SCC speakers warn Cloud Expo audience of consumerisation challenge ahead

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 09:38:54 GMT

SCC has told the audience attending this year’s Cloud Expo that the IT sector must face up to multiple challenges and come to terms with a new way of thinking if it is to remain relevant to modern business.

Following a two day conference at which both Chief Technical Officer Rhys Sharp and Director of Corporate Business Strategy Ian Sherratt gave pivotal presentations on the rapidly evolving cloud sector’s escalating importance, attendees were told that many IT departments are failing to respond sufficiently to market disruption brought about by cloud services and the Consumerisation of IT. Outlining a raft of challenges facing in-house support teams, the experts warned that they must demonstrate the ability to keep up with the changing demands of a workforce accustomed to doing what they want, whenever they want to, on any device of their choice.

“The IT business isn’t all about the technology anymore - it’s about the user experience. Support departments need to realise that the industry has not as a whole responded well to the disruptive technologies that have changed the way we work, and that adopting a fresh perspective focused on the end point rather than the technological journey is going to be crucial over the coming months and years,” said Sherratt.

“It should serve as a wake-up call that 30% of The UK’s corporate IT spend is now controlled from outside the traditional IT department. The industry needs to come to terms with this, look at popular clouds like music and social networking and recognise the need to mimic that success.”

Delegates to the conference were presented with learnings from SCC’s experience of evolving services to meet with the demands of Consumerisation and the cloud. Europe’s largest independent technology solutions provider has invested heavily in the data centre facilities and expertise required to develop and deliver services that can be consumed on a cost per seat basis.

In order to adapt to the evolving environment, organisations must address several key challenges, starting with a strategic review of critical infrastructure designed to identify the killer apps that would best connect staff with the business’ processes. Teams need to identify which employees need to do their job faster, better and cheaper, and to look at how they collaborate at work and align it with the way people communicate in their time off.

Delegates were also urged to reconsider the complexity of their approach to IT solutions and adopt a cloud-inspired mind-set that is simpler, more intuitive and uncomplicated. The speakers told them that innovation must lie at the heart of what they do, and that while maintaining a radical approach was important, they must also consider how to set their data free while still retaining control.

As an increasing body of businesses begin to embrace such an approach, many are likely to consider termination of existing major change projects in line with a rapidly shifting marketplace. SCC believes that on the cloud era in-house initiatives make less sense, and predicts that using existing solutions and outsourced partnerships is likely to become a focus of activity over the next few years.

Sherratt added: “We need to stop agonising about how we’re going to make legacy software run on an iPad and start a different kind of conversation between IT departments and business, to focus on data sovereignty and forget about operating systems, embracing a client-centric perspective and a more flexible approach to the end point.

“IT departments have to move now on these things because user opinion is already ahead of you. If you can’t deliver the services they’re going to demand soon, then pretty quickly you’re going to hear people within the business asking why not.”

SCC hails G-Cloud as a new era in public IT Procurement

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:32:05 GMT

SCC has praised the establishment of the G-Cloud purchasing framework as the beginning of a new era in government IT procurement.

As a contributor to the industry discussions that formed the basis of the G-Cloud proposal, Europe’s largest technology solutions provider has been working on its own bid for a place on a framework designed to allow public sector organisations to purchase cloud based services on demand. The first round of applications closed on the 19th December 2011, yet while the final results will not be announced until early 2012, the company believes the new framework could help to put an end to the age of overpriced and under-performing government IT projects.

“Rightly or wrongly, public sector IT procurement has been characterised by projects that go over budget, miss their deadlines and fail to provide the functionality they were commissioned to deliver. G-Cloud is a concerted effort to bring an end to that situation and, like many across the industry, we’re delighted to be enabling the kind of technology initiatives that will help the government deliver services faster, better and cheaper,” said SCC’s Director of Public Sector Business Tracy Westall.

“With hundreds of companies ranging from multinational corporations to SMEs competing to offer services via a framework should enable organisations to make purchasing decisions quickly and easily.”

More than 500 companies have expressed interest in offering competing services on G-Cloud, with the final selection process expected to begin in spring 2012. Use of the service by public organisations and departments will be mandatory, with likely purchases ranging from Enterprise-scale systems provision contracts to standard Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings such as email, electronic documents and records management.

SCC notes that whereas traditionally, many public organisations have been bound into long term IT contracts by punitive penalties for seeking to end even failed projects, the new framework should put an end to such situations. Services will be offered on contracts as short as 30 days, enabling public sector organisations to buy into services when they need them and step away when they don’t.

In line with its support of the new system SCC has bid for its own place on the framework, offering a variety of optimised cloud solutions from its custom built UK data centre. The company has also continued its track record of partnering with SME players within the sector, providing the technical capacity and credibility that underpins a number of smaller provider’s offerings from a facility awarded the Green Grid Award for Sustainability 2011 at the Data Centres in Europe Awards.

SCC’s Chief Technical Officer Rhys Sharp added: “In many ways G-Cloud signals a levelling of the playing field, enabling public sector organisations to respond to a dynamic working environment as quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively as their counterparts in the private sector have always been able to. As a company we’re delighted that the government has launched us on a journey that should deliver far greater value in return for the UK’s stretched technology budget.

“From an economic perspective, the new framework is great news. It will enable hundreds of British businesses to offer their services to a customer base that has until now been out of reach, providing genuine potential for growth and striking a particularly positive note for the future.”

Sharp will be presenting at Cloud Expo Europe 2012 on the 25th January 2012 at the National Hall, Olympia in London. The seminar ‘Optimise Cloud’ – A better way to deliver IT services commences at 10.55am on Wednesday 25th January and SCC will be on stand 569.

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SCC speakers warn Cloud Expo audience of consumerisation challenge ahead

SCC hails G-Cloud as a new era in public IT Procurement