Author: Andrea Petrou

April brings ray of sunshine to high street

Posted on May 20, 2013 by - News

highstreet South endApril brought a ray of sunshine to the high street with footfall improving.

According to the BRC, high streets reported a rise of 3.4 percent, the strongest performance since December 2011, followed by out-of-town, which grew by 0.3 percent.

However the better weather didn’t warm everyone with footfall in shopping centres falling by  three percent in April, its worst performance since January 2013.

And empty stores remained a problem with the national town centre vacancy rate in the UK standing at 11.9 in April, up from 10.9 percent in January 2013 and marking the highest rate since the BRC survey began in July 2011.

Helen Dickinson, British Retail Consortium Director General, said it was a “major concern” that the vacancy rate has reached a record high, driven by increases in almost every part of the UK, with some regions like the South West seeing a significant leap in empty shop numbers.

She added that with high streets topping the agenda for many there was a real opportunity “to seize the moment and stem the tide of further closures”.

“Comparatively small steps to tackle deep-rooted issues such as parking, accessibility and rising business costs could make a huge difference to the health of town centres,” she added.

Diane Wehrle, Retail Insights Director at Springboard, added the improved weather made a “significant difference” to footfall performance across the UK in April, with an improvement from -5.2 percent year-on-year in March to 1.0 percent in April.

Sharp announces new head honcho

Posted on May 14, 2013 by - Moving People, News

sharplogoSharp has announced that it has made Kozo Takahashi its new president and CEO.

The Japanese company, which last week reported a loss of $5.4 billion, has said that the current executive vice president will take the president and CEO title from 25 June.

The announcement as part of a business reorganisation aimed at helping the company return to a profit in March 2014.

The company also needs to make repayments for a new loan in September.

Last week it was reported that the company was planning to axe 5,000 of its 51,000 workers over the next three years in China and Malaysia as well as halving the number of workers at its head offices and cutting its board members by half.

Avnet gets supply gong

Posted on May 14, 2013 by - News

avnettsAvnet seems to be proud as punch that it has been named as one of the 2013 Supply & Demand Chain Executive 100.

The distie boasts that it has landed a place of the list, which recognises the organisation’s leadership in assisting the supply chain function, for its expertise in the field.

More than 200 projects were submitted for the 2013 Supply & Demand Chain Executive 100. Avnet said its winning project addressed the service field replacement unit needs of a global customer.

The project was managed by Wade McDaniel, vice president of solutions development at Avnet, and his team.

Gerry Fay, chief global logistics and operations officer at Avnet said Wade and his team developed a solution that provided important supply chain visibility for customers.

He added this let them quickly receive replacement components in the field in “a just-in-time manner, helping them accomplish their global supply chain challenge”.

Companies listed on the 2013 Supply & Demand Chain Executive 100 are supply chain service providers that are helping their customers and clients achieve supply chain excellence.

VIP and Gunnar sign distie deal

Posted on May 14, 2013 by - News

VIPVIP Computers has expanded its accessories range.

The distie has signed on the dotted line with Gunnar Optiks, a manufacturer of computer performance eyewear.

The deal, which will cover the UK market, comes after the company expanded its distribution in France, Mexico and Cambodia and is part of an overall strategy to address the increasing global demand for technology eyewear.

Gunnar’s Advanced Gaming eyewear promises  to offer increased contrast for great visual accuracy, enhanced detail, reduction in glare, improved visual endurance for extended gaming sessions, and decreased amount of eye fatigue and dry eyes.

They are also designed for PC users who wear glasses and are claimed to help prevent eyes from getting tired, drying out and headaches, as they block out the blue light emitted by computer screens.

Duncan McAuley, Purchasing Director for VIP Computers said he was “delighted” to have the new client on board, while Gunnar was equally complimentary claiming it was “proud” of the partnership. That is nothing new.

Raise your glasses everyone…

EMC cosies up to SAP

Posted on May 13, 2013 by - News

cosyEMC has announced that it is moving to help its customers move workloads of SAP services to a next gen private cloud infrastructure.

The company also claims its helping to build a foundation for private cloud computing, which it hopes will keep it cosy with SAP and VMware by integrating their respective services capabilities and helping customers accelerate full-lifecycle transformation of SAP applications to virtualized x86 environments.

According to the company the new additions could help and IT companies and operations by simplifying the design, planning and operation of on-premise cloud computing infrastructures that take advantage of the latest EMC, SAP and VMware technologies.

Through a combination of services and products EMC, together with SAP and VMware, wants to enable customers running SAP solutions to simplify IT management and focus on innovation and competitive advantage while reducing costs. It says that its services tailored for private cloud optimisation of SAP products will help customers making the transformation to on-premise cloud computing to maximise productivity of SAP application-based workloads by documented the key components of a virtual stack designed to support a virtualised private cloud environment running SAP services.

The EMC Proven Solution for automated disaster recovery of SAP solutions is also claimed to outline how to extend private cloud infrastructures for disaster recovery across heterogeneous storage infrastructure as well as how to perform non-disruptive testing of disaster recovery plans. It is said to combine EMC RecoverPoint with VMware Site Recovery Manager to help provide customers disaster recovery using VMAX and VNX series interchangeably as production and disaster recovery storage for SAP applications.

Working in collaboration with SAP and VMware, EMC is also offering services designed to quickly and safely move workloads of SAP solutions to virtualized x86 environments that are high performing, easier and less expensive to manage.

Supermarkets put customers’ health at risk

Posted on May 13, 2013 by - News

superUnscrupulous supermarket managers are putting the publics’ health at risk forcing staff to come in when they are unwell.

According to a range of sources who work for some of the UK’s well known supermarkets,  job cuts and tight rotas mean they have been ordered to turn up to work just hours after they have suffered sickness and diarrhoea.

The Food Standard Agency claims that people who work around open food while suffering
from these symptoms can contaminate the food or surfaces the food may come into contact with.

It advises that this can spread infection to other people through the food and tells business managers that they should encourage their staff to report their report these symptoms to management immediately.

Managers are also told to exclude staff with these symptoms from working with or around open food, normally for 48 hours from when symptoms stop naturally.

However it seems some supermarkets aren’t taking heed of these rules, rushing staff into work hours after they have called in sick or forcing them to come in despite claims of nausea and stomach upsets.

“I called my line manager to tell her I was feeling sick and feared it was the norovirus as my daughter had it the day before,” one checkout staffer told ChannelEye.

“However, I was ordered to go in. On my way in I was sick so called up again but was told to turn up anyway and see if my symptoms continued. By the time I turned up I was so unwell they took one look at me and sent me home. However, I’d already been inside the store and warehouse by then.”

Another added that staff cuts meant supermarkets weren’t following the correct procedures, telling ChannelEye, “I’ve been at the same store for 15 years and back then we had to take the correct 48 hours off and at times get a doctor’s letter to say we were fit for work. Now we’re expected to go back the day after.

“We just don’t have the staff to cover us for sick days off.”

 

 

Salesforce gobbles up Clipboard

Posted on May 10, 2013 by - News

pacpacSalesforce has taken over Clipboard but is refusing to spit it out, marking an end to the company.

The customer relationship company bought the service, which allows users to save and share content for a reported figure in the ball park of $10 – $20 million, in a bid to get its foot into the social enterprise arena.

However the company doesn’t seem to want to continue with the service, which was launched two years. In a blog post Clipboard told its users: “We have some bittersweet news.

“We are extremely happy to announce that salesforce.com has signed an agreement to acquire Clipboard, allowing us to pursue our mission of saving and sharing the Web on a much larger scale.”

It said the service would be discontinued on June 30, 2013.

Clipboard’s CEO Gary Flake will be vice president of engineering at Salesforce.com. The company said that its core engineering and design team will join the cloud computing company to work at its Seattle office and report to Flake.

Users of Clipboard can still preserve their personal data in an archive from which the clips and boards can be viewed offline.

Ingram Micro promotes channel love-in

Posted on May 10, 2013 by - Events, News

IMIngram Micro has opened its doors to 350 channel partners from across the globe.

The distie has hosted what it claimed is its first International Solutions Partner Invitational in Hollywood.

The event, which began on 8 May and runs until today saw partners fly in from North America and Latin America, as well as Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa.

It is sponsored by 15 technology vendors including Signature Sponsors Motorola Solutions and Psion, now part of Motorola Solutions, and Platinum Sponsors Axis Communications, Elo Touch Solutions and Intermec.

Themed “Mix it Up,” the Invitational is claimed to try and inspire the 600-plus vendor and reseller partners in attendance to think about business differently in 2013, and seek out new markets and  service opportunities that will help them grow faster and more profitably.

The event is also claimed to offer channel partners insight around industry best practices and market trends including where the markets are heading and what channel partners need to do to better position their business for success now, and in the future.

Throughout the event, attendees will hear from speakers including Scott Deming, a customer service and emotional brand building expert, Juliann Larimer, vice president of worldwide channels and sales operations for Motorola Solutions and Paul Bay, president, Ingram Micro North America.

It will also feature new Ingram Micro vendors, including TSC Printers and APG Cash Drawer, as well as more than 20 ISVs from across the Americas.

Avnet extends marketing initiative

Posted on May 9, 2013 by - News

avnettsAvnet has extended its Socialondemand service in the UK.

According to the distie, since the marketing initiative launched in April 2012, seven supplier partners and over 150 business partners have joined up.

It said in the last nine months 353 media posts have been reposted by business partners achieving click-through rates of up to 50 percent, with more than 86,000 downloads and retweets.

Initially introduced with Microsoft, Avnet socialondemand is a social media service which syndicates and disseminates targeted social media content from Avnet supplier partners to the social media connections of its business partners.

Avnet claims it’s able to input, categorise and target social media content and then control and track what, when and where it is published, for example, via business partners’ Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts.

Linda Patterson, marketing director, at the company said Avnet and supplier developed content went further and allowed partners to decide how and when to target customers, while tracking exactly when, where and by whom the content is being read.

She pointed out business partners often had stretched resources particularly in terms of their use of social media and yet they appreciate its value.

“Public Cloud First” gets round of applause

Posted on May 9, 2013 by - News

cloud 1A cloud service provider has welcomed the government’s “Public Cloud First” mandate.

Earlier this month the Cabinet Office confirmed that the cloud would be mandated as the first choice for all new IT purchases in government, as part of moves to push more departments into using commodity cloud services.

The announcement coincided with the third G-Cloud supplier framework going live, offering more than 700 suppliers and over 5,000 services to the UK public sector. Around 80 percent of all suppliers were small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), said the Cabinet Office.

A recent survey by Fasthosts found  that over two thirds of small and medium businesses in the UK have said that adoption of the cloud will be an important factor to contribute to the growth of their business in the next 12 months, with the same number claiming that the cloud was “extremely important” to their business growth strategy.

Skyscape agreed claiming that both government announcements were “excellent news for the UK public sector.”

Phil Dawson, CEO of Skyscape said that by putting the ‘Cloud First’, the Government was further demonstrating the “growing confidence” in G-Cloud, where suppliers have proven that highly secured, resilient utility services can be rapidly deployed at transparent price points, helping to drive innovation and competition.

He added the G-Cloud Programme had “quite simply started a revolution in the way that the UK public sector deployed ICT.”

“With the arrival of Giii, the Framework will continue to make this process easier, helping to broaden the market and providing a platform for SMEs, such as Skyscape, to market their services to the public sector,” he said.

Ivy Bridge notebook prices slashed

Posted on May 9, 2013 by - News, Opinions

Intel-logoThe UK market is following in Taiwan’s lead and slashing Ivy Bridge notebook and desktop prices in preparation for Intel’s Haswell launch, resellers have said.

However, they have warned that in the current climate the company is doing itself no favours with the price reductions.

The comments come after a report in DigiTimes suggested  that retail channels in the Taiwan market had begun to slash prices of Intel’s Ivy Bridge machines, which retail from $611, by an average of 10 percent. However, other models were reduced further with discounts between 20-30 percent.

And the orders from above have filtered down to the UK with resellers also feeling the pressure to slash.

“We’re getting orders for reductions too for the same reasons. But, this isn’t anything new, it’s the way the cycle works,” one reseller told ChannelEye.

“I’m not sure about the 20 to 30 percent reductions. At the moment we’re seeing five to 15 percent. But as the date of launch comes closer we’ll probably be forced to slash prices even more.”

However, others claimed the company wasn’t doing itself or the new launch any favours with the reductions.

“Whenever Intel is about to make a new release we see the old models, even if they haven’t been on the shelves for long, slashed in price,” another reseller added.

“While it works for us in terms of not carrying so much surplus stock, for companies it means they are losing potential customers and money with consumers and businesses now taking heed of these sales and waiting until these price cuts happen.

“Once the new products are launched the sales circle starts again.”

Another agreed, telling ChannelEye: “This is nothing new. It’s the way of retail life. But it’s not a good model to follow, especially in this climate where consumers are waiting to pounce on bargains and refusing to pay full price for anything.

“Maybe Intel should concentrate on getting existing lines right before making price cuts and new products that will no doubt be left sitting on the shelf.”

Gartner gives advice to shops

Posted on May 9, 2013 by - News

gartnerDemand driven retail success is dependent on getting a range of factors right, Gartner has said.

According to the company, defining the role of supply chain, span of control and metrics maturity are the key  to  retail success.

Demand-driven retailing is based on a range of technologies and processes that analyze and capture consumer behaviour. This is then teamed up with  demand, supply and product analysis in a bid to to fulfil customer expectations, improve operational performance and in turn give a profitable response across a network of suppliers, employees and sales channels.

In a survey of retail industries in North America, Western Europe and Asia/Pacific, the company said that there were three important bit to  getting this right.

Firstly the supply chain, which Gartner pointed out varied in role by retailer, was
named as one of the key things to help businesses with their strategy. It said its survey highlighted that 64 percent of respondents were more likely to deliver return on assets (ROA) of greater than 16 percent when using this chain properly.

The supply chain so-called “span of control” was another factor highlighted by the company, which said although the role of the supply chain may differ by retailer, the best shared one common trait — they define their supply chains more inclusively than their peers.

It said many retailers use a narrow span of control (such as distribution centre [DC] operations, transportation and procurement) to define their supply chains.

Smarter retail supply chains went a step further and broadened the span of control to include forecasting, replenishment, new product launch and sourcing responsibilities.

Finally, Gartner said that establishing a robust set of end-to-end supply chain metrics was also an important factor with many retailers today measuring aspects of their supply chains, but also identified a need for a more-comprehensive measurement program.

New CEO of Virgin named

Posted on May 8, 2013 by - Moving People, News

Richard BransonTom Mockridge has been named as the new chief executive of Virgin.

The ex head of the UK arm of News International will join the rival after the $15.75 billion acquisition by US cable company Liberty Global completes.

Mockridge was previously chief executive of European Television operations, chief executive of Sky Italia and and most recently chief executive of News International.

He will succeed Neil Berkett, who will continue in his role as CEO of Virgin Media until closing of the transaction, having previously announced his intention to retire from Virgin Media upon closing the deal.

Mike Fries, President and CEO of Liberty Global, said the new recruit would bring experience into his new role, admitting he’d know him for 15 years.

Lamborgini celebrates 50th

Posted on May 8, 2013 by - Fun Stuff

lambSports car fanatics over in Italy will today get their fix as 350 super Lamborginis hit the streets of Milan.

The cars from the House of the Raging Bull are beginning a Grand Tour as part of Lamborghini’s 50th Anniversary celebrations.

Starting in Milan, the cars will then pass pass through the landscapes of Lombardia, Toscana, Lazio, Umbria and Emilia Romagna, stopping over in Forte dei Marmi, Grosseto, Roma, San Giustino Valdarno and Bologna, where they will arrive on 10 May in the afternoon.

On Saturday 11 May the Lamborginis will depart again for Sant’Agata Bolognese, for the final celebrations of the 50th anniversary.

The convoy will be more than 4.5 km in length, with a combined power of more than 190,000 hp.

From the first car produced in 1963, the 350 GT, it will include the entire model range right up to the current Gallardo and Aventador models.

Drivers and co-drivers will arrive from all over the world: with 65 percent men and 35 women, their ages range from 22 to 75 years old.

Kids buy apps and raid parents’ accounts

Posted on May 8, 2013 by - News

Apple, iPadChildren are costing their parents cash, running up bills on apps and in-app purchases on their tablets and smartphones.

According to research conducted by Microsoft, parents have spent on average an extra £341 on their bills, unaware of their kids’ app spending, totalling over £30 million for parents across the nation.

Over a quarter of the 2000 parents asked admitted to falling foul of their kids making unauthorised app and in-app purchases, with 83 percent of these parents suffering from an increased monthly bill as a result.

Just over one in ten parents said that they were concerned they were unable to pay the extra cost, while  a third have resorted to hiding their smartphone and tablet from their kids.

Nonetheless, 17 percent of UK parents still share their smartphone and tablet passwords with their children, with 23.5 percent of parents not having a security password at all.

Eight year olds are running up the largest app costs, having added on average an extra £59.59 to their parents’ smartphone or tablet bill.  And, demonstrating the widespread issue of ‘accidental’ buys by very young children, well over a third of kids aged four and under have made app and in-app purchases without permission.

The research reveals that fun-loving kids are spending on average three hours and 21 minutes a week playing smartphone games and apps. Surprisingly, one in ten parents give their children free rein to access whatever content they want and over half link their smartphone or tablet to a subscription service or direct debit account that can be easily accessed.

As well as the financial implications of the unsupervised use of a parent’s smartphone or tablet, there is also the risk of social media pranks. Over a quarter of kids have sneakily updated a parent’s Facebook status, and one in five updated their Twitter status.

Potentially causing a career limiting move, one in ten kids have also hijacked a parent’s Facebook profile to comment on or insult their boss.

Microsoft said its Windows Phone 8 handsets could help parents reduce the likelihood of suffering ‘bill shock’, providing a Kid’s Corner feature which prohibits in-app purchases and only lets kids roam around in the specific area.