Comms Dealer

Three quarters (74%) of UK employers think that confidence in the economic climate is improving and businesses are changing their hiring strategy to make the most of available opportunities, according to the latest JobsOutlook survey by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC).

With 94% of businesses reporting to have limited capacity to take on more work without more staff, almost all employers (98%) say they will either maintain or increase their reliance on agency workers. Eight-in-ten (80%) plan to increase their number of permanent workers in the next three months.

"This environment offers the brightest prospects for job seekers seen for over ten years!" said Clive Jefferys of recruiter JMA Network. "Even the BBC recently admitted that the country has a rapidly growing skills shortage and this will undoubtedly lead to wage inflation."

Openreach CEO Joe Garner has said he is open-minded on the question of whether end customers should be able to contact Openreach directly, and in a message to CPs he asked for their feedback on the proposal.

He broached the idea at BT's Delivering Britain's Digital Future conference in London, saying that an issue arises because customers often cannot deal direct with Openreach, but can only deal with their retail broadband provider.

"I am open to having Openreach deal directly with end customers, subject to consulting Ofcom and telecom providers," he said.

At the conference Garner also underlined his commitment to the Openreach Charter, launched at the event.

The document outlines Openreach's pledge to go beyond the UK's 95% target for fibre broadband; deliver on its proposal to give 10 million homes and businesses access to ultrafast broadband by the end of 2020; raise service standards, offer quicker installations and faster fixes; guarantee 'fair and equal treatment' for all comms providers; and invest £3bn to create a nationwide fibre network that provides affordable high-speed broadband to the vast majority of the UK.

In a message to CPs Garner said: "Openreach is determined to help you provide the communication services that the country needs to sustain a vibrant digital economy.

"The most important part of this mission is improving our service. While I am the first to acknowledge there is much more to do, there are areas where I believe that we are making progress.

"We have cut the waiting time for installation appointments and we're fixing faults faster. But as the pace of technology change accelerates, and customer expectations move ever higher, we know we have to move with them."

Got a view? Email sgilroy@bpl-business.com
To vote on our poll about the issues raised in this article see the Comms Dealer website homepage

8x8 Solutions has secured Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation and has been accepted onto the Network Services framework agreement for Unified Communications.

The accreditation helps 8x8 Solutions strengthen its public sector offering and demonstrates the commitment and robustness of its IT infrastructure, while validating its willingness and dedication to data integrity and security.

The company exceeded all standards put in place by the Government to make the procurement process simpler for public sector organisations.

The external auditor also praised 8x8 for meeting international governmental standards, meaning companies can also be assured of global security.

8x8 Solutions has also been accepted onto the Network Services framework agreement for Unified Communications. This reinforces the company as a supplier of services to the public sector, having already worked with a large number of governmental organisations under G-Cloud.

As part of the Network Services agreement 8x8 Solutions will continue to offer public sector bodies a variety of services. These range from a broad suite of UCC services to in-office and mobile devices spanning cloud business VoIP phone service, virtual meeting web conferencing, contact centre software and virtual desktop.

Network Services is a Crown Commercial Service (CCS) agreement designed to support the Government's policy to centrally manage the procurement of common goods and services.

It is available for use by organisations across the UK Public Sector including central government, local government, health, education, emergency services and not-for-profit organisations.

The agreement is fully EU compliant and provides organisations within the public sector easy access to unified communications services, such as 8x8 Solutions, saving them time and money.

IT infrastructure and service provider Keltec, part of the Annodata Group, rapidly escalated a planned deployment following an arson attack on the main offices of the South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse District Councils.

A member of the public drove their car into the council's HQ before setting it alight and causing a fire that gutted the entire building.

The attack put an immediate stop to the council's core activities which include waste collection, housing services and legal administration for the greater South Oxfordshire area.

Given the altered circumstances, the benefits of remote working offered by Keltec's VDI (Virtual desktop infrastructure) were urgently required to enable employees to remotely work from their laptops.

As the contract had already been signed, the council asked for the solution to be introduced immediately. With all of the necessary hardware already in storage, Keltec was able to provide a temporary workspace by introducing a network within days, before rolling out the rest of the solution.

Simon Turner, IT Manager for the councils, explained: "Although we originally chose Keltec for their strong track record in the public sector, their outstanding response to our demanding situation has been invaluable to restoring our regular activities. The staff at Keltec went out of their way to assist at a critical point in the councils' history, and quickly delivered a solution that has allowed the councils to continue to function in an especially difficult time."

The VDI solution itself consists of the physical hardware, thin clients, a virtualisation platform, and the VDI manager. Unlike traditional desktops that need to be set up manually and individually, designated administrators centrally manage all desktops. This enabled users to log on to any device with their username and passwords in order to access their personal desktops from their hot desk or from home, while Keltec restored the councils' systems and applications.

Dave Kerner, Head of Professional Services at Keltec, added: "It's very rare we're asked to introduce a solution within such a short window of time, however, given the council's situation, our engineers were dedicated to a quick and thorough installation.

"This took place considerably faster than manually setting up and provisioning over 200 traditional desktop computers ever could, and so served to significantly dampen the blow delivered by the fire.

"Seeing our work have a directly positive impact in those first difficult months for the councils has been fantastic, although now we're focused on ensuring the solution's long term benefits are realised."

NetPay Solutions Group MD Carl Churchill has been selected as a finalist in the Great British Entrepreneur Awards (Small Business Award), taking place on 25th November at the Ballroom Southbank, Central London.

He said "It is great for the whole of our team to receive this recognition and is a vote of confidence in what NetPay is doing to help UK businesses and the economy."

Simon Burton, founder of the Great British Entrepreneur Awards, added: "The entries we have received for the Great British Entrepreneur Awards can only be described as awe inspiring. The quality has been outstanding. The judges have had the difficult task of whittling the great and good of the entrepreneurial community down to the very best and we are delighted by the companies that have made the shortlist."

Unify has extended the availability of its communication and collaboration platform, Circuit, to more than 30 countries, mostly within the European Union.
 
The platform brings together voice, video, real-time document editing and management, messaging and file sharing into a single cross-team view.

Circuit is available to Unify channel partners via a Referral Selling Model and an Extended Agent Model. 
 
Under the Referral model partners are able to offer Circuit to current and new customers by referring these potential customers to Unify after developing the qualified lead.

The Extended Agent Model enables partners to quote, close deals, and maintain their customer relationship on behalf of Unify.

"Our primary goal with our partner program is to create additional revenue streams for partners," said Jon Pritchard, Executive Vice President of Worldwide Channels at Unify.

"Selling Circuit provides an entry point into the SaaS sales environment, while expanding the conversation with customers around the benefits of improved team collaboration."

Industry and business heavyweights have co-signed an open letter published in yesterday's Financial Times calling for the removal of 'structural barriers to competition that will unlock the next wave of investment in communications infrastructure that the country urgently needs'. The full text reads as follows...

Sir
Every home and business in Britain deserves fast and reliable broadband access. It is essential if Britain is to fulfill its potential to be the world's leading digital economy. Unfortunately, today's broadband market is letting customers, businesses and Britain down. It is time we considered radical reform. 

Ofcom is currently conducting the most fundamental review of the communications market in a decade, and has identified serious problems with the ownership of the national telecoms network by BT Openreach. These include a conflict of interest in the role of BT, poor quality of customer service and difficulties in enforcing the existing regulatory regime. The result is a sub-standard experience for millions of customers and diminished opportunity for alternative providers to compete effectively.

There is an urgent need for increased competition so that alternative providers are encouraged to invest and innovate to solve the challenges ahead. These include investment to deliver broadband coverage in hard to reach areas, improved service quality and reliability, fibre products suitable for Britain's SMEs, and new ultrafast broadband services.

We do not believe that the fundamental problems identified by Ofcom can be addressed by tinkering with the existing regulatory framework. Ofcom has done a good job of delivering competition on the old copper network, but the powers given to it are insufficient for the new superfast world.

It is therefore crucial that Ofcom moves as quickly as possible to ask the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), with its far reaching powers, to undertake a full market investigation. Only the CMA, with the support of Ofcom, can address the structural barriers to competition that will unlock the next wave of investment in communications infrastructure that the country urgently needs. We cannot afford to wait.

Yours sincerely
 
Chris Bryce, Chief Executive, Association of Independent Professionals and the Self Employed
Matthew Riley, Chief Executive, Daisy Group
Chris Pateman, Chief Executive, Federation of Communication Services
Malcolm Corbett, Chief Executive, Independent Networks Co-operative Association
Simon Walker, Director General, Institute of Directors
Jeremy Darroch, Chief Executive, Sky
Dido Harding, Chief Executive, TalkTalk
Jeroen Hoencamp, Chief Executive, Vodafone UK

The virtual economy is changing the nature of business relationships according to BT Business research which found that 62% of British businesses have regular customers they have never met in person, and more than half have customers they have only ever contacted by email.

The research covered areas such as the importance of networking, the role of social media and the changing nature of collaborative working.

The survey also revealed that the 'new economy' is being driven by social media. More than half of those on Linkedin (54%) have accepted a LinkedIn request from someone they had never had any previous contact with, and three quarters have accepted a request from someone they have never met in person (73%).

This practice has led to new business opportunities in 39% of cases and a new business partnership in 31%.

But traditional methods of building business relationships are still going strong: 71% of new business leads still come from existing customers and clients, 38% through mutual friends and 31 per cent from attending networking events.

Similarly, face-to-face communication is still the most common method of internal collaboration in those companies surveyed, and the evidence suggests that employees would prefer to use it more given the option.

Danny Longbottom, MD, UK SME, said: "We see the ‘Virtual Economy' playing a major part in our customers' businesses on a daily basis, particularly when it comes to international trade and exporting among smaller and mid-sized businesses.

"It is interesting to see wider evidence of the cultural changes it brings. While this new way of working, driven by high speed internet access and associated new technologies like cloud applications, has numerous benefits, the results also provide some food for thought to businesses about the fundamental nature of people and how they work best.

"Technology is a facilitator, but face-to-face and telephone communication still have an important role to play, and people work and collaborate best when they are able to communicate in whatever way best suits their goals."

Dr Nicola Millard, head of customer insight and futures, BT Global Innovation Team, added: "There is one sophisticated piece of technology that hasn't been updated recently - and that's our brains.

"Our inner caveman still dictates a lot of our behaviour. That's why, despite thousands of technologies out there that will shrink distance, we do often still default to face-to-face.

"As we virtualise, there is a huge need to understand the dynamics of collaboration better as, in doing so, we can collaborate more effectively in both the real and virtual world and move from 'networking' to 'net-working' for future business success."

Oriium has underscored its data management credentials following a link-up with Arcserve, a data protection and recovery specialist that has during the course of the last year witnessed 37% growth in the UK mid-market space.

Channel-only Oriium provides data management and infrastructure consultancy including managed and hosted services and will cover Arcserve's whole portfolio including its UDP Appliance which, among other functions, reduces backup times and cuts the amount of disk storage required.

Oriium MD Chris Kiaie said: "This is an important milestone for us and represents a significant opportunity for partners and customers."

Giovanni Goduti, Northern European Sales Director, Arcserve, added: "This alliance will enable, accelerate and support our rapidly growing UK market."

Invosys is to add a new audio conferencing product to its Number Manager portal next month, giving users the ability to create and manage audio conferencing services.

The product can be set up on any number type, including international numbering, and allows users to assign multiple numbers to the same conference service, providing local access for all participants involved on the call whether they be based in the UK or overseas

Bespoke Welcome Messages can be uploaded giving personalised introductions and to ensure the service accommodates any branding requirements.

Participants in the conference calls can record their names to be announced as they join the call so the host can easily track attendance.

All conferences can be recorded, stored online, emailed to desired recipients or sent directly to any FTP server.

The product features a PIN access system for security. Conference Hosts are able to generate a separate PIN to ensure the call cannot begin without their attendance and to give them full control of the meeting and discussion points, particularly useful when a call involves clients and third parties.

Steve Glaister, Sales Director, said: "In modern times companies can have staff spread nationwide and sometimes worldwide, and so it's essential that colleagues and their clients are able to communicate efficiently.

"The benefits to the organisation are numerous - conferencing reduces both staffing and travel costs, ensures more efficient use of time and increased productivity, as well as a reduction of a company's carbon footprint."