Comms Dealer

Following a thorough evaluation process C4L has secured a position in the Megabuyte Top 50 listing, an industry league that ranks the best financially performing privately owned companies in the UK mid-market.

Ian Spence, Founder and CEO of Megabuyte, said: "C4L has done well in meeting the connectivity needs of businesses and service providers in the cloud era, resulting in strong organic growth and improving margins."

C4L's CEO Simon Mewett added: "To know that the level of research into the companies is so rigorous is not only a reward to C4L but is also a reassurance to our stakeholders."

A million pound investment has delivered a tenfold increase in Onyx Group's capacity.

In a move designed to advance Onyx Group's plans to become a £100m a year business, the company will increase its core infrastructure to 10Gb through the installation of a new network, reducing latency levels throughout its data centre and managed wide area network estate.

Neil Stephenson, CEO, said: "Onyx understands that in an increasingly technological world businesses now depend on reliable connectivity for their everyday business operations. This drives us forward to invest in our core infrastructure."

The news comes hot on the heels of Onyx Group's acquisition of Knowledge IT, a £10m move that bolstered Onyx Group's existing infrastructure and will play a key role in achieving Onyx's ambitious plans to become a national £100 million revenue IT support and services business in the next five years.

BroadSoft has surpassed 750,000 mobile UC lines deployed globally just weeks after exceeding 10 million hosted UC lines deployed.

BroadSoft's UC-One application makes voice, video, business directories, call logs and instant messaging and presence available on a single interface.

Its customers have the option to deploy unified communications services via the BroadWorks platform or via BroadCloud, a fully-managed end-to-end service that shortens the time it takes service providers to enter this fast growing market.

"By taking advantage of BroadSoft's mobile UC feature set and LTE integration, mobile operators are able to make mobility the core component of their small business and midmarket hosted UC offerings," said Michael Tessler, president and chief executive officer, BroadSoft.

"At the same time, BroadSoft has customers with more than 200,000 mobile UC lines deployed, indicating that mobility is driving day-to-day communications and collaboration at businesses of all sizes and across all markets."

After significant investments in 4G LTE networks over the past several years, mobile operators are leveraging BroadSoft's platform to monetise these investments through the deployment of mobile unified communications services and ability to capture new revenue opportunities that historically went to PBX vendors selling voice trunks.

Sir Richard Branson has highlighted the importance of digital skills to the future of the UK economy at a meeting with the Digital Youth Council - the panel of tech-savvy young people established by Virgin Media Business.

The entrepreneur will say that digital know-how is one of the most valuable things they will take with them on leaving school, and that pupils like them are not being consulted enough by the Government on how these skills are taught in school.

Virgin Media Business founded the panel of eight 9-17 year-olds in November 2014 as part of Generation Tech - a nationwide review of how technology is shaping education.

Branson will present each of the members with a certificate recognising their contribution to the Council, as well as talking to them about how they believe technology can help them achieve their future ambitions.

The members will also meet to develop the Big Ask - an idea being discussed with Virgin Media Business to encourage Government and businesses to work collaboratively to ready students for the digitally driven business world they will enter on leaving school.

Branson said: "Britain is a digital leader, however our businesses will fall behind if students leave school without vital digital skills. Much is being done by the Government to address this, but we need to make sure that the views of tech-savvy pupils aren't overlooked.

"The Digital Youth Council is a great example of how we can harness the skills and views of young people and create digitally savvy entrepreneurs of the future."

Peter Kelly, Managing Director, Virgin Media Business, added: "The Digital Youth Council has done some exciting things in its first three months of existence - speaking out on key issues, developing recommendations for Government and even designing their own digital innovations.

"As a major player within education, we hope others in the sector will sit up and take note of its conclusions, recognising that they speak for students in classrooms around the country."

Sabio has introduced Avaya functionality as part of an integrated hosted contact centre offering.

The Sabio OnDemand services is based on Avaya's IP Office Contact Centre technology and offers organisations of all sizes greater flexibility in terms of deployment and payment models, as well as the ability to scale customer engagement services up and down according to demand levels.

"While research firm ContactBabel found that around 48% of UK contact centre operators are currently using cloud-based services within their business, to date less than a quarter of UK contact centre operators have taken advantage of hosted platforms to power their customer contact operations," said Sabio Director, Adam Faulkner.

"Sabio is addressing the growing demand for companies to take advantage of cloud-based customer engagement technologies while enabling a manageable transition from premises-based operations."

Sabio OnDemand solutions are hosted in a Sabio data centre and entirely managed by the firm.

Sabio is Avaya's current Partner of the Year and recently completed its 10th consecutive year as an Avaya Connect Platinum Partner.

Up to 50% of British organisations say their innovation expectations remain unmet by IT services providers, according to a study by Claranet.

The results point to a new imperative for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) to work more closely with their customers to ensure that they can help them meet their business objectives by bringing new ideas to the table, claims the firm.

The pan-European research report surveyed 900 IT decision makers in mid-market organisations from the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal and the Benelux, and found that organisations overwhelmingly favour providers that can engage with them over those that just 'follow orders'.

In the UK there are large discrepancies between the expectations of IT decision-makers and their experiences with MSPs: 62 per cent look for expert guidance, but just 35 per cent believe their MSPs to be expert guides; similarly, 42 per cent want their MSPs to be innovators, though only 23 per cent views them as such.

Michel Robert, Claranet's UK Managing Director, said: "Given the intense pressures on today's IT departments and the lack of available time to devote to priorities like innovation, organisations should be able to turn to their service providers for their guidance and expertise.

"But it's clear that many users of MSPs are left wanting in this regard. While providers from all countries appear to have some work to do, it's the British MSPs that stand apart as some of the most likely to fail to meet their customers' expectations of innovation, expert guidance and advice."

BT is creating 1,000 new apprenticeships and graduate jobs for young people this year. The new recruits to BT will work in a range of areas, including software development, IT, engineering and digital technology.

Prime Minister David Cameron welcomed the 700 apprenticeship and 300 graduate jobs that will be created across the UK in areas such as London, Glasgow, Belfast, Cardiff, Newcastle, Manchester and Leeds.

In addition to the new apprenticeships, BT also today reiterated its commitment to tackling youth unemployment, by providing up to 1,000 vocational training and work experience placements for out of work youngsters in 2015/16.

A number of BT's apprentices will also begin new Degree Apprenticeships, which start this September, allowing them to complete full Honours degrees, whil e working. Careers ranging from business analysis to software development and technology consultancy will be available at BT, as part of the new Government and industry-backed scheme, which integrates degree level academic learning with practical on-the-job training.

Prime Minister, The Rt Hon David Cameron said: "I'm delighted that BT is creating 1,000 new apprenticeships and graduate jobs. Today's announcement underlines BT's commitment to training young people and gives them the security of a monthly pay packet and the chance of a better future.

"Backing those who want to work hard and get on with the skills they need to succeed is a key part of our long-term economic plan to secure Britain's recovery."

A large number of the apprenticeship and graduate intake will be based at BT's research campus Adastral Park, near Ipswich. The research centre is at the forefront of developing the world's future communications networks and services, which includes work on ultrafast broadband.

Clive Selley, Chief Executive of BT Technology, Service & Operations, which will be hiring a large number of the apprentices and graduates, said: "These are exciting times for BT as we make further advances in high speed broadband, mobile, sport and digital television, and our new recruits will be at the heart of the company's transformation."

Alderley Edge-based Chess is just two placements away from being the most desirable company to join in the UK following its third place ranking in the Best Company To Work For Sunday Times annual listings. 

The firm is now competing in the mid-sized category following a year of acquisitions which more than doubled employee numbers.

Chess achieved its sixth consecutive year as one of the Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For having attained the coveted Three Star accreditation - the highest possible rating. 

Chess also picked up a Special Award for Innovation in Engagement Practice for its approach to people engagement, which includes 'happiness training' from Chief Executive David Pollock - an exercise designed to raise positivity, wellbeing and people engagement. 

The sessions encourage the 400 Chess people to be open to ideas, smile and laugh, balance their professional and home life and embrace change and challenges.

Pollock said: "Over the last 22 years our people have focused on our vision of building a business to be proud of, a great place to work and a great place to be a customer. 

"To have been listed as 3rd in the UK's Best Companies to Work For and win the Innovation in Engagement Award is something everyone at Chess can feel truly proud of."

A Cloud Management Service launched by Graphite Software enables the download of Secure Spaces for privacy, enterprise and convenience applications.

Downloadable Spaces allow a user to opt-in to content and receive new apps on their mobile devices, while protecting their privacy and home screen configuration.

Downloadable Spaces are also used for securing company apps and data while maintaining the privacy of the employee, addressing some of the key issues in BYOD deployments.

"Users can now opt-in to having Spaces that meet their specific needs or interests including Spaces for shopping, travel, events, banking, work and more," said Alec Main, CEO of Graphite Software.

"From a business perspective, enterprises can feel safe in the knowledge that all of their staff are equipped with the right applications and data leakage is prevented, while the employee can be confident that their privacy is maintained."

Main also pointed out that third-party administrators can configure and curate Spaces via the Secure Spaces Cloud Management Service.

Enterprise administrators can now push pre-configured work Spaces to employees via an emailed invitation.

The emerging Back Office Workforce Optimisation (BOWFO) market has emerged as an attractive, emerging category with high growth potential, according to analyst form Frost & Sullivan in a new study.

Frost & Sullivan defines BOWFO as a software solution that helps manage people, processes and workflow in the Back Office to improve operational effectiveness, customer service and compliance.

The report states, 'the Back Office represents a vast and largely untapped reservoir of the type of performance improvement that the contact center has enjoyed for years. Operating an array of customer related operations processes the Back Office may rightfully claim to be the engine that drives organisational performance from behind the scenes. BOWFO provides a way to tap that reservoir'.

Alexander Michael, Director of Consulting at Frost & Sullivan, said: "All customer-centric companies agree that a well managed customer experience is a key differentiator.

"What few people realise is that most activities that ensure a consistent customer experience actually take place in the back office. For this reason, optimising the performance of the back office directly influences profitability."

Elizabeth Gooch, CEO, eg solutions, stated: "This Report highlights those market drivers pushing the sector to the forefront of the enterprise's mindset, not least the need to control processes through transparency, BOWFO's increased ability to provide a quick return on investment and greater efficiency, as well as the increasing recognition of the importance of customer service improvement.

"We have known for many years that the Back Office is a major contributor to the success of an enterprise and given the potential for impacting the customer experience, efficiency and compliance, it plays a vital and increasingly strategic role."