Our new ‘business continuity’ solution, raises the bar in disaster recovery planning by delivering leading data backup technology over a cloud based platform hosted in our data centres – to provide users with ‘best in class’ recovery capability.

HIVEDR looks set to revolutionise Business Continuity systems with the capability to recover 100 terabytes of data in less than five minutes.

The system provides backup and disaster recovery for the new, virtualised world of IT as well as the old legacy (physical) environments many organisations must still maintain. It uses snapshots and block replication to make backups 95% faster and 99% more reliable.

HIVEDR provides organisations with the capability to move away from the once-a-day back-up regime, allowing for a tiered approach to data protection, providing up to hourly recovery points.

The technology uses ultra fast block level back-up methods to reduce back-up times from hours to minutes. Back-ups complete in a fraction of the time, yet every back-up captures a full disk image, complete with application consistent data.

IT managers with responsibility for business continuity and disaster recover planning know it’s a ‘when, not an ‘if’ scenario, they are planning for. Time is the critical factor. Loss of data across the organisation will cause significant business disruption and may lead to litigation.

The demonstration team at CloudXL are keen to show off the impressive recovery powers of HIVEDR and are busy scheduling on-site demonstrations across the UK during April and May. If you’ve got time to spare now, and you know that you won’t have 5 minutes to spare if the worst happens, book a demo – it might save a fortune when the worst events threaten business continuity.

http://www.cloudxl.co.uk/business-solutions/hivedrdemo/

It’s not been an easy term to define and there have been many different attempts to explain what the term means. Cloud companies have been prone, like Alice’s White Knight, to define the term in a way that they want it to mean.

In some ways it’s strange that the term has been so slippery. Millions of us are happy to use such cloud-based services as Facebook, Gmail and Twitter, thinking nothing of it, yet pinning down an exact definition has been as elusive as grabbing a cloud itself.

In an attempt to put a stop to these vagaries, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology put forward a definition that has now become widely accepted as the closest that the industry has to a definitive answer. The NIST definition is as follows.

“Cloud computing is a model for enabling, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (eg. networks, servers, storage applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. This cloud model promotes availability and is composed of five essential characteristics, three service models, and four deployment models.”

The service models are types of offering, such as software-as-a-service (SaaS), and deployment choices include public and private clouds. But the key characteristics of cloud from a customer’s point of view are:

• Self-provisioning so a customer can provision facilities without any human interaction.
• Delivery of services over a network
• Ability to be accessed by a variety of devices, not just PCs but also by netbooks, tablet computers and smartphones.
• Rapid ‘elasticity’ – the ability to scale up or scale down computing resources. From a cloud providers point of view, a major element of the process is the pooling of computing resources to serve multiple consumers, using what’s called a multi-tenant model whereby cloud services are provided to customers as and when they’re needed. One of the important factors for cloud service providers is to be able to measure usage accurately and even more importantly, to bill accurately.
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One of the main pain points at the moment seems to be the lack of understanding about implementing a cloud based solution, with this in mind we’ve developed a recent report on how cloud computing will change the housing sector – it can be downloaded here

Also Jason received positive feedback following his presentation, many thanks to Richard Bligh from Gamma Telecoms and to Chris Thorpe of Newlon Housing for saying a few words as well.   A copy of Jason’s presentation can be seen here

Some of the key advantages of cloud for the housing sector, as identified by the report, are:

• Employees can work and share information effectively from the office, home, in transit or on a site visit, with instant access to all the documents, software and schedules that they need to do their job.
• Tenants can do all their admin wherever they are, from one account– including paying rent, logging and monitoring maintenance issues, reporting antisocial behaviour, completing surveys and communicating with neighbours.
• Data can be easily shared, combined and used to improve business processes. For example, maintenance logs can be linked to calendars and field workers’ GPS to allocate jobs to the right people as they are logged, with surveys automatically issued on completion. Housing associations would simply subscribe to a service with no need for additional technology or a disruptive integration processes.
  • All data would be stored remotely so if one office goes down, users can carry on their work from another location with minimal disruption.
• Technology such as video communication and fall sensors can be networked into homes and managed through the cloud, helping reduce isolation and improve safety and comfort for older and vulnerable people.
• Housing organisations can fulfil commitments to help tenants into work by providing access to learning content and live training seminars through the cloud and allowing software to be rented or provided to boost skills.

To download: http://www.cloudxl.co.uk/insights-report

The joint research with the Customer Contact Association (CCA) which aimed to identify trends in customer service for the next five years also found that, whilst consumers will increasingly use digital channels to make complaints, they will continue to pick up the phone to make purchases.

The CCA and Kcom study demonstrated how important providing a personalised interaction is to consumers. Respondents cited two priorities for service improvements – speed of call resolution (86%) and effective call routing to an agent with the right knowledge (73%).

Technologies such as automatic voice recognition offer a cost-effective solution to personalising service without adding to staffing costs. This can enable businesses to segment customers and improve service levels as well as increasing the opportunities to upsell services and products and drive business value.

”The reality facing organisations is that you can’t be everything to everyone. New digital channels are emerging, and while consumers are starting to use them, the telephone is still the main method of communication and will continue to be for the foreseeable future” commented Mark Pritchard, Business Development Manager of Contact Centres at Kcom, “Automation technologies can help contact centre managers to segment their customers and tailor the service they deliver, thus improving the overall customer experience and increasing retention rates.”

The range of ways customers want to communicate with a brand, their desire for a personalised service, particularly in the current economic environment, means contact centre operators face the challenge of doing more with less. Contact centre operators reported a reduction in budgets of up to 20% compared to 2008 levels, making it impossible to provide a wholly bespoke experience to each customer. Budget constraints have been further exacerbated by the growth in the number of interactive channels which brands are required to monitor and respond to.

“The challenge of meeting customer expectations continues to grow and contact centre owners will be forced to make some tough choices in the coming months and years. Automation can significantly reduce the cost of servicing customer enquiries, but it must be applied intelligently in order to realise its true potential and demonstrate value to the customer,” said Pritchard.

Thorough understanding of the customer base as well as analysis of the nature of inbound enquiries means that the consumer’s expectations can be more easily met. For example, in the case of low value simple transactions, the whole process can be automated and sped up dramatically rather than callers queuing to speak to someone.

Speech recognition technology can also be used, not just to replace live calls, but to analyse conversations as they happen. Agents can then be alerted if there are a lot of calls occurring due to product faults, for example. This kind of analysis will enable organisations to ensure that product offers, pricing and service levels remain in line with customer expectations.

“This research shows that man plus machine is the most effective way of driving customer service standards up. The organisations that take this in to account will reap the rewards both in terms of operating costs and improved service” continues Mark.

“The next five years in customer service will be driven by the desire to personalise the customer experience and improve satisfaction. Technologies such as data analytics and automation will play a substantial role in supporting this objective.” concluded Pritchard, “Whilst many organisations will be tempted to diversify the channels by which customers are able to contact them, the phone will remain the primary method of contact and investment should reflect this.”

The study also showed that contact centre performance is considerably better than the public and media perception would suggest. CCA Customer Experience Council benchmarks show that average customer satisfaction is 84% based on 467 million calls across nearly 40 CCA member organisations. Abandonment rates are down to 5%, and first contact resolution is as high as 83%.

“The work which we’ve undertaken with Kcom demonstrates that while there is an ever growing variety of communication channels between organisations and their customers, the phone will remain the primary method of interaction for some time to come. Technologies such as voice recognition will undoubtedly play a huge part in improving customer service in UK contact centres” said Anne Marie Forsyth, Chief Executive, CCA.

Forsyth continues, “The reality is customers want service to be simpler and slicker, whilst organisations struggle with the complexity of managing multiple contact points. Successful organisations in the future will provide the right blend of self serve and conversation supported by good technologies that can provide quick and easy access to knowledge workers. The skills required to manage this growing complexity, often on a global scale, will be essential for success in an increasingly competitive market place.”

http://www.commsbusiness.co.uk/Latest_News.cfm?NewsID=14958

Keynote speaker, Nigel Moulton, Avaya’s EMEA Director of product and solutions marketing said, “Next year will be an exciting year for us and our partners as we see end users start to explore more sophisticated technologies. We will see greater demand for high-end collaboration products, for example, and for SIP technologies and networking solutions. But this demand will come hand in hand with higher customer expectations. In fact companies are willing to invest in cutting-edge technologies but the business case has to be there and they need to know that they are going to get a return on their investment.”

Moulton added, “Our job is to work closely with our distributors such as Westcon and our resellers to ensure that we are basing our sales efforts on these end user business objectives. We need to be equipped to get under the skin of our clients to understand how exactly their business can benefit from using more collaborative solutions. This involves a bit of a mind shift but is a great opportunity for our partners to transition from a technology dialogue to a business dialogue, and be seen by customers as ‘big picture’ and innovative.

This customer-centric approach is what we’ll be focusing on next year. We’ll be working with our partners to make sure they have the tools, services and processes in place to really get to know the markets and specific industries they are serving so they can build expertise, easily identify opportunities, make the right recommendations and speed up sales.”

Runa Macleod, Marketing Director at Westcon said, “Resellers attending also had the opportunity to discover the campaigns and resources available to take these messages to market, find out what’s new with Avaya’s MarketLeaders programme and engage and network with Avaya and Westcon executives and MarketLeader agency experts.”

Commenting on the event, Alan Lloyd from G3, said, “Excellent and insightful event as ever with lots of interesting and useful content and services.”

http://www.commsbusiness.co.uk/Latest_News.cfm?NewsID=14846

This acquisition will further expand TalkTalk Business’s channel partner base and further demonstrates TalkTalk Business’s ability to offer partners a clean exit, when business owners are ready.

Paul Lawton, TalkTalk Business Managing Director said: “TalkTalk Business is pleased to announce the acquisition of Greystone Telecom. This is another example of our commitment to channel with TalkTalk Business acquiring a partner where we have built really strong long term relationship. Importantly when it was the right time for the owners to exit, we were able to quickly agree a deal, provide a good home for their customer base and continue to offer support to Greystone’s channel partners. Importantly we will be able to offer a wider choice of services driven from our Next generation Network to both customers and partners alike.”

Max and Judy Morrison, exiting owners said: “When we knew the time was right to exit, the natural option was TalkTalk Business. We have been working with them for 11 years and their support and commitment has been unsurpassed. We personally feel our customers and partners will benefit greatly with TalkTalk Business. ”

Greystone Telecom is an ISO9001 accredited independent specialist business telecoms solutions provider delivering high quality services tailored to meet specific customer requirements, including inbound and outbound voice, data and mobile solutions.

http://www.commsbusiness.co.uk/Latest_News.cfm?NewsID=14751

Please join us at our Seminar:
Venue Royal Society of Arts (RSA), 8 John Adam Street, London WC2N 6EZ
Date Monday 7th November 2011
Time Registration & refreshments from 3.00pm for a 3.30pm start.
Wine Tasting Reception (The Sniff & Spit Challenge) from 6.15pm
(event ends approximately 7.30pm)

The solution is a development for Virtual1 which has previously focused exclusively on its portfolio of network capabilities.

Managing Director Tom O’Hagan explained the move, “Over the past 12 months, we have had many of our Partners turn to us looking for advice on how best to support their customers as they adopt cloud services. Fast, resilient connectivity is a must, but so is secure hosting. By investing in our own Co-location facilities, we can offer our Partners all the advantages of an on-net hosting solution, including the enhanced speed, resiliency and security essential to cloud adoption.”

Virtual1’s Co-location services are provided via a Tier 4 data centre which boasts the latest state-of-the art facilities including multiple backup power capabilities, stringent security and environmental controls. What’s more, the data centre, which is ISO 9001 and BS 7799 compliant, is powered solely by alternative energy to reduce carbon emissions.

O’Hagan continued “Launching this new Co-location solution in response to demand from our Partners is the first step in a number of planned developments for our network and portfolio as a whole, as part of our overall commitment to supporting all the needs of our Partners and their customers.”

Virtual1 are offering free 100M Internet or MPLS ports on all new Co-location orders until 1st December 2011.

http://www.commsbusiness.co.uk/Latest_News.cfm?NewsID=14668

Actimax invites the Charity sector, on the 12th October, to a complimentary industry briefing followed by wine-tasting at Vinopolis, No.1 Bank End, London, SE1 9BU.

For full details please see invitation attached.

Charity seminar invitation