IDC 2015 Contact Centre Leaders

IDC 2015 Contact Centre Leaders

by | 4 Dec 2015 | Cloud, Outsourcing, Technology

2015 IDC Worldwide Contact Centre CCaaS Vendor Assessment matrix

The IDC MarketScape study examines the key players in the worldwide contact center infrastructure and software (CCIS) market, analyzing  current capabilities as well as longer-term strategies

The CCIS market includes voice and digital media contact distribution, management, and agent-software clients, as well as self-service solutions for voice, web, and mobile devices used to offer customer service solutions as part of a customer experience strategy. IDC also examine the ecosystem and cloud (public/private) deployment, customer experience solutions, and mobile customer care solutions, as well as go-to-market models used by vendors to achieve these.

Key criteria that contribute to a successful CCIS offering include:

  • The ability to present a strategy that comprises key technologies that focus on the 3rd Platform of IT, including cloud (public and private), Big Data and business analytics, mobility, and social business functionality.
  • Vendors that present innovative strategies around partner management, pricing, and product packaging.
  • Vendors that can provide flexible delivery options for partners and customers as part of their video portfolios (on-premises, managed, hosted, cloud).
  • Business partnerships and sales channels that open up new markets for the vendor’s offering, yet still maintain a high level of support and customer care.

Twelve of the leading worldwide contact center infrastructure and software vendors profiled in the report are:-

  • ALE (formerly Alcatel–Lucent Enterprise)
  • Avaya
  • Cisco
  • Genesys
  • Interactive Intelligence
  • Intelecom
  • Loxysoft
  • Mitel
  • NEC
  • SAP
  • ShoreTel
  • Unify

Some of the key challenges for customers investing in contact center infrastructure and software are the identification of technologies, features, and applications that are most appropriate for their organisations, and more importantly, which source(s) they should turn to for deployment and expertise.

CCaaS leaders 2015

“Although there were 12 key vendors evaluated it is my opinion that the leader of the pack – Genesys – showed more diversification with regard to capabilities and ability to move with market demands, so this report has focused on the overall capability of Genesys.” stated Craig Ashmole, Founding Partner of London-based IT Consulting CCServe.

The three primary sources of CCIS functionality are:

  1. IP PBX/unified communications and collaboration (UC&C) vendor solutions and the enterprise network, such as Cisco, Avaya, ShoreTel, Unify, ALU Enterprise/Huaxin, NEC, Mitel, and Huawei.
  2. Standalone contact center solution environments from vendors such as Genesys, Interactive Intelligence, and SAP.
  3. Hosted/managed and cloud service provider solutions offered by facilities-based providers such as Genesys, inContact, Verizon, and 8×8.

Since there is no one-size-fits-all solution for contact center solutions, customers can choose from an assortment of features from these sources, which may require a little, or a lot, of integration to make the solution run on customers’ network infrastructure and/or within the bounds of their existing services/carrier contracts.

  • Many organisations find CCIS solutions complex and are not sure how they would go about managing and maintaining the environment. Therefore, having a solution managed by a third-party provider would help remove the complexity for them and alleviate the need to make internal investments in hiring appropriately skilled IT staff to manage and maintain it.
  • Businesses are looking at ways to reduce the amount of real estate to lessen operational costs and lower their carbon footprint generated by existing premises-based equipment. As a result, businesses are reducing the amount of hardware equipment they have on-premises.
  • Cloud environments can provide greater levels of automation, orchestration, provisioning, and deployment. Transitioning to the cloud can help organisations reduce operating costs, improve application performance, and better allocate their resources. However, contact centers are generally more strategic than, for example, unified communications (UC) solutions so the transition is slower and the ability for customisation can be less than a system on-premises or hosted by a service provider.
  • Businesses reliant on high levels of security will be more inclined to move existing solutions to hosted and private cloud deployments. In addition, many providers still need to do more work in terms of updating or bringing inadequate security policies to reassure companies that the transition to a cloud-based environment will provide them with the proper level of security.

In Summary:

“The CCIS market includes functionality that runs on standards-based equipment or purpose-built systems such as PBX. It has revived itself over the past three years with vendors active in several acquisitions, divestments, and partnerships,” said Jason Andersson, program director, IDC Nordics. “The movement to cloud is clear as investments in both hosted solutions and cloud solutions are beginning to make global headway.”

IDC expects 9.4% revenue growth in worldwide CCIS in 2015. Although premises-based solutions have garnered high attention in recent years, enterprise evaluations, trials, and ultimately adoption of hosted solutions (single-tenant) and cloud (multitenant) CCIS solutions will contribute significant growth predicted for the global market this year. Revenue growth will be driven by enterprises looking to retain capital, reduce costs, and improve customer experience, as well as by service providers refining their contact center strategies and product portfolios.

The full report covering all the vendors can be found on the IDC website but should you want to see the deep dive on Genesys covering their premise-based platform as well as the Cloud-based Contact Centre offering then you can read that report here.

Having spent a majority of my career working with and supporting the Corporate CIO Function, I now seek to provide a forum whereby CIOs or IT Directors can learn from the experience of others to address burning Change or Transformation challenges.

Craig Ashmole

Founding Director CCServe

Social media statistics to get you thinking

Social media statistics to get you thinking

by | 2 Dec 2015 | Cloud

10 SURPRISING SOCIAL MEDIA STATISTICS THAT WILL MAKE YOU RETHINK YOUR SOCIAL STRATEGY

If you’re managing social media for your business, it might be useful to know about some of the most surprising social media statistics to help you formulate your strategy to get it right !

1. THE FASTEST GROWING DEMOGRAPHIC ON TWITTER IS THE 55–64 YEAR AGE BRACKET.

This demographic has grown 79% since 2012.

The 45–54 year age bracket is the fastest growing demographic on both Facebook and Google+.

For Facebook, this group has jumped 46%.

For Google+, 56%.

Those are impressive numbers against the prevailing idea that social media is “just for teenagers.” It certainly points to the importance of having a solid social media strategy if these age brackets fit into your target demographic.

Rethink it: Keep older users in mind when using social media, particularly on these three platforms. Our age makes a difference to our taste and interests, so if you’re focusing on younger users with the content you post, you could be missing an important demographic.

2. 189 MILLION FACEBOOK’S USERS ARE “MOBILE ONLY USERS”

Not only does Facebook have millions of users who don’t access it from a desktop or laptop, but mobile use generates 30% of Facebook’s ad revenue as well. This is a 7% increase from the end of 2012 already.

Rethink it: There are probably more users accessing Facebook from mobile devices than you thought. It’s worth considering how your content displays on mobile devices and smaller screens before posting it, particularly if your target market is full of mobile users. Of course, make sure to make sharing to social media from mobile more straightforward.

3. YOUTUBE REACHES MORE U.S. ADULTS AGED 18–34 THAN ANY CABLE NETWORK

Did you think TV was the best way to reach the masses? Well if you’re after 18–34 year olds in the U.S., you’ll have more luck reaching them through YouTube. Of course, one video won’t necessarily reach more viewers than a cable network could, but utilizing a platform with such a wide user base makes a lot of sense.

Rethink it: If you’ve been putting off adding video to your strategy, now’s the time to give it a go. You could start small with simple five-minute videos explaining what your company does or introducing your team.

4. EVERY SECOND TWO NEW MEMBERS JOIN LINKEDIN

LinkedIn, the social network for professionals, continues to grow every second. From groups to blogs to job listings, this platform is a rich source of information and conversation for professionals who want to connect to others in their industry.

Rethink it: LinkedIn is definitely worth paying attention to. In particular, this is a place where you may want to focus more on new users. Making your group or community a great source of information and a newbie-friendly space can help you to make the most out of the growing user base.

Make sure you share consistently to your LinkedIn company page and profile by, for example, scheduling your posts.

5. SOCIAL MEDIA HAS OVERTAKEN PORN AS THE NO. 1 ACTIVITY ON THE WEB

We all knew social media was popular, but this popular? Apparently it’s the most common thing we do online. So next time you find yourself watching Kitten vs. Watermelon videos on Facebook, you can at least console yourself with the fact that the majority of people online right now are doing something similar.

Social media carries more weight than ever. It’s clearly not a fad, or a phase. It continues to grow as a habit, and new platforms continue to appear and develop.

Rethink it: Putting time and effort into your social media strategy clearly makes sense in light of these stats. If you weren’t already serious about social media, you might want to give it a bit more of your time now.

6. LINKEDIN HAS A LOWER PERCENTAGE OF ACTIVE USERS THAN PINTEREST, GOOGLE+, TWITTER AND FACEBOOK

Although LinkedIn is gathering new users at a fast rate, the number of active users is lower than most of the biggest social networks around. So more people are signing up, but they’re not participating. This means you’re probably not going to have as good a response with participatory content on LinkedIn, like contests or polls, as you might on Facebook or Twitter.

Rethink it: If you’re hoping to get people involved, think about which platforms are best for that. Looking at the latest Twitter statistics and Facebook statistics, these platforms might be a better place for your contest or survey, while passive content like blog posts or slide decks might be just right for your LinkedIn audience.

7. 93% OF MARKETERS USE SOCIAL MEDIA FOR BUSINESS

Only 7% of marketers say they don’t use social media for their business. That means there are lots of people out there getting involved and managing a social media strategy. It’s becoming more common to include social media as part of an overall marketing budget or strategy, as opposed to when it was the outlier that no one wanted to spend time or money on.

Rethink it: If you’re struggling to make your strategy work, or you just want some advice, you don’t have to go it alone. If 93% of marketers are using social media for business, you can probably find someone to give you a hand. Plus, there are lots of blogs, videos and slide decks around to help you out. Be sure to find the right social media management tool for you to stay on top of everything.

8. 25% OF SMARTPHONE OWNERS AGES 18–44 SAY THEY CAN’T RECALL THE LAST TIME THEIR SMARTPHONE WASN’T NEXT TO THEM

It’s pretty clear that mobile is a growing space that we need to pay attention to. And we’ve all heard the cliché of smartphone owners who don’t want to let go of their phones, even for five minutes. Well, apparently that’s not too far from the truth. If 25% of people aged 18–44 can’t remember not having their phone with them, there are probably very few times when they’re not connected to the web in some way.

social media stats

Rethink it: While you can reach people almost anytime, since they have their smartphones with them almost always, this also means you can interrupt pretty much any part of their lives. Don’t forget that having a phone in your pocket all the time isn’t the same as being available all the time.

9. EVEN THOUGH 62% OF MARKETERS BLOG OR PLAN TO BLOG IN 2013, ONLY 9% OF US MARKETING COMPANIES EMPLOY A FULL-TIME BLOGGER

Blogging is clearly a big focus for marketers who want to take advantage of social media and content marketing. This is great, because blogging for your business has lots of advantages: you can control your company blog, you can set the tone and use it to market your product, share company news or provide interesting information for your customers. With only 9% of marketing companies hiring bloggers full-time, however, the pressure to produce high-quality content consistently will be a lot higher.

What a lot of people struggle here is how to write the best headlines for your articles, when the best time is to publish posts and lots of other blogging questions that arise when people are starting out.

Rethink it: If you don’t have (or can’t afford) a full-time blogger for your business, be aware that having a content strategy that requires consistently posting on your blog will mean a lot of work for your marketing team and/or other team members in your company to keep up that volume. This can work, it’s just important to realize how big a task it is to run with a full-time content strategy without a full-time content creator.

10. 25% OF FACEBOOK USERS DON’T BOTHER WITH PRIVACY SETTINGS

We’ve seen a lot of news about social media companies and privacy. Facebook itself has been in the news several times over privacy issues, Instagram users recently got in a kerfuffle over changing their terms of service, and the recent NSA news has seen people become more conscious of their privacy online.

But despite these high-profile cases of security-conscious users pushing back against social networks and web services, Velocity Digital reports that 25% of Facebook users don’t even look at their privacy settings.

social-media-stats-privacy

Rethink it: Assuming that all of your customers are thinking along the same lines could be a big mistake. Especially if you’re basing that on what you’ve heard or read in the tech news. Remember that your customers might have very different priorities than what you expect.

Your social media strategy really comes down to what your goals are, and who your target customers are, but it doesn’t hurt to pay attention to the trends happening across the web. Hopefully these stats will help you to identify trends that will affect your strategy and adjust accordingly.

First appeared on buffersocial 

Having spent a majority of my career working with and supporting the Corporate CIO Function, I now seek to provide a forum whereby CIOs or IT Directors can learn from the experience of others to address burning Change or Transformation challenges.

Craig Ashmole

Founding Director CCServe

Taming the Internet of Threats

Taming the Internet of Threats

by | 30 Nov 2015 | Cloud, Technology

Internet Security continues to plague us with relevations of expanding Malware introduced through advertising on the internet

The "Malvertising" Report

If you want to read the report from Cyphort Labs that shows a dramatic rise in the amount of malware sent through advertising, known as ‘malvertising’  

Having spent a majority of my career working with and supporting the Corporate CIO Function, I now seek to provide a forum whereby CIOs or IT Directors can learn from the experience of others to address burning Change or Transformation challenges.

Craig Ashmole

Founding Director CCServe

The shocking truth of an unbelievable 325% rise in malware-infected advertising hitting our email, PCs, Smartphones and Tablets.

In a recent report by security firm Cyphort Labs it has revealed a dramatic rise in the amount of malware sent through advertising, known as ‘malvertising’. It is fast becoming one of the most popular types of drive-by attack for cyber criminals, who can easily corrupt the legitimate ad supply chain, targeting consumers directly and infecting their machines with malware.

Malvertising works by hackers placing seemingly legitimate or ‘clean’ ads on sites, and then altering or executing secretly embedded codes that can force a computer to load malicious software. According to Cyphort, cyber criminals are choosing this method because it offers little or no resistance when attacking networks.

Some of these infected ads need to be clicked on in order to release the malware, but an increasing number of cases are appearing where the ads are instead covertly embedded with code that can exploit browser vulnerabilities, thus not even requiring the victim to click on anything before falling under attack.

per centThere is even an element of sophistication in the development of malvertising, as cyber criminals are able to conduct attacks with some degree of selective targeting – much in the same way that legitimate ads can.
During 2014 alone, it saw a colossal 325% rise in malvertising, with cybercriminals costing global advertisers an estimated $6.3 billion this year through the use of automated programs and click-through ads on third party sites.

With the continued increase of websites using cookies to produce targeted ads as well as our own growing online habits, malvertising looks set to rise further still. The challenge then is for ad networks to keep a hold of their ability to control and monitor each and every ad that is being cast out into the cyber-sphere.

So as we move rapidly into the IoT (Internet of Things) as many devices, and even toys we now buy have WIFI, Bluetooth or USB connectivity.

“As the world connects more and more smart devices to the internet, the number of potential vulnerabilities will increase in linear fashion.” Comments Craig Ashmole, founding Partner at London based IT Consulting CCServe. “I’m not one to give ammunition to the doomsayers about the Internet of Things, as I believe that on the whole it’s going to be a major change in what we do and see, but someone recently describe the IoT as the ‘Internet-of-Threats’ ! ”

There has been a period where many smart devices have already been installed with no security protocols. They were originally expected to be used only in a closed, secure loop but now regularly connecting to networks both home, in the office or on the factory floor.

Open by default?

Many smart devices that are ubiquitous throughout the manufacturing and processing industries have in fact turned out to have been installed with no security protocols. They were originally commissioned with the expectation that they would only be used in a closed, secure loop. Recent cyber security breaches have taught us that even the humble industrial (and even office) equipment devices could be subverted for malicious purposes.

Therefore, it’s only fair to suggest that we should certainly be looking to protect the corporate data centre from generic attacks, and the best way of doing that is not to leave the security door wide open.

Internet security advice is so often aimed at IT but we should also be considering other areas. So, for data centre and facility professionals, here are five basic things that will help protect your company and its reputation. Other than time and employee costs, many of these actions are “free”.

Basic fixes

  1. Simplify: Complexity increases the number of attack surfaces. An easy way to reduce this is to turn off default functionality that is not being used, and disconnect equipment that is not in use.
  2. Strengthen: Adopt the view that published default usernames and passwords are 100 percent compromised and should be changed. Eliminate default credentials (passwords, SNMP community strings, etc). Replace them with strong passwords and, wherever possible, use different usernames and passwords for different people.
  3. Partition: Isolate the facility network from the enterprise network. If possible build a separate physical network for the data centre and hide it behind a physical firewall to keep hackers away from mission-critical equipment.
  4. Update: Ensure that all devices have the latest firmware, and revisit this regularly to keep up with security patches. Do not make it easy to exploit known vulnerabilities.
  5. Lock down: Physically secure critical equipment, create an access control plan and be sure to use it. Some protocols used on equipment are 30 years old, developed at a time when we didn’t have security concerns. Putting equipment behind closed doors with access control goes a long way to making them secure.

It is assumed that active scanning tools (network scans, intrusion-detection and penetration logs, email scanners and antivirus software) will have been implemented by IT as part of sensible enterprise protection measures, but if you work in the data centre and are unsure about this, one should definitely be checking.

To read the report from Cyphort Labs that shows the dramatic rise in the amount of malware sent through advertising, known as ‘malvertising’ fill in the form on the left to access it.

Comments also from: Soeren Jensen - VP Schneider Electric.
Cloud Comparison Index

Cloud Comparison Index

by | 21 Nov 2015 | Cloud, Consulting

The ISG Technology Insights Group Launches the Cloud Comparison Index™

The First Benchmarking Service That Compares Costs of Public Cloud versus Internal IT
Study Shows Usage Matters; Public Cloud Not Always Cheaper
Price Differential Among Public Cloud Providers as High as 35%

STAMFORD, USA ― Information Services Group (ISG), a leading technology insights, market intelligence and advisory services company, has announced the launch of the ISG Cloud Comparison Index™, a new advisory and benchmarking service that offers clients a first-ever view of how public cloud costs differ among providers and how they stack up against those of internal information technology (IT) solutions.

ISG plans to publish in-depth analysis every quarter and make the reports available via subscription to the AccessISG™ on-demand information and consulting service. Future reports will examine the relative costs of using the public cloud versus internal IT for a variety of infrastructure configurations, applications and workloads.

The ISG Cloud Comparison Index™ leverages internal IT cost data from ISG’s proprietary benchmarking database and compares it with the prices of public cloud configurations from the four major public cloud providers: Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure and IBM SoftLayer. The public cloud data is sourced from Gravitant, a global strategic partner of ISG.

“ISG is in a unique position to help clients understand the true cost of moving work to the public cloud, versus performing the work in-house,” said Todd Lavieri, president of ISG Americas and Pacific. “The ISG Cloud Comparison Index™ combines our market-leading IT cost data with public cloud pricing data from Gravitant – creating an incredibly powerful analytical platform that delivers new insights into the relative benefits of harnessing Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offerings versus leveraging fixed-cost, on-premises IT assets. This unique combination of data sets offers CIOs and other IT leaders a solid basis for sound decision-making, along with an objective view of the complex and rapidly evolving market for cloud-enabled services.”

First Report Shows Usage Matters in Public Cloud Pricing
The inaugural report of the ISG Cloud Comparison Index™ shows the cost of running an application on an internal IT platform is cheaper than running the same program in the public cloud when compute instance usage is higher than 55 percent, but the pendulum swings in favor of public cloud when usage drops below that mark for certain configurations.

For specific infrastructure configurations, the study found the price of public cloud services varies significantly from one provider to the next, ranging from $811 per month to $1,096 per month at 100 percent usage levels. The cost of internal IT for the same configuration was $548 a month, 32 percent lower than the lowest public cloud price. Cloud instance usage is the percentage of time that a compute instance is running and accruing charges from the public cloud provider.

However, when the average usage level for public cloud falls to 55 percent, the cost of public cloud is at parity with the cost of internal IT. The cost advantage for public cloud increases significantly as the amount of time that instances can be released increases (that is, usage falls), the study finds.

“Pubic cloud is not always cheaper,” said Christopher Curtis, partner, ISG Emerging Technologies, and head of ISG’s Cloud Solutions practice. “It’s largely a factor of usage. High levels of public cloud usage can create scenarios in which internal IT is more cost effective; conversely, the cost advantage of internal IT disappears when public cloud usage is at lower levels, that is, applications can release more resources. The break-even point appears to be around 55 percent for the specific configuration we analyzed.”

Public cloud presents a compelling value proposition for enterprise buyers of IT outsourcing services, Curtis noted. “Think of it: pay for your infrastructure only when you need it, dramatically reduce capital expenditures and virtually eliminate the need for commitment, all while reducing the time to provision servers and storage. For most buyers, that sounds like a pretty good deal. However, buyers are discovering this value proposition applies only to selected applications and workloads, not to entire data centers,” Curtis said.

Other key findings of the inaugural ISG Cloud Comparison Index™ report include:

  • Prices for identical infrastructure configurations vary substantially among public cloud providers. At 100 percent usage, the price differential is 35 percent from the highest cost option to the lowest, with the range narrowing gradually as average usage decreases.
  • Public cloud prices are highly sensitive to usage. The price spread among public cloud providers is twice as wide at 100 percent usage as it is at 50 percent usage.
  • Usage is the primary driver of cost in the cloud, but configurations and features also play a significant role. Different configurations and additional options, often specific to each cloud provider, can dramatically influence the break-even point between public cloud and internal IT costs.

“Enterprises should avoid viewing the public cloud only as a lever to reduce operating costs, as they do with traditional outsourcing solutions,” said Curtis. “Instead, they should view public cloud as a way to reduce or eliminate future capital expense by avoiding over-provisioning of internal IT resources to meet high levels of periodic demand. Public cloud creates significant cost-avoidance opportunities for volatile workloads. Applications with the most wide-ranging usage patterns are strong candidates for the cloud.”

“There are horses for courses in the usage of cloud services and what works for one company may not be the best for another.” Stated Craig Ashmole, Founding Partner of London-based IT Consulting CCServe. “To create viable business cases for workload migration, enterprises increasingly will need a deep understanding of the nuances of various pricing models, as well as how those models relate to specific workloads.”

To read the inaugural report of the ISG Cloud Comparison Index™ in its entirety, click here.

isg-cloud-comparison-infographic-june-2015-1-638

Having spent a majority of my career working with and supporting the Corporate CIO Function, I now seek to provide a forum whereby CIOs or IT Directors can learn from the experience of others to address burning Change or Transformation challenges.

Craig Ashmole

Founding Director CCServe

Cloud Complexity

Cloud Complexity

by | 9 Nov 2015 | Cloud

Is Cloud complexity still hiding behind a pretty face?

The interesting relevation of what Cloud adopters feel and the approach that those are taking to get cloud services, under their belts, within the CIO Office.

Reading the November issue of Comupting.co.uk there was a survey that they conducted on 130 IT decision makers ranging from CIOs to system specialists and Programme Directors where 76 per cent said that their organisation was deploying Cloud services, with the largest portion indicating that their current deployment strategy was a step on a journey towards a much wider adoption. Great news then that Cloud is being deployed in earnest which is better than most actually openly state in events and seminars.

cloud1

“The cycle I am seeing in the market and during Advisory assignments I have engaged in, shows that Technology facilitates business change, which in turn spurs new technologies, ” comments Craig Ashmole, Founding Partner of London-based IT Consulting CCServe.

The self-perpetuating whirlwind of change was the factor underlying many of the reasons given for cloud adoption, with flexibility the main driver and cost benefits and scalability coming next as seen in figure 2 below. It’s not all about external factors as one of the growing themes in cloud deployment is unlocking internal talent and ideas, is a goal for more than a quarter of the respondents in the survey.

Amongst the negatives in the cloud survey, was security (mentioned by nearly 55 per cent) and cost control (15 per cent). Clearly the argument by cloud vendors that their infrastructure is more secure is still viewed by scepticism, especially after recent well-publicised events like the UK’s mobile giant – TalkTalk.

cloud2

In summary then, customers are looking for cloud-based solutions to increase flexibility and agility, to enable them to scale and to cut costs while boosting collaboration. However, they are worried about security implications of trusting sensitive data to cloud providers and sensitive to the need to control costs, essential when spinning up a server.

When Computing asked in the survey what were the skills that were sort after to manage the new world, the answers fit in neatly with business-focused goals like, Negotiation/Contract skills, Security, Understanding the Business, Regulatory, Cost Control, Evolving Technology Awareness. None of these skills were core technology focussed really but rather a more commercial savvy approach to the market which was interesting.

The most favoured architecture for cloud deployments, particularly in highly regulated industries or for those that require high-speed processing plus flexibility and scalability was Hybrid Cloud. This involves integrating both public and private cloud and private virtual on-premises environments, generally running on hardware supplied by different vendors.

Ignoring the skills gap is an issue, given the changing landscape, there is a growing strategic importance of cloud-related knowledge from a business awareness perspective. Among those that have adopted or are adopting cloud-based services only 24 per cent have a training plan in place, with almost half saying they have no such scheme and no plans in place to implement one, a remarkably low figure given the importance of cloud services as we go ahead.

cloud4

The lack of Training programmes could be a result of the low self-service nature of many cloud services, it could be that cloud is being adopted in a piecemeal rather than strategic fashion; or it may be that many of those responsible underestimate the complexities of rolling out an integrated cloud infrastructure and achieving a healthy return on investment. The view of John Leonard from Computing was that it might be a result of those falling for the promises of the pretty face of the emerging cloud providers.

Article: November 2015 edition of Computing 

 

 

Having spent a majority of my career working with and supporting the Corporate CIO Function, I now seek to provide a forum whereby CIOs or IT Directors can learn from the experience of others to address burning Change or Transformation challenges.

Craig Ashmole

Founding Director CCServe