Carrado noted. "It takes time for training materials to reach the market and for opportunities to gain hands-on experience to arise."

Four directors from South West Communications Group have scaled the UK's highest three peaks to raise money for the Prince's Trust.

swcomms' MD Brian Lodge and fellow board members Jon Whiley, John Holdstock and Sean Doyle climbed Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon in 23 hours and 20 minutes to beat the required Three Peaks Challenge 24-hour deadline.

They also achieved this 29 mile, 3,064 metre feat on one of the hottest days of the year.

Lodge said: "It was an experience I'll never forget. I was very proud of the total commitment shown from a great team who despite some serious pain never had it in their heads to fail."

ICT director John Holdstock added: "It was one of the most physically enduring thing I have ever participated in. However, it was also one of the most fun things I have been part of. It's a thin line between pain and ecstasy!"

Engineering director Sean Doyle, however, whose knees were strapped for the entire challenge was more concerned about the pain.

He said: "It hurt up mountain one. It hurt more up mountain two. It hurt so much more on mountain three. I will never walk up a mountain again! Other than that, I really enjoyed it."

Chess is offering a leasing option to over 600 partners for hardware products including mobile phones, PBX, tablets and iPads, along with additional commission.

The offer follows a link up between Chess and Henry Howard Finance, a pioneer in the mobile handset leasing marketplace.

Chess Partner MD John Pett said: "We are keen to expand the products and services we offer and leasing is a key part of our partner support growth strategy."

Gamma's Director of Business Development Richard Bligh is to step down on 30th June but will remain an employee of Gamma until the end of September 2017.

Bligh will retain professional links with Gamma operating as a part-time consultant for the firm's Accelerate programme after a short break.

CEO Bob Falconer stated: "It has been a real pleasure to work closely with Richard over the last 13 years and he deserves much credit for his significant role in developing Gamma into the business it is today.

"He has played an important role in the success Gamma has experienced, both as a private company and subsequently as a listed business, and he leaves Gamma well positioned to continue to take advantage of the significant opportunities in our market."

Gamma Chairman Richard Last added: "On behalf of the Board and everyone at Gamma I would like to place on record my thanks to Richard for his many years' service and substantial contribution to the company.

"I have thoroughly enjoyed working with Richard at Board level and welcomed his valuable counsel. While his presence will be missed by the team at Gamma, I am delighted that the company will continue to leverage his experience as a consultant in the future."

Cheltenham-based PSU Technology Group has bought in additional leadership expertise and technology capabilities with the acquisition of local rival Hub Business Solutions. Headline news from the deal is the appointment of Hub Director Stuart Baikie as PSU's Director of Telecoms Sales.

Baikie co-founded Total (now Bamboo Technology group) which he led as MD before leaving in 2014 having built a £12m business.

"Joining the PSU team was a no-brainer," stated Baikie. "We share the same ideas about it's not what you are using, but how and why you are using it. PSU was the right place for us to continue to create customer centric end to end solutions."

Hub's Lorne Fry and Glyn Evans also take up lead roles as heads of departments for telco and mobile, reporting to Baikie.

PSU MD Michael Lounton commented: ""Over the past year our customer growth and take up of multiple product lines has continued to flourish.

"Hub has built up a reputation for its mobile solutions, rapid site deployment, wireless networking and IoT, making it the perfect fit to deliver a wave of new technology to our customers."

Pictured: PSU's Glyn Evans, Stuart Baikie and Lorne Fry

After a tumultuous period of electoral surprise and tragic events, there is a palpable sense of trepidation across the country at the moment, writes Clive Jefferys of Telecoms recruitment agency JMA Network.

With so many bad things on people's mind of late, you can hardly blame them for wanting to play safe.

While the temporary and contract market remains strong, swapping jobs is part and parcel of this sector and the true barometer is always permanent employment. All in all, we are witnessing the lowest level of new jobseekers for permanent roles in 20 years.

Yet demand for staff remains high, particularly in telecoms. So the current market trend is very good news for anyone willing to look for a new career option today.

Quite simply - if you go to an interview today you will have hardly any competition for the job!

Whereas we would normally source many good candidates for every role, at the moment we can only offer one or two. Providing they are good enough to do the job in question, the offers are forthcoming and its very much business as usual here.

So in an era of 'one on one' recruitment, what can employers do to increase their chances of hiring?

Firstly, accept this new reality. There's no point bemoaning it. Instead you should embrace the opportunity and consider how you can outsell your competition to win the best candidates.

Secondly, it's not all about money. Certainly offering higher starting salaries helps, but the intangible benefits are just as important. Demonstrating flexible working, extra staff benefits and excellent team morale all help to make your company a 'go to' destination.

Thirdly, nurture your hiring friendships. Jobsites, traditional and social media and of course, recruitment agencies, are all your vital allies.

Invest in and motivate these key relationships to keep their attention, to get them on your side with the best people.

In sum, you must learn to love every channel you have into the candidate market. If you look after them, they will look after you!

Aurora Kendrick James has confirmed that it will continue to trade under the Aurora brand name and remain independent of the Daisy Group which acquired Aurora's parent company Alternative Networks in November 2016.

Aurora MD Derek Watson stated: "With the Daisy acquisition now finalised we are investing heavily in our Affinity billing platform with a raft of new products set to be released."

Watson outlined that Aurora has put in place a long-term investment programme aimed at high end customers and a strategy to secure a greater proportion of its target billing market.

"Investments will enhance Aurora's supplier integrations to extend the single key provisioning to billing capability across a greater range of products and suppliers," added Watson.

"Affinity's cloud billing capability will also see further investment along with the product plan."

Aurora's data centre hardware is undergoing an upgrade that will triple the number of customers using Affinity's hosted bureau billing services.

Watson also emphasised that Aurora's largest customers should expect their call rating activity to be completed within a two hour window.

"Aurora has also introduced new capabilities that will increase customers' productivity and ensure they are able to get new products to market quicker," added Watson.

"Packages can be altered to best suite usage profiles while our revenue assurance and bill shock prevention system can be fine-tuned to the needs of the end user. This facility raises alerts on targeted usage via email and SMS and can also enact network bars to reduce further exposure of exceptional usage."

Aurora has also enhanced Affinity's reconciliation facilities to allow customers to match their supplier invoices to the charges they are passing on to their customers.

Broadband provider Voneus has secured a £4.8m growth capital loan from BOOST&Co alongside a £500k equity funding round raised by Jenson Funding Partners.

Voneus provides super-fast broadband to customers in UK rural and metro communities where alternative services may not be available.

The combined debt and equity facility enables Voneus to meet demand and accelerate its roll out of deployments.

Voneus CEO Steve Leighton said: "The flexibility that the BOOST&Co deal brings will allow us to scale quickly and more efficiently."

The outcomes of IT projects can be stymied by the very process that brings them into life, according to KCOM, which has called for an urgent review of IT Request for Proposal (RFP) processes which are all too often tilted towards IT matters rather than taking into consideration the wider business goals.

KCOM claims this skewed approach stifles partner innovation and fails to meet an end user's future requirements.

KCOM bases its argument on its own examination of RFPs it received in 2016 and 2017 for strategic IT projects. The aim of the study was to determine whether the RFP process encouraged innovation and functioned as a platform for future technology developments which support overall business goals such as an improved customer experience.

The upshot is that just 14% of RFPs showed evidence of collaboration between IT and the wider organisation.

A lack of input from external sources such as suppliers is also a block to innovation, along with a reluctance to form strategic partnerships that might deliver better long-term results.

Only 30% of RFPs for consumer-focused projects required a measurement of how the IT project would improve the customer experience, with the remainder focusing on IT metrics.

More than half of the RFPs examined failed to ask vendors how they would ensure their proposal was future-proof.

"Our analysis reveals that the overwhelming majority of RFPs were developed in 'IT isolation', with measures of success being IT-centric rather than focused on broader business or customer outcomes, even where project objectives were specifically to improve customer experience or improve service delivery," stated Stephen Long, EVP at KCOM.

"This, combined with a common failure to encourage technology providers to propose solutions that are innovative and future-proofed, has led KCOM to conclude that the traditional approach to enterprise technology projects needs an overhaul. It is a process that has barely evolved in decades.

"Business strategies that focus on collaboration, customer centricity and future proofing are remarkably rare in a typical RFP. The process is too rigid, restrictive and defensive for business ambitions to be reflected, or for the supplier to act as an innovative partner, jeopardising the ultimate success and commercial benefit of the project.

"For many industries, customer experience is one of the last differentiators available to them, so enterprises can ill afford to limit the potential of technology projects intended to enhance this service delivery.

"The current enterprise IT RFP process is not fit for purpose. Realistically, the process is unlikely to be replaced wholesale, but it can be improved.

"Over specifying technical requirements, restricting dialogue with prospective partners and an over reliance on a scorecard procurement process does not demonstrate innovation and thought leadership."