Mason Advisory scores multi-million pound government contract

Posted on July 8, 2019 by - News

Channel player Mason Advisory has won a two year £3.7 million contract to deliver a strategic operating model for the Home Office Digital, Data and technology department.

The Salford-based It consultancy beat more than 50 applicants to land the contract, and its team will start working with the department to roll out a strategic operating model that will improve value for money and meet the needs of the public sector body.

Managing director Duncan Swan said that the ability to combine all of the workstreams that form a successful transformation rests heavily on understanding the human side of business change.

European CX market growing

Posted on July 8, 2019 by - News

Beancounters at IDC think there are strong prospects for the CX market in Europe, with the analyst house predicting a seven percent CAGR up to 2022.

When 2022 arrives, the market will be worth $128 billion globally.

The analyst outfit said that European verticals spending most on CX this year would be banking, retail and some parts of manufacturing. In the next couple of years, there will be a change in that order with retailers spending more on the technology.

The main drivers of CX spending improving customer care and support, help with digital marketing and order fulfilment. In the longer-term, there will be a growth in omnichannel content with the technology making it easier to make sure that whichever way a business interacts with the customer is kept at the same standard.

Vodaphone names partners of the year

Posted on July 8, 2019 by - News

Vodafone UK announced its top-performing partners at the Partner of the Year Awards at Sky Garden in London.

The winning partners were recognised for their outstanding customer service, impressive customer retention and growth, and strong sales across Vodafone’s portfolio of fixed, mobile, and unified communications.

The winners for Vodafone’s Partner of the Year Awards 2018-2019 were:

Amazon expands with Business Prime

Posted on July 5, 2019 by - News

Online bookseller Amazon is continuing to give the channel a headache by rolling out its Prime service to Business customers.

The has been some debate in the channel over whether working with Amazon is a good idea with some industry commentators warning that the etailer should be seen as a rival. Resellers without a services plan, trying to compete on product and price, have been hammered.

Having launched its Amazon Business offering in the UK in April 2017, the firm is now adding Prime for business customers. The firm stated that is already serves more than half of the FTSE 100 companies and 80 percent of the largest universities.

ScienceLogic opens new office in Glasgow

Posted on July 5, 2019 by - News

IT operations management outfit ScienceLogic has opened an office in Glasgow, Scotland.

ScienceLogic said the new office would act as a hub of its business development operations in the region and bring additional jobs to the surrounding area.

The new HQ will also enable the firm to expand, and further support its growing customer base as MSPs, and large enterprises continue to adopt artificial intelligence for IT operations (AIOps).

Security as a Service demand increasing

Posted on July 5, 2019 by - News

Beancounters at Canalys  have added up some numbers and worked out that  that hosted security offerings are growing at a much faster rate than traditional hardware and software sales

A new report says that demand for Security as a Service continues to increase with that model of delivering applications to customers gaining more ground in the first quarter and solutions for public cloud and as a Service increased by 46 percent year-on-year.

The cloud and managed services approach now command 17.6 percent of the security market, a climb from 13.8 percent.

Cybersecurity protected from slowdown

Posted on July 4, 2019 by - News

Beancounters at the analyst firm Canalys claim that cybersecurity spending will be immune to a worsening economic and political in Blighty.

It has claimed its data showed the market expanding by double digits in the first quarter and global cybersecurity spending boomed 14.2 percent year on year in the first three months of 2019 to hit $9.7 billion, with the channel representing 92.3 percent of shipment value.

Canalys principal analyst Matthew Ball said that investment in cybersecurity shows no sign of slowing down as it remains a priority for all organisations.

“Recent high-profile ransomware attacks have resulted in large organisations paying large sums to regain access to critical IT systems and data. Strengthening security strategies across devices, infrastructure, perimeters and applications will continue to be critical. Increasing employee training and gaining more comprehensive cybersecurity insurance will also be important to counter these threats.”

WatchGuard adds Purdicom to line-up

Posted on July 4, 2019 by - News

WatchGuard has signed up Purdicom for its UK distribution operations to connect to more networking and cloud channel specialists.

The outfit already works with Nuvias and Northamber and will bring giving its latest distribution partner access to a portfolio that includes protection for wi-fi and networks.

WatchGuard wants to build more channel momentum and has been on the blower to MSPs and resellers from other disciplines that want to add security into the mix.

Broadcom set to snap up Symantec

Posted on July 4, 2019 by - News

Broadcom is in “advanced talks” to acquire struggling security firm Symantec for $15 billion.

Apparently a deal will be announced in a matter of weeks and Symantec’s share price rose by over 25 percent after reports of Broadcom’s rumoured bid emerged.

The cybersecurity outfit has endured a troubling time of late, with its CEO recently stepping down after reporting disappointing results, being replaced by an interim boss.

Customer Thermometer launches channel programme

Posted on July 3, 2019 by - News

Survey solutions outfit Customer Thermometer has launched a new channel partner programme for UK and US markets to help partners sell its cloud-based email feedback solution to drive easy subscription-based revenues.

Customer Thermometer already works with IT services, support and MSP’s across 60+ countries to get feedback from the heart of customer touchpoint, via embedding its feedback buttons into emails and tickets. Its response rates give organisations access to instant insight into customer sentiment across every interaction, which enables engagement and sentiment to be effectively measured and enhanced.

Its new channel programme makes it easy for any Managed Service Provider (MSP), Value Added Reseller (VAR) and Microsoft Cloud Service Provider (CSP) to sell and distribute its software, enabling them to quickly benefit from easy and additional SaaS revenue from every customer email signature or PSA/ CRM system integration.

Content Guru appoints Jonathan Oliver

Posted on July 3, 2019 by - Moving People, News

Content Guru has appointed Jonathan Oliver as its new Chief Information Officer,

The CIO hire comes as Content Guru continues its growth outside its home European market into Asia-Pac and North America. Jonathan will be responsible for optimising internal and customer-facing systems.

With over 25 years of industry experience, Jonathan was previously Vice President of Global Technology at Dynatrace, responsible for service delivery and optimisation across employees in 24 countries.

Fintech channel established in banking market

Posted on July 3, 2019 by - News

More than half of banking and financial services customers around the world use fintech products and services, according to a global poll.

Some 55 percent of respondents of the survey carried out by deVere Group, one of the world’s largest independent financial advisory organisations, affirmed that they ‘regularly use financial technology to access and manage their money’.

Japan’s NTT sets up global offices in London

Posted on July 2, 2019 by - News

Japan’s NTT has merged most of its subsidiary companies into one and created an outfit with revenues of $11 billion and an international centre in London.

NTT is made up of 28 companies including comms firm NTT Communications, its datacentre and systems integrator arm Dimension Data and its managed security services business NTT Security.

Misco relaunches

Posted on July 2, 2019 by - News

The new incarnation of Misco has opened its doors after UK Computer Group announced it had bought the rights to the name last month.

For those who came in late, Misco went bust in 2017. Still based in Wellingborough, the outfit has Dell EMC, Lenovo, Acer and HP among its vendor partners.

Adam Muir, director of product management at Misco, said the company had strong relationships with most of the market-leading vendors and distributors across the channel.