Comms Dealer

Nine out of ten of British businesses recognise the importance of agility to grow their business, but SMEs are twice as likely to believe their organisations are agile enough to take opportunities for growth, a new study has shown.

Commissioned by TalkTalk Business and conducted by Ovum, the Beta Business research surveyed 330 businesses and channel partners.

The study unearths some significant frustrations for enterprises and SMEs, particularly around the lack of agility and the crucial role of the channel to help overcome these obstacles.

More than a quarter of SMEs say poor advice from vendors is the biggest barrier to their agility, with nearly 60 per cent believing they don't have the technology presently available to future-proof their business.

Often with no IT function, determining who and how to educate SMEs can be present a challenge for the channel with 32 per cent of SMEs ranking staff IT literacy as the key barrier for achieving a more agile business. SMEs are looking to the channel for education and advice, not to just patch-up current systems.

Under-investment, security, business continuity and regulation were cited by respondents as the primary agility barriers for corporate and enterprises, and 40 per cent of firms are dissatisfied with the time needed by IT to process requests.

40 per cent of enterprises feel they are being held back by their technology, with just under half looking to the channel to help find solutions. The report highlights the need for the channel to implement change for customers as an iterative process, with three quarters of enterprises either being slow adopters of technology or only doing so as part of a mass adoption cycle.

Businesses of all sizes need to adopt a BETA state of mind that puts agility as a priority not an afterthought. Inspired by BETA successes such as Google Chrome, it calls for a move away from the 'rip and replace' mentality of old, to change being more incremental and in small steps. The channel should position itself as a knowledgeable long term partner, the report states, educating customers in the short term and benefitting from repeat revenue streams in the future.

Charles Bligh, Managing Director, TalkTalk Business said: "Agility is a key asset for businesses of all sizes and channel partners are in a unique position to help companies grow and adapt, by educating, advising and implementing updated IT and connectivity solutions.

"By providing the insight and knowledge needed, the channel can ensure that businesses maintain the bandwidth and network infrastructure to support data heavy applications and make British businesses better off."

Barnsley-based Active Voice & Data has helped savings and loan cooperative South Yorkshire Credit Union (SYCU) completely its customer service operations by installing Unify's OpenScape Business platform.

Due to a fairly sporadic, yet steadily increasing number of calls per day, SYCU recognised that it had a requirement for a flexible communications solution to replace its rudimentary and inflexible ISDN lines.

SYCU also acknowledged the need for a dynamic communications platform that would drive agility, enhance customer service and increase staff productivity. The Active/Unify solution has enabled SYCU to centralise all telephony for its ten disparate branches and has facilitated new and more dynamic ways of working, thereby enhancing customer service.
 
Iain Simpson, Managing Director at Active Voice & Data, commented: "Businesses are trying to keep their organisation streamlined to save costs, yet remain connected so that they can cater to these expectations.

"Providing OpenScape Business to SYCU has enabled them to meet their customer expectations. And has allowed the Credit Union to improve its productivity by giving staff members better and more dynamic ways of working, all whilst cutting costs. We are excited to continue to help SYCU on its ongoing innovation journey."

Tony Smith, Sales Director, Indirect Channel, Unify, added: "In partnership with Active Voice & Data we believe we have delivered a robust and flexible communications infrastructure to SYCU.

"The Credit Union will benefit for years to come from the resilience, flexibility and scalability that OpenScape Business provides. We look forward to continuing to assist them and other businesses on their journey to UC adoption."

Today's office environments are showing serious noise challenges for individuals and their colleagues, undermining productivity gains, according to a study commissioned by Plantronics.

Office workers in the UK, France and Germany listed decreased productivity as a common effect of noise and believe they would be a lot more productive in a less noisy environment.

An oversight of noise at work issues could potentially cost a UK organisation nearly £15,000 per year in lost productivity per senior manager employed, reckons the survey.

Disruptive noise in an open office environment can manifest itself into stress and physical ailments, such as headaches and migraines, and both were listed among chief complaints across all countries.

Three quarters of workers in all regions reported that their company has taken no action to address their noise issues or the actions have failed.

An average of only half of total respondents (UK 47.7%; Germany 51.4%; France 51.3%) reported they still worked in the office five days during an average work week.

As flexible working grows in popularity, office design has also radically changed with open plan office environments becoming the norm and less people working from a traditional fixed desk.

This new way of work can create serious acoustic difficulties without the correct soundscaping measures. As a result, office workers in Germany, UK and France all listed noisy colleagues as the biggest noise complaint in their office environment.

"Acoustics play a huge role in the contentment and productivity of a workforce," said Philip Vanhoutte, Senior Vice President and Managing Director Europe and Africa, Plantronics.

"In today's environment, it is extremely important for companies to understand how sound affects its bottom line and to take appropriate action to soundscape their workplace. We are passionate about ensuring workers have the right solutions necessary for a high-quality communication experience. No matter if work is being done in an traditional open plan office, an airport, coffee shop or at home."

Vaillant, one of the world's largest heating technology manufacturers, says it has transformed its customer experience with NewVoiceMedia's cloud contact centre solution 'ContactWorld for Service'.

The company is using the technology to successfully resolve over 600,000 inbound calls a year, while improving both customer and employee satisfaction.

The solution is said to have delivered a 200% efficiency improvement and dialling errors have reduced to zero.

Vaillant now benefits from immediate access to a customer's entire history of interactions from one screen and real-time reporting and analytics, offering complete visibility of contact volumes, advisor performance and customer experience.

Jonathan Gale, CEO of NewVoiceMedia, commented: "It's great to hear how much our integration capabilities and scalable technology is helping Vaillant deliver a personalised customer experience to thousands of customers around the world, while also improving advisor performance. And by moving to the cloud, Vaillant benefits from complete scalability as the business grows."

Timico has added a full Microsoft Office 365 package to its product offerings, providing customers with cloud-based Microsoft solutions alongside their typical hosting and connectivity requirements.
 
"With the popularity of Office 365 ever growing thanks to its affordable pay-monthly structures and regular updates to software, Timico is now in a position to offer the solution to its customers as part of a one-stop-shop of connectivity, Office solutions and customer support," said Tom Moores, Director of Cloud & Hosting.
 
"Office applications are a massive part of business life, with 95% of organisations favouring Microsoft services like Outlook and Excel.

"In the past licences were more expensive, but the availability of cloud-based Office 365 has changed all of that. With regular updates and affordable pay-monthly structures it's an appealing proposition for many businesses.
 
"By including Office 365 into our services, we can offer our expertise and customer service provision to guide customers through the transition and integration with existing services ensuring that the solution is absolutely fit for purpose and fully-supported."
 

UK-based CommAgility, a developer of signal processing and RF hardware for wireless and other applications, has acquired MIMOon, a German software vendor of LTE small cells and terminals.

MIMOon's staff will continue working from its German office in Duisburg and will stay focused on developing LTE PHY and stack software while the UK's team of CommAgility will continue its work over signal processing and RF hardware and associated software, the company says.

"We expect the next stage of our growth and development to be through the addition of a complete system offering, and acquiring MIMOon gives us the software IP and capabilities we need to enable this," said CommAgility MD Edward Young.

"This acquisition means that we can provide fully integrated hardware and software solutions for LTE applications, saving time and money for wireless OEMs and removing their integration risk."

IT and telecoms companies are more popular as employers than at any time in the last three years, according to global recruiter Randstad Technologies which says just under a third of all respondents in a survey view the sector as an attractive career option.

Ruth Jacobs, MD of Randstad Technologies, said: "The sector is thriving helped by the high profile development of tech clusters in the UK including Shoreditch's Silicon Roundabout which have made the IT sector seem a much 'cooler' space to work in.

"IT professionals have moved away from being back office support staff and are now on the front line, providing fundamental support across all industries and fighting cyber-fires.

"Over the last few years, several high profile hacks have demonstrated the importance of well-trained cyber professionals, and IT security jobs and IT support jobs are now rightly viewed as integral to all firms."

The upswing in popularity of IT and telecoms as a sector to work in has been influenced by a number of factors, noted Jacobs.

Firstly, a new IT curriculum was introduced into schools in September 2014 with the aim of improving digital literacy and encouraging more students to enter the field. This includes the incorporation of coding lessons into the curriculum and the study of Boolean logic.

And a boom in demand for IT workers has pushed up average salaries in the IT sector meaning it is now perceived to offer good financial reward.

At the same time, several high profile floats of UK technology companies have helped to raise the reputation of the industry, including King Digital, Just Eat and Zoopla.

Jacobs added: "The IT and telecoms industry has become much more high profile as recent Tech-city floats illustrate how tech firms can experience exponential growth over a very short span of time, developing from small start-ups to multi-million-pound enterprises."

Clive Jefferys, MD of telco recruiter JMA Network, affirmed the survey's findings: "The IT and comms industry has gained massive appeal as a career option over the last decade.

"From being a hidden service buried in an exchange 20 years ago, telecoms integrated with media now sits on everyone's smartphone, laptop or tablet, all around us at home, the office, coffee shops and the street. Careers in comms are seen as fun, progressive and fast moving as the range of new consumer services grows exponentially."

Northamber reported a narrowed loss for the first half of its financial year, helped by strong revenue growth and as it returned to margin growth.

The IT distributor has had a difficult few years with sales halving over the last four years and losses mounting as margins came under pressure from continual price drops.

However, its loss in the six months to end-December was £292,000 compared with the £690,000 loss it reported a year earlier, as revenue rose to £35.7 million, from £30.2 million and its gross margin rose to 6.83% from 6.7%.

Chairman David Phillips continues to berate his industry: "In the past I have too frequently needed to refer to ongoing price erosion, thin margins and the need for tightly focused management, rather than just building empty revenue.

"The sector has for too long been driven by either over-supply or poorly regarded products, all then subject to un-commercial, competitive stock clearance pressures, which while partially avoidable, has not abated," he said.

"After a long-term downward trend echoing the extreme levels of product driven price erosion, we are achieving a slight resumption of growth in margins.

"The 13 basis points improvement in the gross margin for the first half year compares favourably with the same period in the previous year.

"This improvement has been generated by the continued refocusing on those more profitable elements of our business and these established core resources are continuing to show results."

Phillips said the company will continue to operate a tightly controlled cost structure that will insulate it from "any untoward surprises", but also thinks it's well placed to benefit from further revenue growth.

"As you will know from my previous reports, I have learned not to speculate or be over optimistic and am hopeful that our improved trading performance will continue," he said

"However, within both the sector and the economy as a whole, there are many unknowns. Not the least of which will be any delaying effects on the user base IT refresh intentions, resulting from Microsoft's awaited forthcoming release of Windows 10, following the belated abort of the Windows 9 launch, plus the upcoming General Election."

Manchester-based ANS Group has rebranded its apprenticeship programme and set its sights on 2015 being its biggest year yet for apprentice intake.

The rebrand has been launched as part of this year's National Apprenticeship Week which runs from 9th-13th March.

The cloud and managed service provider began its own Apprentice Academy in 2013 initially taking on six apprentices and the academy, now in its third year, has been growing year on year and is aiming for an intake of 30 new recruits this year.

The ANS Academy was originally named the Cloud Academy but has been rebranded as the ANS Academy to better reflect the apprenticeship.

This apprenticeship will take into account all the necessary requirements for developing skills and accreditations in world-renowned vendor support and careers building at ANS, which go beyond the cloud.

The Academy aims to fast track young apprentices' into the IT environment of Managed Services. This specialist area then opens up opportunities to work in unlimited areas of IT support and management.

One of the first apprentices to join the programme was Jordan Bridge. He joined the programme straight from college two years ago and has worked his way up to become Team Leader, at ANS managing his own team and mentoring the next generation of apprentices.

The 23 year old from Warrington said: "After three years at college studying ICT I couldn't find a way to get my foot into the door of an ICT job. The apprenticeship taught me all of the areas of the job that are needed for the role and more.

"After hard work and dedication I have progressed to a team leader role where I manage my own team on a daily basis. I also teach and up-skill apprentices to help them take a path like mine and progress to where they want to be. I can't thank ANS enough for the exposure they have offered me and the team that I have worked with to push me to where I am today!"

Paul Sweeney, CEO of ANS Group, said: "Whilst the option of going to further and higher education is available, the curriculum is often too broad by definition.

"Often, at the end of a three-year course, items and areas studied have been superseded by new technologies or IT concepts, the very nature of IT.

"The UK has aspirations to be a world digital leader and the North will play a huge part in that. Our Apprentice Academy is nurturing young talent and helping develop the next generation of digital leaders."

TeleWare has rolled out a significant upgrade to its mobile compliance offering, providing customers with greater global coverage.

The improvements come in the form of three new categories which offer a selection of enhancements for users with international requirements. These categories are TeleWare Home (provides a local solution for in-country call recording and storage); TeleWare Local (designed for multi-national financial institutions with a local in-country presence); and TeleWare Global (offers a bundle of minutes, SMS and data across many countries).

Steve Haworth, CEO of Teleware Group, said: "This expansion provides our global customers with a consistent solution across their mobile communications infrastructure.

"In an increasingly globalised business environment being able to stay connected and in touch, wherever you are in the world, is critical."