JANUARY 2018 / ISSUE 6
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PERK OF THE MONTH
RAVING FAN OF THE QUARTER
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Get to know...
the Co-ordination Team This quarter’s new article gives you an insight into what life is like as a Project Coordinator
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Welcome. Hi All, I hope you’ve all come back from the Christmas break fully recharged and ready to crack on with another year!! First off, I’d just like to start by welcoming Webantic to the team. As the needs of our customers change, we must evolve as a business to harness new talent and new skills. The team at Webantic are an amazing bunch of incredibly talented people and I can’t wait to see them all fully integrated into ANS. As we approach the end of another financial year, I’d just like to say thank you all for your dedication and commitment to the business. We had a Q1 and Q2 made up of lots and lots of incredibly hard work which was to be expected seeing as we were building entirely new business units and a significant enhancement in strategic direction. That hard work resulted in us absolutely smashing Q3 out of the park and delivered a record sales number which is setting us up for a record financial year ahead. Also looking forward, as you’ll have heard, we’re expanding our office space this summer and have loads of exciting plans in the pipeline including more meeting rooms, a bigger breakout area and more casual working spaces. We’ll keep you updated with progress and will let you know what will be happening with the additional parking spaces as soon as we know the plan.
#ComeOnANS
Paul Shannon, CEO
Helen Thomas Writer Natalie Yates Designer
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Contents.
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New Raving Fans
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Q4 To Do List
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Perk of the Month
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CSR: Building a Better Future
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Sales Leaderboard
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Changes in Finance
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The Latest from Marketing
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Get to Know... the Co-Ordination Team
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Five minutes with... Webantic Co-founder Calvin Evans
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Other Departmental Updates
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Inside the ANS Academy
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Dates for Your Diary
New Raving Fans. It is our goal to achieve industry leading PR for ANS and our customers, recognising the innovative solutions we collaboratively provide for organisations and their community of users. We aim to sign up 200 Raving Fans to our customer satisfaction programme, which will only be achieved by maintaining the current exceptional level of service to our customers. This quarter we have welcomed the following Raving Fans...
“Excellent project delivery. We had our new environment installed and commissioned as per the statement of work and our virtual environment was migrated with minimal user interruption.” PAUL SOLLOWAY HEAD OF IT
Turn customers into Raving Fans.
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At ANS, there is no such thing as the bare minimum. We endeavour to always go above and beyond for our customers, and every project is a chance for us to deliver first-class solutions and welcome customers into our Raving Fan Club. Our Raving Fans know there’s more to a great customer relationship than technical knowledge or timely delivery – those may be the building blocks of our success, but for them it’s about partnering with a company that they can trust, a company that they enjoy working with and a company that is just as invested in their success as they are.
Sales Leaderboard. Q3 has been an amazing quarter for the business and more importantly we achieved the biggest Q3 in the history of ANS with an overall margin of £4.2 Million, so thank you to everyone. Going into Q3 we had a pipeline of deals that were fundamental in proving the engagement model the sales team is well and truly working with a highlight on a number of key deals below;
As we enter Q4, it is historically our busiest time of the year and we are all set for a record year. The pipeline is once again full of exciting deals across all the sales teams, with a great mix of deals as highlighted below.
Public Sector North - University of Leeds - £721K - Ed Knowles - Midlands & Lancs CSU - £100K - Alex Dowd
Public Sector South - Salisbury Hospitals NHS Trust - £891K - Yasin Virani - London South Bank University - £54K - Matt Burridge
Enterprise North - South Staffordshire Plc - £249K - Chris Chappell - Sorted.com - £83K - Dom Greer
Enterprise South - Thales UK - £181K - Enterprise South, Nathan Hopkins - The Club Company - £60K - Enterprise South, Danny Lesage
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Personally, Q4 was the most exciting time of the year as you look to become the number 1 sales person in the business with a host of sales people striving to be at the top, so on that note here is the sales leader board. //Gareth Ainsworth, Sales Director
The latest from Marketing. In the spirit of challenging the norm and trying something new, the highlight of Q3 has to be our successful entry into the webinar world! We hosted 2 WAN focussed webinars attracting 27 attendees over the two 30 min sessions. In terms of efficiency (both financial and time saving) then we can’t think of a better activity. We are tracking some net new opportunities that have stemmed from these activities and dues to their success we have filled the diary up with more webinars in Q4. Those with a keen eye for design will notice that we have updated the branding throughout the office, from the frosting on the glass, the logos on the whiteboards and the unmissable customer quotes in the board room. Remember to speak to Marketing or BST before your customer meetings to ensure you have the most relevant quote on the wall be it sector or solution specific. Remember to keep up with all the latest goings on from ANS on Yammer – we have competitions, weekly social updates, free cake the whole lot going on! If you are not checking in daily then you are guaranteed to miss out!
Missed out on the latest resources from ANS – catch up on the latest news and blogs here: •
ANS Strengthens Cloud App Development Capabilities with new Acquisition
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The Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust lays foundations for digital transformation with ANS
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Staffordshire University to boost student experience through digital transformation
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Revolutionising the buying experience in the Commercial Sector with AI and ML
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Public Cloud is enabling AI to save lives. Literally.
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Predictive Analytics and Machine Learning unlock the future for Further Education
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The Best Way to Monitor your Public Cloud Platform
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2018: The Year Cloud Innovation takes Disruptive Tech Mainstream
//Olivia Jaskolka, Marketing Director
Five minutes with... WEBANTIC CO-FOUNDER CALVIN EVANS
To kick things off, we sat down with Webantic co-founder, Calvin Evans, to learn about his experiences in business so far, how his role has evolved, and what makes him tick when he’s not running the show on Quay Street. Tell me about the Webantic journey so far. Luke and I have come a long way since the early days of Webantic. When we started back in October 2011, we were operating from our spare room in Fallowfield, building websites and basically learning as we went along. Our only objective back then was to keep improving, and this drove us forward. Gradually we refined our skills, our client base grew, and we began solidifying Webantic into the business it is today. In 2013 we moved into our first office, which was a major milestone for us. Our team quickly took off from then; over the past few years, we’ve grown to an agency of 10+ staff. Last autumn, we celebrated our fifth anniversary, and now as you know, we’ve been acquired by ANS Group.
Surrounding ourselves with competent staff members has allowed Luke and I to delegate more and more of our tasks; I stopped development work over a year ago, and recently appointed team members to more senior responsibilities like Q+A and project administration too.
“Our only objective back then was to keep improving, and this drove us forward”
How has your role evolved since you set up the company? As Webantic has expanded, we’ve done a fairly good job at pushing things down the tree. When bootstrapping a business there’s
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never enough cash. Initially, rather than hire from the top, we were forced to recruit more junior people and train them up. Since then, however, this approach has become one of our values as a company. We try to invest in growing people. It takes longer, but results in staff who stick around and take ownership of their roles.
Nowadays, my focus is primarily on project management and providing strategic input during the planning stages to pave the road for smooth implementation. As we bring on new hires, I’m going to be spending more time consulting on product strategy from a holistic standpoint as that is one of our core value-adds.
What’s the biggest challenge you’ve had to overcome? Implementing a more agile project structure over the past year has
“The agile concept originates from product companies in Silicon Valley; it’s much more difficult to apply to a client relationship, as you have different dynamics to consider.” been tricky. The agile concept originates from product companies in Silicon Valley; it’s much more difficult to apply to a client relationship, as you have different dynamics to consider.
Where do you see software development heading in 2018?
Many agencies have encountered the same problem and given up, or reverted back to waterfall methodology while retaining the same labels so they can call themselves “agile”. However, we’ve persisted as we believe that agile represents a considerable opportunity to deliver genuine value. That said, we have found certain aspects very challenging to implement without causing friction between us and customers.
That’s an interesting one. There’s a lot of noise around technology like AR/VR, wearables, IOT and machine learning, but I feel as though we’re yet to really see any truly disruptive applications.
To overcome the issue, we’ve created our own hybrid framework known as “Tempo” internally. Constructed from the ground up, it borrows from various other frameworks including Kanban, Scrum and even Prince2. It’s still a work in progress, but we’re really happy with this model so far. It allows clients to embrace some of the core concepts of Agile and lean product development, without forcing them to operate too much outside of the dynamics of a conventional client/supplier relationship.
Hopefully this will change soon; I expect we’ll start to see rapid growth in real-world applications of AR, VR and machine learning. It will be exciting to see how these developments pan out.
What has been your biggest achievement so far? In all honesty, the fact that we’re still here is a big achievement for me. There are so many odds stacked against you in business, which is why only one in five startups make it past the first five years. I felt immense gratitude and relief when we hit that milestone last October.
Behind the scenes, big companies might be doing clever things like, for example, applying machine learning to big data. But a lot of the public applications of these emerging technologies are either somewhat gimmicky, or complete flops (Google Glass?).
When you’re not running the business, how do you unwind? Because I don’t program as a job anymore, I try to find the time to code outside of work; I enjoy it and it keeps my skills fresh. Beyond that, I spend a lot of time outdoors. It’s really difficult to switch off when you’re running a business, but so important that you do. Going for a walk, or sitting in a hammock on the balcony at home, really helps to make sure my head is in the right place.
// Taken from www.webantic.co.uk/posts/five-minutes-with-our-co-founder-calvin
Inside the ANS Academy. Academy Timeline
Track our latest recuits on their apprenticeship journey:
Months 2-5: Training Training with an experienced IT trainer, learning all aspects of the curriculum. Also complete some shadowing of an employee so that you can get a feel of what your role will include. This is the perfect time to ask any questions you have, and to start to get a great understanding of what is involved in your day to day tasks.
12 new apprentices joined our Managed Service Apprentice Scheme in October last year. They’re now progressing well and are spending three days a week in training to learn all aspects of the curriculum. When they’re not in the classroom they are working on the desk two days a week shadowing experienced team members on the desk. This provides them with the perfect opportunity to ask questions, get stuck in and start to get an understanding of what is involved in the role. We’ve also got apprentices working their way through nontechnical apprenticeships. Stephanie on reception has completed her Level 2 Business Administrator and Emma McQuillan over in the Finance department has completed her Level 2 ATT exams. I’d also like to give a special mention to Zara Grant who has done a fantastic job of covering Natalie Miller while she has been off work. Keep up the good work all of you! // Anna O’Brien, ANS Academy Manager
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Q4 To Do List Book annual leave days on People (holiday buy back up to 4 days!) Book your birthday off log this on People as ‘other event’ SIGN UP TO THE BRIGHT BODY BRIGHT MIND CHALLENGE AT THE STUDIO GYM AT THE BRIGHT BUILDING
Get involved in the simple Perkbox competition for a chance to win some top prizes
CSR: Building a Better Future.
First off I’d like to start by saying a huge thank you to everyone who donated gifts to our Means Christmas campaign. We delivered 240 presents to the Factory Youth Zone and I had the privilege, along with Andy Porter to gift the presents directly to the families who were struggling most over the Christmas period. Last quarter we also managed to raise an impressive £1127.50 through the Christmas Climbing Wall competition. All donations raised were given to the Factory Youth Zone. Well done to Stefan Pilipovic who annihilated the competition (although I do believe he had some climbing experience already under his belt). Thank you also to Paul Shannon who stepped in at the last minute to take part and also scooped second place.
Upcoming Events Bike Drive – Have you, or anyone in your family received a new bike for Christmas? Donate your old one to the Factory Youth Zone. The Factory will gladly take any bike in any condition, and all spare parts. These bikes will be repaired, resold, upscaled,
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or used for parts to fix other bikes or make jewellery/fidget spinners etc as part of their upscaling enterprise. They will take literally anything bike related and they can use it in their bike workshop to teach bike maintenance, basic engineering skills, workshop skills, team building skills, the value of ownership and hard work, and enterprise skills. The ANS Food Bank – If you’ve been in the Manchester office, you’ll have noticed that the Food bank is now a permanent feature outside the breakout area. We’d really appreciate it If you could pick up an extra item if you find yourself in a supermarket over lunch. Or why not check your cupboard at home for any items you’re unlikely to eat. It’s our goal in 2018 to donate enough food to make 20,000 meals. Please donate when you can and help us reach our target. We’re recruiting! We’re looking for a new London based representative. If anyone is interested in joining the team please contact me. // Catherine Astles, CSR Team Leader
Changes in Finance. There have been some significant changes in the Finance team over the last quarter. Payroll is now being processed by Suren and Catherine (all queries should still go to the payroll address as usual). Meanwhile, Adam has picked up a portion of the management accounts and is now looking after the bank accounts and is running daily cash reports for the finance management team.
We’re Hiring!
FINANCE MANAGER
Pranay is now officially in a hybrid role of 50% contracts, 50% finance. He’s managing his time around this split superbly and has picked up his new finance roles with ease and Usman is now looking after the Daytona and Bidco accounts and will soon be trained in pulling together the weekly cash forecast.
We have a vacancy available for a Finance Manager to take responsibility for issuing Management Accounts to strict deadlines. The ideal candidate will be experienced in production of management accounts and balance sheet reconciliations.
The next three months will be spent preparing for the 2018 financial audit. This involves reconciling accounts and pulling together all the information required by PWC. Wish us luck!
If you know someone ideally suited to this role, please share this job vacancy with them.
// Lisa Emsley, Director of Finance
Get to know...
THE CO-ORDINATION TEAM
// KIRSTY ANDERSON // MICHAEL MCCORMACK // RYAN BREEN
The Co-ordination team aren’t often in the spotlight but this is about to change! The team is made up of three hard working coordinators, Kirsty Anderson, Michael McCormack and Ryan Breen who are responsible for delivering smaller, yet challenging projects, generally with up to 20 days consultancy. As well as delivering projects for Enterprise Networking and the Systems Integration Team, we have recently undertaken responsibility of WAN and CST Coordination which are brand new roles within the business. Project Coordinators use the same lifecycle as Project Management following Prince 2 principles and each team member manage around 40 projects at a time. In this financial year the team have delivered 43% of PS projects, booked 25% of the consultancy days scheduled and 63% of the Raving Fans received within the department have come from Coordinated projects. We sat down with Kirsty to ask her about her role and what it’s like on a day to day basis... How long you’ve been at ANS? I have been at ANS 1 year and 4 months. What do your day to day roles include? Within the Co-ordination role no two days are ever the same. In the morning I will sort through my emails that I have received over night/early morning and action anything accordingly. I will then work through my project tracker which I update daily for each of my projects. Throughout the day I hold internal kick off
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meetings, BAU handover meetings and host customer WebEx calls to plan and discuss new and existing projects. I liaise with our consultant’s regularly to schedule work and follow up on outstanding project tasks such as documentation which I will have reviewed by our Technical Architect. I will then arrange to have this formally sent out to the customer. The project co-ordinator is also responsible for completing all ad-hoc administrative tasks for example invoicing, updating the project status report and ensuring all days are forecasted correctly on SOS. I shadow the Project Managers at customer meetings and on WebEx calls to gain more valuable experience to help me progress within my role. What do you enjoy about the role? I enjoy the satisfaction of completing a task successfully. Whether this be a smaller task in the planning and design stage or the completion of a project. Working on projects within hospitals and local authorities can be very rewarding as you are involved in projects which are improving services to the community. I always look forward to receiving feedback on the project sign off forms from our customers once a project is completed, especially if we receive a Raving Fan! Where do you see yourself in 5 years’ time? In 5 years time I would like to see myself as a Project Manager. I would like to expand my knowledge within ANS and my role as Project Co-ordinator. This will provide me with the correct skills to progress into the next stage of my career.
Other Departmental Updates.
Problem & CSI Team
Development Team
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Cap Man have developed their own TAEO automation tool which they’re now using to automate TAEO’s. The performance of the tool now allows all TAEO’s to be created around 75% quicker.
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Carrier Spend and Assurance KPI reports were developed using Power BI to provide visualisations and metrics relating to the WAN Business Unit
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Liam Fleming has moved to Problem Management as Problem Analyst
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An automated report was developed to provide Flex Charge information on a weekly basis and an additional report was also produced to provide Service Desk Team Leaders with key performance metrics
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A new SD was developed for SIEM As a Service
Service Management
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Revision of SMR template has been submitted to dev. New version release due Q4.
GLASS v3.2 went live in the last quarter and included the key features below: •
Scheduled Changes
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Public Cloud on-boarding process streamlined and in working action making use of Teams and Skype.
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Change Approval functionality to allow customers to accept or reject changes
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GLASS videos released to be used as a demo facility for Sales.
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GLASS features document in progress and due Q4
Calendar functionality to view Scheduled Changes and Active Service Contract start and end dates
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GLASS brochure completed and ready to be released to customer execs
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Ability for the customer to close an Incident
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Email address support for GLASS customer usernames
Service Desk •
Apprentices have now fully taken on logging duties allowing 2nd line to focus on incidents and alerting
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Attained 100% Normal Change SLA in December with others above 99%.
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Additional internal access for the following roles: Pre Sales Consultants Pre Sales Managers Duty Managers Marketing Migration from the LogicMonitor RPC API to the REST API
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Dates for Your Diary. Bike to the Future Get involved in the Factory Youth Zone’s Bike to the Future project by donating bikes in any state of repair, bike parts or bike tools and accessories - speak to a member of the CSR team for more information!
Apr
Join us in the UK-wide celebration of the country’s best places to work. This is an opportunity to celebrate that we’re listed in The Sunday Times 100 best companies 2019.
Friday 20th - All Staff Make sure you clear your diary for the 20th April as we’ll be bringing you all the latest updates from around the business, and of course, there will be a few cheeky drinks on us afterwards!
It’s almost time for the highly anticipated annual sales kick-off event in Birmingham. Prepare to roll up your sleeves and get motivated to hit your sales targets in 2018/2019. There will be plenty of time to let your hair down afterwards at the meal and evening out.
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Friday 27th - Sales Kick Off Sales, Pre-sales & Marketing only
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Mar
National Best Companies Day
The updates don’t end here. Stay in the loop with all things ANS on &