VitAL Magazine September-October 2013

VOLUME 7 | ISSUE 1 | SEPTEMBER- OCTOBER 2013

V ITAL INSPIRATION FOR THE MODERN BUSINESS

The brains behind the software Scientist explains how new software mimics the way the brain processes images

INSIDE VitAL Report Do you know your worth?

Breakthrough Technology Advertising industry detects a change

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Contents

Contents 6 NEWS 2013 is the year of the cloud for UK

contact centres

“Internet of Things” pilot scheme

11 VIEWPOINTS Jonathan Westlake addresses the UK IT skills shortage and Steve White discusses the value of problem management…

12. Do you know your worth?

12 VitAL REPORT Do you know your worth?

Sophie-Marie Odum investigates how failing to protect online intellectual property can cost you customers, reputation and profits…

18 VitAL SECURITY

20. The brains behind the software

Exposing the data breach myths Jody Brazil reveals the biggest myths that exist about data breaches, and explains how and why they occur…

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COVER STORY The brains behind the software Sophie-Marie Odum interviews the creator of “find similar” software, Dr Jeffrey Ng Sing Kwong...

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CLOUD TECHNOLOGY Three screens and a cloud

22. Three screens and a cloud

www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

Gary Pretty describes how Microsoft’s vision of three screens and a cloud become a reality deployed by thousands…

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Contents

Contents 24

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP Five-a-day approach to keeping customers happy According to Neil Penny, service desk managers should look to the medical profession for inspiration when it comes to the health of their service desk environment…

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MOBILE APP TESTING

42. Advertising industry detects a change

30 Ensuring tax compliance Adrian Learer explains how freelancers in the IT sector can ensure they remain compliant, and how employers can understand this complex tax arena…

34 I s your business flexible enough for 2014?

Emma Clark explains how new, flexible working laws could impact your organisation and how you can best prepare for the change…

36 How to solve or eliminate BYOD chaos Ennio Carboni, discusses a few best practices you can apply to introduce and support BYODs while maintaining optimal network and application availability…

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VitAL PROCESSES 38 It’s good to talk chat Greg Cowart offers eight top tips on how to successfully and practically implement chat technologies into your business…

40 Post Windows XP: A whole new world How will your IT estate survive post Windows XP? Paul Marsh discusses…

www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

42 BREAKTHROUGH TECHNOLOGY

Advertising industry detects a change Sophie-Marie Odum investigates how we are moving a step closer to Minority Report-style adverts…

43 30 LEADING

IT SERVICE MANAGEMENT PROVIDERS

VitAL is pleased to deliver the top 30 leading ITSM providers. This aims to help you understand the key differences between the various products and services on offer from the leading providers in the ITSM space…

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Leader EDITOR Sophie-Marie Odum sophie.odum@31media.co.uk Tel: +44 (0)203 056 4599 TO ADVERTISE CONTACT: Rima Seth rima.seth@31media.co.uk Tel: +44(0)203 668 6941 DESIGN & PRODUCTION Tina Harris tina.harris@31media.co.uk EDITORIAL & ADVERTISING ENQUIRIES 31 Media Ltd 41-42 Daisy Business Park, 19-35 Sylvan Grove, London, SE15 1PD Tel: +44 (0) 870 863 6930 Email: info@31media.co.uk Web: www.vital-mag.net PRINTED BY Pensord, Tram Road, Pontllanfraith, Blackwood, NP12 2YA © 2013, 31 Media Limited.

All rights reserved.

VitAL Magazine is edited, designed, and published by 31 Media Limited. No part of VitAL Magazine may be reproduced, transmitted, stored electronically, distributed, or copied, in whole or part without the prior written consent of the publisher. A reprint service is available.

Opinions expressed in this journal do not necessarily reflect those of the editor or VitAL Magazine or its publisher, 31 Media Limited.

ISSN 1755-6465 PUBLISHED BY: T H I R T YO N E

VitAL Magazine, proud to be the UKCMG’s Official publication.

ITIL ® is a Registered Trademark, and a Registered Community Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce, and is Registered in the US Patent and Trade Mark Office.

A welcome from the new editor Hello and welcome to the September issue of VitAL. I am delighted to introduce myself as the new editor. I look forward to introducing many new and exciting ideas over the coming months to ensure VitAL remains a reputable information provider and the objective voice of the industry.

Through the delivery of high quality, thought-provoking content, you can be confident that you’ll continue to gain a true insight into the issues affecting the market, and benefit from engaging, informative and cutting edge editorial that reflects new thinking and trends in a constantly evolving, fast-pace industry.

We’ve introduced a new “Breakthrough Technology” section, please see page 42. In this issue, we discuss new facial detection technology in digital advertising, which will enable advertisers to gather detailed information such as the gender and age of people viewing their adverts. It’s hoped that this will help brands ensure that they are reaching the right audience. This got me thinking about targeted advertising.

Whilst for all intents and purposes, targeted advertising aims to advertise products and services of interest to a particular or potential customer, at the same time, it raises privacy issues. While the company pioneering this face detection technology insists that it is facial detection technology, and not facial recognition technology, it does still encroach on people’s privacy. If I had bought an item on the off chance months ago, do I want to be bombarded with similar products through advertising later down the line? Rather than entice customers, such efforts could instead dissuade them… Food for thought perhaps?

What do you think? I’m keen to hear your thoughts. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this issue!

PRINCE2 ® is the Registered Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce.

MSP ® is the Registered Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce.

Sophie-Marie Odum Editor

www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

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News

2013 is the year of the cloud for UK contact centres

We may never know how cyber criminals hack car anti-theft systems University of Birmingham researchers discovered it is possible for attackers to hack anti-theft systems and gain control of a vehicle while it’s in motion; however, a well-known car manufacturer has allegedly sued the University to stop it from publishing its research.

A spokesperson said, “The University of Birmingham is disappointed with the judgment which did not uphold the defence of academic freedom and public interest, but respects the decision.

An increasing number of UK contact centres have started a cloud implementation process, according to the 2013 Cloud Contact Centre Survey conducted by Call Centre, in association with Interactive Intelligence.

The research, which looks to better understand the use of cloud technology within contact centres, shows that 78% of those polled have moved into the implementation phase. A further number of respondents (41%) have either already chosen their cloud provider or are currently exploring options and deploying pilots, while 36% are taking steps to learn more about the cloud.

The results reinforce the findings from Interactive Intelligence’s 2012 research, which predicted 2013 would be the year of the cloud for UK contact centres. Carried out in December 2012, the survey revealed 73% of contact centres already operate in the cloud, were actively looking or would like to move their operations to the cloud.

Dave Paulding, regional sales director UK, Middle East & Africa, Interactive Intelligence, said, “The most recent UBM survey carried out in April of this year, shows almost eight out of 10 contact centres have now moved into a cloud implementation phase. It is a very strong figure, demonstrating the ever-increasing attraction of cloud contact centre technology.”

The 130 respondents surveyed cited technical and functional factors as the key drivers for cloud adoption in contact centres. When rating the importance in each category, a 47% stated that speed of solution and other functional capabilities were “very important”, whereas 45% said technical factors such as flexibility, scalability, simplicity and security were “very important” to their contact centre.

When asked opinions on how cloud adoption will impact their contact centre, 60% said the biggest areas would be reduced costs; and improvement to their customer service offering (60%). 13% said it would have no significant impact.

Paulding added, “The results demonstrate how perceptions surrounding cloud solutions have changed and, for many of the UK’s contact centres, it is not a case of ‘if ’ but ‘when’.”

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“It has decided to defer publication of the academic paper in any form while additional technical and legal advice is obtained given the continuing litigation. The University is therefore unable to comment further at this stage.”

Alex Fidgen, director at IT security company MWR InfoSecurity, believes that car manufacturers should welcome such research. He said, “Vendors should not try to block security research, they should work together with the researchers to understand the nature and potential consequences of the threats they are facing. Resorting to legal action to block such details from being published is the wrong approach.

Manufacturers should instead incorporate strong security research in the design process.”

“Manufacturers do not seem to have considered the security threat when using embedded computer systems. Cars are becoming increasingly more computerised, particularly supercars which sell for hundreds of thousands of pounds. But not enough thought appears to have gone into securing the systems which leaves the cars wide open to theft and the misuse of computer information. “[The car manufacturer] have only highlighted to the criminals out there that the problems are likely to be genuine and important, so the damage has already been done.

“There is a long track record of companies using legal action to try to prevent vulnerability information from being understood. This has proved to be highly ineffective as, in most cases, the security community was able to obtain the information through different research teams.”

Planning a career change?

Over seven million Brits are planning to change the direction of their career in the next five years, and more than a quarter, (26%) aim to start their own business, according to new research published by Invest in Cornwall, Cornwall Development Company’s European funded inward investment service.

Of those planning to change their career direction, 24% are doing so to fulfil long-term aspirations; 23% are driven by a desire to earn more money; 23% feel unfilled or a lack of career progression; 9% are driven by a change in personal circumstances; 8% want more variety within their career; and 5% are anticipating redundancy.

Those preparing for a career change wish to retrain for a different profession (19%) or want to change profession without retraining (12%). More than one in 10 (12%) wish to relocate for their career change, either in the UK (8%) or internationally (4%).

Suzanne Bond, chief executive of Cornwall Development Company, commented, “It is interesting to see that so many people are planning on reinvigorating their careers by changing paths over the next five years and in particular, that large numbers are willing to take the positive and bold step to start their own business and become their own boss.”

www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

News

UK IT leaders do not have a handle on BYOD The majority of UK IT leaders still do not have a handle on adopting the BYOD trend into their organisations, according to a report. 67% of IT leaders cite developing BYOD IT policy as a major challenge, despite a similar amount (69%) already supplying two or more devices to employees.

The report by AppSense, entitled BYOD: Bridging the Gap, also revealed that half of IT departments believe that meeting enduser expectations around corporate IT experience remains a significant issue. However, 78% of IT leaders also admitted to experiencing an internal push from employees to implement BYOD policies and that the majority (60%) of devices offered to employees are mobile in nature.

The push from employees to embrace BYOD, so that they can actively start using their own technology at work, combined with the fact that 40% believe that they will be more productive using their own devices, highlights why corporate IT departments should implement the right BYOD IT policies within their businesses.

While 67% of IT leaders suggest they do have a BYOD policy in place, almost half (46%) admit this is not clearly defined

when it comes to managing mobile phones and tablets. And with more than a fifth of employees (21%) now actively using tablets in the workplace, it highlights that IT leaders do not yet have a handle on the full impacts BYOD will have on their businesses, according to AppSense.

Nick Lowe, Vice President Sales and general manager, EMEA said, “This report shows a potentially perilous gap between user expectations and IT’s perceived remit. From a user perspective, the BYOD experience is hampered by IT not delivering on the promise of ‘any device, anywhere’. Simplicity, not case-by-case decision making, needs to be at the heart of any good BYOD strategy. Anything else will frustrate not only the end user, but make the IT department’s life more difficult.”

High streets must embrace change

Big data raises risks

There are calls for greater adoption of online and mobile channels into the sales mix, following the recent announcement of retail sales figures by the British Retail Consortium.

Big data – dubbed “the new oil” by the World Economic Forum – can improve decision making, reduce time to market and increase profits.

But it can also raise significant risk, ranging from disastrous data breaches to privacy and compliance concerns.

Although there has been encouraging news of late with a 2.2% rise in like-for-like sales values against July 2012, and a 3.7% rise in employment noted in a separate BRC report, there have still been many casualties on the high street this year. According to Dan Wagner, CEO of Powa Technologies, sustainable growth lies with a more seamless adoption of ecommerce and mcommerce channels.

To help enterprises retain control of their massive and fast-changing information, ISACA (the Information Systems Audit and Control Association) has issued new guidance, entitled Privacy and Big Data: An ISACA White Paper, which outlines critical governance and assurance considerations, as well as key questions that must be answered.

He said, “Relying solely on the weather for an upturn in retail sales is dangerous when we are in search of significant improvements in economic performance. Instead, there should be a greater emphasis on innovation that engages more directly with consumers to deliver more activity at the tills.

The lean towards digital shopping channels is needed but this should be done in a meaningful way that offers a personal experience and encourages some aspect of interactivity.

“We are seeing a major shift in the way we shop.

Gone are the days where we walk around shops, picking items up, carrying them, queuing up at a till, packing them all away again, so that you can carry them around with you all day.

New shopping models involve convenient delivery and collection methods, more enjoyable methods of browsing, and quick means of payment. We shouldn’t be anticipating the loss of the high street, we should be anticipating its evolution.” www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

According to the White Paper, enterprises must ask and answer 16 important questions, including these key five, which – if ignored – expose the enterprise to greater risk and damage: 1. Can we trust our sources of big data?

2.

What information are we collecting without exposing the enterprise to legal and regulatory battles?

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How will we protect our sources, our processes and our decisions from theft and corruption?

4. What policies are in place to ensure that employees keep stakeholder information confidential during and after employment?

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What actions are we taking that create trends that can be exploited by our rivals?

Richard Chew, a developer of the ISACA paper and senior information security analyst at Emerald Management Group, said, “CIOs are often under pressure from the board and senior leadership to implement big data before proper risk management and controls are in place, in order to compete in the marketplace.”

As big data grows, enterprises need a robust data privacy solution to help prevent breaches and enforce security in a complex IT environment.

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News

Major banks at risk of cyber attacks Following recent reports that five major UK banks recorded a profit in the first half of the year for the first time since 2010, a KPMG performance report warns that the next systemic shock may come from a cyber attack or outage rather than a liquidity crunch.

Standard Chartered, RBS, Barclays, HSBC and Lloyds group recorded combined profits of £16.5bn for the first half of the year. However, the KPMG report suggested that the next systemic shock to the economy “could come from an, as yet, unforeseen event, such as a massive systems outage or a new breed of cyber attack”.

It says that after years of improvement, UK banks suffered a 12% increase in online account fraud last year.

“Furthermore, the motivation for cyber assaults is shifting, from financial crime to

political and ideological attacks, with the number of state-sponsored hacking and ‘hacktivist’ revenge incidents growing,” read the report.

In response, Raj Samani, CTO EMEA McAfee, said, “KPMG is right to highlight the imminent cyber threat that is currently hanging over UK banks. This has been building over the past year and if financial institutions haven’t already made security their top priority, they should do so immediately.

“In June 2012, McAfee and Guardian Analytics uncovered a highly sophisticated, global financial services fraud ring that hit the American banking system. This attack delivered Zeus and SpyEye variants using automated techniques, showing that fraudsters are moving toward cloud-based servers

“Internet of Things” pilot scheme Children in eight UK schools are to be given connected devices as part of a pilot scheme to define how the Internet of Things (IoT) can enhance learning in science, technology, and geography.

These schools are able to collect a range of exciting apps and visualisations of data, which correspond directly with a number of curriculum-based activities.

Following the trial, resources will be developed for schools so that the programme can be rolled out across the UK. The £800,000 project is funded by the Technology Strategy Board, the UK’s innovation agency, and led by DISTANCE, a consortium founded to advance education through technology, which includes Intel, Xively, Science Scope, Explorer HQ, Stakeholder Design, University of Birmingham’s Urban Climate Laboratory, UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, and The Open University Department of Computing.

Chad Jones, VP product strategy, Xively, said, “We believe the IoT has captured the imagination of

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academia, businesses and consumers around the world, promising to have an enormous impact on the digital economy. While Android and iOS carved a path for almost anyone to participate, many predict the Internet of Things is driving an order-of-magnitude jump in the type of commercial opportunities the economy will generate.

“It’s critical that schools understand how to leverage the IoT so they can enhance the quality of education and prepare students to be active contributors to, and beneficiaries of, this 21st Century industrial revolution. We’re excited to team with leaders such as Intel, in helping students realise the commercial promise of the IoT.” Duncan Wilson, principal investigator, ICRI Cities, Intel, added, “The Internet of Things is the next big wave of computing. It will touch more aspects of our lives and have a more profound effect on the workforce than we can begin to imagine. Intel is committed to helping today’s youth develop the skills they need to capitalise on the IoT and become the innovators of tomorrow.”

with multifaceted automation. Equally, malware targeting the Android platform is appearing that looks to circumvent two-authentication via SMS for Internet banking customers.

“Where Europe has been the primary target for financial fraud rings – such as Operation High Roller – in the past, McAfee’s research has found thefts are spreading outside Europe, including the United States and South America.”

Expect more breaches like Bitcoin in the future Applications using the same function to generate random numbers for security could be compromised, affecting millions of users, warns British IT security firm, MWR InfoSecurity, after Android’s Bitcoin apps were targeted by a random number, generation bug, resulting in theft.

Ian Shaw, managing director of MWR InfoSecurity, said, “There appears to be a flaw in the SecureRandom function which is used to generate random numbers for security. There are more applications than just Bitcoin wallets that rely on this function for security, so it is likely that we see more breaches like this in the future.”

“Normally, such issues appear due to mistakes in individual applications. This is a flaw found in an Android function, which is rarer and much more widereaching,” he warned.

Shaw added, “Because Bitcoin transactions are public and shared by design, it is a lot easier for an attacker to scan for those using a vulnerable client.

They don’t need to attack the user directly as they have everything they need from the Blockchain, which is the database that holds information about all transactions.”

www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

News

DID YOU KNOW: 36 million adults (73%) in Great Britain accessed the Internet every day in 2013, 20 million more than in 2006? 72% of all adults bought goods or services online, up from 53% in 2008.

Tech professionals have among the lowest levels of professional pride

(Figures from the Office of National Statistics)

Report finds mobile threats rebound McAfee Labs has released the McAfee Threats Report: Second Quarter 2013, which found that Android-based malware achieved a 35% growth rate not seen since early 2012.

This rebound was marked by the continued proliferation of SMS-stealing banking malware, fraudulent dating and entertainment apps, weaponised legitimate apps and malicious apps posing as useful tools. McAfee Labs registered twice as many new ransomware samples in Q2 as in Q1, raising the 2013 ransomware count higher than the total found in all previous periods combined.

The second quarter also saw a 16% increase in suspicious URLs; a 50% increase in digitally-signed malware samples, and notable events in the cyberattack and espionage areas, including multiple attacks on the global Bitcoin infrastructure and revelations around the Operation Troy network targeting the US and South Korean military assets.

“The mobile cybercrime landscape is becoming more defined as cybergangs determine which tactics are most effective and profitable,” said Vincent Weafer, Senior Vice President, McAfee Labs. “As in other mature areas of cybercrime, the profit motive of hacking bank accounts has eclipsed the technical challenges of bypassing digital trust.

“Tactics such as the dating and entertainment app scams benefit from the lack of attention paid to such schemes; while others simply target the mobile paradigm’s most popular currency: personal user information.”

Almost 90% of us work during personal time 88% of employees in Great Britain report working during non-business hours, according to a survey from Jive Software. In addition, 18% of British employees reported working more than 10 hours per week during their personal time.

Additional findings from the study show that a majority of employees use their personal electronic devices for work-related purposes, which may be a culprit for the blurring of work at home and during personal time.

63% of workers said that if they had 10 more hours in any given week, they would spend more time with family and friends; and 43% reported they would spend more time exercising if they had 10 more

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hours in any given week. In addition, 14% do not take holidays, and 36% use their personal smartphones or tablets for work-related purposes.

Nathan Rawlins, Vice President of product marketing at Jive, said, “Employees around the globe are spending far too much time on unproductive work: sitting through unnecessary meetings, wading through endless email, and constantly searching for long-lost documents – leading to more people doing their actual jobs on off hours.”

This survey was conducted online

by Harris Interactive, on behalf of Jive Software, within the United States, Great Britain and Australia.

Technology professionals feel less professional pride than most sectors in the UK, according to research by specialist recruiter Randstad Technologies.

In a survey of over 2,000 British workers, 58% of British workers said that they felt proud to work in their professions. But only 53% of those working in IT and technology said they were proud of their profession.

In the sectors where employees felt least proud of their professions, staff spent less time at work than the national average, suggesting that employers need to make staff feel proud of their profession or they risk creating a disillusioned workforce.

Mike Beresford, managing director of Randstad Technologies, explained, “In order to attract and retain a talented, dedicated workforce, employers need to make their staff feel proud of what they do. No one wants to go to work each day without feeling proud of their careers – and the research proves that employees who fall into this category often spend less time each week at work. A good sense of professional pride isn’t just good for employees – it’s good for business.”

Beresford continued, “A sense of pride in the workplace doesn’t automatically mean that employees are more committed to their jobs, but a lack of it presents a very real, organisational risk. When employees are less engaged with their profession, they are less likely to go above and beyond the minimum requirement in terms of their weekly hours.

“The UK is already facing a shortfall of 33,000 IT and tech workers by 2050 due to skills shortages, an ageing workforce and restrictive migration policy. In order to sustain a truly engaged workforce, the IT and tech industry should seek to challenge and solve any underlying image problems that might exist.”

www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

Viewpoints

Combating the UK IT skills shortage

By Jonathan Westlake With university graduations now finished for the summer, it seems an apt time to focus on the national IT skills shortage.

Despite the graduate outtake, much evidence over the last 12 months suggests that the UK industry still cannot fill computing/IT vacancies and may lag behind other countries in decades to come. This has been recognised by the UK Government, as well as organisations such as the British Computer Society (BCS) and leading firms. But, currently efforts are underway to combat this shortage.

Firstly, let’s look at the initiatives with the new IT curriculum, which has been refocused on technical IT, including coding. I have recently become an STEM Ambassador and part of my remit is to help teachers in schools with this new dawn. We hope that this activity will breed young employees with the technical IT skills and imagination for the next decade.

No doubt you will have heard of “Raspberry Pi” as one of the workhorses for this new IT revolution in education.

My outreach activity has included encouraging schools and businesses to embrace this micro solution. It’s been noticeable that my recent workshops on Python; Scratch and use of the general purpose input/output pins were greeted with enthusiasm by 10 to 14 year olds. Perhaps there is hope for the future, but what about the now? How does somebody 24+ get into IT? Further education is an option.

There has been much debate about the funding of courses by student loans. Loans are available for courses, including Access to Higher Education (HE) in IT offered by the Open College Network at Further Education (FE) colleges throughout the UK. Or individuals might feel ready to go straight in to higher education then apply to do an IT course at a university which includes an internship.

Internships, which are often paid, have proved to be a valuable source of match making and show intent to pursue a career in IT. Or an individual could up-skill in another way with time being their only cost. This typically involves looking for free ways to become more attractive to employers for a variety of job roles which involve IT. For example, local government websites offer a range of free, short IT courses covering everything from social media to web skills, some, at best, are free (limited places) and others have a small charge.

Employers have a part to play in generating the right habitat to attract the right people and IT is no different.There is a balance to achieve when growing your own talent. Employ young people who will bring fresh ideas and encourage older employees to retrain to meet the ever changing job skills requirements.

However, it’s important to remember that, whichever route is taken, education is the key.

References available on request

Problem management and fairy cake

By Steve White Douglas Adams created the Total Perspective Vortex as a device in The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to expose a victim to the enormity of the universe. In this fictional machine, the entire universe is extrapolated from a tiny piece of fairy cake. When put into the Vortex, one is given a momentary glimpse of the entire, unimaginable, infinity of creation, and, somewhere in it, a tiny little mark – a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot – says, “You are here”.

Where ITIL (V3) says that problem management teams are responsible for managing the lifecycle of all problems, that’s like saying that Chris Froome is responsible for riding his bike briskly.

My view is that ITIL does not cleanly describe the value of problem management in terms of delivering IT stability – in that the name of it is the thing it does, not the outcome that it delivers.

Before all the other service operation functions cry, “but I deliver IT stability as well”, you probably exist as a function because once upon a time someone messed up and the corrective response was to get someone to do a job to stop the bad thing from happening again.

For example, change management stems from someone once putting a change in badly. When someone with a problem management attitude looked into what happened, they concluded that, in order to strengthen the processes surrounding the system, we need a change management function. www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

Capacity management comes from a lack of capacity taking a system down some time ago. To stop capacity-related incidents from biting us unexpectedly, the corrective action is to monitor and predict capacity. Asset management, configuration management – even the embryonic workaround management – are responses to bad things happening. Much of service operations are actually proactive problem management and their underlying mission is clouded by fancy titles.

The essence of IT service management is the relentless pursuit of stopping bad things happening (again) while facilitating the delivery of the business. So the gate into “problem management” should be “anything that has caused or may cause a lowering of IT stability”.

If we agree that problem management’s purpose/goal/ objective is to strengthen the IT infrastructure and drive stability, then I observe successful problem managers having a mental approach that is different from not so successful ones.

This successful mental approach seems to be focussed on relentless passion for driving stability into the organisation. It affects everything they do, including the rules surrounding input.

I wonder if really great problem management, and the mental attitude that goes with the mission, is like a piece of fairy cake; all else can be extrapolated from it.

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VitAL Report

Protecting intellectual property is a niche area because it’s a cross between someone in a legal role, someone in a technology role and someone in a marketing role

Do you know your worth?

Failing to protect online intellectual property can cost you customers, reputation and profits.

But, according to research, it seems that far too many are willing to take this risk by not having systems in place that offer protection. Sophie-Marie Odum investigates… is a story about four people: Everybody, T here Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody.There was an

important job to be done and Everybody was asked to do it. Everybody was sure Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realised that Everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when actually Nobody asked Anybody…

This story is a similar case-in-point to “whose responsibility is protecting intellectual property online in your organisation?”

Recent research from NetNames found that 60% of businesses still have no system in place to protect intellectual

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property online and 79% of brands have nobody taking responsibility for protecting online assets at board-level.1 “Protecting intellectual property is a niche area because it’s a cross between someone in a legal role, someone in a technology role and someone in a marketing role. So the question in many organisations is ‘whose responsibility is it?’

And that’s where the problem is,” explains NetNames’ Stuart Fuller.

Recent news reports revealed that Google received requests to remove more than 100 million links since January 2013 for web pages deemed to be in breach of copyright laws.

Although this is double the amount it received in 2012, signalling that companies are stepping up their battle against Internet piracy, it’s equally getting more difficult to keep on top of such efforts.

www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

VitAL Report

Fuller said, “If we’d conducted our same research maybe a year, two or three years ago that number would have been much, much higher in terms of companies who don’t take any action.

We have Watchdog, Rip Off Britain and all these consumer programs that focus on how the consumer has been exploited, but they never focus on how the company could have protected some of their customers

“I think that many organisations now realise that problems aren’t always as easy to solve as ‘let’s do a quick Google search on our name to see who is saying they are offering our products’. With many of the companies we are working with, we find things in ‘corners’ of the Internet that they never would have thought of looking for.”

Sign of the times?

Setting up an Internet presence is far too easy and inexpensive in current times, according to Fuller. He continued, “It is so much easier today than it was three or four years ago to set up a presence on the Internet and start abusing brands.

“You can buy a domain name for £2.50 and within minutes – and with very little technical knowledge – you can set up a website that infringes someone’s IP. So whilst there is a significant increase in requests to take down links, it is related to the significant increase in the domain names market and website space.”

If companies don’t effectively tackle online privacy, the consequences can be damaging, said Fuller. Firstly, brand infringement can affect customers. For example, a website that is clearly breaching copyright could divert customers away from the real website. “It could also host malware,” explained Fuller, “which could lead to viruses, worms, etc, and, in the worst case, it will harvest the customer’s personal details. We are aware of numerous websites that have been set up to get ticket details for concerts, sporting events, etc, where fraudsters are diverting traffic away from the real sites and people are duped into buying what they think is a real product and handing over personal details.”

The reputation of a brand can also be negatively influenced.

Fuller continued, “Unfortunately, we, as humans, relate a bad experience with the associated company, so if a customer orders an iPhone 5 from a fake website, for example, and it never arrives, even though Apple is not involved, its reputation is tainted.

“In addition revenue is affected. Organisations are losing revenue by having their customers diverted away and buying products that aren’t theirs. From another standpoint, organisations have to increase the amount spent on

preventative measures to stop traffic diversion, etc.”

How important is it to you?

The NetNames survey found that 93 % of executives think protecting online assets will become more important, or remain just as important, over the next year, but, on the other hand, 79% of brands have nobody taking responsibility for protecting such assets. So do businesses really realise how important it is to protect online intellectual property, and by not doing so they are leaving themselves open to such penalties?

“I think that once they are shown the problem, they realise how much of a problem it is. Some of the organisations we deal with genuinely have no idea of the impact of the problem in terms of their brands and their services,” explained Fuller.

“All businesses should have a corporate brand management strategy,” he advised. “This offers protection against domain names and web hosting. I believe this should be given the same high regard as a maternity policy or a remote working policy.

As a company, this is where we’d like to be but, unfortunately I don’t think legislation will ever be behind that.

“Essentially, there should be a greater awareness of the dangers and the consequences of not protecting brands online. There are many stories of people who have been duped and conned by organisations. We have Watchdog, Rip Off Britain and all these consumer programs that focus on how the consumer has been exploited, but they never focus on how the company could have protected some of their customers.”

A difficult area to police Another obstacle is the fast-moving market – because it changes so fast, as one website is taken down, another appears almost instantaneously, making it a difficult area to police. “But there are lots of things that are going to happen to change this,” revealed Fuller.

“At the moment, when you register a domain name, it is very easy to pretend to be who you want to be. But there are changes on the horizon that put the onus of burden on companies like ourselves, who register domain names, to prove that the person registering a domain name is who they say they are.

“We recognise that it’s an incredibly difficult area to police, so it’s interesting to see what we can do as an industry to combat this and stay one step ahead.”

References 1. NetNames research: The value of online intellectual property

www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

13

VitAL Report

The importance of ICT is still underestimated You would be mistaken to think that the value of ICT has been recognised by all companies. Richard Helliar, director, strategic alliances at Cordys reviews a recent report which discovered that MSBs generate thousands of pounds less than larger companies due to a lower rate of ICT adoption… by the Centre for Economics and Business Research A report (CEBR) into the productivity level of mid-sized businesses

(MSBs) in the UK and Europe, and the impact IT adoption is having on the productivity levels of these businesses, highlighted some interesting trends.

technologies are giving bigger businesses a real advantage and it’s allowing them to be more efficient and agile despite their greater size.

Providing insight into MSBs’ IT adoption and productivity levels compared to continental competitors and larger businesses, it also considered, in detail, the benefits that cloud computing, in particular, could have on MSBs over the coming years.

To put this in context, the report showed that 84% of large enterprises in the UK have adopted intra-company data sharing solutions, compared with only 66% of MSBs, pointing to a lack of technology integration. This gap is reflected in other areas including supplier related processes (54% vs. 34%), selling online (42% vs. 28%), operational and analytical CRM (44% vs.

29%) and ERP (48% vs. 24%).

Working smarter

Cloud-led productivity

Although MSBs have a combined annual turnover of €543 billion, the headline figure for the report is that UK MSBs are generating £1,518 less per worker than large enterprises. This deficit is attributed to an 18% lower rate of ICT adoption compared to those companies.1 This makes a significant impact on the bottom line of businesses that are often struggling to compete with larger businesses in the first place. This IT adoption deficit is across a range of solutions that in many larger enterprises have become standard. These include tools such as customer relationship management, enterprise resource planning, intra-company data sharing solutions, as well as cloud computing. Combined, these

According to CEBR, the adoption of cloud computing and the subsequent lowering of the barrier to entry will see the creation of 258,000 new MSBs in Europe by 2015, including 35,000 in the UK

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The report also considered the impact that cloud computing could potentially have on MSBs looking to close the productivity gap with larger businesses. ICT activities can be efficiently implemented through the cloud, which can in turn make MSBs more competitive by reducing their cost base and increasing opportunities for business development.

Once an MSB has moved all its services and processes to the cloud, the resulting elimination of server and storage costs would lead to reductions in IT capital expenditure and asset maintenance. CEBR suggests in the report that the implementation of a private cloud environment would lead to a 17.3% reduction in total IT capital expenditure, with the use of public cloud leading to an impressive 39.9% reduction.

Migrating to the cloud also results in a reduced need for power and cooling, with CEBR suggesting a 44% reduction in costs in a private cloud, rising to a 79% saving for public cloud.

These figures present quite a compelling argument for cloud adoption by MSBs on their own. But in addition, by using cloud and public cloud, in particular, businesses can better manage the seasonal peeks that they face. Whether it is a retailer over Christmas or a manufacturer facing a wave of new orders, resources and applications based in the cloud can be scaled www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

VitAL Report

up to meet this demand. The CEBR findings revealed that this benefit of cloud increased output by 0.1% per year and while this may not sound like much, it converts to an increased output on average of â‚Ź21, 528.

Cloud computing has the potential to dramatically reduce costs and increase efficiency on an individual business level, but it also offers a great deal to the UK economy. According to CEBR, the adoption of cloud computing and the subsequent lowering of the barrier to entry will see the creation of 258,000 new MSBs in Europe by 2015, including 35,000 in the UK.This will not only boost the economy in terms of job creation and GDP, but will also serve to increase competition with larger enterprises in a range of markets.

Finally and perhaps most importantly, cloud computing is fundamentally changing the business landscape, as it gives MSBs a way of collaborating with similar sized businesses to create virtual enterprises and market places. These virtual enterprises, unified in the cloud, are better able to compete with larger enterprises by offering combined services with businesses of complimentary expertise.

MSBs tend to be niche companies in a specific field, but cloud computing gives them the ability to combine and compete at the enterprise level in a way they haven’t been able to

Cloud computing is fundamentally changing the business landscape, as it gives MSBs a way of collaborating with similar sized businesses to create virtual enterprises and market places previously. As cloud adoption increases among MSBs, these relationships are going to have a growing impact on the way larger enterprises operate.

Delivering real returns What’s clear from the report is that MSBs have a considerable gap to close on their larger enterprise in terms of productivity.

Due to their size, in the past they have been unable to make the investments in IT infrastructure that larger organisations have and the productivity gap has grown.

MSBs may have been interested in adopting enterprise applications like their larger counterparts, but have likely been put off by the considerable up-front costs and slow deployment times. Cloud computing has changed this landscape and now solutions are readily available, allowing MSBs to close the productivity gap with larger competitors.

With the current economic climate still uncertain, MSBs need to be as efficient as possible to stay competitive.This report highlights the integral role that IT adoption has in this process and its capacity for transforming both UK MSBs and the wider economy.

References Boosting cloud adoption could pay economic dividends for Europe: www.cordys.com. In the report, MSBs are classified as a business with between 50 and 249 employees.

www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

15

VitAL Security

An IT guide to business app development Although there has been a significant rise in the adoption of mobile business applications, convenience shouldn’t override security, says Garry Sidaway, global director of Security Strategy at Integralis…

obile computing has transformed the way we live and M work. The evolution of mobile devices and explosion in social media applications has allowed us to interact in new

ways. It seems we now have an app for everything. We are now reaching the point where we won’t even need to type but rather speak to an application. Now, we no longer need to enter a web address into a browser – we simply open the app.

In light of this, organisations are now creating their own mobile business applications as a way to build their brand and identity.

Such a strategy allows their employees, partners and customers to access data, increase efficiency, communicate and share.

But is this new approach putting data at risk?

Convenience vs. Security Applications are used for almost everything we do on the web – games, location services, directions, currency conversions, and banking as well as business and social collaboration. By their very nature, they are easy to use.

Applications often allow instant payment when associated with bank accounts. The back-end authentication systems have been designed to be convenient, users can simply click to make a purchase.

Generally, apps for mobility are written to be easy to use and for a specific function. However, this ease of development approach can create a major issue if they are not risk assessed or tested before an app launches for public use and the authentication system is often weak.

Applications are therefore easy targets for cyber criminals to compromise and steal valuable data from. Not only do they have their sights set on the applications themselves, they are also attacking how they are developed. A lot of development is now done through collaboration in the cloud, which poses even more security risks. A community of developers will typically use forums to share how code is developed and discuss specific functions – and this attracts hackers.

Earlier this year, Apple was exposed to a breach because it used collaboration and cloud services for its iOS development. The mobile development site was hacked and the code exposed, which could have been exploited for back doors or malcode injection. More recently, a hacktivist group hacked into the systems behind the Viper mobile Wi-Fi calling and messaging app.

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Trust is not enough

Convenience and security don’t mix well.There are increasing risks when developing applications

Developers of social and business applications often have access to the private data that we share such as our contacts, location and our bank details. It means, as an app user, we no longer have to remember information as we have instant access to it on our mobile devices.

We are therefore placing a huge amount of trust in the data sources and retrieval of information. But, security experts are typically not involved during the development phase, so they don’t test the applications for exploitation or risks. This runs the risk of such private data being used by malcode and malware.

Convenience and security don’t mix well. There are increasing risks when developing applications. The threat landscape will continually change, as will the risks of a more mobile and interactive world, but companies wanting to develop an application for their employees, partners or customers must address: what access do apps have, what they do, and how they control access to authentication systems. They must also test feature functions.

Such threats must be managed in the context of an organisation’s commercial objectives so informed decisions can be made. Typically, most application developments will follow an application development lifecycle – the key is to align it with the company’s own security strategy.

If you are considering application development in your overall business strategy, remember that cutting corners won’t pay off in the long run. You might want to create an app that is easy to use and interactive, but don’t make it easy for hackers to access and manipulate your data.

www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

VitAL Security

Exposing the five common data breach myths To help you decipher fact from fiction, Jody Brazil, President and CTO of FireMon, reveals the biggest myths that exist about data breaches, and explains how and why they occur… live in the age of the data breach. It seems that W eevery day we hear about yet another breach of a

breaches were not complex. In fact, the majority could have been stopped with simple or intermediate controls. For every zero-day attack that hits the headlines, there are 80 or more attacks and breaches caused by known vulnerabilities or threats. What’s more, the vast majority of victims are the result of an opportunist rather than targeted attack.

However, many in the security industry have become so disillusioned by failure that they think that a breach is inevitable and the primary focus should be on detection and response as opposed to prevention. In truth, there is no single, simple answer and giving up is not a viable alternative. To help, here are the five myths that exist about data breaches:

Myth #2: “Network controls are useless since all attacks now are layer 7 application level attacks”

computer network, resulting in the theft of confidential or sensitive information; both within the security industry and in society. In general, we are in a constant search for a solution to this problem.

Myth #1: “Most threats and attacks are very sophisticated” With today’s advanced persistent threats; zero-day exploits; and sophisticated targeted attacks, it has become fashionable to throw up our hands, feeling helpless against these new classes of attacks. Some security professionals advocate that we will not be able to stop these kinds of attacks and we should plan for what to do when they do happen, rather than trying to stop them.

Oh, how the web app security vendors would love us to believe this one. But alas, this is another myth around data breaches. While many attack attempts come in via port 80 – the port used by web traffic – it does not mean that existing technologies in network security could not be used to block them.

A firewall, for example, can be used to stop web-based attacks. Blocking via IP address; white-listing IPs; and other firewall configuration management techniques, can block many application layer 7 attacks despite popular myths to the contrary.

While there is no doubt that trying to stop these kinds of attacks is very difficult, the fact is that according to the Verizon Data Breach Report of 2013, a staggering 99% of all

Instead of putting so many resources into preventing a data breach, the tendency is to put resources into incident discovery and breach response

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www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

VitAL Security

Another method of stopping layer 7 attacks is to understand the path an attack would take in order to successfully reach critical assets. Some tools available can help you visualise what these potential paths of attack are and what controls you can put in place that would block these attacks.

Myth #3: “My technology is slow, old, and obsolete (or all of the above)” This may be the single biggest myth in IT, let alone security and risk. How many times have we heard “My computer did not function properly”? Other flavours of this myth include, “My technology was too slow, too old, and out-of-date”.

More often than not, the technology deployed could have successfully protected you, but it was misconfigured.

Misconfigurations could entail a firewall setting allowing traffic to or from a specific IP or via a port that should have been closed. Who has permission to access what files and assets on the network?

There could also be a misconfiguration on a server, such as file permissions set incorrectly. Misconfiguration can also take the form of a setting on an endpoint that resulted in a patch or remediation not being applied. For instance, something as simple as not having automatic updates turned on could result in a new patch not being applied.

Misconfigurations are much more likely to be the reason for a data breach than obsolete technology.

Myth #4: “It’s impossible to prevent breaches; I should just concentrate on response” There is a very prevalent trend in the security industry that says data breaches and security incidents are unstoppable. Instead of putting so many resources into

preventing a data breach, the tendency is to put resources into incident discovery and breach response.

The implications of redirecting significant resources away from prevention towards response is that more breaches will occur requiring even more time and effort on detection and response. Risk management dictates that we manage acceptable levels of risk. While this should not mean dedicating more resources into prevention than the risk is worth, it does not mean full scale surrender.

Myth #5: “If I keep my systems patched, I can prevent all breaches” If only this were true, what a simpler world this would be. Just staying on top of all of the patches that are released for the software you run in your organisation can be a daunting task.

In most organisations, you don’t just apply a patch when it comes out. There is a quality assurance process where the patch is tested to make sure it does not break something else. By the time a new patch is tested and made ready to implement system wide, there is already a new patch that must be tested and rolled out as well.

Finally, remember, the weakest link in your defence still sits behind the keyboard. Being socially engineered to give up your password or installing some malware on your device could make all of your hard work and effort for naught. So while patching and scanning is a form of job security for some, it is really not a cure for data breaches.

Don’t be the next victim Stopping data breaches from occurring totally – while a worthy goal – is probably not possible.

Understanding how they occur, and separating the truth from the myths can make your chances of being the next victim of a data breach much less likely. An insight into the state of your network, and implementing even basic controls and management, can decrease the likelihood of a breach in your network.

Utilising security management to manage firewall rules and network security policies along with a risk management solution are some of the best precautions you can take.

Doing everything you can to make sure your network and device settings are configured properly will go a long way towards helping reduce your risk. A regular security awareness training program for your employees can be a big help too.

You can’t stop data breaches entirely, but you can harden your defences and make your organisation much less likely to be the next victim.

www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

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VitAL Cover Story

The brains behind the software Cortexica, a spin-out company at Imperial College, has developed “find similar” software which could change the face of the online and mobile fashion marketplace. Sophie-Marie Odum speaks to co-founder and chief technology officer, Dr Jeffrey Ng Sing Kwong about how the software replicates the way that the eye and the brain work together to recognise patterns…

The human brain is a computational machine that has been shaped by millions of years of evolution and, we thought, why not copy something that is already working

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www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

VitAL Cover Story Cortex, the largest part of the human brain, T heis associated with thought and action – a fitting

name for “find similar” software’s creator, Cortexica.

The software interestingly mimics the way the brain processes images and presents web-connected devices with similar options, and has made headway with several leading UK fashion retailers.

Hoping to help shoppers widen their search and make more informed choices, Dr Ng explains the idea behind the software. He said, “The human brain is a computational machine that has been shaped by millions of years of evolution and, we thought, why not copy something that is already working. So, in 2002, Dr Anil Bharath and I started a project to look at how the human brain processes visual signals and how, as humans, we are able to see in very difficult and challenging conditions, but machines have a hard time to do the same thing.”

To develop the software, Cortexica’s team of neuroscientists, visual search scientists and machine learning engineers have replicated the way that the eye and neurons interact when recognising and interpreting an image.

“We spent seven years at Imperial College looking at the nuances of how neurons actually process signals, and how they perform clever mathematical computations as they talk to each other and come together to solve big problems,” said Dr Ng. “Over the following four years, we took this research out of the university and into production. We hired a team of engineers who turned this into cloud software, which is now available. It is a platform that has been designed to work at Internet scales and volumes. It can actually suck in millions of images within an hour and match at the same rate.

“You can send images to our platform and we would create a quick bio-inspired fingerprint from this so that it’s a compact summary of the image itself. The basic idea is that humans don’t parse pixels left to right, top to centre – what we need is around 10 eye fixations and we already know the scene in front of us.

“The software uses the same principle and lots of encoding that mimics the nuance. We now have a system that can take an image and very quickly, create a fingerprint and then users can use these fingerprints or match them.”

Focus of attention But how can the software predict where users are looking?

Dr Ng answered, “The brain takes the photo receptor signals, analogous to pixels, and create lots of cortical information channels. Some of these are looking for vertical, horizontal or diagonal structures, and they can be thin, fine details or thick coarse ones. It separates all these information channels and then the brain pulls together this information and recognises that this is more interesting than other parts of the image. We have reversed engineered this principle.

“Of course we can’t predict what a particular person fixates on but, in general, if you take a population of people they would generally look at the same points our software will. This is called the focus of attention and this is what guides our eye fixations. To do that, just like the brain, the software will use orientation, size and, to an extent, colour information.

www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

“The software only uses parts of the image and these key points to create a fingerprint and the options listed are based on this. The software analyses the vast database of images we have of clothing from the major retailers, and assesses if these images are similar to the images the user is analysing. It may not exactly be the same, but it will search for similar fashion items, which in essence, broadens search options.”

Parallel probabilistic computation Cortexica uses what is called “parallel probabilistic computation”, which enables its software to learn over time, mimicking the calculations made by biological neurons in the primary visual cortex of the human brain. By doing so, the software finds visual key points of interest tied to patterns. The find similar technology works with images and videos.

“The brain has billions of neurons and we are trying to simulate that on a functional CPU in the computer, which is difficult because a CPU is sequential and works very quickly.

“Young children have many of the latest consoles such as PS3s and Xboxes, and the graphics inside these consoles have lots of parallel processors, and we have repurposed their desktop equivalents to do our search. We use graphics processors to replicate this brain simulation, which allows us to find similar clothing in very large libraries.”

The future This software represents a pivotal moment for the fashion industry and Dr Ng revealed that top UK e-tailers are already using this software. The cloud service has already been launched and end-user smartphone applications will appear at the end of the year. “Mobile phones have very small image sensors that usually have noise in them and our systems cope well with that. But, in practice, you can use our software with any Internet connected device,” explained Dr Kwong.

The software is expected to transform online search and end the haphazard process of finding clothing that suits individual tastes. It will also enable shoppers to take visual clues from other sources such as wallpaper or colour swatches and deliver appropriate results.

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Cloud Technology

Three screens and a cloud Gary Pretty, technical strategist at Mando Group, takes us on a journey on how Microsoft’s vision of three screens and a cloud as become a reality deployed by thousands, by expanding the Windows Azure cloud platform …

The shift to more mobile devices and tablets – both in the home and the workplace – makes the experience of using Windows and key applications, such as Microsoft Office, seamless across the entire range 2009, at its Professional Developers Conference, I nMicrosoft announced the availability of Windows Azure,

a flexible cloud platform that allowed you to build, deploy and manage applications across a network of managed datacenters around the globe. At the same time, Ray Ozzie, the chief software architect at Microsoft at the time, spoke about the company’s vision of “three screens and a cloud”, where experiences are seamlessly delivered across TV’s, phones and PCs, all being connected by cloud-based services – i.e. the technology behind Windows Azure.

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Then, this vision may have seemed far-fetched to some but, over the past four years, much progress has been made towards making this a reality. It is now having a real impact, not only in the consumer market, but also with real world business apps.

Opening Windows to the cloud In my opinion, the largest step, that Microsoft has taken towards achieving this goal was launching the re-vamped version of its desktop operating system, Windows 8. Unlike previous versions of Windows, Windows 8 was designed

www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

Cloud Technology

In order to bring three-screen vision to life, Microsoft have now expanded the Windows Azure cloud platform to enable developers of apps – for both Windows 8 and Windows Phone – to rapidly build apps that could use Windows Azure to store data and settings and easily serve this data to either platform to work across several device form-factors, from traditional desktop PCs right down to mini tablets.

This change meant that Windows is now able to keep up with the changing landscape of personal computing. The shift to more mobile devices and tablets – both in the home and the workplace – makes the experience of using Windows and key applications, such as Microsoft Office, seamless across the entire range.

As well as the overall experience of Windows now being available across multiple form factors, Microsoft has also added new features to allow a user’s personal experience to span all of their devices. In reality what this means is that, as a Windows 8 user, I can sign into my devices with a Microsoft account (just as users of an iPad would sign-in with an Apple ID). Items such as my settings, email accounts, favourite web sites, browsing history and even my saves passwords sync across all of my Windows 8 devices.

That might not sounds like a huge deal on the face of it, but, nevertheless, it’s able to setup a new email account on one of your devices, and move to another and have the email account ready and available to you without even having to think about it. As you might expect, the same idea of syncing setting across multiple devices has also applied to the Windows Phone platform.

Cross-platform apps deliver great experiences In order to bring three-screen vision to life, Microsoft have now expanded the Windows Azure cloud platform to enable developers of apps – for both Windows 8 and Windows Phone – to rapidly build apps that could use Windows Azure to store data and settings and easily serve this data to either platform. In fact, one of the most recent releases, Windows Azure Mobile Services, allows a developer to easily share data between not only Windows platforms but also iOS and Android.

The arrival of services like this has led to an explosion in the number of apps that offer this sort of functionality, and this is creating better experiences for users. However, along with enabling developers and companies to create great user

www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

experiences with its cloud platform, the folks at Microsoft are practising what they preach by creating a number of significant cross-platform apps and services, which seeks to truly bring the seamless cross-device experience to life.

One such example of this is the Xbox Music app, currently available on Windows 8, Windows Phone, and through web browsers, with iOS and Android apps being rumoured to follow shortly. The Xbox Music app gives you access to a massive library of music for you to stream to your device; create playlists; and download tracks for offline listening.

Any music added to a collection on one device is automatically added to other devices. The Xbox Music app also helps demonstrate a complete three-screen scenario, by using the device it is named after, the Xbox. Now common place in many homes across the globe, the Xbox is Microsoft’s third screen, allowing our experiences to span to our TVs as well.

Xbox Music for example is available as an app for the Xbox and boasts the same syncing of content as we see on the PC / phone versions.

What’s next?

So, there you have it, in its current form the three-screen vision set out by Microsoft is well and truly a reality, and, to many, the features I have described in this article are now so common place that they don’t seem extraordinary at all.

But, think about where we were five years ago for a second.

Much of the above just wasn’t possible and certainly wasn’t common place.This is why we should be very excited to see what the next five years brings; with new platforms such as the Xbox One, which will even further integrate the TV into the picture by allowing you to overlay extra information about the program you are watching on your TV screen, use Xbox SmartGlass apps to control your Xbox from your mobile or tablet and even bring apps like Skype to your TV via the console.

This article was written on my tablet, saved to my SkyDrive, edited on my desktop PC and finally emailed from my phone, but, still, in my opinion, the three-screen vision and the idea of the pervasive experience is only just beginning to take shape, and I can’t wait to see what’s next.

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Thought Leadership

Five-a-day approach to keeping customers happy Should service desk managers look to the medical profession for inspiration when it comes to the health of their service desk environment? Applying a ‘five-a-day’ approach might just be the cure-all solution for driving optimum performance and improving the overall customer experience, according to Sunrise Software’s product director, Neil Penny… it comes to keeping your customers happy – W hen whether they are ‘paying’ external customers or

internal customers such as your own staff – having the right technology pays dividends. However, technology alone is not enough.The smartest companies recognise the importance of combining technology with best-practice to create a positive corporate culture.When employees are empowered to do their best, they go the extra mile and we all know that happy staff mean happy customers, and happy customers equal a thriving business.

But, where do you start? The service desk – often the engine room for dealing with a multitude of enquiries and issues – is the first place to consider. It represents the allimportant frontline and has a vital role to play in keeping customers happy.

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At Sunrise Software, we have taken a leaf out of the doctor’s notebook and developed our own ‘five-a-day’ methodology to help organisations maximise the performance of their service desk environment. It is simple but effective and does all the things businesses are meant to do in today’s tough economic climate, such as save costs and improve productivity. As an extra bonus, it also boosts team morale and, most importantly, improves the customer experience and aids retention.

Five-a-day ingredients The main ingredients of the ‘five-a-day’ approach are: • The cloud Service desk managers should embrace virtualisation and see

Introducing gamification as an intrinsic part of the service desk could be the ideal solution to create a positive culture

www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

Thought Leadership

The smartest companies recognise the importance of combining technology with best-practice to create a positive corporate culture the move towards hosted cloud environments as the perfect opportunity to deliver service management excellence with important cost benefits.

Businesses are looking for predictable cost models, which allow for investment in new services throughout the year without the headache of expensive, unexpected hardware or software fixes that might affect other planned activity vital for customer retention, like training or the arrival of new staff members.

The most recently developed service management systems are very easy and intuitive to use. They can be rolled out across your business within weeks, rather than months, or, heaven forbid, years, and be tailored to meet your unique requirements. Managers don’t even need to think about having extra servers/computers to run the systems because they can effectively run them in the cloud.

• BYOD policy As mobility increases, both staff and customers expect to be able to access systems 24/7. People shop online, or, less excitingly, pay their utility bills from their iPads on the sofa while watching TV. And as we become busier, many opt for more flexible working arrangements.

The same applies to the service desk. But how do you manage calls in an increasingly mobile age? Is there continuity?

Can your agents access the right information quickly enough?

What about your agents out in the field? Can they work from home? Can they use any device with zero footprint?

Being part of what is commonly called the “consumerisation of IT”, and introducing a secure Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy into your organisation is an important first step, giving staff the ability to access the service desk at all times, a fundamental part of any business continuity plan.

Having a system that is easy to use from any device, with an intuitive user interface is a powerful way to ensure that staff have the tools and flexibility to do their job. Now you just need to review the ways customers communicate with you from whichever device they choose. How contactable and approachable is your service desk? Do you offer a full range of options, including social media? The latest service management solutions offer multi-channel capabilities that accommodate whatever mode of communication customers contacting the service desk prefer, be it traditional telephone; email; or social media networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Not only does this accelerate response times, but it makes customers feel valued and looked after, promoting greater customer intimacy.

On the topic of social media, do you know what your customers are saying about in you in the ‘chattersphere’?

If someone complains about your product or service on Twitter, would you know, and if you did, how would you www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

handle it? Service desk managers should look for technology that includes processes for dealing with and monitoring social media so that, if your company name or brand is mentioned, someone can be alerted.

• Gamification Rewarding team performance has always been an important part of the service desk, but automation makes it a whole lot easier. Gamification – where the concepts and gaming mechanics, often experienced only with home games consoles, are applied to business applications – is already recognised as an efficient and cost-effective alternative to traditional incentive programmes.

Introducing gamification as an intrinsic part of the service desk could be the ideal solution to create a positive culture that continually rewards exceptional performance and, ultimately, drives tangible improvements in IT and customer service delivery.

Create your own rewards for staff: who has delivered the best customer service this month?; Who has successfully closed the most incidents?; Who has contributed the most valuable content to the knowledge base? Rewarding staff for their service will motivate them and the customers will reap the benefits.

• Performance measuring Measuring performance is critical to any service desk. In order to do this, there must be a suitable tool that empowers agents to work more efficiently and provide a better, more joined up and informed service.

By using wallboards and dashboards, one-screen summaries of real-time information, the service desk is in complete control with the hard data necessary to make quick and proactive changes that matter to the business. Critical situations that need escalating can be identified and flagged, and supervisors can see at a glance what their team is working on, and if there is any back log.

Beyond the IT department A successful service desk in itself is not enough. This success should extend beyond the IT and customer service departments to other parts of the organisation like HR/ payroll, finance and facilities, making customer satisfaction the central focus for everyone. Improving communication and providing a single view of the customer should be the driving force behind every company.

By blending the latest service management technology with a ‘five-a-day’ service desk mentality, organisations can deliver the right information to the right person at the right time to ensure excellent customer service.

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Thought Leadership

Mission Impossible – Has IT been framed?

Pat Bolger, chief evangelist, Hornbill, explains why it’s high time IT teams show that they understand business strategies and demonstrate their value in helping achieve objectives… upon a time, not really that long ago, an IT O nce department was almost like a law unto itself.They

had powers to “do things with stuff, in the thick of the action”, so to speak, and resided in a separate world to the rest of the business.Then the world started to change as technology became more integrated with how businesses operate, rather than just an aside. Subsequently, the way in which staff within organisations looked to interact with IT, if at all, also transformed.

Whether controlling things in-house or through outsourcing, IT needs to start “earning its keep”. It must make clear that it contributes to wider business goals, now more than ever in our trying economic times.

Recent research that Hornbill conducted in conjunction with the Service Desk Institute investigated these interactions between the IT department and service desk teams, with the rest of their business. The research explored views from CIOs and business leaders, and compared them with the views of those working directly on a service desk.

The results showed a clear difference in opinion; a whopping 98% of respondents from service desk teams believed IT can play an even greater role in supporting business goals. On the flipside, a mere 27% of CIOs said that senior executives viewed IT as contributing to strategic business goals. If IT teams wish to improve this, they need to show that they understand the business’ strategy and that they can demonstrate their value.

Knowing your place? Or a place in the know?

IT departments and perhaps service desks in particular, find it hard to articulate their value. And with good reason – often the first point of call for their customers, they are the first ones to get it in the neck if the service does not match expectations. But satisfying picky customers is one thing – actually putting some kind of definition around the value of providing excellent customer service is far harder than it sounds.

from start to finish – they know where to route it and they know who to pester to get it resolved. Often, the business almost accepts that it is difficult to talk to these IT people, or understand what they say in response, but communication is a two-way street; IT needs to get smarter in understanding what their place is (and their importance) in the big picture.

What does the business do?

How many people involved in IT have an appreciation of what the business drivers are? Mission statements and objectives received every year, as part of the annual organisation communication swing, are par for the course, but how many people actually understand what they are being told? It cannot be rocket science, after all a business is there to make money.

But understanding what affects that goal is the key.

Providing the organisation with a succinct mission statement is just part of it, real life examples that staff can really relate to should be included. Once the mission statement hits the desk of the IT department, then it should form the foundation of their own mission statement; ensuring that it is aligned to the broader message of the business mission and vision.

What does it all mean?

Perhaps one of the most obvious requirements from an end-user is that a service desk understands the impact of an incident on their business needs. A good example would be to look at maybe a large retail outfit.

Incidents coming in from point-of-sale are most likely to be of higher importance as it prevents the company from taking money. An ordering system failure is still important, but perhaps there is a little leeway in time to get it resolved. A payroll system outage may move up the priority stack if it is close to a pay-run, but an email system outage may not cost the company money in the immediate short term.

Think of the adage, “nobody ever tells you when you do something right, just when you do something wrong”. So of course people pick targets and metrics that are certainly easy to measure (think surveys, questions or maybe just even thumbs up or down). But what does that tell the business?

Everyone expects the service desk to orchestrate a recorded incident

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www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

Thought Leadership

Understanding what forms a priority in the minds of users at a given time helps the business to take a lead and pro-actively promote what it does and why it is important; ultimately engaging the service desk to help them better appreciate how the flow of incidents (for example) should progress.

Walk a mile in their shoes If it is feasible, why not have members of the service desk spend some time with the more critical areas of the business and understand exactly why their role is important. There is no better experience than being on the front line. Of course, if it is a critical area, you are looking at a significant investment of time. But if the end result is more awareness from IT as to what the impact of incidents are, and therefore far more efficient routes to resolution, than the value to the business of IT is almost immediately more quantifiable.

Does the service desk understand the value of their contribution to requests and activities?

When requests come in, for example, the rollout of a new system, can the service desk articulate why the system is important to the business? The risk of not understanding why the request is important may result in the service desk continuing to accept additional work without evaluating their resource requirements. If they then become swamped, their efficiency plummets and the business is right back where it started.

Can IT help the business?

based on a perceived lack of understanding of what the issue meant to the end user.

Having people effectively walking on the “shop-floor” is not a new concept. Many retailers make their management teams work on the floor so that they gain a real understanding of what it is like at the sharp end. In the same vein, whilst IT must strive to better understand the business., there is absolutely no harm in making the business get a feel for being on the receiving end of vague calls of things “not working anymore”.

There are other tools in IT’s arsenal that can help. Look for the routine, dare we say, almost mundane tasks, and automate them. End-users order things online everyday outside their working lives, you can bet on it. Make them engage with automated, easy to fulfil requests to free up the time to encourage that proactivity.

Be practical, in fact almost ruthless in the nice-to-have and must-have elements of a service to avoid over-complicating processes. Never has the saying, “keep it simple” been more prevalent – and the whole premise of value is indeed very simple. How do you help the business achieve its objectives?

No more, no less, just a simple statement of value, in measurable and meaningful terms.

Some simple mechanisms to redress the IT/business balance • Value starts from the customer-in, and not from the infrastructure-out.

Of course they should be able to. It is not unrealistic to expect members throughout the IT function to be able to provide information on how technology can improve efficiency throughout the business, but a couple of things would need to happen:

• Frameworks fairies do not exist – do not become glued by guidance.

1. It must become part of the service desk’s role, as opposed to just fixing and supporting.

• Look for innovative ways to engage with customers.

2. It requires that connection between the business and IT to provide a conduit to be able to propose where technology could help.

3. Meaningful metrics that relate to the clearly understood business drivers must be in place.

Don’t treat IT as a utility IT is often seen as a utility – a simplified service that fixes and supports the technical infrastructure, but has no other use in the business. With some pro-active thinking, some involvement in strategy and improved two-way communication between both sides, it can be so much more. Go back to basics and ask yourselves what is the major fundamental gripe from an enduser about the service desk. More often than not, it will be

www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

• Business must help manage IT demand by understanding the effects of requests on the teams.

• Always look to develop the service experience.

• Work with customers to design self-service for their needs.

• Automate the low-value, routine services.

• Use the chance to be much more proactive – for example, problem management.

• Seek opportunities for high-value interactions.

• Show IT off – make people understand what it can do.

• Continual service improvement begins with attitude and action.

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Thought Leadership

The five pillars of social service management Martin Stewart, content marketing manager at Axios Systems, explains how businesses can successfully incorporate social IT to help deliver specific business objectives… there was consumer social media.Then came F irst enterprise collaboration platforms. Now there is social IT. So what exactly is it? Social IT is about harnessing social behaviour to help IT and business people work together more effectively and get the job done.

Just as the rise of the phone and email enabled better communication and collaboration, the application of social media to the enterprise will be equally transformative – and disruptive. The challenge is to translate diverse behaviours, principles and tools that are commonplace in the world of consumer social media into something that works for the business and IT.

Executive summary Social media is beginning to show up on executives’ radars and CIOs need to look at how the agenda for “socialising” the business can be translated into value for IT. It is important for IT

leaders to develop a clear strategy that focuses on using social IT to deliver on specific business objectives – not just another round of implementing technology for technology’s sake.

Social IT isn’t something that just happens within IT. It’s all about creating engagement across the business and empowering people to connect, communicate and collaborate. It’s about getting IT to work better with IT, IT to work better with business users and business users to work better with each other.

Many CIOs and CISOs are fearful of social media – citing it as a distraction, a waste of time, or a serious security risk.

Substituting the term “social media” with “collaborative technology” will help differentiate a serious social service desk initiative from trivial consumer social media such as Facebook, MySpace and Bebo – which carry a negative stigma.

The five “C’s” of social IT What are your business objectives in introducing social IT? There are five concepts that form the cornerstones of social IT management.

1. Connections IT traditionally suffers from bad communication, i.e the “Black Hole Syndrome”.

Enable connections between people and the projects, services, systems, devices and events that they’re interested in. In a world suffering from “information overload” (or too much data and too little information), organisations need a strategy for filtered information flow to ‘rightsize’ communication.

2. Communication Interactive Web 2.0 communication technologies such as blogs, microblogs, wikis, update walls and discussion boards are real-time, and provide records.

3. Collaboration Integrating elements of collaboration/crowdsourcing into IT processes to improve both

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www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

Thought Leadership quality of output and process efficiency. Involving business users in crowdsourcing of new service requirements enables IT to consistently deliver what the business wants, because they know what the business wants.

4. Customer satisfaction monitoring Social IT management is great for improving business user satisfaction. It helps IT engage with the business and empowers business users in a way that they respond to very well. A negative perception of IT can mean either the customer moves their business elsewhere, or a business unit outsources their IT services from the cloud.

CIOs need to look at how the agenda for “socialising” the business can be translated into value for IT

Often, customers (or internal business users) don’t complain directly to the service provider, preferring to share views with their peers. Unhappy customers take their money elsewhere; whether that is a consumer buying a car; or an IT service user.

If you can’t identify why customers are unhappy – and fix it – you lose business.

Feedback you see on social media channels will mostly be negative. People will always make more effort to complain after a bad experience than if they found the service to be excellent or merely meeting expectation. If nobody is talking about you, then you’re probably doing an OK job – or you’re not listening in the right places. Some IT leaders might use this as an excuse to dismiss social media as a distraction, believing that if nobody listens, they will stop talking.

It’s easier to ignore social media than to tackle it – particularly in an already overstretched IT department. But, the fact remains that people will talk about the quality of your services whether you are listening or not.

However, as social media tools allow users to make comments visible to global communities within seconds, there is a high risk of damage to business reputation.

Impact analysis is also a different ball-game. The impact can be defined in terms of how influential the customer is (number of followers and who follows them), or use a social media scoring system to quantify influence.

Customer engagement should be seen as an opportunity, and a driver for improvement, as well as a risk. The risk exists whether IT engages with customers or not.

5. Capturing knowledge People are an organisation’s greatest asset because they have the knowledge that is the life-blood of your organisation. Social IT principles can help you capture and re-use knowledge to improve self-service support and IT problem solving.

By capturing their valuable knowledge in a searchable base, the information benefits people across IT and the business, significantly reducing the cost of access. In addition to expert moderation, knowledge quality can be further enhanced by implementing social rating functionality commonly seen in the consumer environment (e.g. Amazon and eBay).

Options range from a five-star-rating system to a more simple “Did you find this useful?” button that will be familiar to anybody who has visited the Microsoft support site.

Gamification The old adage of “Taking a horse to water” still applies. Organisations have to look at how to encourage users to become involved in social IT and self-service.

Elements of gamification can be applied to a number of areas to support social media uptake.

By awarding points for using, creating, updating and rating knowledge assets, IT organisations can mobilise an organisation-wide collaborative community, driving self-support and delivering significant savings on support costs. Collaborators can also increase their “status” amongst peers.

Service desk organisations should assess and prioritise social communication channels to meet specific business objectives, e.g. improve customer support, improve IT operations efficiency and reduce costs.

Tips for success Take a top-down view. Tie everything to business objectives.

If it doesn’t support achieving a stated objective, it’s a vanity project. Avoid implementing “cool” technologies for the sake of it – “Toys for the Boys”.

Carry out an internal social media usage survey to gauge familiarity with social media concepts amongst both IT people and business users.

Familiarity is the better part of an intuitive interface. The reuse of features and methods, taken from consumer social media platforms, aids usability and understanding. Set clear expectations around how the service desk will support issues and requests coming to them from social media communication channels (e.g. tweets) and define what the service desk expects from the end-user.

Even if that means announcing no support via social channels, you are setting user expectation.

Define new responsibilities to support social media – covering requirements analysis, implementation, management and improvement of social IT technology.

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Sometimes referred to as Bring Your Own Disaster, BYOD is another area that needs to be addressed by organisations.

There are certainly user benefits in using their preferred devices, but equally there are headaches and issues for IT in supporting these “unsupported” devices.

Questions of data ownership have already arisen when someone leaves an organisation with data on their own device. What rights does the organisation and owner have in those circumstances? Does the organisation have the right to wipe the data? Can the owner refuse to allow them?

However, we cannot ignore analysis that suggests that calls to the service desk increase by about 30% when BYOD is implemented.

Very often, the users of a service are the best placed to give advice and offer solutions to that service rather than the service desk.

www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

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Advertorial

Putting enterprise needs back in the driving seat Free from the burden of outdated commercial models and ageing technology, ManageEngine has acquired 72,000 customers since its inception in 1996. European director, David Howell tells us why this wholly owned division of Zoho Corp is one of the top 30 leading IT companies today… relies on IT for sustainable business value and B usiness the agility to respond to new opportunities to gain

competitive advantage and see rapid ROI.We live in an age where IT infrastructures are far more dynamic, flexible and elastic than ever before, which puts increased pressure on IT departments whose job is to control, manage and optimise IT.

As the UK economy recovers in an ever-expanding competitive landscape, fostering true business innovation has never been more critical to the continued long-term growth and success of a company. Enterprises require real-time IT technology solutions to operate at speeds that enable them to predict and react to industry developments before a competitor does. Organisations that make the most of today’s game-changing technologies to support new business models and improve their speed to market when delivering new services or products are the ones that stand a greater chance of enduring unexpected external economic factors.

Throughout my career, I have seen that most users employ only a fraction of the functionality available to them, irrespective of the technology, device or system.

ManageEngine makes a virtue of this reality by stripping out the superfluous features that other enterprise IT management software providers insist on putting in.

The company constantly evaluates what businesses need from their enterprise IT management platforms to develop a purpose-built suite of real-time system monitoring tools.The end result is a comprehensive portfolio covering network, server and application performance, password and security event information management, log analysis, along with IT helpdesk and desktop management.Today, the company’s solutions also help organisations manage the growing array of mobile devices that are brought into companies, and many now have apps for the most popular smartphones and tablets around.

To help IT organisations control, manage and optimise IT infrastructures that are more consolidated, virtualised

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and automated than ever before, we take an approach that challenges the status quo of complex, expensive IT management products delivered by high-overhead sales organisations with high-margin product portfolios. Our no-frills philosophy is driven by research and development and 100% focused on the technology needs and business imperatives of our customers. As a result, our product portfolio and functionality are what you would expect from the big four at a fraction of the price.

We pride ourselves on presenting a truly disruptive market force because the business models and offering of the big four have now become outdated – with excessive licensing costs subsidising large marketing budgets, vast sales teams, frequent acquisitions and expensive consultants. Under normal circumstances, enterprises buy software, hire a consultant to install and configure it and train IT admins. All of which takes up a month approx. Our products can be downloaded, installed and used within an hour, providing instant results.

Today, ManageEngine is a large company with customers of every size and type in over 200 countries. We are the fastestgrowing alternative to traditional network management frameworks, which is evident with three out of every five Fortune 500 companies using our products. But, we haven’t forgotten our original inspiration to put our customers first and deliver great IT management tools. In fact, if your IT productivity does not improve, we are happy to refund your money. In the era of real-time IT, great IT management products, a singular focus on delivering the industry’s best business value and a relentless commitment to customer satisfaction make ManageEngine your best choice.

CIO and IT managers around the world constantly send us proactive feedback to let us know how happy they are with their purchase and share their unique story of how our solution fixed a specific IT headache. But, don’t just take my word for it… Here is a sample of what some our happy UK customers have fed back since the start of the year:

www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

Advertorial

ManageEngine underpins Bond Pearce’s technology transformation “At Bond Pearce, we are firmly convinced of IT’s role in delivering competitive advantage and pride ourselves in exploring how technology can move the business forward.

Our lawyers are often out of the office, whether it’s in court, with clients or working from home. It’s incredibly useful for them to be able to take their landline numbers with them and take calls from their PCs and also see whether or not colleagues are available online. ManageEngine’s NetFlow Analyzer enables us to monitor voice and video priority over other network traffic, such as backup, meaning our lawyers get a service they can rely on.

Feedback from users across the business has been uniformly positive. In eliminating the maintenance of nearly a thousand phones and five private business exchanges (PBXs), the move

to the unified communications system has generated huge cost savings for us.”

- Mike Godsave, Bond Pearce’s infrastructure analyst In short • ManageEngine’s NetFlow Analyzer powers organisationwide move to unified communications suite for commercial law firm, Bond Pearce LLP. • Virtualisation of server estate, supported by NetFlow Analyzer, reduces the number of physical servers from 100 to 20 and delivers maintenance cost savings of 80%.

Certis Europe increases visibility of IT estate, cuts help-desk calls by 30% “Our range of crop protection technologies support growers from soil preparation through to harvest, right across Europe. Even the shortest downtime can bring sales operations to a standstill, especially since many of our employees rely on remote access to our systems and servers. We therefore needed a service that could monitor the various end points within our company in realtime and present them clearly in one customisable dashboard.

“ManageEngine’s Applications Manager does exactly that, and at a fraction of the cost of the other solutions. Not only does it allow us to keep an eye on our IT applications, but it’s also very easy to use, including the initial set-up. We have saved a great deal of time and resources troubleshooting issues using Applications Manager and as a result we’ve also achieved a 30% reduction in the number of help-desk calls received by the team here.”

In short • Certis Europe, an established crop protection business, announces it has cut inbound help-desk enquiries by 30%, as a result of deploying Applications Manager from ManageEngine.

• Applications Manager, ManageEngine’s server and application performance monitoring software, has enabled Certis Europe to proactively track and automatically troubleshoot IT problems from a central location, reducing both downtime and network disruption dramatically.

- Guido Thonissen, ICT manager, Certis Europe

BMI Healthcare improves visibility and device security while saving 70% in IT expenditure “Before deploying ManageEngine’s Desktop Central, we used Symantec’s Altiris, which had a complicated back-end SQL database and required heavy upfront investment from a solution customisation stand-point. It also meant that we had to ensure one of our engineers was fluent in SQL reporting as none of the out-of-the-box reports met our unique regulatory standard requirements. As a result, we had little visibility into the exact inventory of our Desktop estate, which presented a patch management headache. Especially when you consider the number of hospitals we maintain.

“Much of the medical equipment we use is Windows-based so it is imperative that it is protected against external threats by ensuring a carefully devised patching schedule is implemented, which Desktop Central has allowed us to facilitate. Our hospitals see a large number of patients in a day and if, for example, a modality was unavailable due to OS issues, it would have a direct impact on our ability to operate effectively.”

“Effective desktop management is becoming more and more crucial to the entire healthcare industry. The fast-paced environment requires a carefully planned and articulated approach to technological advancements and the ever-evolving threat landscape. As the ramifications of a network security breach can be catastrophic in a hospital, compliance reporting plays a hugely important role in daily operations. We need visibility of what version of anti-virus is installed on every device, which patches are yet to be deployed, the overall volume of devices connecting to the network and who is logging onto a machine and at what time. With Desktop Central we can quickly go from monitoring and reporting to remediation action.

• With 69 hospitals and treatment centres, over 10,000 employees and 6,500 IP-enabled devices across the UK, the UK’s number one independent healthcare provider BMI Healthcare required a centralised management solution to ensure visibility and understanding of the entire IT landscape.

www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

- Matt Rooney, IT Desktop Manager for BMI Healthcare In short

• BMI Healthcare delivered annual IT infrastructure management cost savings of at least 70%, improved security, automated patch management and increased visibility across its entire IT environment as a result of deploying Desktop Central from ManageEngine.

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VitAL Management

Ensuring tax compliance Do you employ IT contractors? With tax avoidance continuing to be a high profile topic in the contracting sector, Adrian Learer, MD of plan.it explains how freelancers in the IT sector can ensure they remain compliant, and how employers can understand this complex arena…

IT industry has always relied heavily upon contractors T heto supply the skills that private companies and public

organisations need.Whilst the recession has put pressure on contractors to demonstrate their worth, as the economy slowly recovers, they are now faced with a different, but equally pressing question, which some have yet to address: “How can I maximise my earnings whilst staying tax compliant?”

This issue has been highlighted by HMRC actions during recent months which include the closure of a major offshore umbrella provider who avoided paying millions of pounds of employers’ national insurance contributions (NI), and a large UK umbrella company which operated a “pay day by payday” tax relief scheme – now facing a £58m claim from HMRC. Unfortunately for contractors, some areas of tax and employment legislation interact to make it a particularly complex area. There are certain key questions that IT freelancers need to know the answers to in order to ensure compliance, and, as an employer, it’s worthwhile you’re aware of these too: 1. Can UK-based IT contractors work through an offshore entity?

There is no reason why not: the key is why this artificial arrangement is created, especially where the contractor is both from and working in the UK. Offshore employment intermediaries have invariably been established to avoid tax and NI. In some instances, the intermediary “employer” accounts for UK PAYE but avoids NI as it has no permanent presence in the UK. In some instances, the position is compounded by UK tax being reduced by unapproved travel and subsistence schemes; whilst in others, UK PAYE is not accounted for at all, claiming that the contractor is “self-employed”.

Subject to a current review announced in the 2013 Budget, the employer’s NI loophole is highly likely to be closed in future. Furthermore, it is unlikely that any PAYE saving arrangements will bear close scrutiny or confer any advantage over a UK-based solution.

However, the most important point that engagers need to understand is that complex existing UK tax legislation can make end-users fully liable for the PAYE and NI liabilities of contractors engaged directly or indirectly via an offshore entity. This is a significant risk, and if interest and penalties are added to the tax bill, the result can be catastrophic.

2. Can an IT freelancer work through their own UK limited company?

Whilst there is no restriction on a contractor setting up such an arrangement, the key question is whether it offers an advantage?

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For contractors working in the UK, the main question is one of IR35, the intermediaries’ tax legislation. In a nutshell, this legislation aims to counter “disguised employment” and states that if not for the existence of the intermediary, there would be an employment of the worker by the end-user – then the worker will be fully taxed as an employee regardless of how they operate.

The subject of IR35 is too complex to fully explain here.

However, so far, carefully formulated contracts and working practises have facilitated many freelancers successfully operating in this way.

For those whose contracts are not caught by IR35, there are substantial tax advantages that can be gained. As well as tax relief on a wide range of expenses, the ability to extract funds from the company in the form of dividends, as opposed to salary, can save on both employees’ and employers’ national insurance, totalling approximately 25% of income drawn.

3. Can an IT contractor work through a UK umbrella company?

This is a simple way of working and is a good viable alternative to working under PAYE directly for an agency or end-user.

The key advantage is derived from having an overarching employment contract with the umbrella company. This, in turn, provides continuity of employment, flexibility; employment rights and the opportunity to increase take home pay via the deduction of expenses incurred wholly, exclusively and necessarily in performing the duties of paid employment.

However, there has been much debate over what expenses can be claimed, especially with regard to travel. But, the professional umbrella company provider should be able to maximise these claims, subject to individual circumstances.

In regards to working overseas, most foreign countries permit a UK umbrella company to send a worker overseas for up to 183 days per tax year, and be exempt from local taxes. But this may not apply to local social security/national insurance liabilities. In addition, in countries where “chain law” applies, tax liabilities can move up the chain to the local employer. As a result, many employers insist on local taxes being paid from day one.

A complex area, there can be inadvertent breaches of local regulations or the application of double taxation, so specialist solutions need to be considered by IT contractors and their recruitment agencies.

Due to the complex nature of the issues involved, staying tax compliant for both contractor and engager is all about getting the right advice.

www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

Service Management excellence in The Cloud Compelling cost model Full system management, high availability and support all included No infrastructure or maintenance overheads

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Telephone: Email:

020 8391 9000 welcome@sunrisesoftware.co.uk

Follow us on Twitter – @SunriseSoftware Find us on Facebook – Sunrise Software

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VitAL Management

Is your business flexible enough for 2014?

2014 heralds a new legislation which will extend the right to request flexible working from carers to all eligible employees. But how will these laws impact your organisation and how can you best prepare for the change? Emma Clark explains…

May/June 2012 issue of VitAL, I considered I nif the flexible working was the way forward in an article entitled, “Is flexible working the way of the future?”.

Currently, the right to request flexible working (and the request may be rejected by the employer) is limited to carers of children under 18 and those who care for adult dependents.

Next year, new laws will permit any employee with over 26 weeks’ service to make an application to their employer to work flexibly for any reason. The Government hopes it will encourage more employees to be able to work around their civic responsibilities, and an employee can make the request for any reason.

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Dealing with the requests Having reflected on the viability of the request, employers may reject the flexible working request, as well as the likely risk of a potential sex discrimination claim or a breach of the Flexible Working Regulations 2002.1 Following receipt of a flexible working request, an employer must currently follow a tight 28-day timeframe in which to consider the request; meet with the employee; and then have a further 14 days to make a decision.

From next year, employers only need to respond to the requests in a “reasonable manner” and within a “reasonable” period of time. Whilst seemingly helpful for employers, it does introduce uncertainty by comparison with the current procedure which may result in more, and not less, litigation.

www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

VitAL Management

As an employer, what if you receive one flexible working request from a working mother and the other from a woman who wants to work flexibly in order to write a novel, or a man who wants to coach the school rugby team?

The Government has said it will introduce guidance on this point which may go some way towards providing a format understood by both employees and employers.

The challenges • Trial periods If an employer agrees to a flexible working request, the new working pattern will be a permanent change to the employee’s contract of employment. What if the employer insists on making a change to the working pattern subject to a trial period, but subsequently decides that the arrangement did not work out? The employer would then be in breach of the legal requirement to make the change on a permanent basis.

Unfortunately, this position has not been clarified in the new law and, unless next year’s promised guidance tackles this issue, it may continue to be preferable for many employers to reject a formal flexible working request simply to avoid the change becoming permanent. The best course of action is for employers to only encourage informal discussions with the employee rather than receive a formal flexible working request.

• Competing requests from team members As an employer, what if you receive one flexible working request from a working mother and the other from a woman who wants to work flexibly in order to write a novel, or a man who wants to coach the school rugby team?

Realistically, against the backdrop of a potential sex and disability discrimination claim from some groups of employees, value judgments will be made by employers when they face competing requests from team members. Together with the fact that the European Parental Leave Directive 2010 confers the right to request flexible working to parents returning from parental leave, employers do need to consider giving priority to some classes of employees.

This is not the Government’s intention: it expressly wants to avoid a tiered right. It believes any prioritisation would be counter-intuitive as it would simply reinforce the view that flexible working is primarily for parents and carers.

An agile approach Now may be the right time for organisations to consider the creation of an agile workforce – is it not time we looked beyond the wording of the flexible working legislation?

The current law on flexible working is seen by many employers

as a benefit to working parents and carers and not about a better way to do business. Yet, many of those organisations who have embraced and promoted flexible/agile working report higher levels of productivity, improved retention rates and better employee engagement.

Working life has changed. Against the backdrop of ever-evolving advances in IT systems and the global race for talent, many employers are seeking to retain talented people no matter where they are located or how they wish to balance or ‘merge’ their professional and personal lives.

The benefits of an agile workforce include: • Short-term benefits such as business continuity in times of crisis (like Hurricane Sandy, snowstorms and avian flu) ensure efficient working practices are in place so customers receive a seamless service.

• Long-term cost savings (BT saved £600 million globally because of the need for less office space2 and English Heritage saved £1 million by consolidating office space but retaining the same number of staff).

• The opportunity to test and potentially move into new markets where it might not be deemed cost-effective to open an office.

• Improved productivity, loyalty and happiness amongst employees has been clearly indicated after a move to smarter working.3 One in five over 55 year olds work remotely on a regular basis.

The over 55s and Generation Y are requiring agile and homeworking – showing a shift from the working mother’s charter.4

What’s your strategy?

Organisations should focus on their flexible working policies and strategies in preparation for the changes in 2014.

Businesses may wish to scope out the impact of a move into a smarter way of working.

If you’re considering making changes to your business model, it’s worthwhile examining a number of factors, including: • The employment law implications.

• The most effective method in which to communicate the change to staff.

• How best to manage any barriers to change.

• Whether the appropriate models are in place to ensure and constantly monitor success.

References 1. Flexible Working (Procedural Requirements) Regulations 2002 2. http://www.btconferencing.co.uk/case-studies/the-conference-powered-agile-enterprise_en-gb.pdf 3. M any examples from Ernst & Young to Cisco, here’s one link for Plantronics: http://press.plantronics.com/europe_english/greater-governmentalsupport-needed-to-encourage-flexible-working-within-businesses/ 4. Bain & Co Survey 2010 and http://www.workwiseuk.org/news/?item=older-workers-most-likely-to-work-from-home

www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

35

VitAL Management

How to solve or eliminate BYOD chaos Since it’s too late for you to close the door on BYOD, Ennio Carboni, President, Network Management Division, Ipswitch, discusses a few best practices you can apply to introduce and support BYODs while maintaining optimal network and application availability…

help desk at a UK steel fabricating and engineering T hecompany was flooded with support tickets, recently.

Users complained of getting disconnected and losing data for no specific reason.The network administrator was well aware that the number of wireless devices attached to the network through wireless routers might be dragging down network performance, introducing latency issues.

But by the time the administrator started looking at wireless routers, the problem was gone, and he couldn’t replicate it. This case went unsolved for two weeks. Later, the administrator finally identified the person downloading complete films from the office with the intention of watching them after work. A quiet word and the problem was solved.

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This is a case-in-point that wireless devices can have a significant impact on today’s IT organisations, and the resulting chaos can be a costly drain on IT staff and infrastructure resources.

BYOD remains a thorny problem for many companies where there is a doubling or tripling of the number of devices connected to a company network. When developing a strategy or rethinking an existing implementation, IT managers need to consider: Total cost: Many organisations look at BYOD as a costsaving alternative to buying PCs and notebooks for their users, only to realise that the cost of supporting these devices soon exceeds the expected savings.

www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

VitAL Management

Consider the last meeting you attended, and multiply the number of people in the room by the likely three devices they carry.The bandwidth they consume can divert computing efforts from business-critical applications and corporate email Security: Policies and procedures need to be implemented to ensure that BYODs are properly secured to protect critical IT assets and sensitive data.

Network availability and performance: Most BYODs access the network through a wireless router. Notebooks, iPads and smartphones don’t just increase density of the user population you’re responsible for. They can also create bandwidth consumption overloads that threaten user access to legitimate company or organisational computing resources.

Create a benchmark for wireless access Before overhauling the entire office network, it’s best to start by creating a benchmark of exactly who is bringing what devices onto the network; how many devices each user is likely to use; and what the users of these devices are accessing. Gaining an understanding of the impact BYODs have on wireless bandwidth will help you map out network design changes needed to accommodate more devices – and you can be sure they will increase in number.

Ask these three questions: • W hat are the most common applications and websites that employees are accessing via wireless devices? Are they primarily for business or personal use?

• W ho or what are the top consumers of wireless bandwidth in terms of individuals, devices and applications?

• How are BYODs moving through the corporate wireless network, and how does this impact access point availability and performance, even security?

This initial benchmark will reveal gaps in your networking strategy that a wireless policy must address, convey the magnitude of the BYOD effect on IT performance, and serve as a measuring stick for future improvements.

including employees outside the meeting trying to work via wireless who can’t connect to the server.

Will the wireless network be able to handle this increased density and traffic? It can if you have an accurate benchmark of wireless usage and behaviour. With it, an organisation can establish BYOD usage policies that enable IT to support users with multiple devices, while maintaining acceptable wireless availability and performance.

An effective BYOD policy should address the following: Who: BYOD usage should be limited to those who need extra devices to do their jobs.

Devices: It’s common for users to carry three or four devices into the workplace, significantly increasing density on the wireless network. BYOD policies should define the acceptable number and type of devices by job function.

Bandwidth: With an increased number of devices, IT will be challenged to keep up with the wireless bandwidth demand.

BYOD policies need to define authorised applications and acceptable bandwidth consumption by user and device. Ideally, you can back that up with network monitoring tools that can be configured to automatically reject access to sites or services that have nothing to do with completing work activities.

Rethink your network’s design: Odds are that an organisation’s network design, infrastructure and IT policy have not kept pace with employees’ growing reliance on wireless technology.

It’s not too late

Develop data-driven BYOD policies

According to a 2011 statement by Paul DeBeasi, research VP at Gartner Group, 80% of newly installed wireless networks will be obsolete by 2014 because of a lack of proper planning.1 That means that now is the time to start planning to accommodate wireless users before they overwhelm your network.

Consider the last meeting you attended, and multiply the number of people in the room by the likely three devices they carry. The bandwidth they consume can divert computing efforts from business-critical applications and corporate email.

The resulting over-subscribed access point impacts everyone,

Assume they’re currently using an access point designed originally for one-third or less of that traffic and plan from there. But, the bottom line is that employees’ mobile behaviour will continue to evolve, but it’s never too late to evaluate or create new wireless policies.

References 1.

Gartner: Big challenges lurk in building enterprise wireless network: www.networkworld.com

www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

37

VitAL Processes

It’s good to talk chat Greg Cowart of Bomgar offers eight top tips on how to successfully and practically implement chat technologies into your business…

customers appreciate companies that offer them T oday’s multiple channels of communication. Chat technology is certainly a channel that is growing in popularity.

For the younger generation that has grown up with instant text as a form of communication (SMS, instant messenger, email, etc.), chat is a necessary and logical alternative to telephone conversations. But how do you successfully implement this communication channel to make sure it actually brings value to your organisation?

Here are a few suggestions that will help get your new chat initiative, not only up and running, but also poised for success: 1. Have a plan This is perhaps the most important part of any project and there should be no exception. Planning the roll-out of your new channel will help you stay focused on what needs to be done and will keep you focused. At this stage, it’s also important to identify the specific issues that you would like to handle via your new programme. Once you have identified how chat will fit into your broader plans, you can look for ways to push that segment of your customers and prospects to that channel.

2. Map out step goals Don’t expect everyone to adopt the new channel right away. Set milestone targets for adoption and track your progress. If you aren’t meeting your targets, look at the feedback you are receiving from customers to see if there are things you need to change – it’s always important to consider the qualitative with the quantitative.

3. Promote the programme Whether it’s on your webpage or your IVR (interactive voice response) system, let your customers know about your new channel and how it is there to improve their overall experience. For example, during the time a customer is waiting on the phone for an agent, your IVR message could say something like, “Your expected hold time is X minutes.

For immediate help, go to www.companyurl.com and click the chat button in the top right hand corner to message a support rep.”

4. Keep wait times to a minimum Chat is not like a phone call. If the customer has to wait, they will try other channels and you could potentially end up with multiple agents trying to resolve the same issue.

As chat is instant and customers expect the response to be the same, it is better to be a little overstaffed when launching

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a new programme like this than to keep clients waiting for too long. Remember, if customers try to chat and can’t get through, they are unlikely to try it again.

5. Make sure agents are trained The comfort your agent has with their capability to chat is critical to the success of the project. Agents will need to be comfortable with multi-tasking and be proficient at typing, so they can handle more than one chat at a time, and make the most of this channel.

Hiring for this agent would be different to a traditional phone-based agent. Therefore, time should be spent on finding the right people to take this on and to make them feel comfortable with the technology.

6. Use scripts Have scripts set up for frequent questions to save valuable time and give quick answers, but make sure you can easily personalise these messages. No customer wants to feel like they are talking to a robot. Also, make sure your agents are getting to the point quickly. Customers who use chat want a quick response to a query – they don’t want to spend time reading reams of introductory material and are generally not interested in having a chinwag about how their day is going.

7. Make it easy to use Allow the customer to chat from multiple platforms (i.e. tablets, smartphones, etc.). A growing number of people don’t use PCs and laptops at home any more so keeping them from connecting via their iPhone, iPad or Android tablet could severely inhibit your adoption rates.

8. Offer a survey At the end of each chat session, gather feedback on the customer experience and use this information to make improvements. Never underestimate the importance of simply taking the time to listen to customer feedback. A star rating and a comment box should be enough for the customer to take the time to give feedback and give you enough insight to see where there might be issues.

Although these tips may seem like common sense, chat programmes often fail because companies have not taken the time to plan the implementation. Don’t be fooled – even though it is a fairly simple tool, it still requires forethought to make it a success.

www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

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VitAL Processes

Post Windows XP: A whole new world The expiration of Windows XP marks the end of an era, but how will your IT estate survive?

Paul Marsh, senior director of technology infrastructure at Avanade UK, discusses… end of any era sees many of us reflecting on past T hesuccesses, lamenting failures and most importantly planning for a better future. It therefore came as a surprise for me to learn how a recent survey of UK CIOs and IT leaders found that more than half (52%) do not have formal plans for how to deal with the fast approaching end of Windows XP in April 2014.1 As Windows XP has been a mainstay for over a decade in many businesses, and is still used in 43% of desktop infrastructures in the UK today, it is no surprise that a lack of business case to date has prevented most from moving towards a more modern platform. This is partially understandable because “If it ain’t broke, why fix it?”

However, the problem is that after April 2014, if it breaks, there really will be no way to fix it. The “wait and see mentality” also carries a far greater risk as legacy migration is about more than the platform – it’s about taking an entire ecosystem of applications along on the journey.

‘Under-the-radar’ applications The success of XP has been fuelled in part by the IT department’s aversion to Windows Vista, but also sustained by a vast number of business critical applications. The common misperception is that these business critical applications are provided by third-party vendors who will be able to support successful migration to a new platform. However, the harsh reality is that a large portion of business critical Windows XP applications have simply not been visible to the IT department.

These ‘under-the-radar’ applications could be something as extensive as a global supply chain system that started life as an Excel spreadsheet, enabling an employee in one country to better manage stock inventory. Right now these applications may not be broken, but in a year’s time the risk will increase significantly, especially because the scale of the problem in most organisations is not fully understood.

C++ increasing. At the same time, as is the case with legacy infrastructure, there is also general shortage of skills available.

Start of a new era Risk from Windows XP end of life can also vary from sector to sector. For instance, in the financial services sector, failure to migrate could lead to hefty fine from regulators and damage to the brand if there is an application outage.

The challenge for any business thinking about the impact of Windows XP end of life is how to determine the shelf life of an app, and then work out whether it can be migrated onto a modern operating system. Another often overlooked factor is getting the end users on board to understand what it means for critical applications that will no longer be supported – and then disclose what they are using.

When probed on the issue of application migration, the same study revealed that 80% of IT leaders are concerned they will still have a large volume of unsupported apps post Windows XP. With less than a year to go, the risk is only increasing alongside the cost of addressing the challenges of Windows XP migration.

Migrating from Windows XP actually offers a great opportunity to rationalise the applications that are out there, develop governance around how they’re used and ultimately reduce the cost of licensing. Once this complexity of applications is worked out, only then can the business determine what will be used in what we could call the “new world”.

In the new era where cloud, mobility and even social technologies are coming to the fore in the workplace, business success will be dependent on IT strategies that are able to embrace change. Windows XP migration should be viewed as an opportunity to let go of the past, and reposition IT as an enabler of business transformation.

A number of these applications escaped the attention of IT, as users did not have the skills to assess their impact and develop a policy for managing them. Others join a list of projects created by a developer who left the company many years ago, and took with them deep, technical knowledge into the inner workings of said application. In this instance, cost and risk can become exponentially higher. For example, we are already seeing the cost of specialist skills for Visual Basic and

References 1. Avanade commissioned a study by independent research company, Vanson Bourne. It consisted of 200 UK CIOs and IT leaders in large enterprise organisations with over 1,000 employees: www.avanade.com

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www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

Breakthrough Technology

Advertising industry detects a change Sophie-Marie Odum investigates the imminent arrival of Minority Report-style adverts...

Up to now, this level of insight, transparency and optimisation has only really ever been achieved within the online sector but, we’re proud to say, we’ve brought digital outdoor into the next era of more effective media planning ble to determine the gender, age, date, time and volume A of viewers, 2013 heralds the launch of face detection advertising, and it’s set to make waves in the advertising industry.

Introduced by Europe-wide advertising network, Amscreen, and originally developed by leading automated, audience measurement firm, Quividi, the OptimEyes system provides advertisers with real-time insight into exactly who is seeing their adverts and is said to help brands ensure they are reaching the right audience.

Cameras installed in Amscreen’s digital advertising display screens allows brands to review and optimise campaigns, meaning that they can tailor their content to reach a specific target audience at a certain time of day.

even more complete picture about the audience and the efficiency of the adver tising.

“This data is fed back to advertisers in real-time, telling them exactly who they are communicating with, allowing them to reduce wastage and optimise their advertising schedule at any point of the campaign.

“Up to now, this level of insight, transparency and optimisation has only really ever been achieved within the online sector but, we’re proud to say, we’ve brought digital outdoor into the next era of more effective media planning, and, in doing so, have further cemented our own positioning as the most accountable offering in the place based media arena.”

Speaking with Amscreen’s CEO, Simon Sugar, he explained to VitAL, “Recently, we have launched our OptimEyes platform which provides optimisation and evaluation for advertisers based on our face detection technology.

This technology, which allows advertisers to gather information about those who view their ads even when they are just on a high street, is said to swerve privacy issues as it relies on facial detection technology, and not facial recognition technology.

“Using this unique technology, we’re able to detect key features of the audience such as bone structure, hair and facial dimensions which enable us to distinguish their age and gender. This data is then combined with further insight such as time, location or sales data to help build an

In 2002, Minority Report, set in 2054, showed how outdoor adverts adapt to recognise the person walking by. At the time, this seemed like an inconceivable concept apt for a futuristic world. However, 11 years on and this technology has almost become reality… it seems the future is here.

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www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

30 leading IT service management providers

30 leading ITSM providers

Welcome Welcome to VitAL Magazine’s 30 Leading IT Service Management Providers supplement.

“Providers of IT services can no longer afford to focus on technology and their internal organisation[;] they now have to consider the quality of the services they provide and focus on the relationship with customers,”1 with this being said, VitAL is delighted to bring you the 30 leading ITSM providers. This supplement aims to help you enhance and improve the services you currently provide.

Choosing the right ITSM provider for your business is not a decision to be taken lightly, and why would you want to? There are so many things to consider to ensure it’s the best solution for your business and, more importantly, your customers; the lifeblood of any organisation.

To help you understand the key differences between the various products and services on offer from the leading providers in the ITSM space, the next 20 pages provide an essential guide to any professional about to purchase an ITSM solution. These carefully selected providers promise to help drive business productivity in the right direction and achieve overall business objectives.

We hope you find this supplement helpful and equally useful.

Enjoy!

Sophie-Marie Odum, VitAL editor 1. (IT Service Management Forum (2002). van Bon, J., ed. IT Service Management: An Introduction.

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www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

V ITAL INSPIRATION FOR THE MODERN BUSINESS

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The brains behind the software

De-risking change

Scientist explains how new software mimics the way the brain processes images

Transforming desktop delivery

Intelligent communication in a social world Exploring the evolution of the intranet

Unlocking security for IT Tackling the global cyber security threat

VOLUME 6| ISSUE 5 | MAY-JUNE

The quantified self

2013

The implications of wearable technology for business

Mass customisation Applying manufacturing principles to IT

34-37 Feature Focus: Doing more with less:

Published by T H I R T YO N E

www.31media.co.uk

Rolling out ITSM at the world’s biggest physics experiment

INSIDE VitAL Report

Do you know your worth?

Breakthrough Technology

Advertising industry detects a change

www.vitalmag.net | May-June 2013

30/04/2013 16:56 cover_with spine.indd 1

The order behind creative chaos

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30 leading ITSM providers

Alemba Combining cutting-edge software design technology with a commitment to old-fashioned customer service, Alemba is the preferred choice in ITSM consultancy for a rapidly expanding international client base of high profile organisations.

Alemba provides consultancy, maintenance and support for VMware Service Manager (VSM) software as a formal partner of both EMC and VMware.

Motivated by our quest for innovation and renewal, we also set out to provide a new, modern user interface for our existing customers, which retained VSM as its admin engine. Alemba launched vFire in 2011 with the aim of providing the next generation of IT service management software using innovative technology to deliver an exciting user experience, zero learning curve, easy user acceptance and higher productivity.

Founded on the principles of innovation, fun, education and enhanced user engagement through the concept of gamification, Alemba’s revolutionary suite of ITSM solutions exemplify our commitment to developing Seriously Fun Software.

Alemba is a Microsoft Silver Application Development Partner and now the largest provider of VSM services in the UK. Over 80% of all VSM/Infra customers in the UK are now using Alemba as their ITSM partner of choice.

As the opportunity for international partnership continues to flourish in our ever-shrinking world, we have expanded our global reach, establishing offices and partners in Europe, North America, Australia and, most recently, South Africa.

The Alemba team have more than 150 years combined experience in the IT Service Management industry and offer a wealth of technical expertise, knowledge and enthusiasm for all things digital.

What we do Professional Services Alemba provides a range of Professional Services around the vFire/ VSM product suite. With specialist consultants to cover each stage of the implementation lifecycle, Alemba can assist with any or all of the following: • ITIL Process design and business process consulting • Business analysis • Project management • Highly experienced product consultants for implementation and software configuration support • Training services • Product development for bespoke functionality Support Services Alemba offers a range of support systems to ensure that you get the most out of your vFire or VSM system. Our standard service desk support contract provides expert assistance on all product queries, while the VSM-Now option allows you to have Alemba fully manage your system at both a technical and administrative level – leaving your staff free to concentrate on using, not running, the software.

Alemba Ltd Technology House, Church Road, Shottermill, Haslemere, Surrey, GU27 1NU | +44 (0)203 479 7900 | http://www.alemba.co.uk

Axios Systems For more than 25 years, Axios Systems has been committed to innovation by providing rapid deployment of IT Service Management (ITSM) software. With teams in 22 locations globally and over 1,000 successful customer SaaS and on-premise deployments, Axios is a worldwide leader in ITSM solutions, with an exclusive focus on ITSM. Through our unwavering commitment to customer service and operational excellence we bring tangible business benefits to each and every one of our clients. We take pride in our complete ITSM package, ensuring our customers get the best solution for their business. As part of this, all customer-facing staff is ITIL® foundation qualified and all consulting staff is ITIL service manager (Expert / Master) qualified.

Further testament to this was demonstrated by Axios becoming the first organisation in the world to achieve BS 15000, now ISO/IEC 20000 certification, in February 2004. Axios was also part of the initial workgroups that refreshed ITIL to version 3 and has been actively involved in promoting the ITIL framework in over 50 countries as well as promoting and sponsoring many ITSMF events globally.

Axios’s enterprise ITSM software, assyst, is purpose-built, designed to transform IT departments from technology-focused cost centres into profitable business-focused customer service teams. assyst enables better, faster, less costly delivery and support of IT services, and was developed to support current ITIL® best practices. assyst is one of the most functionally mature ITSM software solutions on the market,

with a proven track record spanning over 25 years for delivering measurable results in large organisations across the globe.

Available for SaaS and on-premise, assyst brings to market the latest in real-time dashboard technology, social IT management, mobility, reporting, resourcing and forecasting – offering a series of solutions and templates that enable an immediate return in the form of customer satisfaction and cost reduction. assyst also provides integrated functionality to support IT Asset Management (ITAM), governance and standardisation within a single, rapidly deployable, application. As an out-of-the-box solution, assyst delivers value faster than any other enterprise-class ITSM software available today.

In addition to recognition from leading organisations, including Gartner, Ovum and Forrester Research, who noted Axios has “robust, scalable offerings that could meet the majority of service management needs for the largest and most complex organisations,” we have, likewise, been honoured by the Service Desk Institute, PINK and HDI. Axios Systems was also: • Ranked in the top 1% of software companies for financial stability in 2010 by Dunn & Bradstreet • First in the world to adopt ITIL® • Involved in the original ITIL v3 re-write We are headquartered in the UK, with offices across Europe, the Americas, Middle East and Asia Pacific. For more information about Axios Systems, please visit our website at www.axiossystems.com, follow us on Twitter @Axios_Systems or visit our YouTube channel.

Axios Systems Axios House, 60 Melville Street, Edinburgh, EH3 7HF | +44 (0)131 220 4748 | assyst@axiossystems.com

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www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

30 leading ITSM providers

Biomni Biomni is the pioneer of user-centric service catalogue, self-service portal and request automation solutions.

With Biomni in play, IT departments and service providers transform into the agile business partner that the business customer demands. Biomni’s front office solution is the “go to” IT marketplace for all your customers and end-users IT needs. Front office is a code-free platform that federates physical, virtual, cloud and mobile services offerings to provide consistency and governance to the consumption of your offerings.

Workplaces are filling up with people accustomed to provisioning mobile apps and standing up cloud server environments at the click of a mouse.

They expect similar quality of service from enterprise IT, and when they don’t get it, they are unhappy and, more importantly, unproductive. What they may not understand is that traditional IT spent decades standardizing hardware and configurations to conform to corporate policy.The desktop PC was a given, and the fact that granting permissions could take days or weeks was just an unfortunate by-product of the way things were.

It’s very hard to move away from those assumptions – centralized control, implemented on the desktop – to accommodate a new world in which employees bring their own devices, which are usually running iOS or Android. Everyone recognizes that IT has to change and adapt itself to this new reality and solving this specific challenge has become Biomni’s mantra.

Biomni’s Front Office V8 solution suite provides customers with: • A single intuitive interface for all service offerings • An absorbing UI that that is akin to everyday e-commence sites and user experiences like Amazon, EBay, iTunes and super brand interfaces • Easy navigation and searching capability to view IT services from a business perspective, and role-based access • Order/submit service requests and track the status of outstanding requests throughout the request lifecycle, and easily understand escalations, etc.

• View, access and launch information from other systems. E.g. Self-help, Knowledgebase and dashboards Equally, our solution provides an advanced platform to design a serviceorientated for IT: • A proven framework to plan, design, create and manage IT services (and catalogue content) throughout the entire service lifecycle.

• Publish content and have control over which user groups, AD groups or business units have visibility of this content.

• Easy access to auxiliary information that is relevant to the catalogue content.

E.g. Service contracts, KPI data and service review and improvement.

• Highly flexible approval routing rules engine that adds the vital layer of governance and compliance to the service request process.

• Out-of-the-box integration capabilities to leading ITSM, automation, cloud and systems management tools.

Biomni Ltd York House, 23 Kingsway, London WC2B 6UJ | +44 (0)207 557 4200 | email: info@biomni.com

Bomgar remote support session to work together and swarm around an issue, speeding time to resolution and increasing customer satisfaction.

Today’s IT support organisations are challenged to handle an increasingly remote and mobile workforce. People and systems are dispersed far beyond the network, where access barriers can complicate the support process. Plus, end users are working from a wider variety of devices and operating systems, further increasing support complexity.Traditional remote access tools do not offer the security or flexibility required by today’s security-conscious organisations.That’s why they need Bomgar.

• Integrations: Bomgar offers pre-built integrations with the leading IT Service Management vendors–including BMC, ServiceNow, Cherwell, Hornbill and more–to streamline the support process and ensure all support activity is captured in a single location.

Bomgar is the leader in enterprise remote support solutions, which allow technicians to securely access and fix nearly any system, including Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, and BlackBerry devices. Bomgar also enables support organisations to access and fix unattended systems, such as kiosks, POS systems, servers and routers. Providing support via Bomgar helps IT organisations speed response times, increase staff productivity, improve security, and resolve incidents more efficiently and cost-effectively.

• L icensing: Bomgar’s concurrent licensing model is based on simultaneous technician usage. Support organisations only need licenses for the number of technicians who will be logged in at one time, increasing ROI for organisations that provide around-the-clock support.

Designed for the enterprise, Bomgar understands the unique challenges of securely supporting numerous systems and employees located around the world. Bomgar’s unique appliance-based solution keeps system access and support session data completely secure, because it sits behind the customer’s own firewall and security measures.

• S ecurity: Bomgar’s software is deployed within a physical or virtual appliance, includes 50+ support representative permissions, and captures a comprehensive audit trail and video recording of every support session.

• C ollaboration: The Bomgar solution allows support technicians to solve issues more quickly and efficiently by bringing experts into a

• Multi-Platform: Bomgar allows support technicians to use one, centralised solution to support nearly any type of device or operating system, which helps IT organisations provide a consistent support experience across desktops, laptops and mobile devices.

• Professional Services: The Bomgar professional services team offers training, installation, customer integrations and more. Once the solution is deployed, Bomgar conducts a Post Implementation Value Assessment to ensure you’re getting the most from your investment.

Today, more than 7,500 customers across 65 countries have chosen Bomgar as their remote support solution of choice, rapidly transforming their IT support functions and significantly improving operational efficiency and customer satisfaction. Bomgar clients include some of the world’s leading IT outsourcers, systems integrators, software vendors, healthcare organisations, government institutions, colleges and universities and financial institutions.

Bomgar UK Limited Suite 4, Anglers Court, 33–44 Spittal Street, Marlow, SL7 1DB | +44 (0)162 848 0210 | http://www.bomgar.com

www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

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30 leading ITSM providers

Computer Aid International Computer Aid International is a UKregistered ICT for development charity which aims to reduce poverty through practical ICT solutions. We collect IT equipment for distribution in hospitals, universities, schools and not-for-profit organisations in over 100 countries.

We provide only the best professionallyrefurbished PCs and laptops. All working PCs are tested and refurbished by our team of expert volunteers at London workshop before being sent for reuse in agriculture, health and education projects across UK, Africa and Latin America.

Our professional decommissioning service includes UK military and Communications – Electronics Security Group (CESG) approved data wiping using Ontrack data wiping software, full asset tracking, Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) compliance and a UK wide collection service.

We also work on numerous initiatives to increase access to ICT among poor and disadvantaged communities, providing e-learning courses, training and environmental advocacy.

access to computers as well as the training required to help teachers gain the experience and skills necessary to teach ICT to their students.

As a result of this training, teachers are able to use ICT to the best possible advantage. For example, they can download lesson plans and teaching programmes to improve lesson content and quality across all subjects. They are also able to teach ICT skills to a high level, which can bring huge benefits to their students’ further education and employment prospects.

Another initiative where Computer Aid is heavily involved and is passionate about is the Zubabox project. Across many rural areas in Africa and Latin America, there is no access to mains electricity, therefore innovative, sustainable and cost effective solutions are required to enable ICT access. The Zubabox is a solar powered cyber café containing 11 individual monitors running off a single base unit, is one such solution. The Zubabox can be used by the entire community ranging from students, teachers doctors as well as farmers and entrepreneurs who can grow their business.

If you’re able to support our projects with donations of IT equipment, fundraise a project, or taking part in challenge events, please visit our website for more information.

One example is that we have been working with Computers for Education and Development (CFED) based in Ghana to provide PCs for use in an ICT training programme for teachers. The centre provides Computer Aid International +44 (0)020 8361 5540 | www.computeraid.org | info@computeraid.org

FrontRange FrontRange is a leading provider of Hybrid IT software solutions for organisations of all sizes.

With our suite of HEAT applications, FrontRange is the only company in the world that provides, from a single platform, service management and client management software on-premise and in the cloud, for each stage of ITSM Maturity.

HEAT manages millions of service interactions and millions of devices every day for more than 15,000 leading organisations around the world. Our customers deliver world-class service while maximising operational efficiencies with reduced cost and complexity.

FrontRange is headquartered in Milpitas, California with offices around the globe.

HEAT Service Management is a robust, highly flexible solution, built on IT best practices that help customers meet the dynamic needs of a growing business and achieve the highest level of service quality, delivery and performance.

HEAT Client Management helps customers gain control of their complex, sprawling IT infrastructure by providing a high level of process automation, unified management and compliance enforcement which form the foundation for efficient and effective IT services, yielding improved end-user productivity.

The FrontRange difference • Flexible – Standardise on a single service management solution with “fit-for-purpose” cloud and on-premise deployment models that allows for the use of both operating and capital expense budgets • Advanced – The most advanced solution in the world with fully integrated voice-enabled capabilities and a drag and drop workflow engine that enhances efficiency and reduces service resolution costs by up to 70%.

• Complete – With end-to-end, integrated client management capabilities that enable the standardisation of business processes across the enterprise and rationalisation of the application portfolio, improving the mean time to repair (MTTR) by up to 75% For a free trial visit our website or view our content on YouTube and BrightTalk. www.frontrange.com www.youtube.com/frontrange www.brighttalk.com Follow FrontRange: www.facebook.com/frontrange www.twitter.com/frontrange

FrontRange Benyon House , Newbury Business Park, Newbury, RG14 2PZ | + 44 (0)1635 516 700 | www.frontrange.com

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Fusion Fusion helps organisations transform and Fusion is a Service Management and IT Operations specialist that uses our highly experienced and trained staff to B US I N E S S SOLUTIONS help IT organisations improve their service performance, quality and efficiency. We are a trusted advisor to over 200 organisations helping them transform their IT departments using world-class IT Management software from companies like BMC Software.

Fusion helps organisations transform and improve their Service Management and IT Operations processes to gain superior performance and efficiency through advisory and strategy services like Benefits Realisation, Service Transformation, Data Centre Optimisation and Green IT Consulting. We help organisations “industrialise” their IT Operations to improve productivity.

Fusion advises organisations on how to achieve the best return from their use of BMC products. We believe we are the “supplier and employer of choice” for BMC skills and solutions and the partner of choice for organisations wanting to make the most of their BMC Software. We have many years of experience with BMC products and work hard to ensure we deliver a quality service to our customers.

Fusion is also an expert in the management of virtual VMware environments, the creation of VMware private clouds and can help with integrating BMC and VMware products.

Fusion cover all major ver tical markets, including financial services, telecommunications, public sector, retail, business services and our customers include Visa, JP Morgan Chase, Reckitt Benckiser, Virgin Atlantic, Kraft Foods/Mondelez and Alstom and many other quoted and unquoted companies for whom we work on a global and regional basis.

• BMC Remedy IT Service Management suite (on premise and on demand) • BMC ADDM (Application Discovery and Dependency Mapping, formerly Tideway) • BMC Bladelogic Operations Manager and Application Release Management • BMC Footprints (Formerly Service Desk Express) • BMC BPPM (formerly Patrol and PNet) • BMC Remedy Force Service Desk (SaaS based service Desk on salesforce.com) • BMC Configuration Management (formerly Marimba)

Fusion +44 (0)208 814 4888 | www.fusion.co.uk | parm.powar@fusion.co.uk

GBGroup

The most profitable and successful organisations recognise the value of understanding the individual identity of their customers and employees.

GBGroup (GBG) combines this concept of identity with technology to create an environment of trust, so that organisations can employ people and connect, communicate and transact with consumers, safely and responsibly.

We call this Identity Intelligence.

GBGroup’s Identity Intelligence solutions include: • Register & Verify – International software and services for quick and accurate customer registration; and the verification of identities of individuals & businesses remotely.

• Cleanse & Engage – Innovative software and services which provide accurate and up-to-date identity information to deliver improved intelligent customer contact strategies.

• Employ & Comply – Thorough background checks through online verification and authentication of individuals enabling organisations to safeguard, recruit and engage with confidence.

• Trace & Investigate – Leading software and services which provide the most accurate and up-to-date picture of the UK’s population, properties and businesses to quickly locate, investigate and contact the right individual, first time.

GBGroup’s proprietary technology enable organisations to connect, communicate and transact with people safely, responsibly and profitably.

In doing so, we help businesses like O2, Laura Ashley, HMRC, BBC TV Licensing, Ordnance Survey, HBoS, LloydsTSB, Virgin Games, PartyGaming, Betfair and Ladbrokes understand their customers better to create more meaningful customer interactions – and reduce costs across the business. The company’s flagship Identity Registration product, Matchcode provides real-time global address, email, mobile and landline telephone validation and geo-coding for more than 240 territories worldwide, and has proven successful with multi-national organisations worldwide. The industry-leading global customer registration solution is fully multi-lingual, and supports both Latin and non-Latin based languages as an on-demand (SaaS) service or as a stand-alone application, and has access to premium ‘expert’ address data that is enhanced with street gazetteer information superior to that offered by the national postal authorities.

GBGroup +44 (0)124 465 7333 | www.gbgplc.com

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Global Knowledge Global Knowledge provides a comprehensive range of IT and business training to both public and private sector companies. We have a variety of training centres located across the United Kingdom including London, Leeds, Wokingham and Edinburgh.

Our core training courses focus on Cisco, Juniper, Microsoft, VMware, Citrix, Avaya and best practice. This includes ITIL® and PRINCE2® which ties into business process improvement, project management, business analysis and leadership development. We have also recently been named an authorised IBM Global Training Provider.

As winners of the Microsoft Learning Partner of the Year we pride ourselves on providing our customers with a varied range of alternative learning delivery methods to match your requirements, location and budget. Below are a few of the options available: Instructor-led Training – Our “classic” in-classroom learning held at one of our many training centres. If a public course is not available, we are able to provide an on-site at your company alternative.

V&C SelectTM – Our award winning and innovative solution allows for a flexible approach to learning. Using the latest technology you have the option to attend your chosen course in person, as a virtual delegate or a combination of the two. The in-class experience doesn’t

change from a standard instructor-led course and remote delegates will receive a browser based interface that allows them to see, speak and hear the tutor and in-classroom delegates, enabling them to communicate with everyone in real time. e-Learning and on-demand resources –This solution is designed to allow you access to learning resources to practice your skills anytime, anywhere. You will also have the ability to listen to our subject matters experts as they highlight key educational areas and features to aid your learning.

IBM Self-Paced Virtual Courses (SPVC) and WebBased Training (WBT) – As an authorised IBM Global Training Provider, we are pleased to be able to offer additional online options for your IBM training.

IBM SPVC is a premium online learning experience that allows you to learn when and where you want. The typical SPVC class is a 30 to 80 hour online course and includes hands-on labs as part of the course fee. IBM WBT is available on demand and is offered as single titles, collections or libraries. The number of hours required to complete a course can be found within the course outline.

Accelerated Learning – This solution has been adopted across many of our more popular courses and it allows us to deliver the complete programme in an accelerated timeframe.

Additionally, we also regularly host a number of free ‘“unch and learn” webinars each month presented by key industry experts and guest speakers.

Global Knowledge Network Training Ltd Mulberry Business Park, Wokingham, RG41 2GY | +44 (0)118 912 1939 | www.globalknowledge.co.uk | contact@globalknowledge.co.uk

Hornbill

Hornbill is an IT service management solution provider with a focus on the real people who make IT happen: our customers.

We understand that the heart of the service desk is the team of individuals who work hard to provide the best possible levels of service to their end users. With budget pressures and the need to achieve improved results with less resources, we know this isn’t always easy.

Hornbill offers award winning ITSM solutions designed to match our customers’ needs and different levels of IT service management maturity. We know that one size doesn’t fit all, so customers have the freedom to choose the deployment model that best serves their business.

Our ITIL-compatible service desk solutions can be deployed in the cloud with myservicedesk.com or on-premise with Supportworks.

We offer our customers flexibility and choice, with the ability to migrate between solutions whilst retaining the value of licenses already purchased.

Ease of use for both service desk analysts and business users ensures customers are able to quickly deliver business value through rapid deployment and adoption of Self-Service, automation, proactive problem management and innovative knowledge management features.

Hornbill’s QuickStart service enables customers to swiftly implement and go-live with the Hornbill solution of choice thereby ensuring they rapidly secure the benefits associated with the deployment of new and enhanced capabilities. The QuickStart service adopts a proven four stage approach to get customers up and running and live with the full feature set of the ITSM application within weeks.

Follow us on Twitter: @hornbill_sys Find out more: www.hornbill.com

By providing unique levels of insight into end-users, we help service desk teams to better understand the needs of their customers and prioritise requests. Our goal is to enable service desk staff to provide their end users with a first-class service experience, and demonstrate tangible value back to the business.

Hornbill Service Management Limited Apollo, Odyssey Business Park, West End Road, Ruislip HA4 6QD | +44(0)208 582 8282 | hello@hornbill.com

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30 leading ITSM providers

House-on-the-Hill House-on-the-Hill Software, first established in 1993, imparts extensive and comprehensive experience in the development, consultancy and training of the company’s service desk software tool: SupportDesk.

Used within businesses of all sizes and sectors spanning over 40 countries, SupportDesk enables the provision of efficient, top-quality support, and excellent customer service, with customers such as The National Gallery, BT and Nando’s Restaurants benefitting from House-on-the-Hill’s market leading service desk solution.

SupportDesk Customisable, cost-effective and easy to use, SupportDesk can be implemented On-Site which allows you to maintain your system inhouse, or used On-Demand, leaving House-on-the-Hill to take care of all system upkeep and storage. Systems can be designed and built around the requirements of your business, and House-on-the-Hill consultants work closely with customers to ensure that SupportDesk solutions function in accordance with the idiosyncrasies of organisations.

Alternatively, if you need to get your service desk system up-andrunning straight away, there are three out-of-the-box SupportDesk packages to choose from with differing levels of functionality: Packages are: SupportDesk Foundation / SupportDesk Professional / SupportDesk Enterprise.

SupportDesk can be configured to support a variety of business areas.

The solutions can be used as stand-alone systems or combined into a multifunctional service desk: Solutions for multiple business areas include: IT service management / customer service & support / facilities management helpdesk / freedom of information management helpdesk / managed service providers helpdesk / human resources helpdesk / complaints management SupportDesk Benefits SupportDesk from House-on-the-Hill lets you choose the system to suit you. Thanks to the software’s modular based architecture, you pick just the functionality needed to create a support solution designed specifically for your business, without paying for unused functionality.

And, as your business evolves, so can your service desk, as you can scale-up your system with ease when requirements grow.

SupportDesk’s customisability is also a great bonus, and system administrators can make alterations to the configuration without the need for consultancy, but with House-on-the-Hill consultants available for when bigger changes are required.

Some SupporDesk features include: ITIL compatibility / email management and workflow engine / network and discovery tool / software licence manager / timeline: rolling commentary of actions / integrated Twitter search / CMDB Visualisation / drag-and-drop forms designer / reporting and KPI dashboard / mobile supportdesk / self-service browser

House-on-the-Hill Software Ltd 127 Stockport Road, Marple, Cheshire, England, SK6 6AF | +44 (0)161 427 8988 | www.houseonthehill.com | info@houseonthehill.com

The IT Service Management Forum (ItSMF UK)

itSMF UK is the independent forum for IT service management professionals. The founding member of an international chapter network, which now includes more than 50 countries and 70,000 individuals worldwide, itSMF UK offers an extensive range of services for its members. These include: • Free regional events and special interest groups.

• Industry-leading seminars and masterclasses with a world-class range of guest speakers.

• Professional development and credentialing through priSM. • ITSM publications, white papers and case studies.

• An online bookshop offering substantial discounts and special offers.

• A full-colour quarterly magazine, servicetalk.

• An internationally recognised course endorsement scheme.

• Networking opportunities and industry thought leadership.

and participate in continuous development and the promotion of best practice and standards, both internally and through partnerships with other organisations.

For further information about itSMF UK membership and ITSM13, visit the website.

• A celebrated annual conference and exhibition.

As a not-for-profit organisation, our members are our business. Our membership provides a forum to exchange views, share experiences The IT Service Management Forum (ItSMF UK) 150 Wharfedale Road, Winnersh Triangle, Wokingham, RG41 5RB | +44 (0)118 918 6500 | www.itsmf.co.uk

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KedronUK

Established in 2003, Kedron UK is a leading network and application performance management consultancy.

Kedron provides its clients with increased visibility and control across their network and application infrastructure by combining leading technology, knowledge and service.

Working with large enterprises, government and higher education sectors, their solutions provide: • Greater Operational & Security intelligence.

• Increased productivity by reducing problem resolution times.

• Cost savings via automisation and optimisation of IT infrastructure.

Some of the key projects Kedron assist its clients with are: Consolidation of management tools Too many tools providing a different version of events can cause confusion, inefficiencies and unnecessary cost. Kedron can assist in reducing tooling and providing central visibility of end to end services.

Solve application / network performance problems faster Using key technology and services to help its clients gain visibility of service affecting problems and then quickly identify the root cause.

Identify security risks & vulnerabilities Providing forensics of network traffic and user activity across enterprise networks and the auditing of devices against known vulnerabilities to produce reports and alerting.

Controlled data centre relocation Kedron offers solutions and services that provide companies with vital information about their IT systems and performance to allow discovery, audit and baseline of key business services - allowing before and after comparison.

New application / IPT/ video roll out Kedron provide solutions and services that allows its clients to test their network’s readiness for the introduction of new applications and technology.

KedronUK Unit 3, Block B, Trentham Business Quarter, Bellringer Road, Trentham, ST4 8GB | +44 (0)178 275 2369 | sales@kedronuk.com | www.kedronuk.com

Kepner-Tregoe

Heralded as best practices for support organisations, Kepner-Tregoe solutions brings higher quality and consistency to the troubleshooting, escalation, and documentation process. Quickly getting to the root cause of problems leads to permanent solutions, beneficially affecting efficiency, quality, and cost.

• Results delivered.

• Reduced mean-time-to-resolution by 50%.

• Increased customer satisfaction to +90%.

• Improved first-time-fix-rate by 40%.

• Reduced backlog by 60%.

• Faster/streamlined escalation.

• Accelerated productivity of new hires.

• Dramatic improvement in the customer service experience.

Our services include: • Consulting, service process improvement • Service strategy formulation • Training, coaching, facilitation • Service health check Twitter: @ktclearthinking

Kepner-Tregoe Ltd Moorbridge Court, Moorbridge Road, Maidenhead, SL6 8LT | +44 (0)162 877 8776 | www.kepner-tregoe.com | european.enquiries@kepner-tregoe.com

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Knowledge Powered Solutions Knowledge Powered Solutions (KPS) offers knowledge management software (Universal Knowledge) that helps organisations deliver operational efficiencies and at the same time improve customer services by providing immediate access to information at the point of need. Benefits include significant increases in productivity, reduction in operational costs, reduced training times and increased speed to competency for agents. Customers and Stakeholders receive consistent answers to their queries and issues for improved service quality.

Universal Knowledge is being used as a business critical tool within help/service desks, call/contact centers, web self-service and shared service operations around the world (UK, USA, Canada, Australia and Bahrain). It is empowering agents to deal with a wider number of queries and enabling end users to self-serve 24/7. Universal Knowledge enables organisations to capture and share their knowledge and expertise through a simple, easy to use interface for the end user.

There are five major functionality areas to Universal Knowledge; Management of knowledge Universal Knowledge allows an organisation to logically structure and manage the search for knowledge across their information estate.

This is provided from one access point, regardless of where the information resides.

Natural language searching A sophisticated search engine allows users to ask questions in their own words and find documents that match the context of their question, ranks the results accordingly and learn from experience.

Knowledge creation Knowledge can be referenced externally or created internally as needed through a quality controlled approval process.

Knowledge alerts Administrators have the ability to push information to users which can range from a link to a website or the actual article or document that is a “must read” or “notification” of new information. A full audit trail is available to see who has / has not read that information.

Reporting Standard reports are available within the system or can be configured to provide those that match required outputs. Missing knowledge can be identified and user behaviour monitored.

Whether deployed standalone or integrated with your ITSM tool, Universal Knowledge’s combination of intelligent search, expert escalations, content management features and knowledge gap identification will help deliver efficiency savings and improved customer service on the service desk. Enhancing the incident, problem and change logging functions by providing immediate access to relevant knowledge will improve speed to resolution, quality and aid adherence to SLA’s and ultimately reduce escalations and improve first call fix rate.

Knowledge Powered Solutions 6 Whitworth Court, Manor Farm Road, Runcorn, Cheshire, WA7 1WA | Phone: +44 (0)870 160 1993 | Email: info@kpsol.com

Kofax

Kofax dramatically transforms and simplifies the business critical First Mile™ of real time, information intensive customer interactions. In doing so, organisations can significantly increase their responsiveness to customers, provide a higher level of service, gain competitive advantage and better manage and grow their businesses while also greatly reducing operating costs.

We combine market leading capture, process management, mobile and analytics capabilities to provide “smart process applications.” Smart process applications enable organisations to realize these benefits in a timely and cost effective manner while minimizing the need to modify existing enterprise applications and repositories. They provide an essential link between an organisation’s “systems of engagement” and “systems of record.”

How it works Kofax provides a comprehensive software solution that automatically captures business critical interactions regardless of how, where and when they arise. Once captured, the content of those interactions is automatically extracted and perfected.

The solution then initiates and executes the downstream business processes needed to collaborate with customers to the resolve the inconsistencies that inevitably arise; capture missing or trailing information; obtain necessary approvals; and act upon and export the results into the appropriate systems of record. This is all while ensuring the consistent application of business rules needed for regulatory compliance and internal governance purposes.

Resources • First Mile Webinar (AIIM & Kofax): Solving the Challenge around Connecting Your “Systems of Engagement” and “Systems of Record” • eBook: Making the First Mile™ of Business Smarter • Learn more

Kofax Northern Ireland Limited Ground Floor, 85 London Wall, London, EC2M 7AD | +44 (0)207 496 1760 | http://www.kofax.com

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ManageEngine

Poweri ng I T a hea d At ManageEngine, the focus is on delivering real-time IT solutions that work, and work well.

We deliver immediate solutions to organisations that are growing at an ever increasing pace and leverage IT and infrastructure to support new business models and applications. People who want optimal performance of their critical IT infrastructure, including networks, servers, applications, desktops and more use our products. ManageEngine’s solutions help IT administrators identify problems before it hits end users and remedy it through automated work flows and personal intervention.

ManageEngine’s philosophy is geared towards understanding the technology needs and the business imperatives of our customers large and small. To this end, our lineup of products and solutions consist of more than 20 innovations including IT360 for integrated IT management. With IT360, mid- and large-sized enterprises have a unified view of their entire IT infrastructure. Our product portfolio and functionality allows customers to find products that work well together enabling integration between products. ManageEngine has proved that it delivers unmatched value for the businesses that it serves, while at the same time not compromising on technical excellence.

ManageEngine today is quickly emerging as one of the solution providers to beat. We have consistently shown that it is not necessary to invest large amounts of money and time towards setting up the IT infrastructure for any business. Across the board, all our customers, varied as they are in size and type have maximised their ROI precisely because ManangeEngine’s tools are easy to install and use ManageEngine’s solutions are available at a fraction of the cost of the products put out by the big four and this saving in cost is extended into a saving in time because of the ease of installation and the speed with which the end user can actually start using the solutions.

ManageEngine’s solutions are built for small and medium businesses but are easily scalable to suit the needs of much larger business enterprises.We service over 72,000 customers in 200 countries that manage complex, multi-vendor and highly virtualised/cloud IT infrastructures.

Three out of every five forture 500 companies use ManageEngine products.

ManageEngine is the Enterprise IT Management division of Zoho Corp with offices worldwide, including the United States, India, Japan and China.

Phone: +91-44-22707070 / 66997070 Email: sales@manageengine.com

Zoho Corporation Private Limited DLF IT Park, Block 7, Ground floor, No. 1/124, Shivaji Garden, Nandambakkam Post, Mount PH Road, Ramapuram, Chennai 600 089, India

Marval If you are looking for IT service management (ITSM) software, consultancy or education to increase ICT efficiency, improve services and support, reduce costs and enhance the user and customer experience then speak to Marval.

Integrated IT service management software MSM - an ITIL® process compliant, ISO/IEC 20000 and ISO/IEC 27001 compatible, integrated software solution ensures increased productivity and adaptability in service provision to maintain a reliable IT and service infrastructure.

• MSM is endorsed as ITIL process compliant to gold level, under the Cabinet office ITIL software scheme and Pink Verified to the maximum 15 ITIL processes.

• Support for all mobile devices and platforms for both online and offline use.

• Extensive customisation, security access controls and views.

• Graphical, easy to generate and view management dashboards and reporting.

• Drag and drop process workflow and configuration creation and views.

• User-friendly web self-service portal/catalogue underpinned by a service portfolio.

• Extensive knowledge and configuration management.

Multiple deployment options MSM has been designed to suit current and future customer needs,

offering multiple deployment options; on-premise, customer-hosted or Marval-hosted SaaS solutions.

One solution for all MSM is used by internal and external support departments and by providers of outsourced and managed services. A versatile, adaptable and scalable solution, MSM can be easily deployed to any part of the organisation requiring service and support, from human resources to project management.

MSM has been adopted by organisations across many diverse sectors worldwide, from local and central government to education and from emergency services to healthcare and much more.

ITSM solutions and IT strategies aligned with organisational strategies Customers expect services that are fast and reliable – repeatable services that are available when and where they need them. Customers use Marval to: • Encourage a culture of continual service improvement • Embed standards and good practice within their organisation • Ensure organisational and customer confidence is maintained Marval Pedigree and Substance Marval is a major practitioner, innovator, thought leader and contributor to Best Practice and standards in ITSM and is co-author of ITIL and ISO/ IEC 20000. Marval is an ISO/IEC 20000 registered company supporting internal and external customers to international standards.

Marval Software Limited Stone Lodge, Rothwell Grange, Rothwell Road, Kettering, NN16 8XF | +44 (0)153 671 1999 | www.marval-group.com | info@marval-group.com

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30 leading ITSM providers

Monitor 24-7 Over a decade ago, two software designers working as consultants collaborated in the creation of a service desk application on a request from a customer. By partnering together, the two designed an outsourced service desk application which was then successfully implemented by the customer.

At that time, the concept of “packaged” service desk software was just starting to gain momentum in the business world. However, there was a significant deficiency in the market. Enterprise customers with enterprise requirements had access to expensive, feature-rich applications. Smallto medium-sized businesses were limited to service desk software with limited features and functionality.

The duo of designers, each with an unwavering belief in their application’s architecture and the future marketability of the product, together with a strong belief in each other’s abilities and expertise, decided to join forces by pooling resources and knowledge and formed a company called Monitor 24-7. The duo also knew what they didn’t want to offer: long, complicated implementations, frequent costly upgrades or loss of control in the development of their product. They also wanted to keep in close contact with their customers, so they could learn how the software was performing in the field, and implement improvements and changes quickly and directly.

Packaged as well as hosted in the cloud Today at the heart of the company resides a service desk product – called IncidentMonitor – a robust, scaleable, ITIL approved, multifunction, out-of-the-box solution for knowledgeable and savvy customers seeking reliability and functionality while still being financially feasible for a wide range of companies. Still with the goal to improve service with easy to manage and use service desk software!

What they found were customers who wanted the same thing As the company grew, and the product added functionality, the team at Monitor 24-7 kept pace with added technical, development, sales and marketing people -- nationally and internationally. But still, at the heart of the company, two designers who met and created a product, remain the core of the team.

The guiding business model?

Let the customers’ needs guide the development of the product, thus ensuring the most up-to-date, technologically advanced and business savvy service desk solution on the market. No vendors, no resellers just a core team working on refining what they believe to be the best service desk product on the market.

It’s working!

Monitor 24-7 is a strong, profitable, privately owned, financially responsible organisation. The product, IncidentMonitor, benefits from pride of ownership, agile development and rock solid business stability, translating into smooth, hassle free relationships with customers.

Monitor 24-7 Inc +44 (0)208 123 3126 | sales@monitor24-7.com | www.monitor24-7.com

OpenText

OpenText Service Management solutions are used by two of the five largest IT service desks in the world. Our clients include BBC Worldwide, British Transport Police, Qualcomm, Telenor and Tesco.

OpenText will support you on a journey to extraordinary service management.

• Enterprise-wide integration, including standards-based interfaces and connectors.

Assure for IT service management Our Assure for IT Service management solution features: • A comprehensive set of ITIL-aligned processes.

• New social collaboration features.

• Personalised self-service and self-help.

• Accurate out-of-the-box reports.

• Quick customisation and integration, using BPM capabilities.

• An industry-leading IT service management solution.

• Solutions outside IT, such as HR, facilities, project management and customer services.

• A ‘Smart Process Factory’, to enable the rapid creation of new enterprise services, processes and apps.

OpenText announced the acquisition of ICCM, a leading vendor of service management solutions, in July 2013.

Be extraordinary Deploy Assure to provide:

Be unique Assure is a comprehensive service management platform that delivers more than packaged applications due to its underlying BPM (Business Process Management) engine, which enables: • Truly customisable processes and components, that can meet your unique needs.

OpenText +44 (0)166 682 8600 | www.iccm.co.uk/itsm | info@iccm.co.uk

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Pink Elephant As a global professional services organisation, Pink Elephant provide IT service management transformation services for organisations around the world.

Through our IT support, consulting and training services, Pink Elephant exists to optimise IT Services for our clients. Our approach has been honed over 20 years of supporting the implementation of IT service management best practices, which is a considerable undertaking and requires a proven implementation methodology to underpin it.

Having guided and supported 100’s of projects, we have refined our methods and amassed a significant understanding of how to implement best practices, and probably more importantly, how not to!

Pink Elephant has a culture developed in providing services. Unlike many of our competitors our culture has not been born in supplying “products”. Therefore, if you are trying to turn your organisation into a “service organisation” it makes sense to use a company which is a service-based company – not a product-based company.

Advice provided by Pink Elephant is impartial, objective and unbiased.

We have no vested interest in selling anything other than our experience and knowledge of IT management best practices in the best interests of our clients. This is what defines us as a company.

The scope of our solutions cover the whole Service Lifecycle, from

developing strategy and new organisation structures, Service design, service transition and service operation through to continual service Improvement. As well as ITIL we utilise, where appropriate, a number of frameworks and governance models: COBIT, Obashi, Lean IT, SFIA, Green IT, 6 Sigma and ISO standards.

Our Services are: • Service desk and it support services Dedicated, scalable Analysts selected and deployed as service orientated experts and performance managed consistently by Pink Elephant.

• People management issues are taken off your hands.

• Your own resources are freed to focus on business issues & staff “churn” is avoided.

• Improves the customer’s perceived value of IT Services • Subject matter expert consulting services Service desk discovery, maturity & ISO readiness assessments covering process maturity, analyst capability, tool evaluation and more.

• Experienced and trusted advisors to help you fast track to achieve service excellence and deliver value for your business • Best practice training: (ITIL, PRINCE2, COBIT, ISO, SDI) • To help you build internal competence and invest in your people.

Pink Elephant EMEA Ltd Middleburg House, 9 Castle Street, Reading, Berkshire, RG1 7SB | + 44 (0)118 324 0620 | infoeurope@pinkelephant.co.uk | www.pinkelephant.co.uk

Purple Griffon Training and Consultancy Purple Griffon Training and Consultancy are the thought leaders in ITSM. We have a proven track record of success supporting a vast portfolio of organisations to develop affordable integrated solutions to build on existing ITSM best practice.

In addition to classroom based training, we offer e-learning and blended learning in service and project management and other complementary courses, including MSP, M_0_R, ISO20000, ISO27001, Business Analysis, CobiT and CMMI.

Training - Purple Griffon offers a pragmatic approach to service management as we understand that individual organisation and business needs differ due to a number of contributing factors.

Our trainers and consultants come equipped with a wealth of experience and a bank of knowledge within their subject area.

Consultancy – Our leading-edge consultants are equipped with a history of proven success, practical experience in their particular specialism and an extensive knowledge base.Your consultant is trained to the highest of standards and will adapt seamlessly to your organisation, environment and behaviours. The on-going success from our consultancy services is underpinned by an in-depth knowledge and application of industry best practice frameworks, standards and methods such as ITIL, ISO20000, CobiT, PRINCE2, ISO27001, PCI-DSS and others.

We are the market leaders of bespoke training solutions, each created to our clients’ exact specifications and company behaviours.

In addition, we boast an extensive catalogue of public schedule training courses delivered nationwide:

• Implement IT service management processes with a seamless and logical approach.

Purple Griffon Services – designed to help you and your organisation:

• Full ITIL range of qualifications.

• Effectively engage with your customers and manage your suppliers.

• BCS Specialist courses.

• Consistently deliver high quality efficient IT services.

• One day masterclasses in various processes.

• Move away from a technology based silo structure and mentality.

• Complete Prince2 suite of training.

• Transform your IT department into a customer focused, quality driven, forward thinking and agile team.

Purple Griffon Training and Consultancy +44 (0)153 973 6828 | www.purplegriffon.com | info@purplegriffon.com

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30 leading ITSM providers

Quanta Quanta is revolutionising training experiences.

Imagine a training intervention where every decision you make has a consequence and a clear learning objective. Decide that you can skimp on testing the camp’s new security system in order to preserve budget for the shiny new server your team are clamouring for? Fine, until you get bombarded with tickets about a funny burning smell coming the security office. Your team opt to operate a first-infirst-out priority system for incident management – that’s great until your customer with a gold-plated SLA shows up on your doorstep wondering why the medical tents have been in darkness for two hours.

Welcome to one of Quanta’s simulations.

Take for example Quanta’s most recent simulation offering, Operation Aftermath. Following the success of our project management simulation Project Phoenix and the popularity of the service operations orientated Apollo 13, Operation Aftermath takes delegates though the entire service management lifecycle in an experiential manner. Set in a refugee camp, the team must do what they can to design and deliver key services to mitigate against the humanitarian impact of a recent natural disaster.

As they progress through the one-day simulation, the team will experience operating a service desk, hold a Change Advisory Board, design and transition new services, optimise their service portfolio and even design and, hopefully, implement an ITSCM. Perhaps most importantly, they will witness how activities in one part of the lifecycle can impact on another.

People, process and technology is the familiar rallying call of any service manager, but how well can traditional training methods help to reinforce these three pillars of ITSM? We often know what we should be doing and, if we’re lucky, have all the shiny hardware and software necessary to support our grand schemes – but none of this means anything unless the people driving the processes are behaving correctly.

The emphasis is as much on the team dynamic as individual expertise – the delegates will have to share knowledge and work together to design improved processes. Communication, teamwork and understanding both their customer’s needs and their supplier’s agendas, are the key to success. Our skilled facilitators can offer up areas for improvement, but ultimately it is down to the team evolve and adapt to the challenges of simulation.

Simulations bridge that gap between knowledge and behaviour.

Why not leave your manuals at home and come learn for real?

Quanta 8-10 the Moors, Worcester, WR1 3EE | +44 (0)800 018 5597 | http://www.quanta.co.uk

Real VNC VNC® remote access technology has an extensive range of applications, from providing IT departments and individuals with the ability to perform remote support and maintenance without needing to travel, to telecommuting and facilitating training across classrooms, offices or continents.

For IT support and service desk professionals, RealVNC provides a number of robust, secure and high performing enterprise grade solutions.

VNC VNC enables remote access and control of one computer desktop from another, whether on a local network or the other side of the world on the Internet. Available on the widest range of computer operating systems, from Windows and Mac through to Linux, VNC meets the needs of multi-platform corporate environments.

This secure and feature rich software is available with an Enterprise license for high performance encryption, authentication options, file

transfer, chat, remote printing and a powerful deployment tool (Windows only). IT professionals benefit from reduced system downtime, increased ticket throughput and improved customer satisfaction.

VNC Viewer Plus VNC Viewer Plus is a result of collaboration between RealVNC and Intel to embed VNC technology directly into its chipset, enabling users to connect to the VNC Server on the chip of supported computers with Intel® Core™ vPro™ technology, with no additional software required for full graphical KVM out-of band access.

Ideal for IT professionals requiring advanced support capabilities to remotely solve complex IT issues, such as OS failures and boot problems. With remote power on/off functionality employees can be encouraged to turn off consoles at the end of each day, saving power without hindering after hours maintenance. Remote reboot and image mounting capabilities enable IT technicians to conduct diagnostics and fixes without the need to be desk-side, increasing productivity and facilitating more effective use of IT resource.

Free trials are available via the website.

Twitter: @RealVNC

Real VNC +44 (0)0800 888 6410 | www.realvnc.com | enquiries@realvnc.com

www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

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30 leading ITSM providers

Sunrise Software Sunrise Software is an independently owned software company that has been developing, implementing and supporting service management and Service Desk solutions since 1994. Since that time, well over 1,000 organisations have depended on Sunrise’s software products to manage operational processes like IT service desk, customer service, IT service desk software, shared service centres and many others. in fact, wherever service is delivered within an organisation, be it to customers or internal stakeholders and employees, chances are Sunrise’s process-centric software can make a big difference.

Sostenuto ITSM Sostenuto ITSM, from Sunrise Software, is a powerful and comprehensive IT service management Solution based on the popular ITIL3® framework. Sostenuto’s browser-based on-premise or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution features an integrated suite of processes incorporating incident management and service request fulfilment, problem and change management, service levels, knowledge management, service asset and configuration management, and service catalogue management.

Sostenuto’s modern HTML5 user interface is at home on desktop browsers such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome and Safari, as well as tablet devices such as the Apple iPad and Google

Android devices, as well as smartphones, ensuring that wherever you are, and whatever device you chose, Sostenuto is always available.

Introducing innovative gamification features to engage, motivate and reward service desk staff, Sostenuto users gain “experience” as they go about their day-to-day support activities and over time “Level Up” through a series of configurable experience tiers. Users earn “badges” by satisfying specific criteria, are free to compete in challenges against other support staff, and can view progress against others by viewing interactive leaderboards as challenges progress, improving staff motivation, driving up standards, improving collaboration and knowledge sharing, as well as increasing customer satisfaction and employee wellbeing.

While Sostenuto ITSM provides out-of-the-box functionality designed around ITIL3®, it is a flexible tool allowing significant configuration capabilities that allow it to be tailored specifically to the requirements of the customer, including the creation of entire new application features and modules. This high degree of flexibility allows organisations to change existing, or introduce new processes, through simple configuration rather than code. Additionally, administrators can create integrations using REST or SOAP based connectors with other applications and IT systems currently in place.

Fully configurable dashboards, management reporting, and analytic capabilities, including recently announced compliance with the SDI Standard for Performance Reports, helps round out a comprehensive service desk application that’s capable of delivering support across organisations of all shapes and sizes.

Sunrise Software Ltd 50 Barwell Business Park, Leatherhead Road, Chessington, Surrey, KT9 2NY | www.sunrisesoftware.co.uk | enquiries@sunrisesoftware.co.uk

TechExcel

TechExcel, a leading provider of IT service management software, has 2,500 customers in 42 countries and maintains offices in USA, UK, China and Japan. servicewise is a customisable and comprehensive internal Helpdesk, ITsM and ITIL compliant solution. It can enforce business rules and optimise business processes regardless of the size of your organisation.

Automate and streamline services and helpdesk activities with configurable workflows, process management, email notifi cations and a searchable knowledge base. Provide support from a browser by creating a customised self-service portal that matches the look and feel of your company’s website. The self-service portal includes online incident submission, status updates, online conversations and a knowledgebase. servicewise includes modules such as incident management, problem escalation and analysis, change management and asset management.

Customerwise is an integrated CRM solution focused on customer service throughout the entire customer lifecycle. Provide your support, sales, and marketing teams the necessary tools, processes, and information they need to meet customer demands and improve the customer’s experience.

Customerwise allows you to refine sales, customer service and support processes to increase cross-team communication and efficiency while reducing your overall costs. Combine sophisticated process automation, knowledgebase management, workflow, and customer self-service to improve business processes that translate into better customer relationships.

Assetwise aids the process of monitoring, controlling and accounting for assets throughout their lifecycle. A single and centralised location enables businesses to monitor all assets including company IT assets, managing asset inventories, and tracking customer-owned assets. All asset changes, including maintenance information, trouble ticket data, status inventory, utilisation metrics and usage, are recorded in the central repository and linked to other service and support tasks. As part of the TechExcel service suite, Assetwise can be accessed by members of TechExcel.

Customerwise and servicewise and provides a single version of asset truth for sales, service, help desk, IT, and other teams.

TechExcel EMEA Crown House, 72 Hammersmith Road, W14 8TH | +44 (0)207 470 5650 | emeainfo@techexcel.com | www.techexcel.com

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www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

30 leading ITSM providers

Tools4ever Tools4ever provides leading-edge identity and access management solutions to all market sectors.

Our products are highly adaptable, and can be tailored to solve the problems created by tight budgets and shrinking resources. Investing in our user management and productivity applications will help you manage your networks more efficiently and securely.

remember all these credentials and so they write them down or choose very simple password sequences, all of which can compromise network security. This situation also results in frequent calls to the Service Desk and a disproportionate amount of time being spent on negotiating applications and systems security sign-in. E-SSOM (Enterprise Single Sign On Manager) by Tools4ever allows users to login only once, after which they will be logged in automatically to all authorised applications.

They no longer have to enter passwords for each application, making for a more secure network and a much more efficient and productive workforce.

Password resets IT support is often inundated with calls from employees who have forgotten their username and password. This is a frustrating situation as the service desk has very little time left to focus on other, more network critical issues. It can also be very time-consuming for the end-user. With Self Service Reset Password Management (SSRPM) fromTools4ever, end-users can reset their own passwords. This relieves the service desk’s workload – saving time, money and reducing potential security risks to the network by identity fraudsters. SSRPM also offers 24-hour availability, end users can reset passwords from any location, at any time.

It is available for Active Directory, Office 365, Google Apps, etc and also features Helpdesk Caller Identification, providing even greater security.

User management As organisations grow in size, user management tasks become more challenging. Managing user accounts can be a very time-consuming process. Changes to personnel are often missed or IT is not promptly informed, making it very difficult to accurately manage permissions and applications for each user.Tools4ever’s User Management Resource Administrator (UMRA) can solve all these issues and more, featuring 100% Auto Provisioning, Helpdesk Delegation, Connectors to more than 130 Systems/Applications, Workflow Management, Self Service and many other benefits. * Survey by Tools4ever

Single sign on A recent survey has shown that an alarming 28.1% of employees have to enter over 12 different password combinations*. Most are unable to

Tools4ever Phone: +44 (0)845 017 1499 | www.tools4ever.co.uk

TOPdesk

TOPdesk is a leading service management software for businesses looking to implement shared services amongst their depar tments. In fact, TOPdesk’s Shared Service Centre approach is the only solution that offers modules specifically designed for depar tments such as FM and eHRM, as well as IT. Seamlessly integrating multiple depar tmental processes and suppor t in a single system has incredible benefits, so you can suppor t the needs of the whole business as well as your customers.

We believe in simplicity; simplicity that delivers value and effectiveness by reducing costs and complexity. Our modular structure combined with our out-of-the-box format delivers a powerful, yet easy-to-use solution. Choose the components of software which specifically match your organisation’s unique requirements, and forget about paying for things you may not need at the moment. This not only delivers the best possible value for money, but also a clean and easy-to-navigate platform. Named “Best in Class” by The ITSM Review, TOPdesk has assisted over 5,000 customers create a fluid and adaptable workplace.

Our licencing structure of free, unlimited operators and ‘Train the

Trainer’ consultancy was designed with our customer’s best interests at heart allowing your company room to grow.

Discover our latest innovation: the Form Designer Module. This module lets you create your own forms in moments, helping you specify which information you need from the end-user and automatically integrates within TOPdesk’s ITIL-aligned processes. This is available in our recent release of version 5.2, which has followed the logic of doing more with fewer clicks. Our Plan Board is as strong as ever, and your users will be happy to know that they can access their self service desk from anywhere, at any time without the need for plugins. We’ll show how service management tools can work for you, instead of the other way around. Every day, millions of users across 45 countries use our affordable and user-friendly tool to support their services. TOPdesk will help you take your services to the next level.

If you would like to find out more about TOPdesk or if you can any questions drop us a line below.

TOPdesk UK limited 61 Southwark Street, London, SE1 0HL | Phone: +44 (0)207 803 4200 | www.topdesk.co.uk | info@topdesk.co.uk

www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

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30 leading ITSM providers

UKCMG

The “UK Computer Measurement Group” is an independent, nonprofit making, user group of information technology professionals intent on sharing information over all aspects of the computing industry. The organisation is targeted at improving members’ knowledge, skills and abilities in capacity management and related IT service management disciplines.

Founded in the mid-1980’s, UKCMG continues to be a par tnership between individuals and user companies including financial institutions, utilities, government depar tments, ,retailers and hardware and software vendors.

are available to both members and non-members and create a fantastic oppor tunity for networking between end-users, consultants and suppliers.

UKCMG is an excellent forum in which IT professionals can improve and acquire skills, learn from exper ts and exchange information and ideas with experienced practitioners.

The organisation is also suppor ted by CMG organisations around the world including, Europe, the United States of America, South Africa and Australia.

Our organisation is run on behalf of members by a small team of volunteer committee members and a professional secretariat.

Together, we operate a series of one-day Industry Forums throughout the year, hold regular regional group meetings, and the highlight of the year is the two-day Annual Conference. These events

UKCMG +44 (0)208 421 5330 | www.ukcmg.org.uk | ukcmg@ukcmg.org.uk

Vivantio

2012 Network Computing Awards.

Vivantio produces Vivantio ITSM, a proven software solution for service desk, IT service management and customer service teams.

Voted Service Management Product of the Year at the

The flexibility and scalability of the software is reflected in a diverse customer base. Independent case studies show time and again the capability of the application to increase productivity, save time and money, and improve levels of customer service. Customers include wellknown brands such as Marks & Spencer, RAC and the NHS. Vivantio ITSM is ITIL compatible and covers a wide range of ITIL processes, including Incident, problem and change management as well as a Configuration Management Database (CMDB) and a full audit history for Configuration Items. Also includes a customisable web selfservice feature which can be integrated with your website or intranet.

Enabling good decision-making and continual improvement is where quality service desk software really comes into its own. Vivantio ITSM has customisable dashboards, built-in reports as well as a custom report builder and integration with business intelligence tools.

Vivantio ITSM stretches beyond the traditional service desk application, supporting both internal and external customers. Suitable for external facing customer service teams, as well as IT, HR, facilities management and a wide range of other service areas.

Discover the Vivantio difference: • Proven solution – Voted Service Management Product of the Year at the 2012 Network Computing Awards.

• Great service and support – We pride ourselves on the service we provide to you, our customers. Work with us and we’ll always promise to listen to you, do our best to meet your needs, and be open and honest in all our dealings with you.

• Incredibly easy to use – Our watchword is ease-of-use. You’ll find all our interfaces are intuitive and well thought-out, allowing you and your users to get up to speed amazingly quickly.

• Simple to customise – Our experienced and professional team will be happy to work with you to fine-tune the solution, looking beyond the software to ensure your service processes are aligned with business goals and strategy.

• ITIL compliant – We make ITIL service management simple and easy to implement, helping you achieve rapid and continual improvement.

And to save you even more valuable time, we’ve designed all elements to be easily configurable in line with your unique requirements.

• Cloud and On-premise Delivery – Our cloud subscription, chosen by 92% of our customers, means you can forget about upgrades and bug fixes. We’ll handle those for you. And our ISO27001 certified data centres give you reassuring levels of security and reliability.

Vivantio Limited 25-31 Boulevard, Weston-super-Mare, BS23 1NX | +44 (0)193 442 4840 | www.vivantio.com | enquiries@vivantio.com

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www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

Directory

Hornbill Systems

iCore

Infravision

Ares, Odyssey Business Park,West End Road, Ruislip, HA4 6QD T: +44 (0)208 582 8282 W: www.hornbill.com E: info@hornbill.com

60 Lombard Street, London, EC3V 9EA T: +44 (0)207 464 8883 W: www.icore-ltd.com E: sales@icore-ltd.com

Delegate House, 30A Hart Street, Henley-on-Thames, oxon, RG9 2Al T: +44 (0)149 163 5340 W: www.infravision.com E: info@infravision.com

Hornbill develops and markets ‘supportworks’, applications for IT service Management (ITsM) and business helpdesks. Hornbill’s ITsM & service desk software with a ‘Human Touch’, enables its customers to provide excellent service while benefi ting from consolidation on a single technology platform..

iCore is the largest specialist IT service Management Consultancy in the UK. ICore has a long & impressive track record in delivering & embedding pragmatic IT service management, solutions, relying on the deep, real worldexperience of our mature & determined consultancy team.

Kepner Tregoe

Netsupport Software

Quayside House,Thames Side,Windsor, Berkshire, Sl4 1QN T: +44 (0)175 385 6716 W: www.kepner-tregoe.com

Towngate East, Market Deeping, Peterborough, PE6 8NE T: +44 (0)177 838 2270 W: www.netsupportsoftware.co.uk

Kepner-Tregoe provides consulting and training services to organisations worldwide.

We collaborate with clients to implement their strategies by embedding problemsolving, decision-making, and project execution methods through individual and team skill development and process improvement. Clients build competitive advantage by using our systematic processes to achieve rapid, targeted results and create

NetSupport provides a range of complementary Remote Support and Service Management solutions that help organisations deliver a productive and cost effective IT support service. Products include multi-platform Remote Control solution NetSupport Manager, IT Asset Management suite NetSupport DnA and web based ITIL Service Management tool NetSupport ServiceDesk.

ManageEngine

OpenText

Powe r ing IT ahead DLF IT Park, Block 7, Ground floor, No. 1/124, Shivaji Garden, Nandambakkam Post, Mount PH Road, Ramapuram, Chennai 600 089, India T: 91-44-22707070 / 66997070 W: www.manageengine.com E: sales@manageengine.com ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is highly customizable, smart and fl exible Help Desk Software used by more than 10,000 IT managers worldwide in 23 different languages. It helps you to implement ITIL best practices on the go and restore your IT services on-time.

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Riverside Business Village, Swindon Road, Malmesbury,Wiltshire, SN16 9RS T: +44 (0)166 682 8600 W: www.iccm.co.uk/itsm E: info@iccm.co.uk OpenText Service Management solutions are used by 2 of the 5 largest IT Service Desks in the world. Our clients include BBC Worldwide, British Transport Police, Qualcomm, Telenor and Tesco.

OpenText will support you on a journey to Extraordinary Service Management.

OpenText announced the acquisition of ICCM, a leading vendor of Service Management solutions, in July 2013.

BMC software’s #1 partner for service Desk express and the Alignability Process Model, delivering rapid implementation o proven ITIL aligned processes, procedures, work instructions and tool settings, and transformation to service-led approach in only 12 weeks!

Monitor 24-7

PO Box 4530, Maidenhead, Sl60 1GG T: +44 (0)208 123 3126 W: www.monitor24-7.com E: sales@monitor24-7.com Over 13 years of customer experience bundled in one solution to help centralise information, prioritise issues aimed to increase control, productivity and improve communication and service excellence.

100% focus on support and development of IncidentMonitor Service Management software, Pinkverified for 10 ITIL processes

Sunrise Software

50 Barwell Business Park, Leatherhead Road, Chessington, Surrey KT9 2NY T: +44 (0)208 391 9000 W: www.sunrisesoftware.co.uk E: welcome@sunrisesoftware.co.uk Sunrise Software provides applications which underpin business processes across its customers’ organisations. Sunrise has a highly successful track record in IT service management, customer service management and business process management with fully configured applications designed around best practice guidelines.

www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

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Directory

TOPdesk

Sitehelpdesk.com

APMG

61 Southwark Street, London, SE1 0HL T: +44 (0)207 803 4200 W: www.topdesk.co.uk E: info@topdesk.co.uk

Eagle House, Lynchborough Road, Passfields, Hants GU30 7SB T: +44 (0)207 419 5174 W: www.sitehelpdesk.com E: sales@sitehelpdesk.com

Sword House,Totteridge Road, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire T: +44 (0)149 445 2450 W: www.apmg-uk.com

Sitehelpdesk.com will take you to the forefront of service delivery with a suite of products designed to provide you with low cost web browser based action tracking and self-help, making your services instantly available 24 by 7.

As an accredited ITIL® Examination Institute, APMG offers our training organisations a range of benefits to help them demonstrate the quality and professionalism of their services. Call us to find out how your business could benefit from our accreditation services.

TOPdesk Service Management software seamlessly integrates Facilities, HR and IT processes in a single 100% webbased tool. TOPdesk’s affordable and ITILcompliant software has won several awards for user-friendliness. Secure more time for your colleagues and customers with TOPdesk.

Cherwell Software

Lime Kiln House, Lime Kiln,Wooton Bassett, Wiltshire, SN4 7HF T: + 44 (0)179 385 8181 W: www.cherwellsoftware.com Cherwell Service Management delivers ITIL v3 best practice ‘out-of-the-box’ including: Incident, Problem, Change, CMDB, SLA, Knowledge, Self-Service and is PinkVERIFY certified. Our unique CBAT development platform empowers users to fully customise screens, workflow processes and develop additional business applications.The Cherwell solution is available via a standard license model or ‘On Demand’ SaaS service.

Solisma

Marval

T: +44 (0)207 193 2085 W: www.solisma.com E: info@solisma.com

Stone Lodge, Rothwell Grange, Rothwell Road, Kettering, NN16 8XF T: +44 (0)153 671 1999 W: www.marval-group.com E: info@marval-group.com

Service Improvement Made Simple!

Solisma is a leading global provider of ITIL and ISO/IEC 20000 courseware, training, consulting and assessment services, with a global partner network to help you quickly and cost-effectively improve your ITSM capability like never before.

To learn more, contact us today or visit service-improvement.com

Marval is a major practitioner, innovator, thought leader and contributor to Best Practice and standards in ITSM and is co-author of ITIL and ISO/IEC 20000. Marval is an ISO/IEC 20000 registered company supporting internal and external customers to international standards.

Avocent Landesk

itSMF

E-Warehouse

Dukes Court, Duke Street,Woking, GU22 7AD T: +44 (0)148 374 4444 W: www.landesk.com

150 Wharfedale Road,Winnersh,Triangle, Wokingham, Berkshire, RG41 5RG T: +44 (0)118 918 6503 W: www.itsmf.co.uk

Hampden House, Monument Park, Chalgrove, Oxfordshire, OX44 7RW T: +44 (0)845 299 7539 W: www.oxygenservicedesk.com E: oxygen@e-warehouse.com

Avocent delivers IT operations management solutions that reduce operating costs, simplify management and increase the availability of critical IT environments 24/7 via integrated, centralized software. This includes Systems Management, Security Management, Data Centre Management and IT Service Management.

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The itSMF is the only internationally recognised and independent organisation whose sole focus is on the on-going development and promotion of IT Service Management ’best practice‘, standards and qualifications. The forum has 14,000 UK members and official itSMF chapters in 44 countries

Oxygen Service Desk is a process automation engine that simply interprets your pre-defined business processes and then mobilises the actual process, pushing work tasks to people and to systems, streamlining how the processes run across your entire department or organisation.

www.vital-mag.net | September-October 2013

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