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Firms seek protection of outsourcing heavyweights

Gareth Morgan — 2009-07-14T12:14:00.000Z

Gareth Morgan, Computing, Tuesday 14 July 2009 at 12:14:00

Downturn sees companies turn to the big players - which spells trouble for smaller and niche IT services firms, says research

UK firms are turning to the heavyweights of the outsourcing industry during the current recession and spurning smaller niche suppliers, according to research.

In a new report, analyst Ovum says the 10 largest outsourcing suppliers in the UK boosted their total contract value by 31 per cent in the first six months of 2009.

"Demand is holding up well as outsourcing becomes a top priority for many users grappling with the impact of recession," said John O'Brien, senior analyst at Ovum.

O'Brien highlighted big deals from companies such as Virgin Atlantic, Carphone Warehouse and Northern Rock as proof of the robust demand for outsourcing services.

Ovum's report suggests providers that can offer new technologies such as virtualisation and cloud computing, along with other innovations geared at reducing operational costs, will win most business. And to do that requires deep pockets.

"Without a clear understanding of, and a strategic response to, the challenges faced, this has the potential to spell the end for the second and third tier UK IT outsourcing market," the report says.

IT transformation supports growth at Britvic

Angelica Mari — 2009-07-14T10:28:00.000Z

Angelica Mari, Computing, Tuesday 14 July 2009 at 10:28:00

Soft drinks firm reports buoyant results and expects savings from technology-driven projects

Soft drinks maker Britvic says its latest financial results are set to beat market expectations thanks to an IT-driven business transformation programme.

Britvic’s performance in the third quarter prompted the early release of a trading update, which raises hopes for yearly sales topping £1bn for the first time in its history.

One of the highlights of the report is the group-wide replacement of all major IT systems, as well as a re-engineering of key business processes.

The transformation plan is running in the UK alongside work at its Ireland subsidiary – acquired in 2007 – and includes areas such as IT, supply chain, innovation, and transaction processing functions.

Through initiatives such as an SAP rollout, the Irish operation intends to generate €27m in savings by 2011. The plan also foresees cost savings in production, distribution and procurement, as well as a strategic business review that will result in the elimination of about 145 jobs.

“This will deliver real value in the long-term while we ride out the current, very challenging macro-economic environment,” the firm said in a statement released today.

Net sales at Britvic totalled £249m for the 12 weeks to 5 July, with sales also rising by six per cent to £732m for the firm’s first fiscal nine months.

IT salaries holding up as firms look to retain valued staff

Angelica Mari — 2009-07-13T15:39:00.000Z

Angelica Mari, Computing, Monday 13 July 2009 at 15:39:00

Specialist skills have seen high demand in the financial and retail sectors, says research

Salary levels for IT professionals held up during the second quarter and counter offers are rising as businesses seek to hold on to valued technology workers, according to research.

The survey by recruitment consultant Robert Walters suggests there are more IT positions available in the job market and fewer companies are making technology workers redundant, which suggests some increase in confidence.

The high availability of IT professionals over the period meant a particularly challenging job-seeking environment, as the ratio of applications to roles was at its highest for six months.

Despite the belt-tightening climate meaning fewer contract roles were also available as businesses redeployed permanent staff into small projects, the report says there was more demand for temporary IT workers such as project managers and technical analysts for integrations and de-mergers signed off at the end of 2008.

Another trend pointed out by the recruitment specialist during the second quarter was the high demand in financial services for business analysts, developers and application support professionals with risk experience, prompted by a move towards more tightly integrated enterprise risk systems.

Conversely, positive hiring developments were also noticed in the retail sector, where e-commerce is seen as a key strategy to drive revenue. Businesses sought to recruit professionals such as solution and infrastructure architects who could “set the vision”, as well as core delivery experts who could ensure high availability.

However, the same buoyancy could not be seen in industries such as consultancy, where professionals felt the impact of clients putting projects on hold, says the report.

Robert Walters expects the overall positive trends will be sustained through the rest of the year.

“There are signs that some major datacentre and associated networking projects will be signed off and as a result, we may see an increase in recruitment activity in quarters three and four,” said the report.

The sheer amount of job seekers creates a perception among managers that top talent is more easily accessible, but the report warns this is often not the case.

“Uncertain market conditions meant the best candidates were often not willing to move organisations. Hiring managers will have to move quickly with strong offers to secure the best candidates in the second half of the year,” it said.

Microsoft unveils Office 2010 and takes productivity software online

Dave Bailey — 2009-07-13T14:24:00.000Z

Dave Bailey, Computing, Monday 13 July 2009 at 14:24:00

Office 2010 reduces number of packages, adds new features and provides Office Web applications option

Microsoft has announced that some of its Office applications will be delivered over the internet in the next version of its productivity suite, Office 2010, codenamed Office 14.

Office Web applications, as Microsoft has tagged the online version, will include Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint and Word "with reduced functionality to that experienced by users who have Office installed on their PCs," according to Chris Adams, Microsoft's Office client product manager.

The cut-down online version of Office 2010 will be available to more than 400 million Windows Live account users, as an on-premises version to 90 million Office annuity (volume licensing) customers, and through Microsoft Online Services, which is available to customers who purchase a subscription as part of Microsoft's hosted Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) offering.

A technical engineering preview of Office 2010 will be made available next month – the first time that a large number of enterprise customers and partners will get access to a pre-release version of the software.

Office 2010 and the new Office Web applications will be formally released in the first half of 2010, said Adams.

Microsoft has also cut down the number of packages from eight to five:

For enterprise customers – Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 and Microsoft Office Standard 2010 will only be available via volume licensing, with both including usage rights for on-premises web applications.

For consumers – Microsoft Office Home and Student 2010 will be licensed for non-commercial use, along with Microsoft Office Professional 2010 and Microsoft Office Home and Business 2010 for smaller businesses.

New features in Office 2010 will include an image-processing tool and an enhanced cut-and-paste function for Word, a video-processing tool for PowerPoint, and tools to deal with email management in Outlook.

All Office 2010 applications will be delivered in 32- and 64-bit formats, and Office 2010 will be installable on Windows XP with service pack 3, Vista, and the yet-to-be-released Windows 7 operating system.

British American Tobacco to revamp global applications

Angelica Mari — 2009-07-13T12:25:00.000Z

Angelica Mari, Computing, Monday 13 July 2009 at 12:25:00

Five-year deal with Accenture will support a worldwide IT improvement plan

British American Tobacco (BAT) has signed a five-year deal with Accenture to improve the design, development and implementation of IT systems supporting its business operations.

The contract will see the two firms working together through a joint application development centre using BAT’s Spain-based resource and Accenture delivery centres in the Philippines and India.

The transformation scheme will cover business areas including finance, supply chain, sales and marketing. Applications are intended to meet global, regional and local needs, while simplifying and standardising the firm’s system delivery function.

“We believe that this co-sourced programme will make us considerably more effective across our global enterprise,” said Craig Wallace, head of solution delivery at British American Tobacco.

Wallace said the deal will “greatly enhance” BAT’s knowledge, skills and capabilities and highlighted the importance of the supplier’s close relationships with SAP and Siebel/Oracle.

E-assessments to replace traditional exams, says education expert

Tom Young — 2009-07-13T10:35:00.000Z

Tom Young, Computing, Monday 13 July 2009 at 10:35:00

Continuous e-assessment could be widely available within 10 to 15 years

Traditional exams could be replaced with continuous e-assessments within 15 years, according to a leading education expert.

Simon Lebus, chief executive of Cambridge Assessment, told the Guardian that exam boards are investing millions of pounds developing the technology.

"The likelihood is that in the next 10 to 15 years it will change almost out of recognition, in that by the end of that period, you'll be able to do exams more or less on demand, onscreen," he said.

"You can make the learning more valid and the technology can enhance the way people engage in the subject. It's very expensive, complex stuff to do. But it is achievable. It's not a vision based on a sort of science fiction-type fantasy."

Lebus said traditional exams would still be available for those who wanted them, but the new system could benefit those who feel exams are unfair.

The system could involve "adaptive" testing, which would generate harder questions when a pupil gets an answer right or easier ones when they are wrong.

Such tests are thought to be more accurate at diagnosing a pupil's level of skill.

Exam board OCR has piloted a fully e-assessed GCSE in environmental and land-based science since 2007. This summer 1,800 candidates at 80 schools and colleges will take the exam.

Rosetta Stone sues Google over trademark violation

Angelica Mari — 2009-07-13T10:21:00.000Z

Angelica Mari, Computing, Monday 13 July 2009 at 10:21:00

Software firm claims AdWords policies are misleading potential clients

Software firm Rosetta Stone is suing Google for selling the right to use its trademark to third parties under the search firm's AdWords advertising programme.

The trademark violation suit was filed on Friday and concerns the use of terms such as "global traveller", "dynamic immersion", and "adaptive recall", which the company claims to have registered.

The filing also states that "many of Google's sponsored links draw people away from Rosetta Stone web sites".

"Google's search engine is helping third parties mislead consumers and misappropriate Rosetta Stone trademarks by using them as 'keyword' triggers for paid advertisements and by using them within the text or title of paid advertisements," said Michael Wu, Rosetta Stone's general counsel.

In a similar case in the UK, flower delivery firm Interflora decided to sue Marks & Spencer and online florist Flowers Direct last year, over the use of its brand name and sponsorship of misspelled occurrences of its name on AdWords to lure customers to their web sites.

Commenting on the Interflora row, Alex Weston, a specialist IT and intellectual property lawyer at Langleys Solicitors, said that while trademark owners should be alert to how their brand is being used, prospective keyword buyers should also tread carefully.

“Until the European Court of Justice makes its ruling, trademark owners should regularly monitor use of their trademarks to see if competitors are using their trademarks as sponsored links,” said Weston.

“If trademarks are being used as sponsored links then, in my experience, a solicitor's letter to the competitor will usually result in the sponsored link being removed. It can also be possible, in certain circumstances, to make a complaint to Google or other search engine operators,” he said.

“If you are considering purchasing a competitor's trademarks as a sponsored link then I would advise you to proceed with caution and to ensure that you do not use the registered trademark in the sponsored link – either in the hyperlink or in the text.”

Dot com pioneers launch technology VC fund

Angelica Mari — 2009-07-10T18:13:00.000Z

Angelica Mari, Computing, Friday 10 July 2009 at 18:13:00

PROfounders Capital fund will invest in early-stage businesses in digital media and technology

A group of dot com pioneers have teamed up to provide venture capital funding for startup digital media and technology firms.

PROfounders Capital has been set up by, among others, Bebo founder Michael Birch and Lastminute.com and Mydeco creator Brent Hoberman.

The fund will be focused on innovative early-stage ventures, and has a £30m target.

The organisation will aim to fill the gap between angel and traditional venture funding, with the intention of “grouping together to help the next wave of European entrepreneurs”.

“This is an opportunity for us to help nurture new initiatives at an important time when digital is becoming part of the fabric of our daily lives yet profits are increasingly flowing out of Europe,” said Hoberman.

Additional backers will be announced over the next few months.

This follows last month’s creation of a £1bn government-backed venture capital fund which aims to invest in technology businesses with high growth potential.

Nortel loses London 2012 Olympics contract

Angelica Mari — 2009-07-10T17:55:00.000Z

Angelica Mari, Computing, Friday 10 July 2009 at 17:55:00

Canadian vendor shown the door after financial troubles as Cisco takes on network infrastructure deal

Supplier Nortel has lost its network infrastructure deal for the London 2012 Olympic Games.

According to The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Locog), the termination was prompted by the vendor’s decision to sell some assets of its wireless portfolio and its intention to sell other businesses.

As the partnership between Locog and Nortel covered the supplier's entire operation, Nortel was no longer able to meet the contract’s requirements, so both parties decided to “amicably” end the relationship.

The Canadian telecommunications equipment giant filed for bankruptcy protection in the US and Canada earlier this year, as a consequence of the recession and declining demand for its products.

Locog has brought Cisco on board to replace Nortel as its infrastructure provider with immediate effect under a tier-two contract lasting for three years.

“We continue on a path to deliver the most connected Games possible. We part with Nortel on good terms,” said London 2012 chief executive Paul Deighton.

“Nortel acknowledges our fixed deadlines, and our desire to have a single supplier for our entire network infrastructure has been impacted by Nortel’s decision to move towards standalone businesses,” he said.

“This is in no way a reflection of their capabilities – this is all about meeting our fixed deadlines. We welcome Cisco to the London 2012 team, they will be a valued partner and will provide us with what we require to achieve our ambition of delivering a spectacular Games in 2012. We look forward to working with them over the next three years."

IBM brings in partners for ID card biometric database

Tom Young — 2009-07-10T17:24:00.000Z

Tom Young, Computing, Friday 10 July 2009 at 17:24:00

Atos Origin and Sagem Securitie to provide services as part of £265m deal

IBM has signed a £265m contract announced in May with the Identity and Passport Service to run the biometric database that will form part of the National Identity Register – and will sub-contract parts of the deal to Atos Origin and Sagem Securitie.

Atos Origin will provide integration and operations support for the conteact, while Sagem Securitie will provide biometric services and software.

"This contract will provide a secure database for storing facial and fingerprint images for the next generation of biometric passports and will support the delivery of the National Identity card," said James Hall, chief executive of the Identity and Passport Service.

The contract is for seven years, but contains an option to be extended to 10.

The database known as the National Biometric Identity Service (NBIS) will store photos and all 10 fingerprints of passport and identity card applicants from 2012.

The system will also replace the UK Border Agency's Immigration and Asylum Fingerprint Service, which holds similar data for visa applicants.

In a debate on ID cards earlier this week the Conservatives said they backed plans for biometric passports, though they believe the proposed National Identity Register holds too much information centrally.

Open source bites back

Martin Courtney — 2009-07-09T12:41:00.000Z

Martin Courtney, Computing, Thursday 9 July 2009 at 12:41:00

Recession-hit companies are tired of vendors holding a gun to their heads over software licensing, says CEO of Ingres

Roger Burkhardt, chief executive of open-source database company Ingres, tells Computing why growing resentment over high licensing fees in proprietary software is prompting more companies to switch to open-source equivalents.

Computing: Why would any company choose to undertake any large, mission-critical software migration in the current economic climate?

Roger Burkhardt: People have hard choices to make in a recession, and one of the decisions CIOs have to make is whether to cut back on people or other costs, and the thing that stands out is the high licence fees being charged by proprietary software vendors such as Microsoft and Oracle, which have recently implemented price increases for their software. We see a big take-up from people who do not want to pay premium prices on software licences.

Is lower pricing the single biggest attraction in open-source software?

Many people have had it with aggressive, almost predatory pricing from proprietary database software vendors. You may have laid off 15 per cent of your staff and the whole business is under pressure, but some vendors are basically holding a gun to your head and saying you have to pay more for licensing even though your usage is down. You do not find many people concerned about the technology, and open source is quicker to implement and innovate. But mainly, people are sick and tired of being taken to the cleaners and forced to write more multimillion-pound cheques for proprietary software.

Some companies find that any cost savings on software licensing are negated by support and maintenance costs. What is the Ingres pricing model?

Our model is like the Red Hat model, where we have a free community edition and an enterprise edition which asks customers to pay for support, testing and indemnity. We have some enterprise customers who use the community edition and have chosen to self-support. If you take a proprietary Java [application] stack from Oracle and compare the costs of licensing and maintenance over a three-year period, the list price for the Oracle database application stack [and hardware] is $1.92m (£1.18m), whereas the list price for a combination of Ingres and Red Hat on an eight-core server using Enterprise Linux and JBoss [open source application server] would be $118,000.

What about migration costs?

You can write new open-source applications that have no migration costs at all, and there are examples, such as when the application is written in Java, where the migration costs are very low. But some existing applications from the old client-server world are written with proprietary extensions, and that can mean a migration does not make economic sense.

What other advantages does open-source software offer to business customers?

It can allow them to make the move from proprietary hardware to industry-standard hardware and save money there, and there are also cost savings because Ingres database administrators are more productive than others. The feedback we get is that database administrator skills are expensive and rare, so Ingres helps with productivity by offering simple, easy-to-use management tools and automated tasks.

Recent reports have suggested that take-up of open-source software in the UK lags behind other countries. Why do you think that is?

I hesitate to name a particular factor, but the UK seems to be a little behind in understanding the alternatives [to proprietary software]. People still think about open source the way they did 10 or 15 years ago. There is lots of discussion around the idea that the UK government has been slow to adopt open source, but I work on the commercial side of the CTO role where choices are not driven by what the government does. Many people do not choose to publicise what they are doing, so we are not always aware quite how pervasive open-source software is, but a lot of people have adopted open source over the past decade.

Many IT professionals still worry that open-source software is unreliable and offers poor security, for example. How do you convince them otherwise?

I cannot claim credit for a team which has done miracles in reliability and security. The truth is that Ingres was formed around a database which is 30 years old, that was already a proven asset in the hands of many customers before it went open source. We have established customers such as the Irish government, which has run its entire tax system on Ingres for many years. We also have a Swiss company, BBP, which has developed financial messaging applications based on Ingres and Red Hat open-source software, and no way could it afford to compromise on security and reliability.

How important is standardisation in encouraging more people to use open-source software?

In the database world, Ingres and all the major proprietary vendors support standards to access SQL data, though there are more lightweight open-source databases that have not complied. However, we need to get to the point where there is compliance in both the application server and database world so there are clear and effective standards for those that choose to migrate from Oracle to Ingres or Sybase for example, and to something else in the future. Ten years ago, this was hard to do because there was no application server and different databases had different procedural languages and no middle tier, but today’s Java-based application servers make it much easier.

Lack of enterprise appeal takes shine off Chrome OS

Martin Courtney — 2009-07-09T10:58:00.000Z

Martin Courtney, Computing, Thursday 9 July 2009 at 10:58:00

Enterprise buyers unlikely to ditch Windows for Chrome OS in the near term, say experts

Google has upped the ante and challenged Microsoft’s dominance of the software industry by promising to develop its own streamlined operating system (OS).

Google Chrome OS will be an open-source, "lightweight" OS, set to be available in the second half of 2010. Barely more than a boot mechanism topped by a Windows-like graphical user interface running on a Linux kernel, it will strip out much of the complexity of other operating systems. Instead, it will be designed primarily to quickly channel portable devices straight into web access via Google’s Chrome web browser, which was first unveiled in September 2008.

Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management at Google and Linus Upson, Google engineering director, said that other OSs were designed in an era when there was no web.

“We’re designing the [Chrome] OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds,” they wrote in a blog post, revealing Google's OS plan. “The user interface is minimal and most of the user experience takes place on the web.”

Google’s strategy is clear in pushing people to use its own web applications, including mail, storage, simple Office-type documents (word processor, spreadsheets, presentation and so on) and maps, available through the cloud computing model. It may also use its Google Gears application programming interface to provide the option of hosting those applications offline.

The company has specifically targeted Chrome OS at netbook users, and has so far offered little detail. But in designing an OS capable of only running applications in the cloud, Google may have limited its appeal to corporate users.

“Will Chrome OS make it into the enterprise? That depends if the enterprise is going to change,” said Mike Davis, senior analyst at Ovum. “It has real potential for any organisation whose staff are highly mobile and using netbooks already, but most businesses remain wired infrastructure and desktop-based, and do not want to send all their stuff over the internet.”

Previously, Google has delivered services such as web maps, webmail and the Chrome browser, initially targeting the consumer market, noted Ray Valdes, research vice president at analyst Gartner, in a blog posting. "It will be years (three to five) before [Chrome OS] has any impact on the enterprise."

Though using Google web apps is cheaper than owning software licences outright, application performance is heavily dependent on the reliability of the internet, and the constant availability of the servers hosting Google’s web applications.

Google’s assertion that users "don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates – it [security] should just work,” may also cause concern to IT leaders, if only because of its vagueness.

Google has not outlined how it will address the security of the physical device, the applications or the internet communications, said Davis.

And hackers write malicious software specifically to target OSs they know have the highest number of users – currently Microsoft Windows – but that could change.

“The security of the cloud is actually quite good and is backed by Google having multiple, very large datacentres for storage – you don’t have the problems with the local C: drive or offloading data to memory sticks, for example,” he said. “If the OS has less bloatware, it may also have fewer security holes, but you have to remember that the bigger the dartboard, the more likely hackers are to throw things at it, as evidenced by Apple’s OS X for the Mac.”

That said, a simple OS that offers users limited control over their own application environments may prove attractive to companies looking to scale down their own IT support, almost harking back to the old days of the thin client computing model where dumb terminals accessed applications and storage resources on a central server or mainframe.

Nor is it certain that consumers or business users will prefer Google’s Chrome OS as opposed to other operating systems, Microsoft-owned or otherwise. Many existing netbooks, including the top-selling Asus EEE PC and Acer Inspire brands, already use streamlined versions of Linux. However, with its large user base for Google Mail, Google Docs and other web applications, Google may become the preferred Linux variation, not least because its popularity will inspire software developers to build new applications for the platform.

Experts are under no illusion that Google has effectively declared war on Microsoft, but the Chrome OS will have to be very good to displace Windows Vista or the forthcoming slimmed-down Windows 7 OS from desktop and notebook PCs. Microsoft is also experimenting with web-based applications of its own.

“People use Windows primarily because Microsoft pays hardware manufacturers such as Dell a lot of money to pre-load it – and this is the big agenda here. Google is gunning for Microsoft and Microsoft is gunning for Google because it wants a bigger share of the search engine market,” said Davis.

Put social networks to work on your career

Angelica Mari — 2009-07-09T07:15:00.000Z

Angelica Mari, Computing, Thursday 9 July 2009 at 07:15:00

Increasing numbers of IT professionals using sites such as LinkedIn to grow contacts and find jobs

There may be scepticism about the role of social networking in business, but a growing number of senior IT professionals are turning to such tools to help them find their next job.

One recruitment consultancy estimates that a third of successful candidates are now sourced through LinkedIn, for example, yet research suggests there is still a large number of IT leaders who have yet to catch on. A survey by researcher Vanson Bourne suggests that while 22 per cent of senior UK professionals consider social media to be a viable business tool, only three per cent are using sites such as LinkedIn to communicate with peers.

“We live in a knowledge economy, so understanding how quickly you can tap into these resources is incredibly important,” said Kevin Eyres, LinkedIn’s European managing director.

IT decision-makers can use online networking to boost their career prospects, by joining industry groups and connecting to key influencers, as well as sharing common issues on discussion boards, said Eyres.

“IT leaders are often faced with common problems and the fastest way to solve those problems is by using your network,” he said.

House of Fraser IT director Duncan Gray said LinkedIn works best as a platform on which to keep an updated CV and “a digital version of the business card file” to keep track of contacts.

“When it comes to job searching, a lot of it is about using the marketing tools at your disposal to complement traditional methods to get your name across to people,” he said.

Jane Kimberlin, IT director at Domino’s Pizza, also sees the benefits.

“You should use LinkedIn, in addition to other ways of personal contact such as phone and face-to-face meetings. Social networking is like another tool in your toolbox, which can be very helpful provided you use it appropriately,” she said.

Social media is an increasingly important resource for recruitment agents, according to Rob Grimsey, strategic development director at Harvey Nash the company that has had such success using LinkedIn to source candidates.

Grimsey said all job vacancies at the agency are posted on Twitter and a Facebook group, while LinkedIn is perceived by senior IT professionals as a more subtle way of self-marketing.

“Social networking gets to people in ways that other media, such as newspapers or advertisements in online job postings, do not necessarily achieve. Our strategy is to be absolutely everywhere,” he said.

“Nothing replaces face-to-face contact and a good interview, but this is another route to obtain more information on candidates than you would have found otherwise. Everyone is in this game especially headhunters so if candidates completely write off social media, they may be missing out on opportunities.”

Twitter and blogs are also being used by recruiters to analyse the calibre of potential candidates, said Bill Fischer, director at search firm WorkDigital, which has developed a Twitter job search engine that uses natural language processing to find vacancies posted on the micro-blogging service.

“Seeing what someone tweets or blogs about is a way to discover if this is a person who is interested in continual learning, or is passionate about and engaged in this area of expertise, so it is a useful bit of proxy data for a recruiter,” said Fischer.

However, some IT managers remain unconvinced by the approach.

“My belief is that, in finding jobs, the human touch is the only way to go. There is a limited number of people you need to know who tend to place most senior roles so getting to know them individually is probably the best way to get your name on any shortlists,” said Simon Post, chief technology officer at Carphone Warehouse.

“I tend to network through a limited number of events rather than social networking tools, although I do wander around LinkedIn a bit. Maybe I am just the wrong generation.”

BT fibre trials herald an era of innovation

Dave Bailey — 2009-07-09T06:15:00.000Z

Dave Bailey, Computing, Thursday 9 July 2009 at 06:15:00

A new era in communications began on Monday as BT went live with the first two operational trials deploying superfast fibre-optic broadband connectivity

Muswell Hill in north London and the Cardiff suburb of Whitchurch are the sites chosen for the fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) trials, involving more than 15,000 premises with more than 100 street cabinets being fibre-enabled.

BT has already announced the next 29 exchanges to be set up, which will go live by January 2010. BT strategy and portfolio group director Olivia Garfield said the company will also be announcing this week the next tranche of exchanges to be enabled.

“By 2012 we will have spent £1.5bn to bring fibre to 10 million homes,” she said.

The rollout of fibre-based broadband is a key goal of the government’s Digital Britain strategy, with a proposed levy of 50p per month on household phone lines set to help fund connectivity to parts of the country that will fall outside the reach of commercial networks from the likes of BT and Virgin Media.

One of the key technical features of fibre-optic access is that new broadband services will benefit from significantly increased upload speeds, which industry experts say will allow businesses to engage customers on a new level.

Conventional copper-based ADSL broadband has a high download speed, but is more limited in upload bandwidth (see below).

David Campbell, managing director for next-generation access at BT’s local network arm Openreach, said the FTTC trial is not just about download speeds.

“Communications providers will bundle packages of applications in the trial, and companies involved will include BT Wholesale, Carphone Warehouse, Sky and O2,” he said.

“One of the things we are most excited about is upstream [capacity] it is a unique selling point for this service.”

Garfield said there will be important benefits for businesses as well as home broadband users.

“[There is] the networked office we are moving towards more collaborative ways of working. What we are seeing in recessionary times across our portfolio is lots of conferencing and agile working and fibre plays well [to those applications],” she said.

BT is also touting hosted and site-based voice over IP (VoIP), multi-party video calling and high-definition videoconferencing as business drivers for high-speed broadband adoption. In the public sector, applications such as tele-healthcare become more attractive.

“Upload-heavy applications such as videoconferencing, VoIP and trunking mobile calls over IP would benefit, since the upload capacity needed all adds up,” said Rob Bamforth, principal communications analyst at Quocirca.

“Increased upstream capability of fibre will make things such as remote backup, resilience and other ‘push up’ cloud-based services less constrained.”

Emerging online applications such as software-as-a-service and cloud computing could see an upsurge in deployment, as the higher bandwidth means they are able to deliver greater benefits for companies.

Broadband Stakeholder Group chief executive Antony Walker said there is an opportunity for UK businesses as the optical rollout proceeds.

“You are creating a new platform for innovation and all businesses will be able to do things differently, which will change their relationship with customers and open up new services and markets,” he said.

Walker said there are prospective productivity benefits, but firms need to have the capacity to innovate and handle the change.

“We tend to see that this stuff helps good companies become better companies,” said Walker.

“But there will be losers, because firms that fail to use the potential opportunities for innovation will struggle against their competitors.”

The same principle applies internationally if the UK’s global competitors deliver better on the potential for service innovation through early access to optical-based applications, the UK could be seriously disadvantaged.

Satisfying the need for speed

The product BT’s Openreach arm is making available to ISPs is called Generic Ethernet Access over Fibre to the Cabinet (GEA-FTTC).

The technology initially offers performance of up to 40Mbit/s download and a standard upload speed of 2Mbit/s, with an optional upload speed of 5Mbit/s.

BT strategy and portfolio group director Olivia Garfield said upstream speeds, would adjusted by Openreach as service rollout proceeds in the next six to 12 months.

Pricing for the trial will not be announced until the end of July. Garfield said that although there will be special offers around the trials in north London and Cardiff, "longer term, it will depend on market take-up, usage levels and what backhaul consumption we see," she said.

The most recent figures from broadband research firm Point Topic show that conventional DSL broadband technology is continuing to lose market share to other technologies, with fibre being the only access technology growing from quarter to quarter.

Strength through unity

Robert Jaques — 2009-07-08T18:35:00.000Z

Robert Jaques, Computing, Wednesday 8 July 2009 at 18:35:00

The friction that has traditionally characterised relations between finance and IT has no place in today’s business landscape

IT and finance mangers do not always make easy bedfellows and, historically, the relationship between chief information officers (CIOs) and chief financial officers (CFOs) has been widely characterised by tension or, in some cases, outright hostility.

Such fundamental conflict has long been considered inevitable given the fact that finance directors (FDs) are responsible for managing expenditure and IT is invariably expensive. Budgeting and cost control is of paramount importance to CFOs, while procurement and maintenance of expensive IT systems are core functions of CIOs, so conflict has often resulted. The relationship has been further strained because CFOs do not welcome surprises that upset carefully prepared financial plans and IT can be full of surprises, many of which are nasty such as projects going over budget or systems crashing.

There has long been a chorus calling for rapprochement between these seemingly implacable foes. However, in today’s challenging economic climate, experts warn that the need to end this internecine squabbling has never been more pressing as failure to grasp the nettle could tip many struggling firms over the edge into commercial oblivion.

Sheila Upton, a director at Ernst & Young, acknowledges that “categorical challenges” remain in the majority of FD/CIO relationships.

“The need to get the relationships between IT and finance right is more of

a burning issue than it was a couple of years ago,” she says.

"The economic conditions of the past year and a half have acted as a catalyst, forcing IT to talk to the business more effectively. But there are still a lot of firms where the IT professionals may now be wearing suits to fit in when they attend board meetings, but still think they are in beards and sandals.”

Savvy CIOs should be taking the initiative and trying to engage with their CFO colleagues.

“The CIO has the responsibility to actually go to finance and present options as to what solutions are available and what their respective strengths, weaknesses and costs are. And the CFO has a responsibly to listen. Even companies in the same industry have been affected in very different ways by the downturn: there is not a one-size-fits-all solution,” says Upton.

Vuk Trifkovic, senior analyst at Datamonitor, agreed that, as the impact of the downturn has made itself increasingly felt, formulating the alignment between IT and the business has quickly become a pressing priority.

“Now everyone realises this is an issue, but it remains tough to implement. We are in the middle of a generation handover. The next generation of managers is not going to transform things radically, but we are now seeing both IT leaders and business leaders who grew up with IT. Many of the traditional divisions between IT and the business will be reordered because of the pervasiveness of technology. We are starting to turn out technical people who have greater business knowledge,” says Trifkovic.

Peter Williams, practice leader in IT infrastructure management at Bloor Research, says that in the past, IT and business managers have looked at technology totally differently.

“Quite often systems do not have the flexibility that business managers wanted. These business managers often could not understand why something that appears conceptually simple cannot be done by IT,” he says.

“Now every business is run on IT. In today’s world the business managers cannot do their job if the IT infrastructure is not in place. We must all be going in the same direction lack of co-operation is no longer an option.”

Charles Cotton, a reward specialist at the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development, suggests that corporate human resources (HR) departments have a role to play in improving the relationship between finance and IT professionals by allowing suitably qualified technical managers to take on non-technical roles and so gain a more holistic understanding of the business.

“You might get people from an IT background to go and zig-zag around the organisation. HR has a role to talent-spot the right skills,” says Cotton.

Other commentators are more upbeat about the quality of relationships between IT and finance in the economic downturn. Research from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) describes “strong indications from many firms of continued improvement of CIO-CFO relationships”. Despite the fact that many would expect the IT/finance relationship to have suffered with budgets coming under severe pressure over recent months, almost 50 per cent of respondents to an EIU survey reported that co-ordination between the two key executives has actually improved at their firms in the past year.

The majority of CIOs and CFOs in the poll rate levels of trust, communication and understanding between them as strong. CFOs offer a rosier picture than do CIOs, but few in either group report any deterioration in their relationships.

These improvements are attributed by the research, entitled Staying the Course? Technology Decision-making in Turbulent Times, at least in part, to the fact that CIOs appear to be retaining their places at board level and are increasingly involved in core business discussions, rather than being locked in the technology silo. Few survey respondents believe that the CIO’s influence in technology investment decisions will decline in their firm, while a large minority expect CIO involvement in business strategy discussions to expand.

“Most firms will remain cautious about new technology investment until economic recovery looks more certain,” says Denis McCauley, director, global technology research at the EIU.

“But some firms will take risks with projects that help position them for growth when conditions improve. This raises the stakes for CIOs and the IT function, and they will need to deliver.”

Clive Longbottom, service director at analyst Quocirca, says that when meeting these challenges CIOs need to keep focused on core business issues and not become sidetracked by technology for its own sake.

“I cannot say it enough: it is not about technology it is about the business,” says Longbottom.

“We have come through such a long period of good times when revenue was coming in fast and furious that many problems and business issues were subsumed. Now these are being laid bare and firms need to get to grips with them. Technology to automate and make processes and systems more efficient and flexible can certainly help,” he says.

“Firms should be looking at what highly targeted IT investment can do to streamline their value chains. Only the firms that do this and take appropriate action will be able to weather this economic storm. It is time that we had the CIO and FD dancing nicely together rather than having their swords drawn as has so often happened in the past.”

An Ernst & Young report, Successful IT in High-performing Organisations, the Impact on Business Growth, urged firms to “set the bar high” when attempting to improve CIO/CFO relationships: “Many organisations have made real progress in improving IT management and delivery, and integrating IT with business objectives to deliver tangible results. These activities are not easy and many organisations, by their own admission, are not successful across the board. Successful ones, however, share some common characteristics,” the study says.

“Above all, our research showed that in assessing current performance levels and setting targets for improvement, organisations that expect IT to make a strategic contribution will get more value, so it pays to set the bar high when agreeing targets.”

Aligning IT with the business

• Successful organisations exhibit a sophisticated understanding of IT and a flexible view of the function and its reporting lines;

• A variety of leadership structures exist to support integrated business and IT decision-making – it is not just about whether the CIO is on the board;

• While no single governance model stands out as working better than others, there is overwhelming agreement on the board’s responsibility to ensure the right governance structures and processes are in place;

• Quality and frequency of discussion matter more than structure and hierarchy but organisations need to ensure integration where separate committees exist for specific purposes; risk being a typical example of this.

Source: Ernst & Young report, Successful IT in high-performing organisations, The impact on business growth

Update and consolidate

Martin Courtney — 2009-07-14T11:13:00.000Z

Martin Courtney, Computing, Tuesday 14 July 2009 at 11:13:00

Many firms still make do with a patchwork of aging e-commerce systems, but as the ability to conduct and grow business online assumes ever greater importance, such companies are unlikely to be around for long. So how should IT chiefs gear up for the challenges ahead? Martin Courtney finds out

The term e-commerce may already be defunct, because in today’s connected world, all commerce is e-commerce.

Most companies, and particularly those in the retail sector, now see themselves as multi-channel providers that need to utilise every transactional method at their disposal to serve their customers and business partners. However, many of these same firms are still relying on software platforms they were using before online transactions became so critical to their business, and doing their best to integrate SAP, Oracle and Microsoft back-end databases with new web-based front-end applications that handle business-to-business and business-to-consumer channels.

“In the past six to 12 months, we have seen some of the major retailers move to update and consolidate the platforms they have had for years. But you have to look at the individual processes that support that – like one application to take orders, another to handle transactions – and the fact that so many different applications are covered by different vendors,” says Mim Burt of Gartner’s retail industry advisory services team.

Gartner estimates that the average company uses anywhere between 3,000 and 6,000 different processes to support their multi-channel e-commerce activities, some of which are handled by in-house software applications, others by bespoke software developed by third-party developers and other outside suppliers.

Because of this, most are now trying to integrate those different applications using service-orientated architecture (SOA) platforms, such as IBM WebSphere.

“There may be different technologies at the front and the back ends, but as long as the SOA platform understands the different messages from each, it can provide common integration across them,” says Rob Hailstone, software infrastructure practice director at the Butler Group. “The bigger companies tend to have full-blown SOA at both ends, and will often require their suppliers to be able to talk to them via web services as well. But at the other end of the scale, smaller companies will need a fairly simplistic adapter to provide a web services front end.”

With a multitude of systems to consider, it is inevitable that some prioritisation goes on. At the Pauline Quirke Academy (PQA), a weekend drama school dedicated to training children in the performing arts, the ability to handle electronic transactions has become increasingly essential.

PQA has installed Albany Software’s Albacs-IP payment system to process direct debit payments and pass them through to the banks. Perhaps the most important feature is the ability to produce regular automated reports that help the organisation keep track of those payments, says Fergus Sturrock, business systems manager at PQA.

“The reporting offers a tremendous amount to the business. Before we had standing order mandates that were owned by the banks – when they were cancelled we would not find out for weeks,” he says. “Albacs allows us to keep track of payments more closely and improve our relationship with customers.”

As well as improving cash flow, the system has enabled the academy to build stronger customer relationships. “If something is cancelled accidentally we can quickly find out what happened and retain the client relationship,” says Sturrock.

The academy uses other software platforms for marketing and customer relationship management (CRM) purposes, but hopes to integrate its automated e-transaction strategy with its back-end systems in the future.

CRM software has been at the vanguard of changes to the way firms deploy software, often delivered as software-as-a-service (SaaS). But while CRM systems support a variety of web integration links that allow information to be passed to web-based transaction software, as well as helping organisations to manage sales and customer contact data, few offer integrated features that support multi-channel retail strategies, according to Gartner’s Burt.

“The individual CRM processes tend to be broken up into online offers, marketing campaigns, direct email and so on, though there are efforts to integrate everything with call centre and other applications, for example,” she says.

Supply chain efficiency is a key driver for organisations of all sizes, according to John Davison, managing vice president and research director in Gartner’s retail industry advisory services team.

“They are trying to connect up all the applications quickly and looking to integrate them with outside suppliers in order to streamline their supply chain,” he says.

E-commerce and supply chain integration

Supply chain platforms vital to the success of online businesses, especially those with large retail and distribution operations, include warehouse management and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. “There is a big movement to link e-commerce and online retailing to the supply chain in order to optimise that, but supply chain optimisation can be more difficult than it first appears,” says Angela Eager, senior research analyst at Butler Group.

Gerrit-Jan Steenbergen is global head of store systems for AS Watson, the parent company of retail giants Superdrug and Savers in the UK. In 2007 the company contracted systems integrator Zetes to deploy its 3i Voice solution at its warehouse in Dunstable in a move designed to save time and minimise errors in the distribution process. The technology uses a wireless handheld terminal, auto RFID technology, and Vocollect’s wearable computer and headset to give pickers a direct link to AS Watson’s warehouse management and ERP systems.

The Voice system means the warehouse pickers can make sure that the right pallets are going onto the right conveyor belts and trucks with the minimum of delay.

“It is much faster and all the delays associated with pausing to check the paper document have been moved out of the process,” says Steenbergen. “We saw an initial productivity gain of eight per cent, and also saw quality go up. We used to have three quality checkers that randomly checked the pallets, but now the quality is so high we have been able to lose those three posts.”

The Voice system has also speeded up supply chain planning, so that AS Watson managers can look at all the stock destined for Superdrug and Savers outlets that day, arrange the loading accordingly, allocate staff, and consult online systems to record progress and see where problems or delays are occurring.

Other technologies that most organisations are only just beginning to understand and make use of for e-commerce purposes are real-time analytics and search engine optimisation.

Some online retailers use business intelligence tools to analyse historical data relating to site visits, for example. But those that can use real-time information from live web or call centre sessions to gain insight into what customers want are better able to exploit cross-selling opportunities and create highly responsive personalised marketing campaigns, for example.

“There is still a lot of work to be done on the underlying algorithms for analysing e-transactional types of application,” says Butler’s Eager. “You can do web site analysis to determine who is looking at what, but the most innovative use is in predictive analytics that look at where people go, what they are looking at and the volume of activity to try to predict what they are going to do next.”

Gartner’s Davison says retailers know the benefits that real-time analytics technology can deliver in terms of identifying customer behaviour and coming up with targeted offers to get them buying, both online and in-store. But the current economic climate is not conducive to investment in this sort of application.

“The past six months have seen many retailers focus on keeping the lights on and trying to do more with less – in many cases this sort of software is the icing on the cake when they are just trying to get the basic infrastructure right first,” he says.

The same is true when it comes to harnessing the latest Web 2.0 tools for advertising and CRM purposes. Many companies, including Dell and Coca-Cola, have created pages on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, largely as a way to increase brand awareness and improve customer relationships by inviting feedback.

But social networking sites are just one pathway that a new generation of internet shoppers is using to get information about products and services – blogs, tweets, social messaging and other Web 2.0 technologies all play their part. The question for retailers is whether they want or need to be in control of that for customer segmentation, merchandising or advertising purposes.

“Most retailers are concerned about the number of touch points the shopper has, but the customer is bombarded with information, and retailers have to know if it is worth tracking them,” says Davison.

Read about hair grooming company GHD's analytics upgrade in our case study

In the final part of our guide, industry experts will give examples of best practice in e-commerce

Case study: GHD

Martin Courtney — 2009-07-14T11:13:00.000Z

Martin Courtney, Computing, Tuesday 14 July 2009 at 11:13:00

Analytics upgrade ensures hair grooming firm is a cut above

GHD sells hair straighteners, hairstyling accessories and finishing products around the world, and has an annual turnover of more than £100m.

Much of the company’s rapid growth from a humble UK startup in 2001 has been down to its ability to analyse customers’ online behaviour to maximise the impact of promotions and marketing campaigns, says GHD internet solutions manager Spencer Hudson.

Having previously used various combinations of traditional web analytics packages and in-house applications for this purpose, GHD installed a new analytics application from Speed-Trap around 12 months ago following a six-month consultation.

Speed-Trap uses Web 2.0 technology to analyse interaction at the user interface to provide real-time data on visitors.

“The previous system, Hitbox [now Omniture] was not accurate enough, and its ability to change with the business was very limited,” says Hudson. “The manual tagging required to deal with certain queries or theories was considerable and we had to use a log file system to log in and review what was happening.”

The Speed-Trap software records and monitors a much wider variety of data from people accessing the GHD web site from any device, providing information on the browser in use, the pages and sites they previously visited, and so on.

“It helps us to understand what is happening on the site, so we can accurately forecast what is going to happen in the future,” says Hudson. “So we know that if we spend ‘x’ amount on marketing, we can predict the exact revenue that will bring; run that promotion for that month and convert sales at this rate, for example.”

Since Speed Trap was installed, the company estimates that unit sales on ghdhair.com have increased by 178 per cent, with visitor numbers up 57 per cent and average site conversion (visits to sales) up from 1.65 to 2.65 per cent.

GHD is also looking at ways it can better use Speed-Trap to analyse the way its customers access multimedia content, including Flash-based graphics and video.

Read about the latest e-commerce technology in our Definitive Guide

E-commerce case study: Agent Provocateur

Lisa Kelly — 2009-07-07T11:57:00.000Z

Lisa Kelly, Computing, Tuesday 7 July 2009 at 11:57:00

Lingerie firm gets intimate with its customers

Agent Provocateur, the luxury lingerie retailer, is preparing for a site relaunch in September that will address usability issues, strengthen online brand identity and intensify its customer focus.

“The site redesign is customer-led to improve the online experience and create better customer journeys,” says Catherine Hall, an e-commerce specialist from Tela Consulting who has been brought in as e-commerce project leader for the company.

The redesigned site will be optimised for search engines, which should increase its visibility for potential customers. But Hall believes usability and search engine optimisation go hand in hand.

“If you do usability well, you automatically enhance search engine optimisation,” she says.

The update should make the web site easier to navigate and more intuitive for users through improved content and structure with more key words on the page.

“The business is focusing on e-commerce as a major part of its strategy going forward, with sponsorship from the highest level as the company’s chairman is involved in the e-commerce steering group,” says Hall.

In the past, the site has been overtaken by seasonal campaigns at the expense of brand identity, which is something Hall plans to tackle.

“It felt like a redesign and a new web site with each campaign, which we want to avoid in the future. Customers have a great experience in the shop and are immersed in the world of Agent Provocateur. We need to be sure the online environment reflects that,” she says.

The site already uses technologies such as Twitter and has a Facebook presence, but there are plans to develop social technologies further.

“We’re looking to further enhance our social media strategy, building on the uses of social networking sites, with a view to starting our own blog. We aim to engage in every way with visitors,” says Hall.

Gaining a better insight into customer preferences through more extensive use of social tools should help to boost Agent Provocateur’s online sales. “We want to learn as much as we can about customers and how and why they buy online by putting them right at the centre of what we are doing, delighting them and giving them what they want,” says Hall.

As the company gets to know its online customers better, it wants to merge this knowledge with offline buying patterns.

“We want to get a single view of the customer. At the moment we have a retail customer database and an online customer database and we need to tie them up by having one master database. There is an ongoing project to define what the master database should be,” she says.

Read how UK-based online retailer Glasses Direct is enjoying double-digit growth and how an enhanced search engine helps Evans Cycles to peddle more bikes

Case study: Evans Cycles races to web success

Lisa Kelly — 2009-07-07T11:56:00.000Z

Lisa Kelly, Computing, Tuesday 7 July 2009 at 11:56:00

Enhanced search engine helps Evans to peddle more bikes

Bicycle retailer Evans Cycles has long had a web presence to complement its chain of high-street stores, but today it is looking to drive up online sales and attract more customers to its web store.

“The cycle-buying process is complex as a lot of decisions have to be made and we have different types of users with different needs,” says Ben Hart, head of e-commerce and marketing for Evans Cycles. “Some will use the site for research and come into stores armed with information. Others will look at products online, but want to talk to an expert, while those who know a lot about cycling will make their purchases online.”

The integration of online and offline sales is what differentiates Evans from competitors, says Hart. As part of that integration, Evans Cycles has a consistent pricing policy for the web and the high street.

“It creates a lot of confusion if offers are online only and causes a headache for staff,” says Hart.

“Around 20 per cent of our sales are through e-commerce and we are experiencing strong revenue growth online.”

Any spike in site visitors needs to translate into sales and the company has recently completed the integration of behavioural merchandising software from Avail Intelligence to help improve the onsite search function.

The software uses previous searches and buying patterns to generate lists of recommendations to new visitors doing searches.

Hart believes that users have become conditioned to search being an integral feature of a web site, increasing the pressure to get it right.

“Users don’t tend to browse anymore. Google has set the standard and the expectations for search are high. People expect to be able to type in a random phrase and see decent results,” says Hart.

The software has not been in use long enough to measure its effectiveness, but Hart says the core metrics will be conversion rates from browsing and cross-selling suggestions into purchases.

“We will use Google Analytics to track how many more people find products and buy them,” he says.

Further plans for the site include marrying the shop and online view of the customer.

“They are currently separate as the site is technically separate from systems in stores. In 2010 we want a new electronic point of sale system, warehousing system and call centre based on Microsoft’s Navision enterprise resource planning software to address that,” says Hart.

Read how UK-based online retailer Glasses Direct is enjoying double-digit growth and how Agent Provocateur gets intimate with its customers

A vision fulfilled: Retail growth through e-commerce

Lisa Kelly — 2009-07-07T11:55:00.000Z

Lisa Kelly, Computing, Tuesday 7 July 2009 at 11:55:00

UK-based online retailer Glasses Direct is enjoying double-digit growth thanks to an e-commerce strategy that is innovative, forward looking – and highly cost effective

Boarded-up windows and closing down sales have become common features on high streets up and down the UK, as consumers continue to tighten their purse strings. But not all retailers are mired in the gloom. Online spectacle retailer Glasses Direct continues to grow, and it credits its success to a commitment to offering value for money and high levels of customer service – both of which are dependent on the creativity of its in-house IT team.

“Despite the recession, business is good. Glasses are not a luxury and with some high street stores giving quotes of about £200 for a pair of glasses, many customers come to us for value,” says Matthew Pontefract, chief technical officer at Glasses Direct. “Each product is bespoke and we use technology to ensure that it is what the customer wants. Uptake rates only increase if we provide the exact glasses and lenses in the first place.”

Pontefract says that sales targets are being maintained and year-on-year growth is “in the high tens of per cent,” but this success is founded on a clear-sighted e-commerce strategy, which focuses on what needs to be done in-house and what can be outsourced.

“I have an in-house team of eight people and we look at where we should be doing work and where we should be outsourcing to give a client the best experience,” says Pontefract.

A dedicated team of opticians check prescriptions and is available to discuss customers’ needs, while technology works to enhance the buying process. An order system automatically flags up any potential problem early on so it can be dealt with promptly and double-checked by a Glasses Direct optician.

Glasses Direct is also acutely aware of the need to streamline operations, and has embraced IT outsourcing through a hosting partnership with NTT Europe Online. The deal allows the firm to keep costs of maintaining its web presence down, while ensuring site availability and scalability as it grows.

“Five years ago, we had a smaller hosting partner on one box, typical of a startup business. We needed to move to a solid hosting platform, which could grow with the company and allow us to expand into other countries. NTT Europe Online provides us with reliable hosting that can scale up,” says Pontefract.

Hosting deal to support global expansion

That scalability will be tested further as the company expands operations into Europe and the US. “When we expand outside the UK, we don’t want different hosts in many datacentres, so we need a content delivery network we can switch on easily. NTT Europe Online has dedicated fibre around the world so we do not have to deploy physical hardware all over the place, which would be expensive and inefficient,” says Pontefract.

The UK operation will act as a blueprint, but e-commerce in new territories must comply with local regulations.

“We sell a medical product and will have to go through each country’s legal and local issues regarding dispensing. It will not be a simple cookie-cutter process,” says Pontefract.

In the longer term, expansion could also include a shift to cloud computing services, says Pontefract, as it may be suitable for a business with geographically dispersed users.

“Running our site primarily in the cloud could be a viable option provided cost, management and security constraints could all be satisfied, but we would certainly also have some fixed infrastructure,” he says.

While Glasses Direct is committed to providing high levels of customer service, competing online inevitably creates pressure to keep costs low. That, in turn, has persuaded Pontefract of the benefits of open-source technology: the firm’s e-commerce platform runs on Solaris, web pages are written in the PHP scripting language which works with a MySQL database, and its web server is Apache.

But for Pontefract, the most important benefit of open source is the support.

“You can have service-level agreements (SLAs) with a software vendor with spe cified response times, but you have to pay for it. If there is an open-source problem, I can Google it and in half an hour the problem is solved,” he says.

Keeping costs down where possible by outsourcing and using open-source technology leaves the internal IT team to concentrate on where it can add value, he says.

“E-commerce technology is very commoditised. My team focuses on where it can make a difference to the user, which increases the conversion rate from browsing to sales. We also create tools for the business internally as they are our clients as well,” says Pontefract.

The site has a “virtual mirror” where potential customers can upload a photo of themselves and “try on” different glasses to help buying decisions and the tool has gone through several versions to improve usability.

“Each product is bespoke so it takes time, but we try to make the buying process as painless as possible. We tweak the site to improve the user experience and increase sales by putting together a package that makes sense,” says Pontefract.

Email campaigns are of vital importance to a purely online business and Glasses Direct uses Mailtrack’s ProDigital marketing platform to target customers with offers.

“The technology exploits our email database very effectively and our marketing manager spends a lot of time using it to realise promotional ideas. We are finding new ways to understand different demographics based on order history,” says Pontefract.

Attracting the customer’s eye is one thing, but even if it translates to a sale, the intensely personal experience of wearing glasses means that some customers will change their mind.

To overcome this problem, the company has recently launched a home-trial scheme where customers can order up to four frames for trial. This brings its own challenges from a technical perspective.

Managing the supply chain

“Warehouse management is a very big concern for us. Our order management system is bespoke and we have bent it to our particular needs and processes. The home-trial scheme meant we had to upgrade it so that orders did not go straight into fulfilment. It is an efficient system and we have the skills to support it, but we will keep an eye on what is going on in the market. I guard against having all bespoke systems so that we concentrate on what needs to be done in-house,” says Pontefract.

Although reducing the amount of bespoke systems in the business is on his list of priorities, Pontefract says that an enterprise resource planning system such as SAP is too costly. He is doing other things to improve supply chain optimisation and order management.

“We have a supply chain manager who looks at how we can optimise the supply chain. We have recently bought an industrial edger, which cuts pre-made lenses to fit glasses,” he says.

“The aim is to speed up delivery, cut costs and improve quality control. Our aim is to fulfil orders within 28 days and we often do so in under 10 days.”

Looking into the future, Pontefract is keen for the web site to harness the power of social networking.

“Buying glasses is a social experience and we want the site to reflect that. For example, we use Twitter and the home-trial scheme is an example of bringing the social experience into the physical world. We will continue to look for other opportunities to enhance this aspect,” says Pontefract.

Read how Agent Provocateur and Evans Cycles have both used e-commerce to improve their online strategies

In part three we will explore how technology can be used to maintain a competitive edge online

Beware the spin as politics meets IT

Computing — 2009-07-09T07:30:00.000Z

Computing, Computing, Thursday 9 July 2009 at 07:30:00

IT professionals should make sure political IT promises are questioned

In the last few General Elections, Computing has not been alone in hoping that the leading political parties give technology a pivotal role in their manifestos.

Next year - assuming Gordon Brown doesn’t surprise everyone with an autumn poll -we might finally get our wish.

Labour’s Digital Britain strategy is central to the party’s plans for economic recovery, job creation, and digital infrastructure, as minister Pat McFadden explains in the latest issue of Computing.

Meanwhile, the Tories seem to be positively all over technology. The party said last week it plans to use IT to make government more open, transparent and accessible to the public.

“For all politicians, the question now is, do they understand how technology is changing people’s expectations?” said shadow science and innovation minister Adam Afriyie.

And this week we heard again that the Conservatives want to look at how electronic patient records can be hosted online by the likes of Google and Microsoft, a concept first touted by David Cameron in April.

It is good to hear the benefits of IT being so widely debated, but still the concerns linger - and in particular, how naive politicians’ expectations for technology seem to be.

Tony Blair rightly saw that IT-enabled change was the key to transforming public services and his government set out down that road with enthusiasm. But it soon discovered that delivery was a rather more complex affair.

There are sure to be votes and certainly attractive national newspaper headlines to be gained by populist ideas such as giving electronic patient records to Google.

But as the NHS is finding, introducing electronic records is a massively complex task, and just by stamping the names Google or Microsoft all over them does not make them any cheaper, easier, or more likely to succeed.

We look forward to IT taking its rightful place as a policy battleground, but let’s hope the UK’s IT professionals are offered a chance to keep the promises grounded in reality.

"We will ensure Britain remains at the forefront of the digital revolution"

Pat McFadden — 2009-07-09T06:45:00.000Z

Pat McFadden, Computing, Thursday 9 July 2009 at 06:45:00

As new trials of superfast broadband get under way, minister Pat McFadden explains the government’s digital vision

Look around and you will see that we are already living and working in a digital nation. Our financial institutions, industries, public services, transport networks and energy grids all rely, in one way or another, on digital infrastructures. At home too, many of us take for granted the technology that gives unprecedented access to entertainment, goods and services and a wide range of social networks.

Following progress inconceivable 10 years ago, Britain is one of the most advanced digital economies in the world. The digital sectors now account for £1 in every £10 that the economy produces every year. Many of our digital and communications companies rank among the most creative and successful globally. And the UK’s sophisticated and technologically advanced consumers help to drive trends worldwide.

But we cannot afford to be complacent. The scale and importance of digital communications to 21st century prosperity is reflected in the focus of our counterparts abroad. Australia is creating a nationwide high-speed communications network; high-speed broadband and smart grid technology formed an important part of the US administration’s recent stimulus programme.

Elsewhere in Europe, Germany, Finland and France have all adopted national broadband or wider digital strategies. The economic downturn has also brought into focus the need to concentrate investment in areas that will create jobs and wealth for generations to come.

The Digital Britain report, published on 16 June 2009, set out the government’s plan to sustain the country’s position as a leading digital economy. A Digital Britain will be fundamental to building Britain’s future creating modern infrastructure, upgrading skills capabilities, converting research and innovation into market-leading products and services and establishing smarter and more joined-up government. We believe this will result in a stronger, fairer and more innovative society.

To achieve this, we need to ensure that all those who want to participate have the capability to do so. We are taking a number of steps on that front. First, we are committed to providing universal service broadband at 2Mbit/s by 2012. This is a floor for connectivity, not a ceiling for ambition, and it goes further than any country in Europe has on universality. Second, recent months have seen an energetic market-led rollout of next-generation, superfast fixed networks. But it is clear that, unaided, this will not provide superfast broadband to the final third of the population. So, we have proposed an extra 50p charge on all fixed copper lines to help ensure that next-generation broadband is delivered to the third of the country where, currently, the market will not reach on its own.

Another pivotal element of the strategy is to increase the online delivery of public services for individuals and businesses which will require both universality of availability and universality of participation. At present, the take-up of e-government services by individuals is only slightly higher than the European average and take-up by businesses, particularly small and medium-sized companies, is slightly below average. In establishing universal broadband, the potential benefits of e-government are enormous not least the opportunity for businesses and startups to comply with government regulation online, or to achieve cost efficiencies by using the internet to communicate with customers.

However, these measures will only reach their full potential if we can ensure that the entire population is empowered to access and use digital media. It is important that we have enough people with the right skills in the right place and at the right time to develop and apply the new technologies. Our aim is to drive UK digital skills into the top three globally. To achieve this, we will invest in skills and learning so that the healthy pipeline of talent starts in primary school and carries on through to university and beyond.

We endorse the view of the Rose Review of the curriculum, which recommends upgrading IT to a core competence alongside English, maths and personal development. At secondary level, major government reforms coming into force in the next year will mean a much greater emphasis on applying digital knowledge in a real-life context. The new diplomas for 14 to 19-year-olds in IT and creative and media will help swell the numbers of those entering the professional digital workforce with the desired mix of practical and transferable skills, industry knowledge and

business awareness.

I believe that as a government we can play a critical role in establishing the framework needed to create and sustain a modern digital economy and society. But I also have little doubt that much of the Digital Britain vision will be achieved by the hard work, expertise and creativity of the digital and communications industries themselves.

By working in partnership, thinking strategically and acting proactively, we will ensure that Britain maintains its place at the forefront of the global digital revolution.

Pat McFadden is minister for business, innovation and skills

Stop your virtual meeting turning into a video nasty

Nigel Hawthorn — 2009-07-09T02:00:00.000Z

Nigel Hawthorn, Computing, Thursday 9 July 2009 at 02:00:00

The impact of videoconferencing on existing networks should not be underestimated, says Nigel Hawthorn

Organisations have been seduced by the promise of videoconferencing technology for decades. But it was not until the late 1990s, when compression technology allowed companies to send real-time video messages, complete with sound, across a network that it was taken seriously within the workplace. Even then, latency made regular conversations almost impossible. Indeed, the quality was so bad that often you wouldn’t even recognise the other participants in the street afterwards.

However, with today’s budget constraints and our environmental awareness, videoconferencing is being hailed as a cost-saving and green measure.

Many boardrooms in the City are already looking to follow HSBC’s lead in going carbon-neutral. The global banking giant started deploying virtual boardrooms in its major global offices last year.

The problem is, advances in videoconferencing place performance demands on an organisation’s network. It must serve multiple functions to ensure a high-quality user experience that is essential for future adoption and continued use.

Many firms, however, fail to assess the network’s readiness for videoconferencing and are unable to provide adequate bandwidth for each session. In addition, organisations also lack the ability to proactively monitor their quality. This approach can lead to improper management of videoconferencing, resulting in excessive bandwidth use or network congestion that prevents other business-critical applications such as Oracle from running properly.

The good news is that there are now appliances available on the market that can ensure quality videoconferencing sessions over existing networks while protecting the quality of other applications. There are also applications that can ease the burden of running live video over the network.

In turbulent economic times, organisations must make sure that they have the best solutions in place so that video applications achieve the necessary levels of scale and quality.

Nigel Hawthorn is a BCS contributor

Lessons to learn from down under

John Higgins — 2009-07-09T01:00:00.000Z

John Higgins, Computing, Thursday 9 July 2009 at 01:00:00

Australia is well ahead of the game in creating the right environment for a digital economy

“Forty-three billion dollars! How did you persuade your fellow cabinet ministers to agree to that scale of investment in 100Mbit/s broadband to every home and business in the country?” This was my first question to Stephen Conroy, Australia’s digital economy minister, when I met him in his office at the start of my trip to the country.

I was there at the request of Intellect’s Australian sister organisation, the AIIA, and with the support of the Australian federal government.

The purpose of the trip was to push forward industry-government discussions on the reforms proposed following the review of federal government IT that Sir Peter Gershon carried out last year. In the UK, our joint government-industry work began in earnest when Sir Peter was the chief of the Office of Government Commerce.

Key achievements have included Intellect’s Supplier Code of Conduct and the Concept Viability service, an approach that has enabled more than 50 ideas from government departments to be cheaply and easily tested with Intellect’s members at a very early stage in their development.

We are now working with government on identifying realistic ways of delivering the 20 per cent annual cost savings target set out in the recent Treasury review. The benefit of coming to these things later, as is the case in Australia, is that you can learn from others’ successes and failures. Hence the work of the Australian government and the AIIA following a recent workshop in Canberra.

The plans will probably include developing a joint IT industry-government code of conduct an advance on the UK, where we only have an industry code. The code will be richer too, incorporating policies on intellectual property and limits of liability, for example. There also seems to be more joint commitment to make it stick right across industry and government, in contrast to the UK where the government’s demand for industry adherence has been patchy.

It also seems likely that an Australian Concept Viability service will be developed. Initiatives on green IT (and IT for green government) and efficient use of IT (cost saving, in other words) are among other likely outcomes.

Maximising opportunities to stimulate the local IT industry, which government spending on IT presents, is certainly on the agenda of the federal government. But perhaps it is more sharply felt at state level. At a meeting in Melbourne with

the government of Victoria we heard about a very successful panel the equivalent of a framework agreement in the UK.

The panel is very popular with government and the local IT community and I can see why: savings to industry of A$37m (£18m), to government of A$9m, 75 per cent of the business awarded to local small firms and the ability for companies to apply to be accredited to the panel at any time. Tellingly, one senior government official had responsibility for both the successful use of IT in the government and the health of the local industry.

So what about the 100Mbit/s Australian National Broadband Network? A company, in which the government will retain a controlling interest, has been formed to begin the work. Fibre should begin to be laid in the first region, Tasmania, this month and is scheduled to take a year. The whole rollout should take eight years or so. Look out for the first business book charting the stormy relationship between the incumbent telco, Telstra, and the Australian federal government that, in many ways, laid the foundations for the plan.

I hope though that it will eventually be a story of a visionary government taking a big bet on a connected continent.

John Higgins is director general of Intellect, the trade association for the UK IT industry. Read the blog here

We are all in this together

Martin Atherton — 2009-07-08T18:47:00.000Z

Martin Atherton, Computing, Wednesday 8 July 2009 at 18:47:00

To achieve effective business-IT alignment, senior decision-makers must first suppress their territorial instincts

Can we please everyone when it comes to IT? Most businesses, regardless of their size, will have an opinion on that question. Where IT is seen as a partner or business enabler, the answer is “yes” or “probably”, with caveats. It’s “no” or “never” where IT is seen as a cost to be controlled and does not have opportunities to support the business in the right places.

However, when seeking the right balance between business performance and financial harmony in relation to IT, the size of the business concerned is a critical factor. This is not because of requirements or degrees of sophistication the latest IT developments are removing the link between IT strategy and size of business but because individual decisions count for relatively so much more in smaller businesses. There is also less insulation between individual departments and business leaders, and financial controllers are in much closer proximity to one another.

Before we address how these relationships might impact the way IT is harnessed today, let us briefly review the opportunities that businesses have to exploit it more effectively.

Organisations seeking to improve IT’s contribution to the business will likely find their own opportunities in each of the imperatives highlighted. Here are a few examples:

Three ways of optimising IT:

Server virtualisation
Desktop management
Systems management

Three ways of optimising the way IT is used:

Application training
Power and waste management
Implementing basic IT governance

Three ways of enabling business efficiency:

Get people better connected
Make smarter use of the web
Unlock the value in your information assets

The items above need no further explanation to IT managers, but driving the top line is another matter, perhaps. When cost reduction becomes a major focal point, there is the danger of losing sight of what really matters. Businesses can cut costs and make efficiency savings, but without effective sales and marketing activity they cannot flourish.

Fortunately, this side of business is a prime candidate for improvement through more effective use of IT. It is communication- and time-sensitive, repetitive and formulaic. It can benefit from improvements in all the areas outlined above as well as being a target area in its own right.

For example, IT could drive better operational consistency through user training or exploring unified communications. Driving efficiencies here could involve revamping the company web site, implementing basic business intelligence performance metrics, or “closing the loop” around customer relationship management by building a single view of the customer across product development, marketing and sales.

Most businesses will already have a pretty good idea where they could make some IT-supported improvements to their business. The question is, can they, and does the economic climate and the close-knit environment of small businesses lend itself to making the most from IT?

The first thing to acknowledge is that the right balance between all these elements will not be achieved by accident. During planning, disproportionate representation of one area leadership or ownership, operations, finance or IT over another is likely to create a skew in how IT is perceived and used by the business. The chances are that this dynamic is already established in your organisation. The important question is: can improvements be made for the good of the business instead of being beholden to a particular influencer in the business?

Again, the answer could be “yes, with a few caveats”. The caveats are not technical, but they do involve each stakeholder acknowledging the others’ priorities and goals. The finance director wants to control costs, the operations director wants a slick and efficient business, the owner wants to turn a profit.

As we have already discussed, there are opportunities for IT to make a positive impact across all these domains. Hence, the common goal the good health of the business is the focal point to bring different stakeholders together to prioritise what’s best for the business, instead of taking a course of action that only suits one particular stakeholder’s view.

In the current economic climate - a phrase you must be heartily sick of by now no business can afford to avoid this critical, and possibly difficult, conversation.

Martin Atherton is research director at analyst Freeform Dynamic. Read the blog at: http://freeform.computing.co.uk