UK retailers are upgrading their tech to offset a loss of a third of their customer base as the cost-of-living crisis bites.
New research from Ensono was based on a survey of 500 senior IT decision-makers working in UK retail, which revealed retailers feeling the strain of rising prices and the worsening cost-of-living crisis.
It found department store brands expect to lose an average of 32 per cent of customers – the most significant drop across the different areas of retail surveyed.
Cloudy outfit Node4 announced that Hannah Birch had joined the company as its new managing director of digital and group board member.
Her brief includes managing the MSP’s digital business and strengthening its strategic relationship with Microsoft, leveraging Node4’s recent investments.
Node4 founder and CEO, Andrew Gilbert said: ”Birch understands how to drive transformational growth strategies, creating deeper value-based relationships with clients. ”
Ensono, a technology adviser and managed service provider, announced that Howard Malloy has been appointed Senior Vice President (SVP) and Managing Director (MD), Europe.
Malloy most recently served as the Global Vice President of Client Success and prior to that, he served as Managing Director for India.
Ensono said that Malloy’s appointment is part of Ensono’s long-term commitment to invest in the future of the UK and wider European market.
“The company has a long history of investing in cutting edge UK technology firms, acquiring IT services provider Attenda in 2016, Microsoft Azure experts, Inframon in 2017 and cloud-native consultancy Amido last year. These strategic acquisitions have helped Ensono provide clients a truly end-to-end transformational service, becoming their trusted ally for better business outcomes ,” the company said.
An Information Services Group report claims that enterprises are increasingly embracing a cloud-first approach to their IT investments.
The “2021 ISG Provider Lens Public Cloud – Services & Solutions Report for the UK” said that enterprises are looking to service providers to help them migrate more of their workloads to the public cloud.
It finds many large UK enterprises interested in hybrid cloud environments, which enable continued use of legacy IT systems, even though an increasing number of companies anticipate a time when they would migrate all of their IT assets to the cloud. Small and medium-sized enterprises, meanwhile, are looking at infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) options to replace their depreciated hardware assets.
ISG partner Jan Erik Aase said that the move to the cloud is expected to be the primary driver of IT market growth in the UK in the coming years.
Private cloud remains a significant part of the hybrid cloud strategies which dominate the market, according to a report from Ensono.
Ensono’s “A Snapshot of the Cloud in 2021” report, which surveyed 500 cloud decision-makers across a range of firms in the US and UK, found 78 percent of respondents currently use the private cloud in their cloud strategy – compared to 51 percent running one public cloud and 45 percent on two or more public clouds.
This means that the hybrid cloud market should see significant growth in the years ahead.
The report said that businesses who choose hybrid cloud strategies see a range of benefits.
Hannah Birch has been appointed SVP and Managing Director (MD), Ensono Europe.
The appointment follows Ensono’s acquisition of cloud consultancy Amido, enabling Ensono to help more clients with their transformation challenges and co-creating new digital models. Birch takes over the role of MD of Europe from Barney Taylor.
Birch joined Ensono in June with a remit to transition into the managing director role. She spent over a decade at Accenture as Managing Director in Technology. Her work at Accenture included responsibilities heading up its Insurance Practice for Technology and on the Technology Leadership Team for UK & Ireland.
Birch brings over 20 years of experience in the IT industry to her role at Ensono. She has worked with many multinationals both across the Insurance and Energy sector, as well as data centre and service management transformation engagements. Before her roles at Accenture, Birch held “Leadership” positions at both Computacenter and Fujitsu Services UK.
Cloudy Ensono has joined Google Cloud’s partner programme in a bid to improve its multi-cloud products.
Cloud MSP Ensono says joining Google’s Partner Advantage Programme will enable it to offer new cloud capabilities to its clients and access technologies such as BigQuery and Anthos.
The move seems linked to Ensono’s buying of UK cloud consultants Amido in April. Amido was part of Google Cloud’s Partner Advantage programme prior to its acquisition by Ensono.
Ensono now provides cloud services across Google Cloud, AWS and Microsoft Azure, it claims.
The US-based firm has been transforming itself from a mainframe services company to a fully-fledged hybrid IT provider over recent years.
Ensono CTO Gordon McKenna said that being able to provide multicloud solutions across platforms is a key strategy that our clients are looking for.
“Our mission is to provide organisations with the best management of hybrid environments while migrating applications to the cloud. By working with Google Cloud, Ensono has the expertise to aid clients in achieving their multi-cloud goals by adopting Google Cloud applications within their existing infrastructure.”
Cloudy Ensono has appointed Hannah Birch as General Manager (GM) and Deputy Managing Director for the European business.
In this role, she will drive the European growth strategy as Ensono looks to use the investment from new owner KKR and its recent acquisition of cloud-native consultancy Amido.
Ensono’s, Managing Director, Europe Barney Taylor said: “With our recent acquisition of Amido and KKR’s investment in Ensono, we have significant momentum and an accelerated opportunity to invest and grow in both the UK and European markets. Hannah is the right person to drive our growth ambition and to continue to build on our reputation as a leader in the technology space.”
Birch joins Ensono from Accenture where she led the company’s UK Technology Business for Insurance and was a member of the Technology Leadership Team for UK & Ireland.
New research has found that security is the most significant concern for IT professionals considering, or are already using, multi-cloud strategies – topping the list of worries amongst both US and UK respondents.
Cloudy Ensono released new research into the wide array of challenges facing US and UK IT leaders’ multi-cloud strategy. After security, UK IT leaders’ top fears for their multi-cloud strategy were governance and cost optimisation.
US respondents were more worried about cost optimisation and maintaining a positive end-user experience next on the list.
Hybrid IT services Ensono has sold itself to investment giant KKR in a deal worth $1.7 billion.
Ensono claims KKR’s technology experience and resources will help it achieve “new heights” in the managed services industry for medium and large enterprises.
Under the deal will see KKR acquire the MSP business from existing investors Charlesbank Capital Partners and M/C Partners. Ensono claims the deal is expected to close within the next 60 days and will be financed through KKR’s Americas X11 fund.
Hybrid IT services provider and SAP on Azure outfit Ensono has released new research into the impact that skills shortages are having on SAP applications and their management.
The outfit said that while organisations have ambitious plans to migrate to new versions and more powerful public cloud infrastructures, poor skills availability has halted many in their tracks.
The research found that 70 percent feel migrating SAP to public cloud will provide more benefits than keeping SAP on private cloud or on-premises. As a consequence, 60 percent of organisations are seeking to go all-in on the public cloud. Yet, the majority of SAP applications are still hosted on-premise.
Despite there being a clear desire to migrate, around 35 percent of respondents in Ensono’s study say that SAP skills would present barriers for their organisations when migrating their SAP portfolio from on-premise. Around 35 percent say that public cloud skills would present the same barrier. Conversely, 29 percent report a skills shortage on legacy technology, providing a real conundrum and startling issue for the future of IT.
While the majority of SAP applications are still housed on-premise, 70 percent of those responsible for SAP believe migrating to the public cloud will be more beneficial than keeping it on-premise, according to a new report from Ensono
Ensono found that 61 percent stated that migrating SAP to public cloud is critical for business success.
There was consensus amongst the 100 IT leaders responsible for SAP within UK enterprise that public cloud provides businesses with opportunities. Almost 20 percent of those surveyed had one or more SAP application already hosted on public cloud and this is set to increase by 79 percent in the next two years as enterprise organisations launch their migration plans. This indicates that, following many years of barriers to public cloud such as security, loss of control and regulation, customers are edging towards public cloud maturity.
Ensono has been selected by supplier of safety equipment, workwear and services Arco to migrate its SAP infrastructure onto Microsoft Azure. The project lets Arco to develop its eCommerce platform and continue to operate as the business relocates to new headquarters, it said.
Arco offers over 170,000 products including workwear, footwear, PPE and workplace safety products. Its Safety Services team offer training, consultancy, rescue and site services to businesses across the UK. Based in Hull, Arco reaches its customers through its extensive product catalogue, interactive website and national network of retail stores. The company has sales of over £295 million and employs approximately 1600 people nationwide.
Hybrid IT services provider Ensono has been named as one of the first managed service providers to be recognised as a Microsoft Azure Expert MSP from the Microsoft pilot programme after an intensive audit process.
Ensono is now one of just 32 certified Azure Expert MSPs after proving itself as an expert ally in assisting clients in adopting Azure services. This certification recognises that Ensono clients on Azure receive continuous optimisation in spend and technology.
Ensono’s managed Azure clients will receive fully audited managed services and will have access to the most qualified consultants and technical resources throughout their digital transformation journeys.
The outfit underwent an in-depth audit that evaluated its technical expertise, assessment and design, build and migration, cloud operations and service management, security and governance, SLAs customer satisfaction, cost optimisation and reporting for its Azure services. Ensono’s Hyper Cloud Platform was a critical element in receiving the certification. This cloud management platform allows clients to have full visibility of their Microsoft Azure environment without having to worry about day-to-day management and long-term strategy.
Gavriella Schuster, corporate vice president, One Commercial Partner, Microsoft Corp. said: “Ensono continuously delivers excellence in Microsoft services to its clients, which is why recognizing them with this certification is well-deserved. Ensono’s dedication to its clients and leadership in managed services is exactly what we look for in Azure Managed Expert MSPs.”
Ensono worked with Sonoco, one of the largest diversified global packaging companies, to implement a cloud-first strategy through Azure GoLive, Ensono’s process for migrating clients to Azure. Ensono identified opportunities for digitally transforming workloads on Azure and lead the company’s transition from the mainframe to Azure. The migration provided the client with an improved user experience, cost savings, and a competitive advantage by delivering client-specific apps from Azure.
Executive Vice President of Technology and Strategy Brian Klingbeil said: “Our clients and global businesses looking to transform can be assured we provide optimal managed Azure services and a steamless digital transformation journey. “The Azure Expert MSP designation provides our clients with the reassurance that we are the right partner to take their cloud strategies to the next level.”
Ensono has written a cheque for cloud management outfit Inframon as part of its cunning plan to expand its Microsoft Azure services in the US and Europe.
Inframon has been expanding in the managed cloud space over the last decade and now offers a converged managed cloud and devices service for the education, healthcare, finance and business services industries. This end-to-end service has made it a suitable target for Ensono.
Jeff VonDeylen, CEO of Ensono said that the organisational and leadership structure would remain the same and Inframon will continue to exist, although it will become known as Inframon, an Ensono company.
Sean Roberts will become general manager, Microsoft Cloud Services and Gordon McKenna will become CTO of Microsoft Cloud Services. Both will report to Ensono’s Brian Klingbeil, the company’s COO.
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