industry news
CONTACT CENTRE PROFESSIONALS
MISSING KEY CLOUD OPPORTUNITIES,
SUGGESTS NEW RESEARCH
New research conducted by Aspect Software has found that while
the majority of contact centres are using cloud to some extent,
adoption for many is relatively superficial.
According to Aspect, while the data shows the industry going in the
right direction, the truly transformative benefits of the delivery model
for customer engagement and agent productivity will only be unlocked
when contact centres migrate more of their operations to the cloud.
Aspect surveyed 100 senior contact centre professionals in the UK
to better understand their priorities for their centres over the coming
year and their uptake of, and appetite for, cloud based services. It
found that roughly eight in 10 (78 per cent) are using cloud to some
extent, with the channel most likely to have been migrated being email,
in 60 per cent of cases, and voice (54 per cent). However, cloud
adoption in other channels remains low; just 23 per cent have migrated
SMS to cloud, 13 per cent have deployed cloud based web chat, and
only 27 per cent manage their mobile Apps in the cloud.
Launch of new suite of
dedicated insurance products
for the data centre sector
Insurance broker Ernest R Shaw has teamed up with DCA Trade
Association and technical cleaning and data centre healthcare
business 8 Solutions to launch a dedicated insurance proposition
specifically designed for the data centre sector.
The launch follows a 12 month consultation between Ernest
R Shaw, 8 Solutions, and the Data Centre Alliance (DCA). The
task was to identify and agree a best practice framework to
underpin this new offering. Businesses that adopt and meet this
best practice in the future could then qualify for a lower insurance
premium, underwritten by Allianz Insurance, one of the largest
insurers in the UK and part of the Allianz SE Group.
Steve Hone, CEO of the DCA Trade Association, commented,
‘Recognising and rewarding data centres who demonstrate best
practice is at the heart of this initiative. Data centres who have
been independently audited under the DCA certification scheme
and or end users who choose to host in data centres which have
achieved this accreditation can now all benefit from this new
range of insurance products and services which have been tailor
made to support the data centre sector and its users.’
10
IN BRIEF
A new white paper on data
centre optimisation from
Chatsworth Products (CPI)
warns that a revolution
currently taking place in the
data centre environment
requires data centre
managers to urgently rethink
their strategies. The white
paper, titled, ‘Data Centre
Optimisation: A Guide to
Creating Better Efficiency and
Improving Rack Heat Density
in Air Cooled Facilities’
explores ways that data
centres can operate more
efficiently and cost effectively
and provides guidance on a
best practice approach for
the modern data centre.
Agilitas has been awarded
accreditation from Lenovo
to be its UK and Republic of
Ireland strategic part sales
distributor partner for DCG.
At the moment, Lenovo
enterprise customers,
which include IT resellers,
managed service providers
and end user businesses,
are required to go through
IBM part sales in Amsterdam
to get hold of official server
and storage parts. The
accreditation will see Agilitas
take on this role, providing a
local UK presence that will
see the company ensure a
quicker and more effective
UK centric service.
Cloudian has announced
the opening of a new EMEA
demonstration facility in
Amsterdam. Located in the
thriving Zuid-Oost region
of central Amsterdam, the
centre will be hosted within
Switch Datacenters’ state-ofthe-art facility and will enable
Cloudian to provide proofof-concept demonstrations
locally. Fuelled by UK and
EU customer demand for its
100 per cent native S3 object
storage solutions, the launch
of the new EU demonstration
centre marks an important
milestone in Cloudian’s
EMEA expansion. It follows
on the heels of Cloudian’s
recent additions to its EMEA
team across Netherlands,
Germany and the UK.
XPATJobs has launched its
new online IT specific jobs
board which allows users
to search for, and place,
new jobs and find the skilled
professionals they need no
matter where in the world
they are based, all via a
single portal. findajobinit.
com is a one-stop-shop that
links skilled professionals
in the technology sector
with IT organisations across
the world. Supported by
the company’s XPATJobs.
com site, which sees
100,000 jobs posted each
day, findajobinit.com will
provide employers and hiring
managers with access to a
network of more than one
million registered jobseekers
across 150 countries.