Intelligent Things | Probrand Magazine

Issue 2

INTELLIGENT THINGS

INNOVATION THROUGHOUTSOURCING Danny Bradbury Page 30

INTRODUCING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATIONPaul MaherPage 32

CCS TALKS TECHNOLOGYPRODUCTSGary FloodPage 27

What will future technologyproductslook like?

PAGE 6

OUR INNOVATION

OUR COMMITMENT

OUR INTEGRITY

Probrand Group consists of three award-winning businesses specialising in IT Products, IT Services and Software.

Whether youre looking to save time and money buying IT products, get more from your IT with services or transform the way you work with innovative applications, we have a specialist dedicated to meeting your needs. Let us help you thrive with relevant technology.

YOUR TECHNOLOGY PARTNER

THE VALUE IN EVERYTHING WE DO.

[4241/PBG-MAG-AD/20140813/LH]

Reg No. 16

OutstandingIntegratorof the Year

0121 605 1000 | www.probrand.co.uk | @Probrand

Welcome

W ith issue one of our Group Magazine generating positive feedback from private and public sector organisations and all corners of the IT supply chain, Im pleased to introduce issue two. Our aim with

this magazine is to tackle contemporary issues relevant to

commercial, procurement and IT teams, and this time weve

added extra pages of great content from the best IT writers to

help us do it.

Were particularly pleased to provide an exclusive interview with

Crown Commercial Service commercial director of technology,

Sarah Hurrell, on the new ways government will buy IT (p27).

We also hear from Spend Matters editor, Peter Smith, on the

Digital Marketplace (p28).

Technology is transforming the way we work and exist, creating

one connected and seamless communication experience

which is delivering unprecedented opportunity for all - and this

is a major theme we build on.

We discuss the emerging trend of web and mobile apps being

created by non-technical users (p20, 32), and the next wave of

IT innovation.

Applications need infrastructure, end user facing technology

products and great people to complete the picture, however.

So weve dedicated a section (p6) to the intelligent new

products delivering smarter ways of working. We also explore

technology device trends and developments (p11, 12),

the changing landscape of ICT infrastructure (p44) and the

associated security challenges (p34).

When it comes to buying this technology, we appreciate that

many struggle to validate best value on every purchase amid

a highly volatile IT market, where price and stock fluctuate

daily. Thats why we have dedicated sections to the supply

chain (p22) and procurement (p27), exploring strategic issues

and how to secure relevant technology at the best price.

Whatever way you are looking to innovate it is potentially going

to need some form of external support to help you realise your

goals and make that technology work harder for you. With

that in mind, Danny Bradbury investigates innovation through

outsourcing (p30), we also explore integrated mobile strategies

(p15) and examine the increasing opportunities and risks

presented by Bring Your Own Device (p34).

Indeed, the constant pace of rapid technology change is

seeing innovation become the necessary norm - analysts

believe this current period of tech evolution could go on for at

least another decade.

These innovations are seeing us adopt new ways of working,

with quicker, more powerful technology. It is important,

therefore, that businesses are able to replace and refresh

existing tech and drive from the front with the automation of

business processes. The big question is, how do you intend to

seize the moment and innovate in your organisation, what are

your key business and technology priorities? Were keen to

hear your story.

Peter Robbins Managing Director, Probrand Group

Peter Robbins Managing Director, Probrand Group

1 2 3

4 5 6

1. Sir Albert Bore, Birmingham City Council Leader, addresses employees during his visit, 2. Apprentice Mike McQuaid, Lord

Mayor of Birmingham and Peter Robbins, 3. Public sector innovators meet KnowledgeKube at Government ICT 2.0, 4. Peter

Robbins accepts The Queens Award from HRH The Duke of Kent, 5. Apprentice Loren Garbett demonstrates the power of

KnowledgeKube, 6. Commercial Director, Chris Griesbach, champions the Governments Building Britain campaign.

OUR INNOVATION

OUR COMMITMENT

OUR INTEGRITY

Probrand Group consists of three award-winning businesses specialising in IT Products, IT Services and Software.

Whether youre looking to save time and money buying IT products, get more from your IT with services or transform the way you work with innovative applications, we have a specialist dedicated to meeting your needs. Let us help you thrive with relevant technology.

YOUR TECHNOLOGY PARTNER

THE VALUE IN EVERYTHING WE DO.

[4241/PBG-MAG-AD/20140813/LH]

Reg No. 16

OutstandingIntegratorof the Year

0121 605 1000 | www.probrand.co.uk | @Probrand

www.probrand.co.uk

Contact us:

0121 605 1000

[email protected]

Probrand Group Magazine provides news, views, analysis and information on pivotal subjects relevant to IT, procurement and business leaders looking to thrive with technology.

Please get in touch and share your views on any of the subjects tackled or any you would like to read about.

Products

Supply Chain

Business Transformation

Security

DrivingInnovation

Infrastructure

Procurement

News

Probrand Group

Contents

Technology research in brief

The future of technology

Device rethink

IT Product trends for 2015

Tech products forecast

Mobile device strategies arent

just about phones

Handling BYOD

Youve been hacked -

what now?

Security reviewed in

numbers and words

End of the line for

Windows Server 2003

Infrastructure reviewed in

numbers and words

The benefits of private

cloud storage

Changing the infrastructure

landscape

To refresh or not to refresh

The business case for

transformation

Is the Governments ICT reform

agenda paying off?

Getting RAD!

Case Study: Royal

Veterinary College

Did you really get the best

deal possible?

Do sweat the small stuff

Making it easier for government

to buy from SMEs

Assessing the digital

marketplace

Can you really benchmark

with Google?

Innovation through outsourcing

Introducing digital

transformation

05

06

10

11

12

15

34

36

38

40

41

42

44

46

16

18

20

22

24

26

27

28

29

30

32

What we offer48

Probrand Group Magazine 05

News

Technology research in brief

Flexible working could help UK save 11.5bnAllowing people in the UK to work anywhere, at any time could cut half a billion hours in wasted travel time, according to research by Ctirix and Cebr.

The study, which claimed this would lead to cost savings of 11.5bn, also found that 96% would take up the option to work flexibly if it was offered. Jacqueline de Rojas, area vice president for Citrix, said: "Those that choose not to enable workplace mobility will lose out in the war for talent and could arguably suffer from lower employee productivity.

Connected devices to double this decadeThe number of wireless connected devices in use globally will more than double before the end of the decade, an ABI Research study has claimed.

The analyst claimed wireless device growth, which will rise above 40bn by 2020, is being driven by machine to machine communications. Aapo Markkanen, principal analyst at ABI Research, said: The driving force behind the surge in connections is that usual buzzword suspect, the Internet of Things (IoT).

Cloud computing adoption to double by 2020The number of small businesses fully adopting cloud computing will double by 2020, a study by Emergent Research has claimed.

Steve King of Emergent Research. In this new landscape, many people are using the power of the cloud to re-imagine the idea of small business and create new, innovative models that work for their needs. A separate report by IBM has found that 40% of decision makers believe cloud computing has already delivered major improvements in organisational efficiency and provided competitive advantage.

Wi-Fi to be default connection for all devicesWi-Fi is increasingly becoming the default means of connection for both mobile and non-mobile devices, according to Gartner.

The analyst attributed the shift to tablets and smartphones, which it said were fast becoming the go-to device for all communication and content consumption. It predicts that more than 50% of users will use these devices first for all online activity by 2018.

Big Data changing the competitive landscape Almost nine in ten large enterprises believe Big Data analytics will redefine the competitive landscape of their industry over the next three years.

The study by General Electric found that 73% of enterprises are currently investing more than a fifth of their technology budget on Big Data. A separate IDC study has forecast that the storage element of this market alone is expected to experience annual compound growth of 30.5% during the same time period.

Products

06 Probrand Group Magazine

by Danny Bradbury

the future of technology

The future is coming, but what is it going to look like? Danny Bradbury spoke to two market leaders to find out.

F or most people, the future is somewhere off in the distance, shimmering mirage-like, just above the horizon. For Chris Shaw, its already here, just around the corner, in a deserted office.

Intels director of IT sales and marketing for EMEA and Asia downplays the 007 gadgetry. He says that Intel employees dont get to see new technologies much ahead of anyone else. But some of the stories he tells suggest that he gets to visit what most of us consider the future on a daily basis.

Heres an example: Intel has several smart meeting rooms in offices around the world. Any employee can go into the room, swipe their badge against a screen, and bring up their calendar of appointments, he says.

If that employee is talking to someone else in a virtual meeting, the system will automatically connect them via video conference to the appropriate meeting room or other location.

We are orchestrating that using a bunch of technologies, says Shaw. These include

Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and software APIs, developed both internally and with third party vendors.

This is one example of how evolving technologies will change the future for tomorrows businesses. The future of technology is perhaps one of the most exciting places to visit. Both Shaw and Mark Deakin, partner technology strategist for small and medium business at Microsoft, see a lot of potential in IoT, which includes not just industrial controllers and household appliances, but wearables, too.

The Internet of Things

If I have near field communications

(NFC) or a Bluetooth tag, then the house will know that I entered it, says Deakin. In the future, he also sees intelligent systems within buildings that talk to each other, and even to external services. How about a building that automatically turns the heating up when it snows?

This vast array of connected devices, ranging from wristwatches to cars, will revolutionise the business and consumer worlds alike in the next few years, says

Intelligent things


Intels Shaw. In the future, the company hopes to implement other showcase technologies, including one where employees can use meeting rooms that are booked, but not in use.

One technology that were implementing with our IoT sensors is smart sensing for activity and traffic in meeting rooms, he explains. If machines detect that a meeting room has no one in it, it becomes free. Its one of the most requested features among Intel employees.

We are taking our technology and history, the great quality and results from the PC business and reusing the same technologies and techniques, he says.

These devices will transform the way that we interact with everyday objects, experts suggest. Imagine a car not as a single, self-contained entity, but as a collection of services, connected to a universe of others.

We could create incentives for people on a long journey, he says. Their vehicle may know that theyre 20 miles away from a petrol station, and that the level of fuel they have in their vehicle wont take them much past that. You could send them an event-driven alert that provides an offer for money-off fuel if you stop at a fuel station in the next city.

Super-brains for everyone

A key part of this is the cloud, says Deakin, which will provide a back-end processing platform for this constellation of objects and the people that use them.

Having the computing power to process things in the background is a significant development, he says. Things like cloud computing enable the smallest of organisations to pay for that.

In time, the combination of cloud computing and big data analytics will provide new decision-making capabilities for even the smallest businesses, Deakin hopes.

His local pub complains to him that it cant easily predict which days are going to be busy or quiet. This leaves the manager guessing how many staff to put on that day, which in turn affects the pubs ability to make revenue.

Cloud computing will be able to take lots of data thats publicly available, such as traffic and weather information, and combine that with their existing revenue data, he predicts. It may find out that if its May and between 20-25 degrees,

Continued

Products


everyone is going to come out to the pub, but if theres traffic on the M4, even though its sunny, those things combined mean that people wont. Chalk one up for the little guy.

Machines that learnThe next stage in this development will be machine learning, Deakin suggests. If the cloud is good at anything, its using elastic computing power to process large amounts of data in new and innovative ways. This is happening at a microscopic level where machines are able to learn patterns. Googles machine learning algorithms, for example, scanned millions of YouTube videos and learned how to decide what a cat looked like all without human help. Thats a form of artificial intelligence that we have never seen before.

Things will also move beyond that as computers begin to draw inferences from larger, more disparate patterns, such as travel and meeting data, for example. We could use things like image recognition as people walk in to an establishment, so that a business could recognise clients that they saw before, he says. That publican wouldnt even have to ask Bob if he wanted the usual.

Machine learning will be able to make decisions for people, he says. We are already seeing this with systems such as Google Now, and Microsofts own

Cortana, which will notify people if traffic is bad and adjust travel times for upcoming appointments.

In the future, this kind of machine learning technology will become more fine-grained, and able to infer far more than it does today. Imagine, for example, a digital assistant that tracks the kind of information that will probably be needed in a business meeting, including not only past interactions with an attendee, but also information about nearby Asian restaurants, given their like of Korean food.

This kind of intelligence will also transform business processes such as customer service, Deakin says. It could help make companies better at anticipating customer needs. He gives an example of being able to draw data from an online service linked to a customers wearable fitness tracker.

This could lead to some interesting targeted phone calls, he suggests: Youve been practicing for a marathon, so well give you an offer on new trainers in four rather than six months.

The connected dangers

Its clear that this hyperconnected future is coming, but it also brings its dangers. Having computers tell other computers about your daily habits, and then having companies calling you to sell you things

related to them? It all sounds a little too 1984. The human element seems to be missing somewhere. Thats why privacy and identity are going to be so important in the next few years.

This presents vendors with a challenge, because there has always been a tug of war between convenience and security. Whatever happens in that space, whatever we do to put the right levels of controls in place, it will be perceived as bureaucratic, muses Shaw about security, adding that companies need to take advantage of modern technologies to make things more seamless.

Thats the part of this utopian story that seems to be missing. Quite how well protect the sovereignty of our data in this new, hyperconnected world isnt quite clear and it isnt entirely certain that the interests of technology companies and consumers will always be 100% aligned.

Countless newspaper headlines over the last year and a half make a pretty convincing case that we havent even started to get privacy and identity right in the present. As the world advances towards context awareness, artificial intelligence, and computers that know you better than we do ourselves, wed better learn quickly.

Danny Bradbury is a freelance

technology journalist

Continued

How about saving time and money buying IT?

Start buying direct today www.theitindex.co.uk FREE login

Introducing... Europes largest specialist B2B marketplace online150,000 products from 2,500 brands Hourly updated with best price and stock availability

Save up to a day a week in time. Save an average 10% on ICT budgets.

Your personalised procurement experience. Efficient self-service tools match complex needs to choices exactly. Access personalised catalogues, special bids and promotions direct from manufacturers. Buy direct, no re-direct to 3rd party websites.

Lets face itWeve all got better things to do.

[424

1/TH

EITINDEX

-HOSP

ITAL/20

1407

23]Start buying direct today

www.theitindex.co.uk FREE login

Buy direct, no re-direct to 3rd party websites.

[424

1/TH

EITINDEX

-HOSP

ITAL/20

1407

23]

Products


by Gary Price

Gary Price urges people to ask whether the device they are set to buy is really the best tool for the job.

T he range of computing devices we can now choose to work with appears to be endless. It is just down to us to decide the best tool possible.

No longer are we restricted to a desktop or a laptop, we can use a tablet, a phablet, an ultrabook, an all-in-one and more. The list of options is getting bigger all the time.

When making a purchasing decision, people now need to forget about what they knew ten years ago and look at what the vendors are doing today. The question they should be asking is not how much computer can I get with my money? but rather what am I trying to achieve and what is the best tool for that job?

Certain individuals may be stuck in their ways and say that they want a 15 notebook because they have always used a 15 notebook. A procurement professional cannot afford to think that way, however. They have to query whether their

employees actually need that big beast of a workstation with massive computing power, or would they be equally well served by a standard desktop or even a thin client?

Too often organisations will buy devices without suitability in mind. For example, an education institution may buy a set of computers because the colour of the lid matches the colour of the school badge. Businesses also need to be wary of personal egos and internal one-upmanship, which sees individuals within an organisation push for devices that are far more powerful than what is really necessary.

Too much powerBuying too much power is a common theme which results in businesses wasting huge amounts of money. And it happens more than you think.

For example, when vendors are trying to shift stock they may be willing to offer a healthy discount on certain products. A buyer could get the resellers to agree to sell

Device rethink

a bulk order of laptops with i7 processors at 700 per unit rather than 800.

On paper the savings may look impressive. It may well be, however, that the majority of people receiving the laptop would get along fine with a laptop with an i3 processor which would have cost 400 per unit. You could end up with the receptionist, having enormous amounts of computing power that will never come close to full utilisation.

With an endless list of possible tools, it is better for buyers to concentrate on what the end user is trying to achieve before choosing the device. It is also worth thinking about how they will actually use that device. If the business has a cloud storage facility, do they need a terabyte of storage on the computing device? Probably not.

Through a conversation with a trusted reseller, engagement with vendor specialists, or with careful research, buyers can, however, identify the perfect device and achieve large savings in the process.

Gary Price is product and category

manager at Probrand


by Oscar Diamond

Oscar Diamond, of leading market research company GfK, takes a look at the IT product market to review last years trends and forecast where things are likely to go next.

P roduct news in the UK IT market during 2014 was dominated by the dramatic fall in tablet sales. Despite growth across most other sectors this drop was so severe the retail market saw its headline figure decline in value by 3.8%. Although tablets are set to continue falling during 2015, GfK expects technology trends such as mobility and data growth to have an impact in other areas.

TabletsIt is fair to say that this market is now saturated, with most people who want a tablet owning one. Unfortunately innovation seems to have dried up, with most brands only able to offer thinner and faster versions of their existing tablets. As a result tablet sales dropped by 13.3% in volume and 21.8% in value during 2014. Gfk expects this market to decline further in 2015 but this is unlikely to be more than 20% in volume.

DesktopsThe other surprise story of 2014 was a growth in desktop computer sales in the consumer market. Ending seven years of volume decline, this market grew by 21.7% in volume (27.2% in value). This remarkable turnaround, for a product many thought would disappear, has been driven by two factors; demand for productivity and gaming. GfK expects this growth in the consumer market to continue into 2015. On the B2B side,

Tracking IT product trends into 2015

however, the market was down 9.2% in value in 2014 and GfK expects this decline to carry on at a similar pace as the demand for mobile computing continues.

Mobile computing The need for mobility saw the value of the B2B mobile computing market overtake the desktop computing market for the first time in 2014. As workers continue to demand smaller screen sizes and lighter laptops, with greater focus on mobility rather than power, GfK expects further growth in this market - between 1% and 5% during 2015.

The switch to laptops and agile working by large employers has also resulted in growth in the docking station market - 41.5% in value during 2014. This is another trend we would expect to continue this year.

Networking and StorageWith organisations handling an ever increasing amount of data, sales for both networking and storage grew significantly in 2014. The B2B networking sector grew 21.4% in value, while the UK B2B storage market grew by 18.8%. Storage Area Networks (SAN), in particular, saw strong growth - 141.5% in value. GfK expects networking and storage to continue to grow by a similar value - although the SAN growth may remain below 100% this time around.

Demand for lighter more energy efficient laptops, also helped SSD sales grow by 88.6% in value in 2014. GfK expects this trend to continue at a growth rate of 50%+ for 2015.

Saturation, combined with a lack of innovation in the tablet market means the 2014 declines are set to continue

High end desktop sales drove growth in 2014, catalysed by PC gaming and media editing. GfK expects desktops to grow again in 2015,

but the growth will slow down significantly

Peripherals (both gaming and non-gaming) have benefited

from desktop growth to enter strong growth

themselves

All quoted growth rates are 2014 vs. 2013 GfK panelmarket

B2B Networking was in strong growth in 2014 and GfK are expecting this to continue into 2015.

SSD growth continues to dominate the

storage markets, and 2015 will be the year where the B2B SSD market will be worth more than the HDD market

Despite a strong start to 2014 driven by the end of Windows XP support, desktops ended the year in decline and look to be facing further declines in 2015.

An emphasis on lighter, more portable laptops drove ASP up in laptops, even though volume continued to decline

Jan 14 Dec14

Products


2014 was a surprising year for the IT industry in many ways, but what will it mean for 2015? Danny Bradbury asked vendors their thoughts.

F igures released by market research company GfK have revealed some surprising sales results for technology products during 2014.

One thing that came out of the research very clearly was that tablets are in decline. Its hard to deny a 21.7% fall in tablet value, and a 13.3% drop in volume. The decline is happening across the board in both the business and the consumer sectors.

Tablets will still be significant in the growth of mobile computing going forward, however. I think longer term, through to 2016-18, the tablet and smartphone market will probably be a key growth area overall, says James Morrish, chief technologist at HP UK and Ireland. GfK figures bear his predictions out; in mid-January the company said that it expected smartphones to grow 7% overall in 2015.

Its also worthwhile noting mobile computing will also include different form factors very close to the tablet in size, such as phablets. GfK is predicting a very

healthy 41% growth in 2015 for the phablet form factor, which sits in between the smartphone and the tablet at around 5.5-7 inches.

Thats a healthy figure, but Morrish believes that yet another product category could become a rising star.

HybridsAt the moment, we have a clear differentiation in performance trade-offs between tablets and laptops, he says. Consumers have had a choice: browse with a tablet, or get the heavy work done with a PC.

Hybrid devices, typified by HPs own Revolve, combine the best of both worlds. They have the portability of a tablet with the horsepower of a conventional laptop computer. They also feature keyboard access, making content creation easier.

Thats been around for a little while, but in the past weve focused on the CPU under the keyboard deck, because there have been limitations in how much horsepower you can get behind the glass, Morrish says. There are fewer compromises with next-generation chipsets and architectures.

Manufacturers can put processors into a certain sized chassis if it has sufficient

Techproductsforecast

by Danny Bradbury

forecastthe movers and shakers


Morrish describes this as immersive technology, citing it as an example of how desktop technologies will evolve. In the consumer space at least, GfK envisages a buoyant 2015.

Regardless of whether the desktop or notebook gain traction in the enterprise space over the next few years, HP believes that Windows stronghold in enterprise will loosen. A survey of IT decision makers published in mid-January showed that 42% of respondents still viewed Windows as critical to their business, but this is a relatively low number given the iron grip the operating system has traditionally enjoyed in the corporate space. More diverse operating system strategies are more prevalent in organisations with a comprehensive bring your own device (BYOD) policy.

With tablets reaching saturation point, excitement is likely to shift towards other mobile products, given that there is a strong pull to mobility hardware and software among consumers and businesses alike. Technology always inspires innovation, and where one product area stagnates, another will become the focal point for new feature developments. Its nice, however, to see the desktop PC still holding its own, nearly 35 years after its introduction. Clearly, there is at least some life in the old dog yet.



cooling to keep the processor stable, but theres also a power consideration. Mobile devices always balance power efficiency and performance. But advances here are enabling companies to get the CPU behind the glass.

This is something that Microsoft has done with the Surface Pro 3, a device that went through a shaky start but which is looking promising for 2015. In its Q1 2015 earnings report, Microsoft revealed that it sold $908m of the devices, outpacing the previous model twofold, as customers begin to wake up to this new product category.

WearablesYou may ask, with tablets sales dropping to more realistic levels, what alternative areas of product innovation are emerging? Look to wearables, argues Joseph Bradley, vice president of the IoE practice for Cisco Consulting Services.

He does admit, however, that the adoption of smartwatches among consumers is still very low. With Apples smartwatch still not shipping at the time of writing, the market for such wearables has still barely even begun to develop.

Some of the current killer apps for wearables are as companion devices that can change the way we interact with everyday services, from transportation ticketing through to payment systems. Yet Bradley believes that there are challenges that will slow the adoption of these applications.

Consumers, especially in western Europe, are concerned about data and transaction security and privacy, which will further lead to the slow adoption of smartwatches as alternative payment methods, he says. GfKs survey last autumn showed that just over one in four people in the UK were interested in wearables as a payment system.

People are still likely to buy smartwatches, however - just for the sheer sexiness of the technology. GfK predicts a 637% increase in smartwatch sales in the UK in 2015.

Desktop PCsIn the traditional computing world, desktop PC sales results were more complex than tablets last year. GfK identified a growth in desktop computer sales, ending seven years of volume decline at least in the consumer market. Yet in the business market, sales decreased over 9% in value.

The price/performance ratio is a key factor, says Morrish. You get pretty unrivalled bang for your buck in terms of what you get from a desktop vs a notebook.

With that in mind, HP is continuing to drive forward the desktop PC format. One of its showcase designs, launched in late 2014, was Sprout. This desktop machine features a 3D camera and projector, which replaces the keyboard. It enables users to scan items directly to the machine, and manipulate text and images virtually on the projected flat surface.


such as health, construction and retail. This ecosystem of accessories allows the same standard core device to be used in a range of different use cases offering a great deal of flexibility.

Accessing dataMorrish advises that companies must have their eyes on the big picture and thats big data. He says they must have the back ends in place to efficiently collect and process mobile data through CRM, ERP and other business systems to create actionable intelligence, to ensure the right data gets to the right person at the right time.

He adds: Thats not always easy, and as far as were concerned its not just about throwing everyone the latest tablet and telling them to get on with it.

Indeed, many organisations think they are well down the path towards mobility enlightenment. In reality, a large number may well be in mobile chaos, experimenting with various approaches and wrestling with inherent BYOD challenges and security threats.

For a successfully integrated enterprise-wide mobile strategy, Morrish says that some organisations may need outside consultancy help to make sure they remain on track. He says: Some organisations believe they are more forward on mobile than they really are, while others arent sure where they are.

by Antony Savvas

M obile working is allowing business leaders to develop strategies to improve competitiveness, increase productivity and efficiency, and get closer to customers.

Companies have looked to use this technology to support flexible working, while at the same time satisfying those employees demanding to use their own gadgets for work. But mobile usage is changing.

As well as using mobile devices to email, share files and communicate with others, staff now want access to business applications like ERP (enterprise resource planning), CRM (customer relationship management) and data analytics for business intelligence.

Gartner analyst Nick Jones says the mobile application era ushered in by the iPhone is now being replaced by the service and social era. He says: The service and social era will build on the application era, but it will be characterised by cloud services and streaming media. Applications will survive, but often as a component of a more complex end-to-end experience involving the cloud.

Gartner is now advising enterprises to develop a mobile strategy based on technology-independent management goals and styles, rather than detailed device, platform or application policies.

FlexibilityCompanies like HP, for instance, are adamant that any mobile strategy must be based on flexible gadget choices to get each specific job done. That includes anything from smartphones and tablets to traditional laptops and hybrid platforms those devices that work as either a mobile clamshell PC with a full keyboard or that can be converted into a tablet by detaching the screen.

James Morrish, chief technologist at HP printing and personal systems for UK and Ireland, says: If there is

too much focus on only smartphones and standalone tablets then some benefits of mobile strategies may well be missed. In many cases it is better giving users a greater variety of devices, as it may be more productive for them to use a laptop or a hybrid, rather than a tablet or a smartphone.

When it comes to successful mobile strategies, Morrish says it is all about having the right apps, data and features on the right devices. This is something HP itself is focusing on with one of its products known as the ElitePad.

Windows 8 ElitePad tablets are being targeted at specific industries by way of hardware jackets being offered with the machines, to work in industry verticals

Mobile device strategies arent just about phones

Antony Savvas is a freelance


James Morrish



by Rob Bamforth

T here is no point making changes just for their own sake, but in challenging markets and uncertain economic conditions - where competitive threats can emerge from anywhere and established markets can disappear almost overnight - businesses need to be able to be flexible and prepared. For many, this will mean embarking on a significant transformation as they try to become more agile, efficient and effective.

The most important drivers behind the need to transform are customer experience, according to 55% of UK businesses surveyed for The Future of Work research report by Raconteur, followed by 45% saying innovation and 30% technology.

While the second two might seem to be heading in a different direction to the first, they are all closely linked. Advances in technology have brought mass connectivity, a diversity of means of access mobile devices, tablets and, headinginto the near future, more ways to collect

information through wearable technologies and the Internet of Things. These are transforming the lives of consumers and increasing everybodys

expectations of how they interact with each other

as individuals as well as

with organisations. Businesses that fail to transform their operations to meet these demands from their customers for a better experience will fail.

It once seemed that size of organisation and the legacy of a great brand would insulate businesses from these types of changes, but access to communications anywhere and the instantaneous impact technology has had on social connections through Facebook, Twitter and other social media means that none are safe. Commercial momentum can slow the effect, but for example in retail, where loyalty (or apathy) once retained customers, even mighty supermarkets are showing obvious signs of stumbling.

What needs to change?Those surveyed believe that the top changes to have the biggest impact on profitability were, by a long way ahead, the ability to respond more rapidly to market opportunities, followed by better use and integration of available technology and people. With the same research indicating that marketing, senior management and IT are the key departments to be leading the transformation of an organisation, it is clear that businesses need to be looking outwards as well as within; transforming the customer experience and transforming the working environment to better serve the various constituents.

Analyst Rob Bamforth assesses how organisations can better meet customer expectations

The businesscase for

transformation


Smarter communicationFundamental to this is communications. Where once there were narrow and well-defined routes between customer and organisation, there is now a multiplicity of modes of communication and customers want to be able to use whichever is closest to hand or preferable at every stage. The purchasing process is no longer a matter of bricks or clicks (high street or online), but a complex multi-modal set of stages involving online, mobile access on devices of widely varying form factors, in-store, remote pickup and even the telephone (and the occasional written communication particularly when a person is complaining). It might have started as simply e-commerce, but other processes from obtaining support, dealing with utilities, healthcare or financial institutions have all followed a similar path.

Despite this, customers expect the entire process to run smoothly and do not expect to have to repeat their words or actions, no matter who or what within the organisation they have to communicate with.

This means better internal communication and collaboration between what were once separate teams or departments. This is another area where innovation and technology can be exploited in a similar way by the organisation as it has been by its customers. Employee interactions can be viewed as a shared social experience oriented around the customer using multiple methods of communication

rather than relying on the overly formal lines of communications oriented around internal structures. Familiar tools mobile phones, tablets can be employed, even supporting employees to bring their own devices (BYOD) to encourage and facilitate sharing and collaboration.

Smarter informationThe next element of the transformation is information. The growth in data storage seems inexorable, but although a lot of data is already being stored, it is not always the right stuff or in the right place. A greater understanding of what is really going on in critical business processes would help. For example, tracking customers as they go through a purchasing process, where were they when they were interrupted or they decide to stop and can an appealing intervention be made to enable them to continue to the closure of a deal? Do employees have all the information they need to complete a task?

Some of this information will already be there, but legacy departmental structures and agendas may be keeping valuable knowledge from finding the right person to take advantage of it. The days of companies allowing critical data to be left languishing in Excel spreadsheets or scattered across diverse file systems should be long gone, but many organisations still have separate silos of data repositories disconnected from each other.

Smarter actionThis is where most of the much-vaunted value of big data will surface. Not simply in the volumes of new data being collected, but in the rapidity that information from multiple sources can be combined, analysed and turned into smarter action. Individuals need to have this data quickly transformed into valuable knowledge so that they can be responsive to immediate customer needs as well as longer term changing market conditions.

The research indicates that marketing, senior management and IT have an opportunity to ensure that these smarter actions are focussed both externally on the customer experience and internally on transforming the working environment by streamlining and automating existing business processes.

While technology advances may have catalysed much of this, the imperative for business change is a straightforward one based on competitive pressures and affects people and the processes they have to work with. Customer awareness, needs and - critically - their expectations have changed, and the organisations that fail to meet them efficiently and effectively will lose.

Rob Bamforth is Principal Analyst at Quocirca

Quocirca carries out research and analysis on

behalf of IT decision makers across Europe



paying o ff?

by Gary Flood

Is the Governments

ICT REFORM AGENDA With last years National Audit Office report casting doubt on Cabinet Office claims of public sector IT savings, Gary Flood examines what progress has been made.

The history of UK government ICT projects is littered with budget overruns, delays and functional failures.

Its highly doubtful any citizen familiar with seemingly endless headlines of big government ICT failures over the past 20 years would disagree with the statement above.

That quote, from 2009, is from the man who, just a few months later, was put in pole position to start fixing the problem, Francis Maude. Then a member of the Tory opposition, he has since been the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with a clear mandate to reform the whole way the public sector buys and uses technology.

Theres no denying the passion and commitment of Maude and the team he has assembled around him, nor the length of the list of initiatives he has brought in to do so, starting with his famous moratorium on any IT project spend over 100m. On taking office, he sat down with the big suppliers and told them their gravy train days were over.

So coming up to five years on, what has Maude achieved? Yes, we have cross-government watchdogs like the Major Projects Authority, a commitment to a cloud first procurement process and the whole G-Cloud/Digital Marketplace process set up to offer wider choice to buyers. There has been a lot of talk about breaking the oligopoly of huge firms running national IT outsourcing contracts, by bringing in armies of hungry young tech SMEs to offer cheaper, innovative alternatives.

Weve also heard a lot about open source, agile development, commodity purchasing, tighter procurement, making the government a smarter customer even bringing back ICT competence as a requirement for Whitehall mandarins, which hasnt been talked about for a generation.

14bn saved?But for all the light and heat is the nation any better off financially? When Maudes talk of 14bn saved was put under the spotlight by the countrys official spending monitor, the National Audit Office, savings do seem to have been won but not a lot of it was out of curbing those IT budget overruns and failures. The auditor actually said most of the headline numbers were subject to question, as they are based on unreliable data.

When it comes to the public sector ICT reform agenda, former government ICT insider Chris Haynes, and a former tech leader for big departments such as DWP, says: Theres good strategy but so far very little delivery against it.

He explains: For example, the 25 big exemplar projects of big transactional systems havent been done. A lot of the claimed wins, like being able to renew your car tax online, were already in place; those big contracts havent really been affected, many have even been extended, he warns.

Progress may have been slow but Haynes, and many other observers, say we should not give up. He does add, however, that there should be greater input from those implementing policy. We need a better way of engaging with public sector CIOs and a less Stalinist attitude all round, he thinks.

Gary Flood is a freelance technology journalist



by Antony Savvas

The reinvention of an 80s trend in a digital era

W ith technology trends such as cloud, mobile, big data and social media continuing to transform the way businesses operate, companies are having to find ever more innovative digital solutions to keep pace.

Business leaders looking to transform processes are now required to create new and advanced applications quickly which has led to the advent of Agile computer programming and low-coding platforms.

The drive to develop software at speed is not new, however. It actually has its roots in the 1980s - when there was no internet and little mobile phone coverage. This early coding revolution was based around rapid application development, or RAD.

In contrast to the waterfall software development model, which demands rigorous specification at the outset of a project, RAD allowed an iterative process of rapid prototyping and adjustments in reaction to knowledge gained as the project progressed.

RAD focused on prototypes and flexible processes

that would allow the project to evolve. With more and more applications being required to drive

business and the digital economy

Gettingforward, this ability to test and trial software as we go has come back into sharp focus.

Modern Agile software development is similar to RAD, in that it also emphasises a flexible approach which can respond to changes in project requirements. The latest application development platforms are, however, taking this to the next level. By replacing code writing with configuration of features to create models, they are allowing non-technical and IT teams to create and amend applications quickly.

Application development These platforms are empowering business leaders, customers, partners and hobbyists - who can all now build web-based business solutions without programming skills. Cloud-based deployments can also enable projects to be initiated quickly, with a minimal burden on internal IT departments.

The use of development platforms also reduce risk by allowing organisations to test and improve applications early on. Organisations can then avoid some of the problems which have blighted software development historically, and led to project overruns and increased costs. These issues have resulted in many high profile public sector projects being axed in the past.

Chris Haynes, former director of the eDelivery Unit at the Cabinet Office, now of Houghfold Associates, says new approaches to software are helping overcome these problems, however.

Haynes, also a former senior ICT manager at the Department for Work and Pensions, said: We need more innovation. The downsides of failure in the public sector often seem to outweigh the rewards of potential success. Civil servants with ideas are seen as mavericks and rarely have the freedom to try them out due to perceived cost and risk.

RAD


But new software approaches enable users to rapidly prototype applications and experiment without writing code, so reducing fear of costly failure and potentially unlocking innovation.

Overcoming obstaclesResearch amongst senior central and local government IT executives has found there are several barriers still blocking digital innovation. These include a lack of resources (77%), high costs (74%), long timeframes (85%) and unacceptable risk (89%). These are common issues also experienced by private sector organisations.

The research undertaken by Mercato Solutions, provider of application development platform KnowledgeKube, has found, however, that there is scope for widespread improvement in public sector processes. A staggering 96% of those surveyed said more than a quarter of their processes were inefficient.

Peter Robbins, managing director at Mercato Solutions, claims application development platforms are now removing traditional obstacles and allowing digital innovation. He said: Transformation needs to focus on the ability to re-engineer and optimise existing and new processes with greater speed and effectiveness, as well as sharing applications for common problems. CIOs and innovation leaders are now looking to disruptive platform-based technologies that challenge the norm of application development and deployment.

The popularity of these platforms was recently confirmed by industry analyst Forrester. It claimed that faster delivery is the primary benefit of these low-coding platforms, adding that firms can also respond more quickly to customer feedback after initial software releases.

Responding quicklyForrester said: Hand-coding is too slow to develop and deliver many of the applications that companies use to win, serve and retain customers. Some firms are turning to new, low-code application platforms that accelerate app delivery by dramatically reducing the amount of hand-coding required.

Forrester also claims that many development teams are now questioning the role Java, .NET, and other coding platforms should play in their customer-facing systems. It added that some enterprises may currently cope by outsourcing the challenge, and others may look to packaged applications or specialised middleware, but it claims none of these alternatives address the problem head-on.

The analyst maintains that the overarching requirement for all software development is that it serves the need of the organisation. Business leaders trying to move rapidly on new ideas to boost revenue and improve competitiveness often get bogged down by rigid and siloed development approaches. Forrester adds: Low-code platforms allow business leaders to experiment with new product and service ideas by merging requirements, design, development and deployment into a single platform.

When it comes to meeting the digital demands of modern business, therefore, its now about going back to those RAD ideals of the 1980s and meeting the needs of the business through the rapid development of software. And the emerging category of next generation application development platforms is helping pave the way.

Antony Savvas is a freelance technology journalist

Supply Chain


T he fluctuating price of products in the IT market can be testing for organisations looking to achieve the best value on every purchase. One body looking to get to grips with this volatility was the Royal Veterinary College - one of the worlds leading veterinary institutions.

The College, which has more than 2,000 students and over 750 staff, requires a significant amount of new IT equipment each year. To ensure it was getting best value, it adopted a strategy that encouraged all IT purchases to be made through the Colleges combined Library and Information Services Division (LISD).

The consequence of this policy, however, was that it placed a heavy strain on the departments seven helpdesk technicians. They had to spend the equivalent of a full day each week handling these requests time that otherwise would have been spent dealing with technical support issues.

The LISD also struggled to keep track of price levels for the vast array of products it

Efcient benchmarking saves Royal Veterinary College time and money

was asked to order and whether stock was even available. This was hampering the Colleges mission to identify fair prices on all purchases.

The volume of orders coupled with a rapidly changing IT marketplace meant it was a tall order achieving best value on everything, said Dan Messum, IT and development manager at the Royal Veterinary College.

The College addressed this challenge by deploying the benchmarking tool KnowledgeBus. With access to daily trade guide price and stock levels for more than 150,000 products, from more than 2,500 manufacturers, the LISD is now able to negotiate a fair price with suppliers and avoid paying excessive margins above the trade price. This has enabled the College to save thousands of pounds on individual purchases.

We were quoted 14,000 for video conferencing equipment and when we benchmarked this we revealed the supplier

had put a 10% mark up on the channel price. This insight enabled us to quickly negotiate the price down by 1600, said Dan. Even where we have good relationships with suppliers, we are now able to make further savings by using the information to inform our discussions.

A key additional benefit for the College is that it is allowing helpdesk technicians to spend more time supporting staff and students, and less time on procurement.

We now use an administrator without an IT background to handle purchasing, said Dan. This has released skilled technicians, who have significantly more time to spend on tasks such as installing software, fixing hardware or handling users email and software support issues.

He added: A more efficient benchmarking process has freed up around four days per month for our IT helpdesk which is now better spent on core projects and pressing technical issues.

A more efcient benchmarking process has freed up around four days per month

Case study

KnowledgeBus IT Edition is a product of Mercato Solutions. Copyright Mercato Solutions Limited, All Rights Reserved.

www.knowledgebus-it.co.uk0121 605 2050

*KnowledgeBus IT Edition survey evaluated over 1,000 organisations with perceived supplier relationships of between cost +3-5%.

81% of organisations could save money buying IT*

Compare. Negotiate. Save.CIPS accredited KnowledgeBus enables IT buyers to quickly benchmark purchases against daily trade guide price and stock levels on over 150,000 products from more than 2,500 manufacturers.

Many still pay up to 673% margin

Sage UK Dave Banks, Senior IT Procurement Coordinator

We managed to reduce our IT spend by approximately 10%.

*Download the full report at: www.knowledgebus-it.co.uk

Save up to 24% on ICT budgets and an hour per orderIdentify fair price and spot overchargingPlot key market trends for more strategic procurement

Measurable benefits from day one:

@KnowledgeBus

[4401/KB-COMPNEGSAVE]

Supply Chain


by Paul Maher Buying an ICT product is not like buying any other item because its value is in a constant state of flux.

Compare ICT to stationery, for example. A pencil bought 12 months ago will most likely be as good as a pencil bought today, so the value will not change much. The same is not true of technology.

Better products are landing on the market every day. Each one is looking to outperform and devalue its predecessors.

As a consequence all ICT products are developed with a limited life expectancy in mind. Vendors will have an expiry date when they will cease production and aim to transition users to newer models.

Getting the right price for a product requires the buyer to understand that during that life time the value of the product will be in a constant state of decline. There are many reasons why this happens.

It may be that the manufacturer knows a new processor is going into their

machines next year so they wont want old models filling up warehouses in the supply chain. If there is an abundance of stock left over, and the product is in the later stages of its life cycle, the vendor will slash the price to ensure the remainder is sold, said Gary Price, product and category manager at Probrand.

A competitor may also bring out a superior product which will have an impact on the vendors ability to shift stock. The more successful the competition the more likely it is that the manufacturer will cut the price further.

The vendor may hope to achieve 1000 for a laptop at the point of release, with the intention that by the end of the lifecycle they will be achieving 700, Price added. If the competition is strong, however, that could drop to 500. They may sell them at cost or even at a loss just to get rid of them and make some money back.

Manufacturers do sometimes build short-life products that are simply designed to fill a gap in the market. They will produce

Paul Maher takes a look at the ICT market and asks whether it is possible to get the best price with a fixed price discount.

Did you really get the best deal possible?


small quantities with a shelf-life of no more than three months. If that is the case, the amount the price drops will be minimal. With premium hardware products, however, the life span can be 12-18 months and that will lead to a considerable drop.

It is important that procurement professionals and IT departments are aware of how these prices fall as there is a tendency for buyers to seek a fixed price during the course of a product roll-out in the organisation, Price adds.

Fixed pricesWhen buyers push for fixed prices and they do not factor in price drift they could end up losing out on potential savings. They may well be able to achieve a 10% or 20% discount on the starting price but at the end of the lifecycle a 50% reduction could be possible.

Furthermore, if asked for a fixed price at the start of an agreement, resellers will err on the side of caution. For example, if a

government agency went to tender with an order of laptops, the resellers would need to factor in potential risks that could be encountered during that period. They will, therefore, ask the buyer to pay more than they would at a later date.

Al Nagar, head of benchmarking at KnowledgeBus, said: We have in the past seen how a tsunami in Japan or floods in Thailand can have an impact on the price of components and keep prices high for longer than expected. These natural disasters may be unlikely but a reseller cant take that chance and will have to negate the risk.

As a result, it may not be possible to achieve the lowest cost on products when prices are fixed.

Nagar added: Organisations often fail to get the best price and in some cases they end up paying resellers huge mark-ups. Weve seen organisations paying margins in excess of 600% for certain products. This sounds scandalous but it is not unusual.

Ensuring the best priceBuyers can avoid this scenario by talking to resellers and vendors about their plans for products and gaining an understanding of their product roadmap. This will help identify when a product is likely to be at its cheapest and at its most expensive. If an organisation is involved in a large roll out then it should be doing this anyway, to ensure that there is enough stock in the market to fulfil the order.

An IT buyer can also use a price benchmarking tool to spot price trends, check market levels and predict the best time to buy.

The other option for buyers is to fix the margin not the price. A cost plus procurement agreement will ensure that the margin is the same regardless of what stage the product is at in its life cycle.

Organisations can then use their price benchmarking tool to police resellers and ensure that the correct margin is applied on all purchases.

Paul Maher is a freelance technology journalist

Supply Chain


by Al Nagar

Do Sweat the Small Stuff

of the purchase. The same effort does not, however, go into the one-off or low volume purchases, which may be distress items or spontaneous buys. It is on these items where IT and procurement teams are wasting money. These items can also make up a larger than expected percentage of the budget - in some cases it is as high as 25%.

Unsurprisingly, small purchases are not considered big enough to worry about in a large organisation, but unscrutinised purchases are actually where the prices are inflated most.

Research carried out across 12 private and public sector verticals, by KnowledgeBus, revealed organisations are often paying prices several times higher than the cost to the reseller. The study discovered that one organisation in the NHS had paid a margin 673% above the trade price.

Generally speaking, the high margin products are smaller items like extension cables, USB flash drives and SD cards, which fall below the radar of financial scrutiny. Suppliers recognise that the cost of assessing the value of low ticket items often outweighs the time it takes to analyse and barter the price down. This simple fact is exposed and exploited.

Clearly, its easy to rationalise the time spent scrutinising large ticket orders - but for lower priced items, it doesnt seem to make good business sense. When those high margin purchases are spread out across a year, however, they soon add up and form a large portion of budget.

The challenge for buyers is to introduce a process that enables scrutiny of every purchase and transparency of supplier relationships. It is clearly too much effort to go out to tender or vigorously negotiate on every purchase - this is where supply chain benchmarking tools provide a simple, scalable solution.

Al Nagar is head of benchmarking

for KnowledgeBus

One organisation

in the NHS paid a margin

of 673%

Al Nagar considers why every little helps is more than a slogan when it comes to achieving sustained budgetary value.

P rocurement and IT professionals alike are under pressure to become more strategic in their buying habits. But while benchmarking often underpins large purchases, when it comes to small items often bought in an ad hoc way organisations are regularly overpaying and pouring money down the drain.

When private or public sector organisations conduct a large purchase, such as a multi-site desktop refresh supporting 1,000 users, it will undoubtedly be well planned and scrutinised. This is not just due to the size of spend but also because it is likely to form part of an ongoing strategic IT move.

The greater the spend, the greater the pressure to validate that value for money is being achieved. The procurement or IT team will commonly achieve this through tenders, negotiations with preferred suppliers or through benchmarking.

It is easier to rationalise the proportion of time spent managing this type of critical purchase, given the sensitivity and scale


Procurement

Gary Flood asks, what has the Government done to lower the barrier for smaller tech suppliers?

W hen it took office in May 2010, the new Coalition announced its aspiration to push at least one quarter of all spending with suppliers to SMEs by the ne xt election. We were told this move would enable government buyers to access more innovative and cost-effective offers and provide greater value to the taxpayer.

By 2013, the figures showed that around 20% (10.5% directly and 9.4% indirectly) of spending was indeed going to SMEs compared to 6.5% in 2009/10.

Clearly, progress has been made but theres no question that the government still wants to provide even greater access to the central government ICT market - as well as to the wider public sector which includes the NHS, Emergency Services, Education and so on.

As the UK public sector spends a massive 187bn annually - of which ICT is a significant chunk - many small and medium businesses welcome this move. But as many readers probably know only too well, in reality, procurement rules and red tape can create huge costs for those bidding for work.

Making it easier for government to buy fromby Gary Flood

We are changingthe way governmentbuys

SMEsSarah Hurrell, commercial director of technology at the Crown Commercial Service (CCS), claims, however, that a lot has been done to address this very issue. She said: We are changing the way government buys, not just technology but across all commonly used goods and services, to make it simpler and easier for us to buy from both SMEs and larger suppliers alike.

Hurrell points to a number of practical changes CCS has brought about to improve engagement with SME suppliers. These range from the Contracts Finder tool, which helps companies track work they could apply for, to the Digital Marketplace (formerly the CloudStore) which acts as an open catalogue where firms can display their digital wares.

We are transforming the technology landscape for SMEs - the G-Cloud agreement is a great example of the Governments Digital by Default strategy in action with over 48% of business going to SMEs, equating to over 200 million, since it was launched in 2012, she says.

And as for the number of commercial vehicles (nee frameworks) available for customers in the technology space there are a lot less of them. Before the election we will be down to about ten, and they will also be shorter in duration, she told us.

The new breed of framework will be much more functional making it easier for both buyer and seller to know what is going on: Suppliers wont have to bid multiple times to be eligible to compete for the same work anymore, she promises.

Is the plan to drive cost reduction though to push the austerity drive? Hurrell says not. We are absolutely committed to getting best value for the taxpayer, but built in to all our planning is the recognition that suppliers deserve to make a reasonable profit, she promises. One of the ways to do this is by ensuring the public sector starts only buying what it really needs, without unnecessary bells and whistles.

Gary Flood is a freelance technology journalist

Sarah Hurrell

Procurement


Peter Smith asks, is the Governments digital strategy delivering its intended goals?

A s this current UK government comes to an end, with the election in May, the coalition will be promoting their digital strategy as a success of the last five years. There is some justification for the claim; whilst the move to use more agile and rapid software development methodologies has not fully succeeded, the formation of the Government Digital Service, rationalising government websites, and moving more services to digital platforms are all genuine successes.

In procurement terms, the major initiative has been the G-Cloud Store, now known as the Digital Marketplace. Introduced in 2011, it enables public sector buyers to select digital related services and products from an online catalogue. That sounds simple enough, but it has included a number of genuinely innovative aspects as far as government procurement is concerned.

From a supplier point of view, one positive has been that the Marketplace is renewed regularly, so there have been frequent opportunities for companies, including

those smaller, innovative firms that government wants to encourage, to get listed in the catalogue. That compares with old style frameworks, that were generally renewed only every three years.

The second benefit to suppliers has been the qualification processes for the Marketplace. Suppliers simply need to reach a threshold, meeting basic requirements in areas such as financial stability and data security, and are then accepted into the catalogue. Now, more than 1,400 firms are listed, which contrasts with traditional frameworks which contain a limited number of participating firms.

However, the G-Cloud evangelists have conveniently ignored some of the issues around the initiative.

1. The Marketplace is still, at heart, aframework. That brings all the knownissues around that procurementmechanism, in particular the fact thatsuppliers do not offer their best priceswhen there is no certainty of business as in this case.

2. There is clear evidence that somebuyers are using the Marketplaceinappropriately. For instance, theMarketplace lists day-rate fees foradvisory services, which is fine for

Peter Smith is Lead Editor of

Spend Matters UK/ Europe

one-off minor requirements, but is the wrong mechanism for most consulting or bespoke software development projects, where fees should be linked to outputs and deliverables.

3. Whilst EU procurement regulationsmay not be front of mind to many,they do define how frameworks canbe used. For instance, the need torun mini-competitions to selectsuppliers from the firms listed on theframework. Discussions with variousparticipants on the buy and sell sidesuggests this is not always happeningwith the Marketplace too manybuyers are simply choosing the firmthey want. This is reflected in the factthat only 400 of the 1400 suppliershave received any business via theMarketplace.

The risk here is that the Marketplace is making it quick and easy for budget holders to buy what they want from their favourite suppliers, without going through usual procurement processes.

Recognising the issues around the Marketplace, as well as its strengths, is important if the government is to take the concept forward more successfully.

by Peter Smith

Assessing the

Digital Marketplace


by Rob White

R esearchers have found that almost nine in ten of us will now use a search engine to look up information on a product prior to making a purchase. An office manager, for example, might compare the price of ink cartridges online before heading out to the stationery store to purchase them. Google calls this action the zero moment of truth.

This ability for the average consumer to do a quick price check on a search engine or price comparison site has undoubtedly had an impact on the prices resellers are able to charge for products.

From a procurement perspective, however, a search engine is still a long way from being a satisfactory benchmarking tool. Not least because the first price you see on the screen is unlikely to be the trade price and may not actually be achievable.

An achievable price?It is not unusual to conduct a search and discover a great price on a product, only to find that is actually out of stock. A company does not necessarily need to have an item in stock to include it in a Google listing. It

can actually be in their best interest to list out of stock items these can pull buyers onto the site in search of one item and when it is not found, encourage them to continue their search for the next best alternative.

Comparing apples with apples?Using a search engine as a procurement tool can also be a hindrance when online resellers dont offer a complete description of the vendors products online. By excluding the vendors part code, for example, you may end up comparing the prices of two very similar products, under the guise that they are actually the same.

Resellers also bundle products into packages which include additional service charges, making it even harder to compare prices for individual items.

Too good to be true?Finally, it is an unfortunate fact that some things are too good to be true. And, to get the level of trust you desire it may be necessary to pay a premium.

Can you really benchmark with Google?

If the price is way below what you would expect and you dont trust the online reseller, you need to start asking questions. Is it an original product or has it been reconditioned? Could it be counterfeit? Has it been shipped in from outside the EU?

If it has come from Asia, for example, you may not be able to register the warranty and, if there is a problem, you may have to send it back to Asia to get it fixed. If the product does turns out to faulty, you also need to know the returns policy.

If the reseller doesnt offer credit and you pay up-front, what assurance do you have that the product will even arrive or that the delivery is not indefinitely delayed as it is out of stock?

The internet is undoubtedly a great source of price and product information, but for true benchmarking, procurement experts need a supply chain benchmarking tool. These not only save a huge amount of time and energy searching online, but they also deliver trustworthy results that professionals can rely upon.

Rob White from KnowledgeBus

is a Benchmarking expert

Driving Innovation


Outsourcing neednt be just about cost reduction, writes Danny Bradbury.

T hanks to the cloud, outsourcing is on the rise but are we doing it for the right reasons?In its 2014 Global Outsourcing and Insourcing Survey, Accenture found that 69% of respondents were more likely to outsource work thanks to the evolution of cloud computing. The maturation of technologies such as hosted virtual desktops have also had an impact, with one in six decision makers pointing to that as a key enabler for outsourcing.

Technology developments will lead to many outsourcing contracts that prioritise cost savings as a key benefit. But experts believe that outsourcing customers have more to gain. In particular, some believe that it is possible to improve processes substantially by working with the outsourcing provider on innovations.

These conversations can emerge in surprising ways, says Charles Duffett, a CIO advisor to the Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance (CATA), who has consulted on many outsourcing contracts.

by Danny Bradbury

Innovation through

Duffett recalls a hospital that had a contract with an outsourcing company. It complained that it was spending too much time and money dealing with patients in the emergency room. A patient complaining of chest pain might take hours at high cost to work their way through to a doctor and be sent for tests, only to find that it was a reaction to rich food.

The company that was in charge of the outsourcing developed a handheld blood analyser, he recalls. The first thing that they do is jab you with a pin, and stuff it in the machine. If it says that your blood is perfect, then the doctor asks what you had for lunch and gives you a seltzer. You avoid the lineup, and the hospital saves $5,000 - $10,000.

The kinds of conversations leading to innovations like that require an intimate relationship between the outsourcing customer and the client, says Bala Pandalangat, president and CEO of the Centre for Outsourcing Reach and Education (CORE).

Innovation works in the second wave or cycle of outsourcing, he says. The

Innovation works in the second wave or cycle of outsourcing

first wave is where you ask did I get my efficiencies?. The second situation is when you see the innovative suggestions coming through.

This means that customers must take the time and effort to focus on relationships with outsourcing companies, and must provide space in the contract for those innovation efforts to develop.

Is it possible to innovate in all kinds of outsourced business processes? Pandalangat distinguishes between two types. Horizontal processes like email, are mature, commodity infrastructural processes that can be difficult to add innovative value to. Conversely, vertical processes (like CRM, say, or supply chain management) are areas where competent outsourcers can make a real difference by innovating, he suggests.

As more technologies hit the mainstream, Deloitte sees opportunities for further innovation in outsourcing contracts. Big data analytics and mobility in particular carry a lot of potential, it said in its report. An outsourcer with expertise in this area, and with domain knowledge in specific vertical processes, could generate new insights and facilitate new ways of working. That could translate into benefits for outsourcing customers that not only slash the bottom line, but increase the profit ceiling, too.



outsourcing

Do something different today!

Business processes still holding you back?Insanity.

KnowledgeKube.Automate business processes fast.Create applications at reduced cost and risk.Drive efficiency. Transform productivity.

The IT Perspective

Our resources are scarce. Weve been able to let the business

innovate and deliver whilst retaining control and governance.

Its relieved the pressure on our development teams and when

needed, we simply design, build and deploy applications rapidly, freeing time to focus

on the things we really need to.

The Business Perspective

It couldnt be simpler, unprecedented ROI, low TCO and results in days.

We created line of business applications that automated processes

quicker and at less cost. Weve connected and extended existing

systems and data too.

4401PBG/KKA4

follow us@KnowledgeKubeKnowledgeKube is a product of Mercato Solutions Limited.

Learn More0121 605 2050www.knowledgekube.co.uk

Driving Innovation


With modern application development platforms allowing companies to deploy bespoke software quickly and easily, Paul Maher examines how businesses can ensure smooth implementation within the organisation.

T he world has become an unforgiving place for digital laggards. Customers and employees are demanding new methods of interaction, and businesses have become impatient for the business applications which can fulfil these needs. The ubiquitous adoption of mobile devices among workers and consumers has also created a need for quick and easy access to these apps from anywhere.

Organisations are all too aware that failure to take the digital initiative, and meet this challenge, could easily see nimble competitors transform faster and take advantage of market opportunities more rapidly.

As a result, nearly every department of business now expects increasingly bespoke digital solutions. Unfortunately, a global shortage of developers has created an IT skills gap which has strained internal capabilities.

Organisations are starting to overcome these issues by acquiring the appropriate applications through the cloud using Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or application Platform-as-a-Service (aPaaS) solutions. These disruptive technologies, that challenge the development norm, are not just addressing the IT skills gap,

they are proving strategic solutions which can have a significant impact on organisations.

By enabling automation simplicity, they are allowing pioneering CIOs to lead the way by introducing more efficient business processes helping drive the next wave of innovation delivering competitive advantage, cost savings and compliance.

Low or no code platformsThe emergence of low code, and no code, application platforms are also allowing business leaders to cut cost, time and risk - by creating the solutions themselves, without the need for hand written code.

With these self-service platforms doing all the heavy lifting, businesses can create advanced applications that automate an endless list of time consuming processes. They can, for example, create software to replace burdensome internal paper-based systems for such things as expenses, overtime or absences. They can also integrate with, and extend, back-office systems to produce personalised customer facing applications like intelligent calculators and service configurators. As these customer facing solutions can bridge the gap between ERP, CRM or database systems, they are often referred to as systems of engagement.

Further examples of automation, include decision support or pre-sales apps that enable agents to make better sales decisions and improve outcomes.

by Paul Maher


meet resistance from IT if the use of an application development platform is perceived as a threat to their status within an organisation. But in reality these platforms give IT a prominent role in enabling business transformation within an organisation.

Furthermore, dedicated customer App stores can support rapid distribution of solutions. That means business and IT teams can gain revenues and return on investment by driving adoption and roll-out of applications across multiple locations, departments and geographies. This provides incentive that dissolves some of the stereotypical barriers many believe can arise.

Getting internal buy-inThe IT department is not the only potential barrier to an executive looking to quickly develop a killer application, however.

By automating a business process, business leaders may be aiming to free up their staff to concentrate on more meaningful tasks which can move the business forward. If this is not communicated properly, however, employees could feel that their jobs are being replaced or trivialised.

As these are the people with the best understanding of the role being automated, they can play an important role in the development process. Involving them in the project is, therefore, essential to overcoming resistance to change, which could be to the detriment of the project.

Robbins continues: Businesses should emphasise that by removing mundane tasks, staff will have more time to focus on activities that will help the company grow. They will, therefore, become more valuable to the organisation.

They should also communicate that when basic processes are automated people will be able to concentrate on what most matters to them. A salesperson can, for example, spend more time on higher value orders that are better qualified, if early stage enquiries can be handled by an application.

Ensuring that a workforce is fully engaged and motivated by its work environment will help drive creativity and innovation within the organisation. This support will speed up the pace of change, and ultimately, help the business realise the benefits of efficiency, productivity and profit sooner.

Paul Maher is a freelance technology journalist

Steve Vallis, business systems consultant at Mercato Solutions, said: On average these sophisticated applications, developed on platforms like KnowledgeKube, are being created over70% quicker and 80% cheaper than when

using traditional bespoke software development approaches.

With the associated costs and risk reduced, business leaders are able to quickly test and adjust live projects on-the-fly without the fear of failure, which supports a self-perpetuating innovation ethos and enables projects to be realised more efficiently. That means business objectives are met faster.

Business executives, who are no longer waiting on hand-written code to produce their own applications, have been dubbed citizen developers by analysts. Their emergence has had the side-effect of supporting IT, freeing them up to focus on more strategic tasks.

Ensuring smooth implementationThis does not mean, however, that business leaders should attempt to bypass the IT department when developing new applications - far from it. There are still very good reasons why IT should still be involved in any project of this nature from the outset.

Firstly, the IT department will still be needed to ensure the smooth implementation of any new application. If the new application needs to access legacy systems or Active Directory, for example, then IT will be pivotal in enabling this. Attempting to access company data without ITs assistance would be problematic and compromise information governance compliance. Therefore, it is critical to collaborate with IT teams to maximise return from existing systems, services and data investments without hindrance.

Secondly, it is generally a good idea to include IT for the consultancy and oversight they can offer to various departments in the organisations looking to develop similar applications. If a company can build three versions of the same application rather than three separate applications, it will lead to further cost and time saving.

Peter Robbins, managing director, Mercato Solutions, said: Business leaders looking to push forward an application could

Steve Vallis

Security


by Antony Savvas

Handling BYOD

W orkers want to use their own laptops, tablets and smartphones for work and many companies are now letting them do just that to aid flexible working and increase productivity. But what are the pitfalls and how can they be overcome?

According to industry analyst TechMarketView, the bring your own device (BYOD) movement is seeing a rapid increase in adoption by both employers and staff, with 9.5 million UK employees expected to take advantage by 2016. And analyst Gartner reckons that 90% of organisations will support some type of BYOD by 2017. Indeed, Gartner predicts that by 2018, there will be twice as many employee-owned devices used for work than enterprise-owned devices.

There are, however, data security concerns as a result of BYOD. With the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) guidance clarifying that companies are accountable for the loss of data by their employees - irrespective of whether it was on a personal or work device. And the ICO can fine firms up to 500,000 for serious breaches of the Data Protection Act.

Key to a successful BYOD strategy is a good mobile device management (MDM) solution and there are plenty in the market to choose from. Essential features in any MDM system include allowing corporate administrators to remotely configure corporate email and retain control of stored attachments and mail, where necessary.

MDMRemote configuration means administrators being able to set up email accounts on multiple devices without individual users having to come into the office. This system needs to be able to remotely delete all corporate emails, as well as the attachments that are stored on the device, when an employee leaves the company.

The MDM also has to ensure all devices adhere to company security policies. Enforcing corporate password policies and pushing these out to all devices on the network should be simple. For example, admin managers should be able to set the minimum password length, a time lapse before the device auto-locks and a maximum number of failed password attempts before the smartphone or tablet wipes its own data, if necessary.

In addition, an MDM should have the ability to permanently lock a device remotely and restore devices back to their facto

Intelligent Things | Probrand Magazine

Documents

Transcript of Intelligent Things | Probrand Magazine