Tag Archives: technology

Does BYOD Have Real Value For Business?

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By Ian Callens from IT service, support and solutions provider Icomm Technologies

 

It’s great that so many businesses are embracing new technology and looking for new ways to engage their workforce.  Indeed industry research shows 81% of companies now accommodate personal devices in the office, whilst 54% have formalised ‘bring you own device’ (BYOD) policies.

BYOD is clearly here to stay and this is being driven by perceived business rewards of a more flexible, mobile and agile workforce driven by the workforce.  However, BYOD is a subject trying to force a wedge between finance and IT, where finance sees cost benefits and IT views the enormous security, support and implementation issues.  Continue reading →

Creating IT Heroes

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By Nathan Pearce, F5’s Senior Technical Marketing Manager

As an IT professional, technology evolution can be a blessing and a curse.

The constant conveyor belt of new products mean you have potentially a huge arsenal of tools at your disposal. But the demands of the business and the difficulties of where to place your technology bets means you’re constantly facing difficult decisions.

At the moment, we’re experiencing the most accelerated pace of IT change we’ve ever known. Cloud computing, big data / analytics, mobile and social are transforming the way we work and the way our businesses operate.

Yet, there remains a sentiment in some quarters that the IT department has lost influence in the business in recent years, is unreliable or is a barrier to progress, lacking the necessary knowledge to tackle and implement new solutions and infrastructures efficiently. Continue reading →

Flash: Enabling the “Mission-Critical Business”

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By Brian Feller, VP & GM EMEA, Whiptail

Imagine how your business might benefit if you processed 1,000 more transactions per second. If you concluded an analysis 20 minutes sooner. If a batch processing job was reduced from eight hours to two – or even less.

Those are some of the benefits offered by flash storage for business applications and data, as opposed to traditional mechanical, hard disk-drive storage devices.  It’s a fundamental business transition from selecting some applications to push towards peak performance into an enterprise where every application accelerates to its maximum potential. Flash enables a high performance “mission critical business,” which efficiently manages data center resources while leveraging personnel more effectively. Continue reading →

Private vs. Public- why private offers more advantage

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By Darren Briscoe, Technical Director at Comms-care

 

Not a day goes by without another story about cloud computing. With so many companies looking to outsource their IT maintenance to save money, cloud offers a flexible and cost effective way to run an organisation. But cloud computing is a business model that few organisations understand fully. For a start, the ‘cloud world’ is a divided one, in that there are two different types of cloud environments: private and public. Both offer many benefits, but there are big differences between the two – particularly when it comes to data protection. Continue reading →

Bricks and mortar retail leading the way over ecommerce in 2013?

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By Kirill Gorynya, CEO of Synqera

 

Experts argue that this year bricks may be more powerful than clicks as many online-only retailers take the example of retail stores by unveiling a series of ‘pop-up’ shops. Kirill Gorynya, CEO of technology company Synqera explores the turnaround in shopping preferences and what retailers can do to secure loyal customers during this potentially buoyant period. Continue reading →

What Is Cloud Faxing?

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By Trish Gilson, Senior Sales Consultant, SecureCare Technologies, Inc

Many people are familiar with the decades-old system of faxing. It is a tried and tested system of sending and receiving information in real-time from contacts on the other end of the phone line. For security, audit and compliance reasons, many fax machines survived the evolution of email. But more and more people are now ditching their fax machines in favour of internet-based solutions like fax-to-email and secure cloud-based fax. Continue reading →

Hospitality technology must stop living in the dark ages

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By Jerry Brand, Managing Director at F&B technology firm, Caternet 

Tough economic challenges normally means increased consumer demand for higher quality but lower priced goods and services. For the hospitality business, this means that whilst the opportunities are high, making good profit margins is getting harder by the day.

Additionally, when it comes to supportive technology, the hospitality sector has historically been far behind other industries. Why? This is due to a mixture of development cost, available technologies to create more sophisticated solutions, and a fear of adoption by management. Where technology has moved forward, it has been financially-driven, predominantly in epos-based (electronic point of sale) technologies. To date, software related to food & beverage (F&B) management and the supply chain have been very poorly invested in. Continue reading →

How do you make staff more productive?

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By Phil Jones, UK Country head, Brother UK

 

How about asking them not to come in to the office on a Friday? What about offering flexible working hours?

It may seem counter intuitive to ask employees to spend fewer hours in the office; however a flexible working culture can actually increase productivity as well as reduce costs.

Business is increasingly taking place wherever and whenever, and so the norm of 9-5 office hours is fast becoming an outdated concept. The global mobile workforce, which is set to hit 1.3bn in 2015,* is growing rapidly as both employees and employers recognise the benefits. Continue reading →

Social business is not about technology (but technology can be the spark)

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By Johan Zetterström, CEO at Projectplace

 

Gartner Inc. recently announced its social business predictions for the coming years (Predicts 2013: Social and Collaboration Go Deeper and Wider), and estimates that through 2015, 80 per cent of social business efforts will not achieve the intended benefits due to inadequate leadership and an overemphasis on technology. According to Gartner, businesses need to realise that social initiatives are different from previous technology deployments.

From my perspective, social business stretches way beyond just the technical platform, and needs to be addressed from a much broader perspective. While available technologies can work as a catalyst and hold the potential to accelerate an organisation’s reach, impact and effectiveness–and willingness to change–it won’t do much for a rigid, hierarchical organisation where an increased flow of information is considered a threat. So, stating that, what is social business really about? Continue reading →