Customers more likely to opt out of direct marketing

Consumers are now most likely to opt out according to the results of the latest international consumer research study from Eagle Eye.

SaaS digital marketing provider Eagle Eye released its  white paper entitled “The Digital Imperative: Harnessing the Power of ‘Now’ with Performance-Driven Marketing,” which suggests punters are more likely to opt out of marketing communications, now compared to six months ago. This means that Social media,  Email, SMS-based, In-app or online location tracking and online web tracking marketing is taking a hit.

Gartner warns about Brexit recession

Gartner research VP John Lovelock has warned that the channel should be making contingency plans for a recession triggered by Brexit.

Lovelock explained that although Brexit will have a “dampening effect” on spend in EMEA, full spending on IT will resume 12 months after Brexit.

He warned that a range of scenarios could upend their forecast, such as a no-deal or hard Brexit.

The spending that has come out of the market in 2017 and 2018 is from businesses reacting to the uncertainty of what the deal will be. While businesses are uncertain as to what is happening, they can’t plan and tend to stick their hand back in their pocket and wait until they have more certainty on what the rules will be and how they will be able to engage with them, he said.

His advice was not to necessarily look at our forecast, which is the ‘most likely’ scenario.

“There is a rising chance of a recession in 2019 or 2020 – it’s not so large that it is in our ‘most likely’ scenario – but it is possible and they ought to have a plan should a recession occur.”

Overall IT spending in EMEA is expected to hit  £742 billion in 2019, representing a two percent increase from 2018’s estimated total of $954 billion. The UK is predicted to see $204 billion spend next year – a 1.9 percent decrease on 2018’s figure.

Brexit is tiggering IT spending across EMEA, causing it to be the third-slowest-growing region for IT spend in 2019, after Eurasia and Latin America.

Lovelock says this is due to a number of factors, including Brexit, but price problems with mobile phones causing supply and demand to plateau.

Gartner predicts enterprise software will continue to be the area seeing the most expenditure, predicting a growth of 7.3 per cent – a slowdown from the 12.7 percent rate it grew at in 2018.

Enterprise application software can grow at such a strong rate is because it starts to take money from other areas as it goes into the cloud, he said.

“For example, if I am buying licensing software from a vendor, I need to also buy a server and storage, networking and backup equipment. If I buy cloud software, I don’t have any extra charges, so I can take money out of my server and storage spending and put it into cloud software.”

Arcserve’s new channel man is Vince Blackall

Data protection firm Arcserve has appointed Vince Blackall as its new EMEA Channel Director. Again.

The company said that Blackall comes with a proven track record of delivering transformational revenue growth and sales productivity across existing and new sales teams, and will oversee the development and delivery of Arcserve’s EMEA channel growth strategy.

ASL buys Geerings in second acquisition this year

Managed print service outfit Automated Systems (ASL) has written a cheque for Geerings Digital – its second acquisition of 2018.

Geerings was founded in Ashford in 1903 to focus on print, but over the past 115 years it has diversified into supplying office equipment and supplies to the commercial and education sectors across Kent, Essex, London, Sussex and Surrey.

It is jointly managed by Will and Adam Geering, the great-grandsons of its founder.

DBDB Labs signs up for Bidooh digital billboards

Manchester-based Bidooh which makes real-time, real-audience, digital billboard advertising gadgets has signed a contract with DBDB Labs, a media agency based in Seoul.

The outfit will use Bidooh digital billboard platform across 10,000 screens in South Korea. The 10,000 screens will be rolled out throughout three years. 2,000 screens currently in operation will be fitted with a Bidooh Box, and a further 8,000 new screens will be deployed. The deal follows the successful trial of a screen live in a corporate office in Seoul, which uses facial analysis technology to provide targeted, real-time advertising.

Insight’s EMEA business bucks global trend

Insight’s latest figures show that EMEA business is its shining star, while other world regions are grinding to a halt.

Insight’s EMEA business has been doing well since the completion of an expensive $3.5 million restructure last year and the third quarter proved to be another three months of positive developments for Insight’s EMEA business.

Revenues increased by 11 percent to $345.2 million, while earnings from operations rocketed by more than 100 percent on a year-on-year comparison. Earnings climbed from $2.1 million in the red from the third quarter last year to a positive $4.6 million this year.

Retailers getting all data-centric

In-memory analytics database creator, Exasol, has discovered that 82 percent of retailers are committed to implementing a data-centric strategy in the next five years, with almost a third stating this is already in place.

Its research found 58 percent of retail decisions are being guided by data, although almost half are yet to implement a single customer view in the omnichannel era.

Retailers are relying on data to drive better insights and decision making to address specific challenges within their businesses, but the adoption of data analytics is not universal. Respondents stated they used data for decisions on sales and marketing campaigns (70 percent) price optimisation to overcome issues around diminishing margins and increased competition for revenues (64 percent), and better supply chain management (55 percent).

Most CIOs fear IoT performance problems

Nearly three quarters of IT leaders are concerned that Internet of Things (IoT) performance problems could directly impact business operations and significantly damage revenues.

Software intelligence company, Dynatrace, has announced the findings of an independent global survey of 800 CIOs, which reveals that 78 percent of CIOs said there is a risk that their organisation will roll-out IoT strategies without having a plan or solution in place to manage the performance of the complex cloud ecosystems that underpin IoT rollouts.  69 per cent of CIOs predicted that IoT would become a significant performance management burden

Intershop lets Bird watchdog into the clouds

Omnichannel commerce outfit Intershop Communications has been building a webshop for the  Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) running on Microsoft Azure.

This cloud-based e-commerce solution has been designed to offer a fully integrated digital shopping experience to sell RSPB products online. The original shopping website had been in operation since 2012 – since then website technology and customer expectations had moved on. The old site was struggling to handle peaks in customer visits and no longer supported new features.

CySure sees EnterpriseRed

Cyber security outfit CySure has appointed EnterpriseRed as a specialist reseller partner in the UK further.

The move will extend Cysure’s international network of partners across the Republic of Ireland, South Africa, the USA and the UK. The Berkshire-based cybersecurity experts will resell CySure’s information security management system, Virtual Online Security Officer (VOSO).

After conducting a review of their solution portfolio, EnterpriseRed identified a gap for an information security management system to assist with compliance. CySure’s VOSO solution was chosen as it enables

Datto sticks to an indirect model

Andrew Allen of Aabyss

While other vendors hum and haw about whether it’s better to sell their kit to their “partners” while they knife them in the back by circumventing the channel, it seems to ChannelEye that Datto really does stick to its last.

Last, as more literate readers of this online paper will know, is an archaic word for a shoemaker’s model for repairing a boot or a shoe. And if the shoe fits

DXC Technology swallows TESM

DXC Technology has written a cheque for the London-based cloud service management firm TESM.

The move is part of a cunning plan to extend its ServiceNow capabilities. TESM is a cloud and automation specialist with offices in Dublin, New York, Sydney and Frankfurt.ServiceNow is a

Aura Alliance hires Harris

Aura Alliance today announced Jonathan Harris will join full time as Chief Technology and Strategy Officer.

Harris will lead the global strategy and technology roadmap to support the company’s move from being an Avaya centric specialist to becoming a multi-vendor global alliance in the deployment of global enterprise communications.

Harris said: “I’m delighted to take up this new challenge at such an exciting time for the business.

Silver Peak spruces up global Partner Edge programme

SD-WAN outfit Silver Peak has announced a range of sweeping enhancements to the company’s global Partner Edge programme. In addition to onboarding seasoned channel executives to lead the organisation forward, the company is making strategic investments to build the industry’s most robust and expansive SD-WAN partner programme and equip partners to drive business opportunity and growth in a hyper-growth market that industry analyst firm IDC projects will exceed USD $8 Billion in 2021.

The outfit said it wanted its  Partner Edge programme to be more predictable while making incentives and value-added offerings easier to obtain for partners. The intent is to shift the focus toward being partner-first by offering clear and concise

Genee World calls in the liquidator

Genee World has gone into liquidation a former sales and marketing director has said on LinkedIn.

In a post on LinkedIn, Genee World’s former sales and marketing director Jez Warren claimed the firm had gone into liquidation, with all staff being made redundant.

Parker Andrews has since confirmed that it has been appointed as Genee World’s liquidator.

Genee World specialises in educational products, such as interactive touchscreens and software, and counts Altodigital among its partners.