Tag: #cloud

TCS Cloud Study: Ireland CIOs Prioritise Cloud Investment, Despite Macro Headwinds

Tata Consultancy Services’ (TCS) latest survey of senior business leaders worldwide, ‘Connected Future: How Cloud Drives Business Innovation’ reveals that cloud remains a long-term investment priority for 74% of major corporations in Ireland, despite current macro headwinds and the recent slowing of growth of global cloud providers.

The global survey of 972 senior executives included 102 respondents from across the UK and Ireland. It reveals that innovation is a major driver of cloud investment, with 70% of Irish respondents reporting that cloud is crucial as a catalyst for innovation for their organisation’s future. This figure is significantly higher than the global average of 59%.

This appears particularly true for artificial intelligence (AI): 79% of Irish respondents invested in AI and machine learning capabilities over the past two years, while 83% plan to do so over the coming 12 – 24 months. Both technologies are highly dependent on access to large amounts of data and scalability through cloud.

68% of the Irish executives surveyed say they have invested appropriately in cloud while 11% recognised that they have under-invested in cloud-based technologies to date.

Over half of respondents from both Ireland and UK (56%) ranked ‘new ways of working to improve employee engagement and productivity (e.g., remote collaboration technology)’ as their most desired outcome for cloud-enabled innovation. Progress is underway, with 32% already realising their desired innovation outcomes in this area.

In addition, the study also finds a clear majority of respondents (75%) in Ireland and the UK are using cloud technologies to achieve their sustainability goals. This is higher than the global average of 67%, however, 48% reported difficulty in understanding the carbon footprints of cloud service providers. This suggests that while most respondents see cloud as an important—and thus far successful—part of their sustainability strategy and increasingly use cloud tools to assess their own carbon impact, they are now demanding the same visibility from their cloud providers.

Overall, despite significant progress in recent years, the study reveals that businesses still have a long way to go to unlock the full power and potential of cloud. Other key findings for Ireland and the UK include:

  • Industry clouds or ‘vertical clouds’ are rapidly emerging as a fast path to acquiring greater business expertise and capabilities, with an overwhelming majority of executives (79%) already assessing, adopting, or using them in business today. This is higher than the global average of 73%, indicating Ireland and the UK are ahead in leveraging the cloud for industrial applications.
  • 84% of respondents want to participate in digital ecosystems, but most are still far from realising their full value: 43% are still in the earliest stages of transition towards mature digital ecosystems.
  • Critical skills shortages continue to affect businesses in the cloud space, around half (up to 55%) of respondents report a lack of full cloud proficiencies in-house.

Gerard Grant, Director of Strategic Initiatives, TCS Ireland, said: “Despite the challenging economic climate, a majority of large enterprises in Ireland are prioritising long-term investment in the cloud to power innovations such as AI and drive new business models. Interestingly, Ireland is already making progress when it comes to industry-specific cloud deployments and achieving their sustainability goals. We expect to see an acceleration of innovation, as more businesses start to leverage cloud technologies for long-term growth and profitability.” 

Krishnan Ramanujam, President, Enterprise Growth Group, TCS, comments: “A desire for greater efficiency, resilience, and flexibility drove early cloud adoption, and these remain critical factors. Businesses now more fully understand how cloud drives business growth and innovation for the long-term, and for most, the journey is only just getting started.”   

“Cloud is a frequent source of short-term ROI anxieties, but growth and transformation is a long game. Reconciling these two realities is a challenge and a necessity, but fully achievable with the right strategy and planning. This is critical because cloud is now the unifying digital fabric of every enterprise, fuelling powerful technologies—from generative AI to edge and quantum computing—and is ushering the next wave of innovations now and into the future,” Ramanujam adds.

The 2023 TCS global cloud study surveyed 972 senior executives at companies exceeding $1 billion in annual revenue from multiple sectors across Asia, Europe and North America. A majority of the companies report annual revenues in excess of $5 billion. Individual markets surveyed include:

  • Continental Europe (Germany, Spain, France, Switzerland​, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg).
  • UK & Ireland
  • North America (USA, Canada, Mexico)​.
  • APAC​ (India, Japan, Australia, New Zealand).

To read the full report and receive further information, please visit https://www.tcs.com/insights/global-studies/tcs-global-cloud-study

Salesforce Announces AI Cloud – Bringing Trusted Generative AI to the Enterprise

Salesforce today announced AI Cloud, the fastest and most trusted way for Salesforce customers to supercharge their customer experiences and company productivity with generative AI for the enterprise. AI Cloud is a suite of capabilities optimized for delivering trusted, open, and real-time generative experiences across all applications and workflows. AI Cloud’s new Einstein GPT Trust Layer resolves concerns of risks associated with adopting generative AI by enabling customers to meet their enterprise data security and compliance demands, while offering customers the benefits of generative AI. This unique blend of capabilities and security solidifies Salesforce’s position as the #1 AI CRM.

At the heart of AI Cloud is Einstein, the world’s first AI for CRM, which now powers over 1 trillion predictions per week across Salesforce’s applications. With generative AI, Einstein helps make every company and employee more productive and efficient across sales, service, marketing, and commerce.

AI Cloud will enable sales reps to quickly auto-generate personalized emails tailored to their customer’s needs, and service teams to auto-generate personalized agent chat replies and case summaries. Marketers can auto-generate personalized content to engage customers and prospects across email, mobile, web, and advertising. Commerce teams can auto-generate insights and recommendations to deliver customized commerce experiences at every step of the buyer’s journey. And, developers can auto-generate code, predict potential bugs in code, and suggest fixes.

Why trusted generative AI matters in the enterprise: Company leaders want to embrace generative AI, but are wary of the risks – hallucinations, toxicity, privacy, bias, and data governance concerns are creating a trust gap. New Salesforce research found that 73% of employees believe generative AI introduces new security risks and nearly 60% of those who plan to use the technology don’t know how to keep data secure.

AI Cloud will help fill that trust gap with the new Einstein GPT Trust Layer. The Einstein GPT Trust Layer will help prevent large-language models (LLMs) from retaining sensitive customer data. This separation of sensitive data from the LLM will help customers maintain data governance controls while still leveraging the immense potential of generative AI. The Einstein GPT Trust Layer sets a new industry standard for secure generative AI for the enterprise.

“AI is reshaping our world and transforming business in ways we never imagined, and every company needs to become AI-first,” said Marc Benioff, Chair and CEO, Salesforce. “AI Cloud, built on the #1 CRM, is the fastest and easiest way for our customers to unleash the incredible power of AI, with trust at the center driven by our new Einstein GPT Trust Layer. AI Cloud will unlock incredible innovation, productivity, and efficiency for every company.”

AI Cloud will integrate Salesforce technologies, including Einstein, Data Cloud, Tableau, Flow, and MuleSoft to provide trusted, open generative AI that is enterprise ready.

Trusted and Open: The Einstein GPT Trust Layer will enable companies to get started with trusted generative AI faster by optimizing the right model for the right task. It will also provide deployment capabilities for any relevant LLM while helping companies maintain their data privacy, security, residency, and compliance goals.

  • Use of Third-Party LLMs: As part of Salesforce’s commitment to an open ecosystem, AI Cloud is designed to host LLMs from Amazon Web Services (AWS), Anthropic, Cohere, and others — entirely within Salesforce’s infrastructure. AI Cloud will help maintain customer prompts and responses in the Salesforce infrastructure. In addition, Salesforce and OpenAI have established a shared trust partnership to deliver joint content moderation using OpenAI’s leading Enterprise API and best-in-class safety tools in conjunction with the Einstein GPT Trust Layer to help keep data retained in Salesforce.
  • Use of Salesforce LLMs: AI Cloud will enable customers to use Salesforce LLMs developed by Salesforce AI Research to power advanced capabilities such as code generation and business process automation assistance, fundamentally transforming how businesses interact with their CRM software. Salesforce’s LLMs – including CodeGen, CodeT5+, and CodeTF – help companies increase productivity, bridge the talent gap, reduce the cost of implementations, and better detect incidents.
  • Bring Your Own Model (BYOM): Customers who have trained their own domain-specific models outside of Salesforce will benefit from AI Cloud while storing data on their own infrastructure. These models, whether running through Amazon SageMaker or Google’s Vertex AI, will connect directly to AI Cloud through the Einstein GPT Trust Layer. In this scenario, customer data can remain within the customers’ trust boundaries.

Business Ready: AI will fuel more than $15 trillion in global economic growth and boost GDP by 26% by 2030*. AI Cloud will harness the full power of Salesforce, helping make companies and employees more productive and efficient.

  • Generative AI across every Salesforce application: Salesforce is bringing trusted generative AI to every product with Sales GPT, Service GPT, Marketing GPT, Commerce GPT, Slack GPT, Tableau GPT, Flow GPT, and Apex GPT.  See more about Salesforce’s trusted, open, and business-ready generative AI-powered applications here.
  • Prompt template and builders: The prompts used to generate AI content directly influence the quality and relevance of the generated content. Salesforce is developing optimized AI prompts that use harmonized data to ground generated outputs in every company’s unique context. These context-rich prompts will help sales, service, marketing, commerce, and IT teams get instant value from trusted generative AI, without hallucinations, while reducing time and cost.

The customer perspective:

“Our goal is to deliver more personalized member engagement, make our processes more efficient and cost-effective, and drive innovation across our team within a safe and trusted environment,” said Shohreh Abedi, EVP, Chief Operations Technology Officer, and Member Experience at AAA – The Auto Club Group. “We’re accelerating our digital transformation with Salesforce, and AI Cloud will help us implement AI across our entire business, including devops, support, sales, and underwriting.”

“Embedding AI into our CRM has delivered huge operational efficiencies for our advisors and clients,” said Greg Beltzer, Head of Tech for RBC US Wealth Management. “We believe that this technology has the potential to transform the way businesses interact with their customers, deliver personalized experiences, and drive customer loyalty. We are excited to explore this opportunity with Salesforce and drive the next generation of personalized customer experiences.”

Salesforce and Accenture’s Acceleration Hub for Generative AI

Salesforce recently announced plans to collaborate with Accenture to accelerate the deployment of generative AI for CRM. Together, the companies intend to establish an acceleration hub for generative AI that provides organizations with the technology and experience they need to scale generative AI for CRM — helping to increase employee productivity and transform customer experiences.

Pricing and Availability

Specific feature availability details as follows:

  • The Einstein GPT Trust Layer will be generally available in June 2023.
  • Service GPT is in pilot today, and will be generally available in June 2023.
  • Sales GPT is in pilot today, and will be generally available in July 2023.
  • Marketing GPT will be in pilot in June 2023, and generally available February 2024.
  • Commerce GPT is in pilot today, and will be generally available in July 2023.
  • Apex GPT will be in pilot in June 2023.
  • Flow GPT will be in pilot in October 2023.
  • Slack GPT is in beta today, and will be generally available later this year.
  • Tableau GPT will be in pilot in November 2023.

5 Modern Marketing Techniques to Invest In

Did you know that Ireland has nearly 300,000 companies? With so many companies competing, it’s crucial to know the right marketing techniques to stand out. How can you design a marketing strategy that can make you shine amongst the competition?

If you’re curious about perfecting your company’s marketing, we’re here to guide you. Read on to learn more about common marketing techniques.

  1. Automation

One of the first things you’ll learn about in modern marketing is marketing automation. Many companies have found ways to automate their marketing, reducing the cost and effort necessary.

Such strategies uses campaigns across several channels that will help lift the burden of marketing from your shoulders. The most common method is automated marketing emails or calls. These are integral for building your audience and communicating with your consumers.

Automation can help you keep your payroll down and get rid of monotonous work that others may not want to do. Look into automated marketing to see how you can simplify your marketing strategy.

  1. AI in Marketing

While you look into marketing automation, you’ll likely come across several techniques that use AI in marketing. These are effective in multiple ways.

One way is customer service marketing. AI chat bots are exceptionally common as tools to discuss issues with customers visiting the site.

Some techniques also use AI tools to develop marketing content. Videos, voice-overs, and even music are all things that AI can handle.

  1. Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is vital for any marketing campaign. Often called “online marketing,” digital marketing uses the internet and other digital platforms to market.

These may include a company website, email outreach programs, and similar tools. You should design these around your demographic so you aren’t using tools others won’t interact with. Older demographics are less likely to engage with some forms of social media, for example.

Working with an experienced digital marketing group can help you target the right platforms and optimize your approach based on user behavior. They can also analyze data to refine campaigns for maximum engagement, ensuring you’re reaching your audience effectively and efficiently.

 

  1. Social Media Marketing

Social media will mix with any digital marketing campaign. For most companies, you’ll find social media marketing indispensable.

Social media focuses on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, and other such areas of the internet. These platforms have a ready-made audience you can communicate with.

Businesses in healthcare and addiction can benefit from partnering with an addiction treatment marketing agency to reach and engage the right audience. This approach helps organizations establish credibility while maintaining sensitive communication with potential clients.

  1. Outreach Marketing

Finally, outreach marketing is critical for your modern marketing techniques. An outreach marketing campaign focuses on bringing new customers in.

Some companies focus on servicing the customers you’ve already earned. Doing so is important so you can retain their business, but growing is also vital.

Outreach marketing may also include inbound marketing. Inbound marketing campaigns focus on engagement from the customer, such as with SEO techniques or blogging. You can read more about inbound marketing with this blog from Adobe Experience Cloud.

Mastering Marketing Techniques

Finding the right marketing techniques will require looking at your company and demographic. Research your audience so you know what will most appeal to your consumers. Blend multiple strategies together to create the perfect marketing strategy for your company.

For more informative reads, be sure to browse our site.

Useful Information You Should Know About Cloud Security

Cloud computing has become a popular way to store and access data remotely. However, this ease also necessitates the use of robust security measures. As more businesses move their operations to the cloud, it is essential to understand the basics of cloud security and how it can benefit your organization. 

In this blog post, we will explore several crucial aspects of cloud security that every business owner should know about. From protecting your information from unauthorized access to ensuring regulatory requirements are met, read on for useful insights into cloud security!

Understanding the Basics and Benefits

When it comes to cloud security, understanding the basics is essential. The cloud refers to a network of remote servers where data and applications can be stored and accessed online rather than on local devices. Cloud security involves protecting this data from threats such as unauthorized access or hacking attempts. When talking about the benefits of cloud security for your data and its accessibility and reliability we can see that with data stored in the cloud, you can access it from any device or location, and it is typically more reliable than data stored on local devices. 

Another benefit is scalability. As your business grows and needs more storage space and resources, cloud providers offer flexible plans that allow you to adjust accordingly without needing to invest in additional hardware.

However, with these benefits come risks if proper security measures are not taken into account. That’s why understanding the basics of how cloud security works is crucial for anyone who uses it regularly – whether for personal or professional purposes.

Clarifying Roles and Responsibilities in Cloud Security

In cloud security, it’s important to understand the roles and responsibilities of all parties involved. The cloud service provider (CSP) is responsible for securing the physical infrastructure of the data center, including servers, storage devices, and networking equipment. 

They are also responsible for ensuring that their platform is secure from external threats. However, it’s important to note that while CSPs provide a level of security, they cannot protect against all threats. Organizations must take responsibility for securing their applications and data within the cloud environment.

Cloud customers have a shared responsibility model with their CSPs when it comes to security. This means that customers are responsible for securing their virtual machines (VMs), applications running on those VMs, user access management, and network traffic coming into or going out of their environment.

To ensure clarity on each party’s responsibilities in cloud security, it’s crucial to establish Service Level Agreements (SLAs) between your organization and your CSP. SLAs should outline any areas where the customer assumes responsibility for security controls beyond what is provided by the CSP.

Protecting Your Information from Unauthorized Access

Protecting your information from unauthorized access is one of the most critical aspects of cloud security. With cybercriminals becoming increasingly sophisticated, it’s essential to have robust measures in place to prevent them from gaining access to sensitive data, such as using HIPAA compliant forms.

Fortunately, there are several steps you can take to protect your information in a cloud environment. Firstly, be sure to use strong passwords and two-factor authentication for all user accounts. This will help prevent unauthorized users from accessing your cloud resources.

Secondly, ensure that all data stored in the cloud is encrypted both at rest and in transit. Encryption makes it much harder for hackers to intercept or steal your data.

You should also regularly monitor your network activity and look out for any unusual behavior or suspicious logins. If you do detect any potential threats, make sure you act quickly and investigate further.

Always keep up-to-date with the latest security patches and software updates as they become available. This will help ensure that known vulnerabilities are addressed promptly before they can be exploited by attackers.

Managing User Permissions in Cloud Environments

Managing user permissions in cloud environments is crucial to maintaining the security and integrity of your data. It’s important to ensure that only authorized users have access to sensitive information while limiting the risk of accidental or intentional breaches.

To effectively manage user permissions, it’s essential to understand the different roles and responsibilities within your organization. This includes identifying who has administrative privileges and ensuring that these individuals have undergone proper training on how to handle sensitive data.

Another key consideration is implementing multi-factor authentication (MFA), which can greatly reduce the risk of unauthorized access by requiring additional verification beyond a simple username and password.

It’s also important to regularly review and update user permissions as needed, especially when employees change roles or leave the company. This helps prevent former employees from retaining access to confidential information after they’ve left.

Effective management of user permissions requires ongoing vigilance and attention to detail. By taking proactive steps such as implementing MFA and regularly reviewing user access rights, you can help minimize potential risks and protect your valuable data in the cloud. Another alternative is to use private cloud.

Ensuring Regulatory Requirements in the Cloud

Ensuring regulatory requirements is crucial in cloud security. Companies must comply with regulations and laws for data protection, such as the GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI DSS. These regulations require companies to securely store and manage sensitive information to avoid data breaches or misuse.

To ensure compliance with these regulations, companies can implement various measures such as encryption of sensitive data, implementing access controls, and monitoring user activity. Additionally, they should regularly review their security policies and procedures to ensure compliance.

In a cloud environment where multiple parties are involved in managing the infrastructure (e.g., cloud providers), everyone must understand their roles and responsibilities for ensuring regulatory compliance. This includes conducting regular audits of the systems used by cloud providers for storing company data.

Ensuring regulatory requirements in the cloud requires a multi-faceted approach that involves understanding specific requirements based on industry standards or governing bodies while also implementing stringent security protocols to protect against unauthorized access or misuse of information.

Cloud security is a vital aspect that every organization should focus on. With the increasing reliance on cloud technology and the growing sophistication of cyber threats, protecting sensitive information has become more important than ever before.

By understanding the basics and benefits of cloud security, clarifying roles and responsibilities in your organization, managing user permissions effectively, and ensuring regulatory requirements are met, you can safeguard your data from unauthorized access.

Moreover, partnering with a reliable cloud service provider who puts security at the forefront can give you peace of mind knowing that your valuable data is secure. One way to enhance your security is by exploring solutions like Cloud Security solution, which specialize in safeguarding your data in the cloud. By taking these steps seriously, businesses can minimize risks associated with cybersecurity breaches and foster trust among their customers by ensuring their personal information remains confidential.

 

Salesforce and Google Cloud Announce Expanded Strategic Partnership to Unlock the Power of AI, Data and CRM

Salesforce and Google Cloud today announced an expanded strategic partnership to help businesses utilize data and AI to deliver more personalised customer experiences, better understand customer behaviour, and run more effective campaigns at a lower cost across marketing, sales, service, and commerce.

Two new data and AI innovations will bring real-time data sharing with enhanced predictive and generative AI capabilities, so businesses can use their data and their custom AI models to better predict customer needs and reduce the cost, risk, and complexity of synchronising data across platforms.

Why this matters: While 80% of business leaders say data is critical in decision-making at their organisation, 41% find their data too complex and inaccessible to be useful. These new integrations will help solve the problem of accessing and understanding data and allow companies to use their data to power AI insights across their business that drive better customer experiences.

Go Deeper: Turning business data into actionable insights and personalised experiences

Salesforce Data Cloud + Google BigQuery

The new integration between Salesforce Data Cloud and BigQuery will enable companies to more easily create unified profiles of their customers to provide new, highly personalised experiences.

Salesforce and Google Cloud will provide customers with seamless data access across platforms and across clouds, akin to having their data housed in a single location — with zero-copy or zero-ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) that can reduce the cost and complexity of moving or copying it while maintaining governance and trust.

Salesforce Data Cloud + Google Vertex AI

New integrations between Salesforce Data Cloud and Google Cloud’s Vertex AI will enable customers to bring their own models from Vertex and use them across the Salesforce Platform, addressing the specific needs of their businesses – such as predicting buying behaviour or churn likelihood – across their Salesforce Customer 360 data. Zero-copy data access for AI model training can maximize a company’s AI investment by providing immediate access to unified customer data, thereby streamlining the model development process and enhancing the accuracy and efficiency of AI predictions and insights.

How industries will use Salesforce’s Data Cloud and Google’s BigQuery and Vertex AI to improve the customer experience and personalize interactions

A fashion retailer can connect CRM data, like customer purchase history and service interactions, with non-CRM data like real-time online activity or social media sentiment. They can then deploy custom AI models that predict customers’ likelihood to buy certain types of clothing based on that data, and deliver hyper-personalized recommendations to customers via the most appropriate channel, including email, a mobile app, or social media.

A healthcare organization can connect CRM data, like appointment history and patient feedback, with non-CRM data like patient demographics and medical history data. They can then deploy custom AI models that predict which patients are at risk of readmission, which informs personalized care plans for those high-risk patients to improve medical outcomes through proactive medical care.

A financial institution can connect CRM data, like a customer’s transaction history, credit score, and financial goals, with non-CRM data like market analysis or economic trends. They can then deploy custom AI models that predict a customers’ spending habits, investment preferences, and financial goals to inform personalized banking services and offers.

Quotes:

“AI and data are revolutionizing the way businesses operate and innovate, and together Salesforce and Google are empowering organizations to unlock the full potential of their trusted data, put AI insights into action, and personalize customer experiences like never before. This partnership paves the way for unprecedented innovation and business value for our customers.” –David Schmaier, Chief Product Officer, Salesforce

“Google Cloud and Salesforce share a commitment to helping businesses accelerate their data-driven transformations. This new partnership brings together one of the world’s largest data clouds from Salesforce with analytics and AI capabilities from Google Cloud, and represents a significant leap forward in businesses’ ability to generate more value and insights from their customer data.” – Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud

Salesforce and Google Partnership Momentum

In 2017, Salesforce and Google launched a strategic technology partnership, bringing together two of the world’s most innovative companies to help customers turn marketing, sales, service, and commerce data into actionable insights and better business outcomes. Since then, companies of all sizes and across all industries have been leveraging Google and Salesforce together to enhance marketing, provide AI-powered customer experiences, and increase productivity.

Availability:

The Data Cloud and Google Vertex AI integration will be in pilot mid-2023, and generally available late-2023.

The Data Cloud and BigQuery integration will be in pilot late-2023, and generally available early 2024.

The Marketing Cloud and Google Analytics integration will be available later this year and compatible with GA4.

Survey shows 24% increase in IT investment with AI and cloud top of the priority list

A survey from Irish IT service provider Auxilion has revealed that business leaders in Ireland expect to invest an average of nearly €1 million on IT in 2023, with the average IT budget for 2023 expected to come in at €988,726.

This marks a 24% increase in IT investment compared to previous research by Auxilion which showed that C-suite executives were planning to invest an average of €747,071 by the end of 2022.*

The company’s latest survey of 100 C-suite executives in larger companies or enterprises (more than 250 employees) across Ireland, carried out by Censuswide, found that while the average IT investment looks set to rise this year, almost half (49%) of respondents are more hesitant due to economic uncertainty.

However, investment appears to be much needed given that 31% don’t think their organisation is equipped with the necessary processes and tools to support the modern workplace. The leading aims of workplace transformation were revealed as increasing productivity (36%), driving business growth (32%), and improving sustainability (31%).

In terms of the main investment areas for 2023, these will be Artificial Intelligence (AI), cloud infrastructure, and IT service desk – each 28% respectively. Twenty-two per cent of business leaders are also prioritising spending across hybrid working technologies, green technology, Robotic Process Automation, and collaboration platforms.

While companies are continuing to develop the modern workplace, hybrid working models are also being reviewed. In fact, 45% said they are planning to reassess their company’s hybrid working model in 2023 and 35% are considering moving to a four-day working week in 2023.

Perhaps this is unsurprising with 45% of business leaders also admitting that the new world of work brings a new level of pressure to their role. Moreover, some 40% do not believe that employees are coping well with the blurred boundary between work and home life which comes with hybrid working.

Commenting on the results, Auxilion CEO Philip Maguire said: “The past number of years have been challenging for many companies and it’s understandable that business leaders might have started 2023 off being somewhat hesitant with their budgets. However, it’s positive to see that organisations are planning to invest more in IT and are open to implementing new technologies to shape the modern workplace.

“With businesses looking to further digitally transform and modernise their operations, while also adapting work styles and patterns, there has been a shift in the provision of managed services enabling greater automation and creating more self-sufficiency. In turn, this will see operations streamlined, people supported, and businesses grow. It will also support innovation and sustainability, which are crucial for the modern business leader.

“While every organisation is different and has specific objectives, all business leaders need to carefully plan their investment in technology. Working with a trusted provider can help on this front in terms of identifying the right solutions and services – from cloud to collaboration – to overcome challenges and capitalise on opportunities.”

Evolve IP Aspires To Become The ‘Crown Jewels’ Of Cloud Communication

Fast-growing global collaboration provider, Evolve IP, has strengthened its ambitions to become the ‘crown jewels’ of cloud-based communication, after hosting a successful partner day at the Tower of London.

Leading industry figures from across the world gathered at the historic venue for a day of insightful presentations, interactive workshops and an evening of entertainment, as part of a ‘powering partnerships’ theme.

The carbon neutral event attracted more than 110 guests including from the US and Holland. It showcased how to ‘make the future of work better for everyone’ and was sponsored by technology partners Akixi, Dubber, Enghouse Interactive, Intelligent Billing, Snom, Mondago, Poly, Tiger TMS and Yealink. The day began with an early morning private tour of the crown jewels.

Opportunities

Evolve IP’s EMEA Managing Director, Paul Harrison, told the audience how despite tougher economic times, the brightest days for the sector lie ahead; giving a nod to the history of the iconic venue too.

“We have to keep changing and adapting. The biggest opportunity is ahead of us,” he enthused. “It’s important to expand our ecosystem and continue to globalize – bringing best-of-breed solutions together with new technology and partners. We need to stay relevant and learn from history.”

He revealed how:

  • Current cloud comms penetration in the UK has grown by 38.9% with 7.6m installed users today.
  • Total market revenue will grow by 80% from £1.26bn in 2022 to £2.26bn by 2026
  • A five-year forecast will see over 6.8m additional users moving to a cloud comms solution by the end of 2026 reaching a total installed base of 14.5m users at 80% penetration.

Evolve IP works with many of the world’s biggest tech companies and innovative industry leaders to create robust and reliable solutions for a growing reseller base. As a global collaboration provider, it specialises in securely integrating unified communications, collaboration tools, contact centre, voice, and omnichannel solutions into the cloud.

Visitors learned how Evolve IP has a 15-year trading pedigree with 374 staff globally and all of its EMEA offices are now fully carbon neutral. New products and future developments include enhanced Webex functionality, plus the creation of a single ‘Anywhere Portal’ which provides a simplified and more efficient window into the Evolve IP world.

Building relationships

Harrison hailed the event a resounding success and emphasised: “Productive partnerships are becoming ever-more prevalent in today’s dynamic business world, where fluidity, versatility and innovation can help build long term sustainable success.

“We recognise the importance of partnerships which is a key cornerstone of our ethos and evolution. Partnerships can unlock new doors, opportunities and deliver greater customer value and service. We don’t do the one size fits all as we never want our customers to compromise. We want to give them exactly what they want. The market is very demanding. We’re growing and the market is growing too.”

He continued: “It was great to be able to host events like this again. This annual gathering is integral to building relationships with our partners as a team and understanding how we can best support them and their growth.”

The Partner Day included a host of product suites and vendor demonstrations as well as a series of market insights from high profile speakers. MP David Morris provided an interesting insight into his musical past before a series of awards were presented to high performing partners. It ended with guests watching the sunset over the River Thames as part of an evening of entertainment.

International stage

For Jamie Hughes, Sales Director at Evolve IP UK, an exciting new dawn is rising for the company, its partners and customer base.

“I think what is special and unique around us is that we are an agnostic platform, for example across Webex and Teams or even a SIP handset or analogue device. We are the glue that makes everything work together not just in the UK but on an international stage too. We join all the dots together.”

Hughes emphasised the growing role of sustainability and added: “This is huge for us and more importantly our partners where I’d say 80% of tenders now focus on sustainability planning. We want to be leading from the front and pushing our boundaries.”

He added: “The Tower of London was a fantastic venue, steeped in history. To bring everyone together was so rewarding, beneficial, enjoyable and also long overdue. The social side matters too, as well as telling our business story in a compelling and engaging way.”

Members of the company’s Netherlands team came over too, reflecting Evolve IP’s growing presence not just in the UK but across EMEA.

Harrison concluded: “Our ultimate objective is to enhance today’s hybrid workplace and help make the future of work better for everyone. The Tower of London event provided the perfect platform to showcase strategies and plans for this year and beyond – reinforcing why partnerships take centre stage and how we aim to become the crown jewels of cloud communications.”

 

What is Cloud Architecture?

Cloud architecture describes combining technology components to build a cloud in which resources are bundled using virtualization technology and shared in a network. The components of a cloud architecture include the following:

  • A front-end platform (client or device used for cloud access)
  • A back-end platform (server and storage)
  • A cloud-based delivery model
  • A network

Together, these technologies form a cloud computing architecture for running applications. This allows users to take advantage of cloud resources.

Cloud architecture defines how individual technologies are integrated when creating clouds. Clouds are IT environments where scalable resources are abstracted, pooled, and distributed in a network. The cloud architecture also defines how all components and functions required to create a cloud are connected to form an online platform on which applications can run.

What advantages does cloud architecture offer?

With a cloud computing architecture, companies can reduce or eliminate their dependency on the on-premises-based server, storage, and networking infrastructures.

Organizations with a cloud architecture often move IT resources to the public cloud, eliminating the need for on-premises servers and storage. They’re also reducing their need for space, cooling, and power in IT data centers, instead bundling everything into monthly IT spending. This shift from capital to operational costs is one of the main reasons for the popularity of cloud computing.

The main secret is to find a reliable vendor of cloud architecture services.

There are three main cloud architecture models that organizations are using to migrate to the cloud. Each of these offers its own advantages and important functions.

  • Software as a Service (SaaS): SaaS architecture providers make applications and software available to companies over the Internet and are also responsible for maintenance. This means that users no longer have to provide their software locally. SaaS applications are typically consumed through a web interface available for various devices and operating systems.
  • Platform as a Service (PaaS): In this cloud model, service providers provide a computing platform and complete solution (often with middleware) as a service. Businesses can build on this platform to build applications or services. Cloud service providers provide networks, servers, and storage to host applications, while users deal with software deployment and configuration settings.
  • Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): This model embodies the cloud in its simplest form. Third-party providers provide the necessary infrastructure, eliminating the need for companies to purchase servers, networks, or storage devices. They manage their software and applications and only pay for their needed capacity.

What are the best practices regarding cloud architectures?

Cloud architectures can vary greatly depending on the requirements and services being run. Basically, they consist of hardware resources, virtualization layers, software functions, applications, and network services. Organizationally, the cloud architecture can be divided into the delivery models public cloud, private cloud, hybrid cloud, and multi-cloud. In a cloud architecture, scalable resources and services are abstracted from the hardware layer, pooled and accessible over a public or private network.

The cloud architecture frees you from conventional dedicated and on-premises storage and server resources. It ensures high flexibility and shifts the focus from one-time investment costs to monthly operating expenses billed based on use. Large cloud architectures often include thousands of individual physical components and systems operated in many different cloud data centers. Cloud edge computing architectures shift the delivery of services and resources to the edge of a cloud.

A well-designed framework for the cloud is more than just a technical necessity—it’s the key to lower operational costs, powerful applications, and happy users. By following cloud architecture principles and best practices, organizations can derive real business value from their cloud investments and future-proof their IT environment.

Common questions to ask your SaaS or cloud-based LMS provider in 2023!

Choosing a learning management system (LMS) or other online training software is thrilling and challenging. The first thing you need to do is persuade upper management that your LMS is a good idea. There is a direct correlation between a fully functional LMS and a rise in ROI because of the positive effects on worker efficiency and output. As a result, it is essential to select a system that works well for your company. Cost and functionality are among essential inquiries for a prospective LMS provider. On the other hand, there are several other inquiries you may wish to make of your vendor before determining whether or not to enter into a lasting business partnership with them. This article will discuss the common questions you must ask your LMS provider to ensure you are choosing the world’s best LMS for entrepreneurs. 

The truth is, there is no one definitive choice when it comes to selecting the best LMS. The best LMS for you is the one that best serves your needs. The following questions will help you find exactly that:

Penetration testing of external applications and networks: do you offer this service?

In other words, the corporation has enlisted the help of testing agencies to “attack” its website and network in search of security flaws. Severe content management systems (CMS) and SaaS providers will perform this at least quarterly, with additional testing performed against any system modifications. You need to request the most recent report and each subsequent report be sent to you.

What kinds of assistance are there, if any?

Due to the nature of open-source software as a do-it-yourself project, technical help is limited. In general, cloud-based LMSs offer superior levels of devoted customer support. However, check their support policy, as every commercial LMS is a mix of several systems. Find out if the LMS provider you’re considering has automated support or human tech support available. How comprehensive is their frequently asked questions section? Do they provide support in languages besides English? How quickly do they react when you bring up a problem? How do they respond when you have a problem or complaint? Is the IT support team, for instance, well-informed and able to explain the problem and its solution in the language you can grasp?

In what way does the report function operate?

Verify that the supplier uses a reliable reporting mechanism. To make more informed decisions, modern dashboards efficiently present data from reports. It is only possible to evaluate the efficiency of a training program with access to reliable reports displaying relevant learning data. These studies are essential for stakeholders, especially those in leadership roles, to stay abreast of the state of online education.

The reports generated by the LMS should be easily accessible 24/7 by managers, instructors, and officials. In addition to the benefits already mentioned, business owners also benefit from the option to modify reports to their own needs. 

Through SSO, learners have access to the LMS without switching platforms. The LMS can schedule reports and notifications to be sent out via Salesforce. These regularly scheduled automated reports are helpful for upper-level management and other decision-makers. As a result, inquire about all these factors from your potential LMS provider.

How Often Do You Release Updated Versions Of The Software?

A limited amount of updates may be included with some LMS. Any additional improvements beyond the maximum price tag will undoubtedly incur additional fees. At the same time, some will demand payment immediately if you want to use a more recent version. It would help if you inquired about the regularity of upgrades and the frequency of new LMS releases. You might have to replace your plug-in device every year. You should know it immediately since you want to be prepared. See if they are up-to-date on the latest developments in LMS technology by inquiring about industry trends and advancements.

How well does the LMS support mLearning?

Your LMS needs to provide a remarkable experience every time an employee logs in, especially since they will want to access their learning materials on demand, sometimes from a smartphone or tablet when they are away from their offices. Is the system able to display information uniformly across all devices, and is it comparable to the “desktop experience”? Ask any potential LMS provider these questions to ensure their platform can accommodate mobile learning. Many companies are adopting remote and hybrid teams, making this a crucial consideration.

Conclusion

When you choose an LMS, you commit to working closely with that company for years to come. Pick a service that will assist you in every step, from initial planning to platform launch. Select a service that meets your needs and has room to expand as your business does. Choose an LMS provider who can deliver on the promise of a platform that makes learning fun and easy.