Take another look at your Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery plans

DavorJakic
December 20, 2012
0

Davor Jakic, Systems Integrator at BT Advise, is concerned that many companies’ Business Continuity Plans (BCP) and Disaster Recovery Plans (DRP) are not flexible enough to deal with emerging threats

What is your impression of Business Continuity strategies at companies today?

Frankly, we’re a little concerned.  It is striking how time and time again companies are confronted with threats that they aren’t well equipped to deal with, notwithstanding significant investments they may have made in Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery.  For example, we’ve seen several attacks by hackers recently that have forced companies to cut off all connectivity with external networks, including internet and mail, but also system-level connections with suppliers and partners.  Also, some customers have been responding to our recent “Winter blackout in Belgium” article (on BT’s Let’s Talk blog), expressing concern that they’re not well protected against a major power failure in Belgium.  [Read more...]

Filed Under: Security, Virtualization Tagged With: , , ,

Winter blackout in Belgium? Should CIO’s be worried?

DavorJakic
October 2, 2012
0

Davor Jakic, Systems Integrator BT Advise investigates realistic threats of  electricity outages.

Could Belgium face a winter electricity blackout? No way, says the country’s political leadership, but the risk that it could happen due to the threatened closure of two of Belgium’s seven nuclear power plants, has been hot news this summer.

“ … The closure of two of Belgium’s seven nuclear power plants has led to discussions of a possible electricity shortage this winter… In the worst-case scenario, Belgium’s high-voltage transmission system operator could completely cut off electricity to houses in more rural areas for an hour or two…”  [Read more...]

Filed Under: Benelux, Cloud Computing, Country, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,

The IT Budget – Where Does The Money Go Today?

T Rajah
August 17, 2012
0
YouTube Preview Image

One of the limitless resources that’s most certainly come to an end is capital! With money too tight to mention in IT budgets, T Rajah, CIO of CLSA, painted a picture of excessive resource still being absorbed by “keeping the lights on” tasks such as data centre running and network security – at the expense of the innovation needed to provide the experience users really want.

We asked our audience for a profile of their current budget allocation to these tasks. The results were revealing: today, 49 per cent of respondents spend 30 per cent or more of their IT budget on network security and data centre running. (And a further 37 per cent spend half or more of their budget in these areas.) [Read more...]

Filed Under: Cloud Computing, Country, Global, Virtualization Tagged With: , , , , ,

Tablets in the classroom? You BETTcha.

boy-cups1
January 16, 2012
0

The days when education meant sitting at a desk being preached to by a teacher who stood at the front of the classroom are long gone as the annual British Education Training and Technology (BETT) show proved.  [Read more...]

Filed Under: Cloud Computing, Virtualization Tagged With: , ,

Festive Tip #11: Simplify your IT into a single platform

December 11, 2011
0

Welcome to the eleventh day of our 12 tips for an extraordinary New Year. Every day we’re sharing a simple way your organisation can make the most of the working days in December to get ready for a successful and prosperous 2012. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Cutting costs, Virtualization Tagged With: , ,

Festive tip #6: Balancing budgets

tip 4 contact centres
December 6, 2011
0

Welcome back to the sixth day of our 12 tips for an extraordinary new year. Every day we’re sharing an easy way your organisation can make the most of the working days in December to get ready for a successful and prosperous 2012.

For this sixth tip, let’s think about balancing budgets going into the New Year. Over-spending, holiday celebrations and visits from relatives are pretty much guaranteed to give you a headache at home, so it would be great to solve any potential work headaches.

Why not start by taking your data centre virtual? [Read more...]

Filed Under: Cutting costs, Spending cuts Tagged With: , , ,

What does your organisation’s ‘moustache’ say to customers?

movember business
December 2, 2011
0

All last month — re-named ‘Movember’ — moustaches (or attempts at moustaches) appeared on men up and down the country to raise money and awareness about men’s health. These ‘Mo Bros’ risked ridicule, using their faces to make a public statement about what matters to them. And it prompts the thought — what do UK organisations want their ‘faces’ (or points of contact) to say to users and customers about them?

Possibly the most important (and, traditionally for the UK, the most difficult) message to give is that the customer is valued. With our hang-ups about service and class and our residual stiff-upper-lip attitude, conveying warmth and demonstrating a customer’s value can come hard, even in arguably the easiest of settings — face-to-face. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Cloud Computing Tagged With: , ,

Twelve Festive Top Tips: #1 Scalable contact centre solutions

Top festive tips
December 1, 2011
1

Over the next few days, we’ll be running you through our 12 top tips to take you into the New Year in good shape.

The holiday season is coming up fast and it’s all too easy to get caught up in the online shopping and the Christmas meetings with colleagues and contacts. But let’s fight against the early wind-down and make the most of the productive working days in December. This series is about how you can act now to take your organisation into 2012 in the best possible shape for a successful year.

So for this first tip, let’s start by thinking about festive wishes. What would your organisation wish for? [Read more...]

Filed Under: Cloud Computing Tagged With: ,

Making your organisation more efficient

October 20, 2011
0
Making your organisation more efficient

This episode of Inside Story looks at two ways that BT is helping to make organisations more efficient.

This episode of Inside Story looks at two ways that BT is helping to make organisations more efficient.

The first is by combining phone and data networks, something we’ve done for the fourth-largest employer in the world, the NHS, via the N3 network. Over a hundred organisations are now using the new N3 network to reduce the cost of internal calls as well as calls to mobiles, and they’ve already made more than six million low-cost calls. But as well as saving large amounts of money, the N3 network is also simpler to administer, saving management time, and is helping the NHS reduce their carbon footprint too.

Another organisation to see the financial and efficiency benefits of joining voice and data networks is National Express. The BT-hosted service gives them, at no extra cost, facilities like having a full internal directory on every phone. This makes finding and calling colleagues simpler and quicker, leaving more time for the day job.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Cloud Computing, Health, Innovation, UK Tagged With: , ,