Comms Dealer

Business analytics software and services specialist SAS has announced plans to expand its centre in Dublin, adding 150 jobs over the next three years.

New roles include multi-lingual business development and sales specialists, customer engagement specialists as well as data scientists and software engineers.

The new centre, which will be initially located at University College Dublin's industry partnership centre, will see an addition of Inside Sales and Customer Contact Centre to support sales of its data analytics software into markets across EMEA.

SAS expects to increase its overall workforce six-fold. Additionally, the move has gained the support of the Department of Jobs through IDA Ireland, a non-commercial, semi-state body promoting Foreign Direct Investment into Ireland.

The company also plans to approach mid-market organisations which have no history of using data and no in-house expertise. According to SAS, the new centre will benefit those companies by making its Analytics more accessible to them, across a wide range of territories and industry sectors.

Carl Farrell, Executive Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer, SAS, said: "As a global company with offices all over the world we wanted to expand in a city as vibrant as Dublin which has such a thriving technology ecosystem.

"We are now experiencing a 'democratisation of analytics' where more and more organisations - including small and medium sized enterprises - are investing in analytical software and services that don't require a significant up-front investment.

"Our new centre will provide the extra capacity needed to support customers as they embark on this data analytics journey."

Contact centre specialist Sabio has extended its Network Services portfolio with the addition of a range of data connectivity offerings.

Intended to simplify the deployment of end-to-end customer contact technology solutions, including the provision of the company's Sabio OnDemand hosted SaaS contact centre solution, Sabio Network Services' data connectivity services cover SIP Trunking support, Internet Access, VPLS and MPLS Wide Area Networks, as well as data centre services with the colocation and hosting of customer equipment.

"The introduction of our data connectivity services complements Sabio's broader customer contact technology portfolio, and is all about reducing deployment complexity and ongoing operating overhead for our customers," commented Ben Le Feuvre, Head of Sabio's Network Services operation.

"Traditionally, organisations have had to engage a range of different suppliers for their specialist customer contact technology, connectivity and ongoing support requirements.

"At Sabio we're committed to streamlining the solutions and service supply chain for our customers, and our data connectivity offering will extend that by helping us assume even greater responsibility for the whole telephony estate with our single point of support model."

Cars worth no more than £500 are set to descend on Gamma's Newbury HQ for the start of this year's Gamma Ball Rally (16-18th September). The 33 cars will be heading off to Bruges for their first stop before making their way to Amsterdam for two nights.

The teams will be tasked with various fun and challenging activities to compete for points along their journey.

The final evening will be celebrated with a black tie gala dinner and 'money can't buy' Auction of Promises.

Gamma MD John Haw said: "While the Gamma Ball Rally aims to offer a memorable experience for those participating, the main goal is to raise money for charity. This year we're supporting Action Through Enterprise and SpecialEffects. 

"With almost £53,000 already raised, we've secured some brilliant auction lots from our generous sponsors that we hope will raise lots of money for these two well-deserving causes. The money raised from the rally truly does make a difference."

All money raised from Gamma Ball Rally, including team entry fees, auction bids and donations, go direct to Gamma's nominated charities.

Chris Goodman, Sales Director at Focus Group, added: "This is the fourth time we've participated in the Gamma Ball Rally and we're excited to be involved in such a great charity event.

"First and foremost, it's about raising money for two fantastic causes and we're proud to be part of it.

"It's also a brilliant opportunity to spend an enjoyable few days together and with the other teams. We're looking forward to meeting everyone at the starting line and seeing all of the weird and wonderful outfits!"

Nimans has launched a new package of support services designed to drive Sennheiser headset sales, including free training, accreditation assistance and on-site product demonstrations.

Official Sennheiser resellers also gain access to marketing services, price support, trial samples and account input direct from the manufacturer.

"Sennheiser and Nimans help resellers stand out from the crowd in an increasingly competitive headset arena," claimed Paul Burn, Head of Category Sales at Nimans.

"Sennheiser has a rich heritage of audio performance, synonymous with many of the world's top musicians. This same ethos has been harnessed in an evolving feature-rich headset portfolio that can help resellers differentiate themselves and gain a competitive market advantage."

Payment service provider NetPay has linked up with NFRN Commercial (the voice of independent retailers representing over 16,000 news and convenience retailers across the UK and Ireland) to lower the cost of taking card payments for NFRN members.

NetPay offers customers online processing, payment terminal and merchant services. The firm's MD, Carl Churchill, said: "We chose NFRN Commercial because of its commitment to getting a better deal for independents. It works hard to help retailers develop their sales and profits to achieve their potential.

"NetPay too are committed to this, saving the average retail newsagent 59% on their merchant services rates. NetPay customers not only benefit from these savings but also insights into their customers through our reporting and analytics tool Revolution.

"Many UK retailers, particularly those in the c-store sector are still not benefiting from the EU's changes to Visa Debit transactions charges, either because they are not aware of the changes or their incumbent provider has chosen not to pass the potential savings on to their customer."

These changes are particularly beneficial to the c-store sector and NFRN members, pointed out Churchill.

"With the charging moving from a pence per instance to a percentage, the times where card charges heavily erode your margin on low value transactions are a thing of the past," he added. "More cost-effective transaction charges mean a bigger promotion of card use and a reduction in the charges and risk associated with banking cash. Many retailers forget that it costs their business money to bank cash and cheques. The average costs for banking £100 in cash is 60p with the main high street banks."

NFRN CEO Paul Baxter added: "The relationship with NetPay gives retailers increased choice and access to the benefit of the recent changes to the Visa Debit interchange charges. This change is something the NFRN has supported and provided evidence on as part of the European's Unions review process into these costs and their impact on our members."

Inventory as a service specialist Agilitas has celebrated 25 years in business with the last 12 months pointing to more significant growth to come.

The company manages IT spare parts inventories and provides technical services to customers across 32 countries and 9,000 locations throughout Europe. These services include technical training, support, product repair and specialist engineering resource.

February this year saw a change in ownership which helped the business increase turnover by over 30%. Staff numbers have grown over 50% from 53 to 80 people.

To mark its 25th birthday Agilitas relaunched its website and appointed a new Marketing Director, Richard Eglon.

"25 years is a great achievement for any business and demonstrates our longevity and ability to adapt to changing technology and the environment around us," said Shaun Lynn, CEO of Agilitas.

"We're delighted to have Richard on board. His appointment is a key part of our strategy going forwards and will help support our continued growth and defining our company proposition."

Chess has been named as the UK's National Champion in The European Business Awards for Customer Focus for the second consecutive year.

The European Business Awards engaged with over 32,000 business from 33 European countries this year, and 678 companies from across Europe have been named as National Champions - going through to the second phase of the competition.

CEO and founder of The Chess Group David Pollock stated: "We have always been an ambitious organisation with a desire to grow and be great at what we do.

"We strive every day to be the best of the best and this award is testament to our efforts.

"We firmly believe that happy people make customers happy and this award shows we are staying true to our vision of being a great place to work and a great place to be a customer."

Adrian Tripp, CEO of the European Business Awards, added: "Congratulations to Chess and all the companies that have been selected to represent their country as National Champions. They play an important part in creating a stronger business community."

Channel Telecom's strong performance has been rewarded with a place in the annual Sunday Times Hiscox Tech Track 100 league table, a listing of Britain's private TMT companies with the fastest growing sales over three years.

Channel Telecom debuted the list at 65th and attributes its success to partner acquisition and brand reputation.

Since January, Channel Telecom's partner base has grown by 72%, recruiting on average 10 new partners each month and the firm is now on target to hit £10m turnover this year.

Clifford Norton, MD, said: "To debut at 65th is a wonderful achievement. We've had a fantastic 2015 so far and this achievement underlines what a great year this has been."

Sennheiser's wired CIRCLE headsets have been upgraded to give users improved all-day wearing comfort and call management while ensuring sound quality in a lightweight headset design, claimed the firm.

The upgraded Sennheiser CIRCLE series headsets, consisting of 10 variants, provide professionals with an broader choice of options.

The headsets offer CIRCLE Flex dual hinge ear cups now with soft leatherette ear pads covering the acoustic foam, ensuring closer ear fit, day-long wearing comfort, and optimised sound quality.

The CIRCLE headsets' in-line call control units come in a new, more attractive and sleeker design, making them more ergonomic and easier to use.

A magnetic holder allows easy fixing of the unit to the work desk, ensuring seamless, fingertip call management.

New software-based sound enhancement profiles automatically adjust audio settings to optimise both voice quality for calls and users' multimedia experience.

CIRCLE headsets feature ActiveGard technology that protects users from acoustic shock and sound surges.

In addition, a Noise at Work limiter offers additional protection in compliance with EU legislation. To ensure practical and secure transport and storage, the headsets come with a nylon carry pouch.

Lars Riis Rasmussen, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, EMEA, at Sennheiser Communications, said: "Over the last few years our CIRCLE series headsets have become a popular and valued all-day working tool in many contact centres, offices and Unified Communications environments. We have used customer feedback to further improve the product range."

A new report from Juniper Research forecasts a healthy adoption for 5G, with service revenues set to exceed $65 billion by 2025, compared to just $100 million during its first year of commercial services in 2020. This figure would represent approximately 7% of all operator-billed service revenues.

Juniper notes that while the first commercial roll outs are expected in 2020, widespread adoption will only occur from 2025, with national spectrum licensing occurring over a period of years as per 4G.

The new research - 5G Market Strategies: 4G LTE Evolution, Spectrum Analysis & Opportunities 2015-2025 - observed that there is a growing consensus around the development of 5G standards in terms of both technology and performance aspects. The '5G vision' includes key requisites such as network speeds of at least 10Gbps, 1ms latency or less, improved spectral efficiency, low energy consumption, better battery life, higher device density - along with improved reliability and flexibility.

Juniper Research found that 5G will not only enable faster connections but will act as a catalyst for a wide range of new consumer and enterprise experiences, including both data intensive and energy efficient applications, high definition 4K-8K video, self-driving cars, advanced virtual reality, and a sensory/tactile Internet - constantly monitoring and controlling. Also noted was that operators will need to consider multiple service deployment scenarios to achieve an adequate ROI from their network and licence investments.

Research author, Nitin Bhas, said: "These discrete segments or services will require transparent and competitive pricing based on data usage, device type, and speeds. This means that profit margins will vary with regards to the sector enabled."