Outside the Usual Disbelieves – Seaward IT Services

There is no doubt that people always look for the companies from where they can get the best IT services. This is the reason why the UK like previously, is again one of the best places for providing seaward IT and BPO services.

Offshoring IT support services is a common practice nowadays. Most organisations select various criteria to choose a specific destination that extends beyond the cost. While some companies prefer to get the advantages from numerous locations for distinct services in order to enhance the benefits of outsourcing.

It might happen that the UK based company have call centre services that they are providing from the UK due to the lower costs while the digital software development is being taken on from the Ukraine, application development and provision of services from any Middle East country to enhance the corporate responsibility.

Soviet Inheritance in Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the region that is putting up a fight besides many other countries like Poland, Romania, Ukraine and Moldova. The result of this fight has impacted most companies, for instance, the IT services firm T-Systems’s which was the UK based company, its former head Sam Kingston is now the COO of the Ukraine based Ciklum.

What Ciklum is aimed at is to assist the companies in finding and recruiting the IT staff in the Ukraine that has a huge software engineering skills set and offers office space to the clients in the operations at Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Spain and Belarus.

As per the statement of Kingston, the biggest market of Ciklum is the Denmark, US and Germany while its business in improving in the UK. According to him, the former Soviet Union used Ukraine to do a space research that benefited the IT industry. Several computer scientists and mathematicians have been reproduced, and now most of the Ukrainians are computer literate. Such an investment in people is enabling to deliver the potentials to meet the clients’ needs.

Source: http://www.computerweekly.com/news/4500271215/Offshoring-IT-services-Beyond-the-usual-suspects

Steel Orca Managed Services Provider Busted

Steel Orca Inc. is a Pennsylvania based managed services provider is planning to file for the bankruptcy since they have failed to transmute the defunct steel mill on the state border with the New Jersey into a new data centre as per the reports.

Steel Orca, which is providing a facility in the Princeton, New Jersey has willingly filed for the Chapter 7 bankruptcy at the start of the December. This information has been given as per the documents observed by the Data Centre Knowledge. Filing for the Chapter 7 bankruptcy means that the complete company’s assets will be transferred to a trustee before distributing them among the creditors.

In the Steel Orca’s case, New Jersey-based Atkinson & DeBartolo firm’s Bankruptcy Attorney Bunce Atkinson has been appointed as the trustee even though the officials had refused to talk about this.

Image Credit - Silicon Angle

In spite of the fact that the company was making several interesting moves in the last year, still the Steel Orca’s bankruptcy has been faced. Strategic partnership with Avaya Inc. has been proclaimed by the Steel Orca because they aimed to create the next generation software using the fabric based SDN architectures as defined by the data centre.

The company was also facing a high demand for the Linux and Oracle as a service solutions as explained by the Steel Orca’s CTO Larry Hess during the IBM Edge 2015.

Steel Orca had many big plans for its intended facility in the Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The old steel mill involved around 300, 000 square feet where the facility would have to be fueled by numerous local, renewable energy sources through which water from the Delaware River had been reserved for use in the cooling system.

Initially, the project was delayed prior to being cancelled completely for unexplained reasons. Keystone NAP LLC, another company, where Data Centre Knowledge has claimed that it had links with the Steel Orca’s President John Parker is currently creating its own data centre at the steel mill site.

Source: http://siliconangle.com/blog/2015/12/29/managed-services-provider-steel-orca-goes-bust/

Cloud Adopted by the Natural Resources Wales for IT Self-Service & Infrastructure Support

The consultant of Welsh Government’s environment is going to transfer the disaster recovery, application, and infrastructure support to the cloud in a bid so to strengthen the distinct systems individually.

As per the report, Natural Resources Wales (NRW) is aiming to shift to a complete cloud based Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system from Trustmarque, building on work in order to merge autonomous systems into a sole IT estate.

For this purpose, the Natural Resources Wales (NRW) has chosen Trustmarque through G-Cloud to execute Unit4 as its latest ERP platform while focusing on the combining of the ERP systems as it was working for the HR and finance on a particular platform. This was embarked on as part of the two-year contract extension with the company so to offer the full applications, disaster recovery, and infrastructure support.

Image Credit - Public Technology

It was further stated that while shifting of the ERP to the cloud was mainly emphasised; this step will also assist in creating a new self-service portal named “MyNRW” for the companies that have 2000 employees so they can easily continue their tasks like updating the personal information or accessing the pay slips digitally.

The NRW’s head of business support services, Paul Subacchi informed that the fabrication of NRW has developed into a complex and different IT estate while in the last two years, Trustmarque has greatly assisted in streamlining it. He further stated that their ERP system is extremely important for the company as it enables them to become well-organised while delivering greater functionality for self-service to the employees. He told that cloud is an essential part of the IT strategy, and the organisation requires a platform that is flexible, available, strong and safe so it can provide the ERP system.

In a statement, Trustmarque told that the level of security was vital to NRW because its ERP hold a significant amount of sensitive and complex data that mainly includes the supplier, employee and partner info.

Source: https://www.publictechnology.net/articles/news/natural-resources-wales-embraces-cloud-infrastructure-support-and-it-self-service

Two-Thirds of UK Firms Have Planned to Move Entire IT Infrastructure to the Cloud!

Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) has given a new report according to which almost two-thirds (63%) of the companies in the UK are devising strategies to shift their entire IT infrastructure to the Cloud.

It is a fact that the espousal rate of the Cloud amongst the UK businesses has remained unchanged from the preceding year. The research began in 2011, and the report reveals that the rate is still at 78% which is considerably higher than when the research was initiated. The report has disclosed that in the next two years, this adoption rate will increase to 85%.

The Cloud is used for minimum two services by more than 77% of the companies and used for five or more by one in eight (12%). The report revealed that the applications which are hosted in the Cloud are the web hosting (57%), e-commerce (53%), email (56%) and collaboration service (52%).

Since the Cloud offers flexibility so this is the primary reason why more than 77% of the companies decide to go for the Cloud. This has been revealed from the businesses after interrogation which they have quoted as their motivation to adopt the Cloud. 24/7 services dependence and scalability were scheduled as the other reasons, with 74% and 76% respectively.

As per the research, it has been found out that the cloud aids in achieving the business goals of innovation (45%), enhances client service (31%) and improves business continuity (37%). Alex Hilton, CEO of CIF stated that digital transformation has improved the businesses' agendas which are helping them to stay at the top of the competition.

Source: http://www.misco.co.uk/blog/news/03719/moving-entire-it-infrastructure-to-the-cloud-is-planned-by-two-thirds-of-uk-firms

How to Overwhelm the Top Security Apps with Managed Services

In what way does the organisation lower the security risks related to applications while still prioritising the productivity and the ways to manage the costs?

There are some applications that can easily access the most sensitive data and information while some have the ability to support the tactical business processes. Compared to network security, it has been observed that application security is receiving the less budget. This has made business leaders and security experts realised why hackers are attacking the applications. To reduce the risk of cyber attack that becomes successful in most of the cases, the majority of the security leaders are believing that the application security programmes should be enhanced.

According to the survey of 2014 by CompTIA, it has been analysed that the security problems are being mostly resolved with the help of managed services and around 47% of the companies are using them to report their cyber security needs. Here we will discuss the application security challenges that an organisation may face and how the managed services can overcome these risks:

Recruiting and Retaining the Security Experts is Challenging and Costly

As per the Cisco’s 2014 Annual Security Report, the internal security experts are searching for the new roles and are few in number while around 1 million IT security jobs are vacant all across the world. In the case if anybody is able to satisfy its role, the area of expertise that an employee may need can cover numerous domains as security software programmes develop, for instance, data protection, authentication, testing, encryption, bugs, design flaws, client side applications and many more. The companies are required to make investments in these domains in order to ensure that the new experts are up to date and performing to their full potential.

Image Credit - Infosecurity

Quick Responses to Change is a Necessity

Whether it’s a technology or business, everything needs development. In the case of technology, it is necessary for the business to analyse whether the security team is able to respond the new threats immediately that have been inspected and addressed. It is essential that the security groups can quickly respond to changes.

Only Tools Are Not Sufficient to Save You

For the applications that handle the crucial business functions or can access the sensitive data, operating a standard set of automated scans is not enough to guard these applications. Performing a manual testing and interpreting the results is also required.

There is a continuous change in the application security. The testing and prevention strategies should be kept up to date because new threats and attacks may arise at any time.

Why Managed Services?

In the case, if you are striving to overwhelm the obstacles that arise due to the limited skills and fixed capacity, you may find your team overburdened and reactive to the newest crisis. This is the time when you can make onward plans, complete other projects and invest in new skills. With the assistance of managed services, the provider can manage the application security testing while you will be able to emphasise on the other business key areas.

Sourced from Jim Ivers, Chief Marketing Officer, Cigital

Source: http://www.information-age.com/technology/security/123461048/how-use-managed-services-overcome-top-6-app-security-hurdles

Echo Managed Services Picked PR Agency One to Aid Business Growth!

Engaging more than 650 people and with a turnover of above £30m in the last year, Echo is consistently growing with full strength.

PR Agency One, a consumer and B2B PR consultancy has been chosen by the Echo Managed Services so it can strengthen its brand awareness while exploring and penetrating into new markets, thus improving the overall online visibility.

Echo is a renowned name in the UK that works with all kind of businesses whether related to regulated or non-regulated industries. It provides outsourced multi-channel contact centre services, revenue management solutions and an end to end debt recovery services. It also offers the UK’s leading water market billing and client information software.

Echo Managed Services has employed more than 650 people while it had a turnover of above £30m in the last year. This has shown how Echo is constantly growing with its full strength.

Managing Director of PR Agency One, James Crawford stated that there is no doubt that Echo Managed Services is in a period of growth. They are excited to work with the business like Echo as its booked agency by choice. James informed that for the next 12 months, their job is to improve the market share of the business (Echo) by building a trustworthy and reliable voice while aiding it in breaking into new sectors.

James further narrated that their dedicated and experienced team will work hard to create a good reputation of Echo, improve brand awareness and help the Echo in gaining the vital links for its website that will, in turn, aid in increasing its online visibility.

Source: http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/business/media/pr-agency-one-appointed-echo-10858501

Can Mid-Market Businesses be benefitted from Bimodal IT Success via Managed Services?

IT experts are bustling about understanding the newly invented term by Gartner “bimodal IT”. It is a technique of delivering services in a way that allow the IT teams to rip their emphasis into two distinct, clear and logical models that are stability and agility. The second one involves day to day IT operations that are vital and meant for the security and reliability for an IT environment related to an organisation. The previous one is focused on innovation to let the IT teams to research and identify the new techniques of utilising the technology in order to meet the rapid changing demands of the business.

As per the information provided by the Gartner, around 45 percent of the CIOs use bimodal IT service management strategies and this percentage can increase to 75 percent by 2017 where the companies will execute the bimodal IT strategies.

Bimodal IT and Managed Services

It has been observed that some companies prefer to outsource essential IT functions like helpdesk so to let the IT group to play an all-inclusive role in the business. There is no doubt that the nature of IT sourcing has changed. Gartner is of the view that smaller IT suppliers will be capable enough to respond to the demands quickly and providing faster solutions by using the cloud capabilities.

Image Credit - IT-Regie

Outsourcing the IT functions to managed services provider enable the internal staff to invest time in IT innovation so to assist the business in remaining active and responsive in the competitive marketplace. In order to have a successful relationship with the IT managed service provider so that the business’s future progress does not detract, the companies should ask the following questions from the managed services provider:

Do MSPs Can Assist in Current and Future IT Needs?

Managed service providers must have experience of providing assistance in the particular functions that are going to be outsourced. For instance, if the services are being offered in the helpdesk, then IT support services provider should have engineers that are capable enough to repair equipment including new technologies.

To What Extent, the Support Can Be Offered?

We know that IT issues can disrupt the IT teams from new projects, so the companies should contract with the MSPs as to how much they will promise to resolve the IT issues. Usually, MSPs provide varying degrees of assistance, like 24/7, remote or on-site support. In the case, if a package in terms of budget and support coverage do not meet the needs of an organisation, the companies can ask for the customised solutions.

Source: http://www.itproportal.com/2016/02/02/can-managed-services-be-the-key-to-bimodal-it-success-for-mid-market-businesses/