Category Archives: Technology

Gaming, Technology

Gaming-obsessed: 9 out of 10 Brits are gamers with half of us playing every day – 50% of gamers are over 40; half are women

A new study reveals the nation’s obsession with gaming, with over 50% of British adults playing games on most days and 9 out of 10 having gamed over the last 12 months. 16% of us even use time on the toilet as an opportunity to game. Savanta, market researchers, conducted the research amongst 2,045 people aged 16-69 across the country.

No longer the preserve of adolescents; the same number of women and men now game, and almost 50% of gamers are 40 or over, with most being parents. Men game mainly for entertainment whilst women game mainly to relax, and almost 50% of men think electronic sports (esports) are now as skillful as physical sports like football.

Other key findings:

  • Gaming addiction: close to a third of people say they end up playing games longer than they intended to
  • Over 40% of men who game regularly spend over £100 a year on the hobby (nearly double that of women who play regularly)
  • Smartphones have now overtaken consoles as the most popular gaming device
  • “Micro-transactions” in-game are common: nearly six in ten gamers make micro-transactions and 10% saying they are spending on micro-transactions on a daily basis
  • Women are less likely to call themselves a “gamer”: only a third of women who actually play games on most days would identify as one
  • Women who play regularly are a lot more likely than men to play exclusively on smartphones and tablets (43% versus just 20% of regular male players)

High street stores remain an important source of games (nearly 60% of people who purchased a game in the past three months did so on the high street). Decisions on what to buy are likely to be influenced by friends (36%), information they find on Facebook (35%) and by YouTube content (30%).

On the darker side of gaming; one in seven find gaming stressful and frustrating. Meanwhile, 14% have lost out on sleep because they’ve been gaming. Most people (including non-gamers) don’t think that gaming would incite knife crime and violence – only 14% would agree that it does (17% of the over 45s, compared with 11% of younger people).

Almost as many people (10%) believe gaming does have a problem with sexism. This view is most commonly held by younger people, with 18% of the under 30s saying that gaming has issues with sexism. That rises to 22% for women under 30 who play games on most days.

Young people who play regularly were more likely than older people to feel the hobby has a problem with racism and homophobia, with 15% identifying homophobia and 14% identifying racism as a problem in the community.

10% of the UK’s adult population watch esports – a current audience of around 4.5 million – and represents a particularly good media for reaching the youth audience (viewed by 1 in 5 of the under 30s – some 2.2 million).

Despite all the headlines, Fortnite is only the second most popular esport for UK audiences. FIFA 19 attracts the largest overall UK audience (1.4 million UK viewers over the past year).

And 36% of gamers still play Pokémon Go!  (11% still play regularly).  Its popularity has declined steeply from its heyday four years ago, however, when 55% of gamers were playing it.

Paul Watts, Director at Savanta, commented:

“Gaming has become a mainstream pastime; much like watching TV. If you ask people if they consider ‘gaming’ to be one of their hobbies, only around one third would say that it is. However, when you actually ask people if they play games on a PC, console or Smartphone; most people would say that they do.

“The demographics have shifted significantly – this is no longer a hobby that is the exclusive preserve of young men. 50% of the people you’ll find playing games on any given day will be women and nearly half are aged over 40.”

Savanta is part of the Next15 Group.

AI, HR News, Marketing, PR and SEO

2020 Influencer Marketing Trends

Kam Zulawski, MD of EMEA at CreatorIQ, shares his three biggest matketing trend predictions for 2020.

CGI Influencers+ AI

2020 will see the rise of some brands using CGI influencers as part of their influencer marketing programs. Use of CGI influencers can be effective for brands that want full brand control over their content and can help mitigate risk, with posts outside of brand-guidelines with real influencers from the past being surfaced as an example. Virtual influencer posts are made digitally. Influencers can be situated anywhere in the world and be placed in thrilling situations and exotic locations without needing actual real-world travel or production to pull off. What’s exciting about all of these is that the technology is still in its relative infancy.

There is plenty of room for further development. Artificial intelligence (AI) will undoubtedly play a crucial role in the future of virtual influencers. CGI combined with AI can deliver more realistic and human-like renderings. AI could also help create virtual influencers with richer personalities. While the textual content for today’s virtual influencers are still managed by human writers, AI can soon be used to automatically generate content. Chatbot technology could even allow virtual influencers to freely interact with their followers. Imagine a world where you can have 100% influencer engagement rates globally and at scale, that could be on the cards for the future.

All of this doesn’t come without its risk if not managed properly. Trust and authenticity play a huge part in successful influencer campaigns and we all remember the backlash that Calvin Klein had from the LGBTQ community in their Bella Hadid campaign.

Employee Advocacy Programs

Brands have already seen successes tapping into the power and impact of their most important assets. Their employees. Brands are realising that they have influencers within their walls that they have yet to discover. 2020 will see more brands following suit. Gamification has been a great example of how companies are getting buy-in from employees to amplify branded content as well as becoming thought leaders in their own right. We predict companies will be doing more to incentivise employees here. Outside of traditional marketing KPI’s, successful employee advocacy programs also assist in staff retention and recruitment as companies find their employees are far more engaged when given the platform to talk about their own interests aligned to that of the company.

A brand’s greatest strengths is its name. People love to work for a company because of the brand’s identity and what it means to them. Companies have the ability to harness an employee advocacy program garnered within its vast employee network.

Always on approach

The most effective brands are those that adopt an always on approach to influencer marketing as opposed to ad-hoc activity. Influencers themselves want to build brand partnerships long term, which are aligned to their values and beliefs. Brands that understand the concept of a mutual value exchange model will succeed in this area. A shortsighted approach may help increase vanity metrics short term, but as a strategy it will always lose out to the brands that take a longer term approach building trusted and authentic relationships with the wider influencer community.

Law, Technology

Next generation technology success for 700 law firms

The appetite for next generation technology amongst legal firms shows no signs of slowing down, as Advanced today announces that more than 700 law firms have now adopted its ALB Practice and Case Management System. The most recent firm – Bernberg Peirce and Partners – follows a raft of firms looking to adopt new software to integrate and automate key processes in a bid to drive efficiencies at an operational level, as well as to improve client service levels and ensure regulatory compliance. Other recent new firms include Daniel Spring Solicitors, Howe & Co and UK & Co Solicitors.

As law firms aim to gain greater management of operations, improve visibility and productivity of their fee earners as well as delivering an improved customer experience, they are turning to new generation technology to become more digitally driven. ALB, Advanced’s fully integrated practice and case management system, helps by giving law firms total control over their working day, enabling them to manage their clients, matters and documents efficiently, record time, process accounts and monitor performance in a simple, intuitive system.

Doug Hargrove, Managing Director of Legal at Advanced, is excited to see the momentum continue as the legal sector strives to be digital by default.

“Forward-thinking law firms want to be recognised for embracing change, offering fee earners greater flexibility by supporting modern mobile working practices and delivering effortless efficiency in managing client information. We’re excited to be supporting firms as they adapt to a digital-first strategy. By choosing our solution, we are also future-proofing their investment, ensuring they have the right infrastructure as they look to incorporate new innovations such as Artificial Intelligence.

ALB is well respected for driving efficiencies through centralised diary management, performance measurement and time recording – all of which helps to improve the way client matters are managed. From a compliance perspective, functionality included in ALB’s Workflow Toolkit ensures data is consistent and compliant, and next generation client portals ensure that there is a seamless delivery of up to date digital information which can be easily consumed by the client.

Doug concludes:

“We are proud to work in partnership with our customers, focused on ensuring we can support their, and their customers’ needs, as the digitally transform their businesses to remain competitive and continue to prosper in the future.”

Cleaning & Facilities Management, IoT

InnuScience takes the lead with its IoT product monitoring system

Fast-growing InnuScience believes it is the first cleaning product manufacturer in the UK to launch an Internet of Things (IoT) based product monitoring system.

Its system – Connected Cleaning – works by monitoring product usage, which is then reported on a monthly basis against the budget per site. A key benefit of this system is to allow the proactive management of any deviations from budget that could potentially occur.

InnuScience, now an established global leader in commercial cleaning systems based on biotechnology, can achieve the upfront results of strong chemical products by using biological actives – fermentation extracts, enzymes and microbes – to create a residual cleaning action that boosts standards.

The industry leader prides itself on:

  • Performance: Connected Cleaning offers a superior performance on porous surfaces – such as natural stones, tile grout and safety flooring – as the actives penetrate the micro pores and extract the dirt.
  • Competitive Pricing: The cost in use of Connected Cleaning can be from as little as two pence per litre. InnuScience’s products are competitively priced compared to conventional cleaning products, ruling out the need to spend big to go green, as has been the case in the past.
  • Respecting the Planet: InnuScience insists on all of its products being environmentally-friendly with ultimate biodegradability of 99.99 per cent – according to OECD test 301 – being standard. In addition to these stringent internal standards, all the company’s cleaning products are either Ecologo or Ecolabel certified.
  • Safety: InnuScience’s cleaning products are not classified as hazardous – and in their diluted form they are not even classified, thus minimising any unwanted Health and Safety risks.
  • Passionate Service: A National Support Team is on standby to offer a proactive approach by connecting cleaning, monitoring product usage and slashing costs.

A router integrated into InnuScience’s dispensing equipment communicates product usage data back to the company via Wi-Fi or 4G. InnuScience is then able to issue simple customer reports in a traffic light format, indicating if product usage is in line with budget. The sophisticated system can also flag up other metrics such as usage diagnostics and empty product warnings.

This efficient procedure allows InnuScience to adopt a proactive approach and ensure that clients never run out of products. The dispenser can be accessed remotely to take corrective action where necessary.

Nick Winstone, UK Managing Director of InnuScience, said:

“InnuScience is passionate about providing high performance, responsible products that leave lasting impressions, so that you can go green without compromising the quality of your cleaning. Our revolutionary biotechnology products offer superior performance and unrivalled value for money. They are also planet conscious and people friendly.

“Technology has the ability to transform the way we clean and the way we control the budgets around cleaning product spend. By monitoring our customer spend on cleaning products we can ensure that savings are being delivered and that product usage is optimal per customer site.”

InnuScience UK, based in Milton Keynes, is the youngest and fastest-growing of the top 15 manufacturers in the country supplying biotechnology-based cleaning products to the Facilities Management, Building, Hospitality and Care Sectors.

The InnuScience UK range of professional cleaning products cover the needs of the most prestigious public sectors, education, restaurants, hotels, stations, airports, healthcare and retail contracts, and include cleaners and degreasers, maintenance products, industrial cleaners, odour eliminators, laundry products and floor care.

AI, Business Investment, Midlands News, News, Technology

LLamasoft Opens New EMEA Headquarters to Support Continued Growth

LLamasoft, the leading provider of AI-enabled enterprise supply chain design and decision-making solutions, has announced that the official opening of its new EMEA headquarters in Birmingham took place on Tuesday 26th November.

Guest of Honour, Lord Digby Jones, a non-aligned Peer in the UK House of Lords, international businessman, media commentator, TV presenter, author and public speaker addressed the attendees.

A Birmingham-born former Minister of State for UK Trade & Investment, former Corporate Ambassador to Jaguar Cars and current non-executive Chairman of Triumph Motorcycles, Lord Jones is a renowned business advocate who speaks around the world on all aspects of global trade including the wider political and societal scene.

“With the current political and economic challenges facing organisations in the UK and Europe, it is refreshing to see technology companies like LLamasoft not only investing in the region but providing innovative solutions that will help UK and European companies across multiple industries make smarter decisions in a climate of unprecedented business complexity, volatility and uncertainty,” said Lord Jones.

Located at Pegasus House on Solihull Business Park, Birmingham, LLamasoft’s new 11,000 sq ft headquarters provides purpose-designed facilities for both employees and customers and reflects the company’s continued focus on growth, customer centricity and innovation.

This investment allows LLamasoft to better service its customers in the EMEA region in leveraging advanced analytics, optimisation and machine learning to make better, faster business decisions.

In the context of continued political uncertainty, including Brexit, LLamasoft’s powerful technology platform is helping major enterprises worldwide to model alternative scenarios to exploit opportunities and mitigate risks associated with trade wars and changes in taxes and tariffs, as highlighted in a recent BBC interview with LLamasoft’s CEO, Razat Gaurav.

This capability is augmented by LLamasoft’s recently announced acquisition of Opex Analytics, a Chicago-based provider of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions, further accelerating LLamasoft’s strategy to transform the future of enterprise decision making.

LLamasoft, which recently reported 30 percent subscription revenue growth for the first half of 2019, has made a significant investment in the design and fit-out of the new offices, which include a state-of-the-art customer experience centre as well as a dedicated training facility, with ability to deliver remote training to staff, customers and partners around the world.

“As more organisations seek to leverage data and advanced algorithms to make better business decisions, LLamasoft is seeing continued strong momentum in all regions and is on track to grow its global employee count by more than 20 percent in 2020,” said Slimane Allab, EMEA General Manager and SVP of LLamasoft.

“Designed specifically to support our goals and those of our customers in the EMEA region, the new location provides the perfect environment in which to bring together our people, technology and customers to drive continued innovation and success. We are delighted that Lord Jones was able to join us to mark this momentous occasion.”

For more information, please visit: www.llamasoft.com

Brexit, Cybersecurity, Data, News, Technology

Data Privacy & Cyber Security are top Brexit countdown worries for UK Business Leaders

Technology issues are now seen to be the biggest threat to business continuity in a post-Brexit world, according to new research conducted among UK business leaders commissioned by ThoughtWorks.

Feeling exposed to – and unprepared for – a range of pressing data safety and cyber risk issues (33%) was a greater concern for 2020 than a range of specific Brexit challenges – such as the weak Pound (24%), supply-chain disruption (20%) and the employment of EU citizens (22%).

With Michel Barnier urging UK businesses to safeguard themselves against cyber threats in the run up to Brexit[1], ThoughtWorks – the global software consultancy – asked 1,022 British businesses which perceived threats to business continuity post Brexit they were not fully prepared for. Overall, 82% of firms identified one or more threats to business continuity as a result of Brexit, a view that was consistent across all sectors and major cities.

Of the 33% of business leaders that mentioned tech worries, the specific areas of concern comprised of:

● changes to the transfer of personal data between the UK and the EU (54%);

● vulnerability to cyber-attacks (42%);

● changes to the storage, purpose and processing of customer data (30%).

These findings come less than 18 months after GDPR was introduced, which has been followed by a series of widely-publicised data breaches involving major brands. Indeed, the survey suggests data safety becomes a bigger issue the larger the business. The larger companies polled were more than twice as likely than small businesses to see tech issues – including cyber-attack risks and data safety – as the biggest threat to business continuity in post-Brexit Britain (47% compared to 22%)[2].

Beyond tech fears, there were a number of additional financial and operational concerns for businesses in adjusting to the prospect of Brexit. Financial issues included the falling value of the Pound (24%) and disruption to flows of capital or changing investor appetite (14%). In terms of operational issues, many foresaw disruptions to their supply chain as a threat to business continuity (20%), whilst other business leaders were worried about access to talent – specifically, the employment of EU citizens in the UK – and UK citizens in the EU (22%).

Whilst London is often seen to be at the centre of Brexit debate, the ThoughtWorks research canvassed business leader opinion across the UK, listening to decision makers from more than 10 of the country’s biggest cities. The results show that whilst across all cities business leaders were uniformly worried about risks to business continuity, technology issues were a particular concern in England’s three biggest cities – London (44%), Manchester (39%) and Birmingham (38%).

Specific city highlights:

● Edinburgh businesses were the most likely to say they were concerned about exposure to cyber-attacks (25%). Beyond tech issues, firms in Edinburgh were also highly likely to worry about the prospect of economic protectionism and trade wars after Brexit (25%).

● London businesses were also worried about cyber security after Brexit (24%) but were slightly more likely to be concerned over changes to the storage, purpose and processing of customer data after Brexit (25%).

● More than a third of Glasgow firms (35%) forecasted tech issues as the biggest threat to continuity after Brexit – with nearly a quarter worrying about the safe storage of data (24%). Glasgow businesses were also the most likely to worry about storing data safely compared to any other UK city (21% Vs. national average 12%).

Every sector – except for the retail sector – saw data and cyber-related issues as the biggest threat to business continuity after Brexit. The import and export of goods slightly tipped the balance for businesses in the retail sector (36% vs. 35%). However, for all the other sectors surveyed, tech issues topped the Brexit worry list – with the public services sector coming top at 47%.

Other sectors where business leaders were particularly worried about the impact of tech-related threats to business continuity included; media and tech (40%); financial services (37%); retail (35%) and manufacturing (33%).

Jim Gumbley, Head of Cyber Security, ThoughtWorks UK commented:

“After a period of unprecedented economic and political uncertainty, we wanted to ask businesses around the UK how prepared they felt for the key operational, financial, regulatory and tech issues that could result from Brexit. Whilst data security and cyber risks were seen as top concerns, it is important to stress that they are no longer just tech issues. Given what’s at stake for businesses, in terms of revenues, brand equity, trust and reputation, security and processes surrounding data need to be factored into the highest levels of corporate strategy.

“Whether UK businesses are pursuing their own development initiatives or investing in tech-driven start-ups, data security must be factored in from the get go. From our London and Manchester offices, ThoughtWorks is helping major brands spanning a range of industry sectors to put data and security at the heart of their thinking and to develop a culture of innovation and agility so they can go towards change and market uncertainty .”

AI, FInance, Technology

Three ways your finance team can save hours with RPA

Dean McGlone, Sales Director at V1 discusses useful shortcuts that tech can bring.

More often that not, we are expected to take on extra tasks at work – and this makes freeing up time incredibly difficult. The good news is that, with the right technology, it’s certainly possible.

Let’s take the finance industry for instance. It has plenty of manual and repetitive tasks that involve searching and entering data as well as combining data from multiple sources. These can quite simply be eliminated through automation. In fact, Gartner believes Robotic Process Automation (RPA) can save finance departments a whopping 25,000 hours of avoidable work annually.

So what exactly is RPA? It can mean many things to many people but, essentially, it refers to the use of a software robot or tool with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning capabilities to automate high-volume, repeatable tasks that previously only humans could perform.

Now, both RPA and humans can work together. In other words, RPA can do all the ground work (so the data entry, searching and consolidation) to provide more accurate and timely data at people’s fingertips. Humans will still need to have some oversight which means learning how to monitor AI systems but the reward is gaining greater control and far more incisive decision-making.

It won’t be long before we see RPA become part of our daily working lives so it’s reassuring to know that, according to Advanced’s latest Annual Trends Survey, most business professionals would be happy to work alongside robotic technology if it meant fewer manual processes.

Here are three ways finance teams can immediately benefit from RPA:

Time saver 1: Compliance

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) brought in big changes when it came into effect last May but, 18 months on, organisations are still struggling to meet its requirements.

This strict legislation isn’t going away so many need to face up to the reality and take accountability into how they process, store and secure their data. RPA is a great asset for GDPR compliance as it provides traceability on all documents. While it will never take away an organisation’s compliance responsibilities, it will certainly help make the journey to compliance less stressful.

RPA can support the finance function on a range of issues including:

  • Privacy by design – the GDPR calls for data protection to be hardwired into the processes and behaviours of a business. Automating key processes – like document management and invoicing – encourages everyone to work to the same procedures, and shows strong compliance by evidencing all communications and involvement with clients and suppliers.
  • The right to access – workers have the right to access their personal data. The information provided to them must be done using ‘reasonable means’ and within one month of receipt. By automating information into one system, it can be easily accessed, and efficiently sent to the individual. All actions will also have audit trails plus documents cannot be accidentally deleted, providing confidence that the right data can easily be passed on.
  • Breach notification standards – organisations have a duty to report certain types of data breach to the relevant authority, and in some cases to the individuals affected, within 72 hours of becoming aware of it. A breach can be reported immediately with RPA, which is almost impossible when dealing with paper-based documents in multiple locations.

Time saver 2: Document Management

RPA can remove the challenges posed by paper-based working. It can seamlessly integrate into an organisation’s financial management system to ensure an efficient and intelligent way to create, capture, store, authorise, deliver and manage key business documents in one place. And, if RPA is cloud-connected, users can even benefit from depositing documents from a tablet or phone.

By replacing the paper-based processes with electronic procedures, they will eliminate the printing, posting and manual filing of documents – thus supporting the growth of the modern workplace. 

Automated document management also gives users greater control and visibility across the business. It also gives access to business intelligence and process analysis in which users can look at their entire business process to find and eliminate bottlenecks, as well as identify opportunities.

Processes are ultimately streamlined, which can only be a good thing, improving access to information, reducing costs and enhancing productivity.

Time saver 3: Accounts Payable

A significant amount of time and cost is wasted in this crucial financial process. Finance teams are regularly inundated with documents, their time is taken up with sorting and routing the invoices, manual invoice data entry, chasing budget holders for approval, printing and photocopying, resolving queries and locating associated paperwork. 

In addition, documents are more likely to be lost and it’s not uncommon for duplicates to appear. This could have a detrimental effect on an organisation’s relationships with suppliers if they are repeatedly asked to replace invoices that have been lost or mis-managed.

RPA simplifies and streamlines these processes, seamlessly integrating into financial management systems to intelligently digitise how finance teams work with invoices. It is able to read, interpret, verify and validate invoices before they are posted to purchase ledgers automatically.

This can address the concerns around avoidable time and cost. In fact, an organisation typically processing 50,000 annual transactions can save as many as 3,750 hours and $112,500 annually.

Simply put, here are just a few of the major benefits of invoice automation:

  • Fully procure to pay (P2P) automation
  • Touchless processing of emailed invoices
  • Automatic invoice data extraction and validation
  • Intelligent workflow for electronic invoice approval

If these examples are anything to go by, RPA is the must-have solution for freeing up time.

Digital Transformation, News, Technology

Reseller helps SMEs to digitally transform through channel shifting

Rubixx has strengthened its commitment to Advanced by moving onto the new Advanced TruePartner programme. The partnership recognises Rubixx’s track record in the areas of technology solutions and support for small and medium sized enterprises (SME), and underpins its commitment to helping SMEs achieve successful digital transformation.

Rubixx provides annual support and independent consultancy for OpenAccounts and eBIS organisations ranging from 500 to 33,000 customers. They specialise in channel shifting organisations to digital self-service with their supplier, contractor and customer portals. They also provide data warehousing and business intelligence, which fully integrates into OpenAccounts and selected business systems, giving organisations a 360-degree view of their business.  

Rubixx are one of many organisations proud to announce their long-term commitment to Advanced by moving onto the new TruePartner programme over the last few months

Simon Reay, Group Director at Rubixx, commented:

“The new TruePartner program was a natural fit for us, having partnered previously with Advanced on its OpenAccounts solution for many years. Being a TruePartner allows us to develop far tighter integration for our OpenAccounts add-on solutions such as the self-serve supplier portal – OnPay.  It also expands our portfolio with Advanced, moving to sell and support OpenAccounts and eBIS with the TruePartner certifications and accreditations to give customers the assurance of our levels of expertise and customer support.

“Advanced has worked closely with us to provide technical support, training, marketing support and product development workshops. This partnership lets us take a clear position in the sectors we serve, and acquire larger and more complex clients than we otherwise would.”

The Advanced TruePartner programme is designed to reward resellers for their ‘digital by default’ strategy, ensuring it provides the relevant training, skills transfer and ongoing support needed to drive joint success for its range of market focused solutions.

Dean McGlone, Channel Sales Director at Advanced, welcomed Rubixx to the TruePartner programme, saying:

“We know there is an incredible opportunity as SMEs increasingly look to put technology at the heart of their organisation. However, to ensure this is successful, they require help on this journey – from implementation, training and support right through to future planning.

“Rubixx has demonstrated its strengths and ambitions in technology solutions for SMEs. By moving onto the new TruePartner programme, Rubixx is well positioned to realise the benefits that Advanced solutions can deliver in terms of helping SMEs digitally transform while achieving profitable and recurring growth.”

Some of the key features that Advanced is providing with its new TruePartner programme include:

  • Close collaboration and support with resellers to develop market and sector insight
  • Onboarding, training and marketing support for partners
  • Comprehensive accreditation and generous financial rewards, at every level
  • Reseller confidence that they are providing SMEs with exceptional technology

For more information, visit www.oneadvanced.com/TruePartner.

Digital Transformation, Technology

90% of UK’s FTSE 100 and 250 companies struggling with cloud migration

90% of UK enterprises in the FTSE 100 and 250 have run into major problems migrating legacy business applications to the cloud as part of their digital transformation, with 84% holding applications back, Cloudhouse research has found.

Surveying senior IT decision-makers within 50 of the UK’s largest enterprises, the research explored the challenges around cloud migration of legacy business applications.

Almost all companies (96%) are still running applications on legacy Windows operating systems. Yet with less than two months to go before the January 14, 2020 end-of-life deadline for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008, 69% are still severely hampered by the cost and complexity of migrating legacy applications. Nearly a third (31%) fear being locked into a single cloud-provider and almost a quarter (24%) admit they don’t know of any solutions that would enable them to migrate their legacy applications. More than a fifth (22%) are putting off the migration of business-critical applications because they don’t want to risk them in a new, incompatible cloud server environment.

Almost six-in-ten (58%) have between a quarter and three-quarters of all their applications on legacy operating systems. Yet while 94% view application migration as important to digital transformation, only 6% have completed their digital transformation strategies and only 6% see containerisation as a solution.

“It’s very worrying that some of the largest enterprises in the UK risk being crippled by their inability to migrate legacy applications to the cloud as the Windows end-of-life deadline looms,” said Mat Clothier, CEO, Cloudhouse.

“There is a gap in expertise and in their understanding of cloud-migration technology such as containerisation, which they need to overcome this paralysis. Otherwise they face escalating costs and severely downgraded competitiveness.”

The research found that although 100% of UK enterprises surveyed want to resolve the all-too-common problems of incompatibility with legacy systems, 35% are prevented from doing so by lack of cloud market knowledge and 27% by lack of expertise.

More than a third (34%) plan to upgrade their old applications prior to migration and 16% will go through costly and complex recoding and refactoring. Some 12% will migrate to separate virtual environments such as Citrix.

“Major enterprises are neglecting the most effective and obvious solution – encapsulation,” said Clothier.

“This is an advanced form of containerisation that lifts each legacy application and its underlying environment and makes it fully-functioning and evergreen in the cloud.

“Incompatible applications can be encapsulated and migrated without the need for refactoring, recoding, upgrading or any impact on end-user experience. This eradicates extended support charges as well as removing technical debt. It’s time for enterprises to reappraise the options.”

AI, Business Investment, Business Software, HR News, L & D, Technology

As City & Guilds urges leaders to upskill workers, does L & D need to better embrace tech?

New research from City & Guilds reveals that UK workforces are failing to keep pace with L & D investment in the workforces of employers in rapidly emerging economies such as India and Kenya, with 92% of Indian and 78% of Kenyan employers planning investment to upskill workers compared to just 54% in the UK.   So why aren’t UK employers keeping pace with the need to develop talent?

Peter Ryding, serial Turnaround CEO, champion of HR and founder of VIcYourCoach.com, believes this is largely because UK employers are failing to properly harness emerging tech developments opportunities in L&D and are stuck using old methods of learning that often don’t necessarily work.

“Old health and safety videos, which are seen as ‘tech’ because employees are charged with watching them on a pc with a headset, are viewed as nothing but a chore by the employee and a tickbox exercise by the employer. 

“We wonder why employees are not engaged?  The limited useful information is viewed negatively and rapidly forgotten (90% within 90 days!) yet many employers still use this method and the quality of their classroom learning often isn’t any better.

“Employers need to stop thinking about ticking boxes and merely gaining mandatory  qualifications for their people, and embrace new, multi-faceted levels ways of learning and development that can better equip, empower and engage employees, coaching them to learn soft and hard skills one minute and apply them the next. so they put them into practice into the business as soon as possible.”

That’s exactly what is happening in the developing world.

India is not only becoming a leader in workplace education, they are embracing digital learning to a new level across their society, with even young children using smart phones to learn new skills.  These experiences are immersive, tech-rich featuring AI and VR, and most importantly, adapted to the needs of the learner.  It is this approach, says Peter, that is seeing tech trusted in overseas workplaces, with employers keen to invest in L&D technology they know will work. By contrast, many Western workplaces still view new tech with distrust – but could new tools like AI and VR transform workplace learning?

CEO Coach Peter Ryding explains: 

“In L&D, when there isn’t always a clear return, learning budgets are tight – with old methods resulting in a poor experience for leaders and learners – whereas mentoring, proven to be highly effective in upskilling workers and managers alike, requires a higher investment. 

“As a CEO mentor and business coach, I was determined to create a learning platform that could deliver e-learning and e-coaching – “emulated coaching’ using AI would take the cost and scarcity of the human coach out of coaching. Doing this would slash the costs and make leadership coaching affordable for all employees – not just the bosses.

“That’s exactly what we did.  VIC your coach develops staff and executives to solve problems faster and get more done in less time, developing leadership skills and an entrepreneurial mindset.

The VIcYourCoach.com developers harnessed best practice psychological and L&D research with AI technology to create an enjoyable e-coaching experience that engages participants by incorporating multiple methods of learning. 

The resulting system includes short, bite sized videos that are both memorable and practical, with reading and reinforcement in a system that is adaptive, predictive and proactive, automatically tailoring content shown to better engage and develop the each individual learner.  

VIC Your Coach will work on any device with voice recognition and text to speech to emulate the human coaching experience, making it intuitive and easily accessible. It doesn’t just upskill workers – it also offers feedback for managers, giving them actionable data on their team, helping managers understand different learning styles, workplace personalities and opportunities for further employee development.

Peter Ryding concludes:

“Don’t get me wrong, VIC took time and budget to develop, but the result is ground breaking and innovative. It works – and it’s receiving praise from both employers and employees who rate it 10/10. 

“There is absolutely no reason why this technology could not be adapted for other areas of L&D and start the same workplace learning revolution here that overseas employers are already enjoying.

“The biggest change we need to make is to raise our L & D expectations. The L & D budget is a productivity investment.  Instead of merely focusing on gaining new qualifications, or achieving mandatory training compliance, L&D professionals need to be seen and see themselves as coaches – developing staff to be the best they can be, rather than just ‘good enough’ to pass an exam or tick a box. 

“Embracing new tech which can truly upskill workers is a great first step.”