Green technology: Is being lean more important than being green?

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Infrastructure architecture is difficult at the best of times with a myriad technologies and delivery channels now in play. But in the hard-nosed world of business where everything counts in large amounts, does the drive for sustainability make the ICT decision-making process even more difficult?

“Anytime we get involved in negotiations, sustainability is quite far down the list,” according to Paul Kane, interim sales and marketing manager with datacentre provider, Servecentric.

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The key to greater sustainability is managed print services

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Print has long been a target of the environmental warrior and the much vaunted prospect of the paperless office has never quite materialised. Nonetheless, managed print services are helping organisations to keep print, paper and consumables under control and in the process, contribute to greater sustainability in the workplace.

“Managed print services (MPS) involve the consolidation of hardware, bringing reductions in devices and consumables usage,” said Martin Deignan, country manager with Oki.

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Less power, more sustainable technology

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A recent review by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) of the government’s 2008 Accelerated Capital Allowance (ACA) Scheme reveals that we have a long way to go to achieve our 2020 emission targets.

The ACA scheme, which provides tax incentives to companies who wish to purchase energy efficient equipment including ICT systems, has delivered 46,000 tonnes of CO2 savings, representing 23 per cent of its 2020 targets.

Covering 10,500 products across 52 technologies, it’s claimed that through the scheme, companies can source up to 85 per cent of their equipment needs and enjoy tax breaks in the process.

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Multimedia and cloud driving insatiable appetite for bandwidth

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Having just celebrated its 10th birthday, IP telephony services company, Blueface is continuing to ride the wave of adoption towards Voice over IP (VoIP) and hosted voice services with strong business growth reported.

According to Brian Martin, business development manager organisations large and small are responding positively to its message of significant cost savings, which the company claims can be achieved when moving voice traffic to an IP platform.

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Strong 4G adoption enabling greater mobility

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In its latest assessment of the telecommunications market, ComReg reveals that the number of smartphone/tablet users increased to 2,811,170 in Q2 2014, up by 3.4 per cent from Q1 2014 and a whopping 14.7 per cent compared to Q2 2013.

And with global pre-orders of Apple’s iPhone 6 and 6 plus currently standing at over 4 million units, our love affair with the smart device and the immediacy of staying connected on the go, is set to continue.

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Business broadband choices: moving and shaking

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Momentum in the broadband market has gathered pace with a raft of acquisitions, joint venture and strategic alliance announcements of late.

ESB and Vodafone have embarked on a joint venture to invest €450 million in a 100 per cent fibre-to-the-building broadband network offering speeds from 200 Mbps to 1000 Mbps across 50 towns and 500,000 homes and businesses.  Mobile network operator, Three has just completed its acquisition of O2 and the company has also recently signed a 4G network sharing agreement with eircom to run until 2030.

Should businesses be concerned about this level of market flux and does increased consolidation weaken competitive forces?

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Bringing broadband connectivity to the promised land

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It’s a tiresome debate – tackling the rural/urban broadband deficit, yet high speed, reliable broadband connectivity is as important as other key pieces of economic infrastructure.

Just ask the people of the UK, who in a recent survey for the Institution of Engineering and Technology said that extending superfast broadband nationwide would deliver more economic benefits than building new airports.

Minister White inherits the unfortunate accolade of being the fifth minister of communications to publicly proclaim that high-speed, broadband connectivity will be made available to all, irrespective of geographic location.

So is there any reason to believe that the National Broadband Plan (NBP) – designed to inject a further €1 billion of investment to tackle this infrastructural deficit through a public/private partnership model – will come to fruition under his stewardship?

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Mobile CRM: Adding real business value to the customer relationship

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If ever we needed proof that mobile CRM is taking off, it’s the prediction by Gartner that mobile CRM apps will grow by 500 per cent in 2014.  Employees want access to information and they want it now in a user-friendly, intuitive, smart device interface, irrespective of time of day or location.

It’s an issue that’s raised with David Beard, CRM principal with Sage CRM on a daily basis.

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Secrets to CRM implementation success

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CRM has received a lot of negative (and perhaps unfair) press over the years. And there’s no doubt that in some quarters, there still exists a widespread perception that CRM implementation is a risky and excruciatingly painful undertaking.

According to Orson Herbst, product manager with Herbst Software, organisations want to buy and use CRM but successful implementation depends on many factors.

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Social CRM

Social CRM: taking CRM to the next level

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We’re probably all familiar with the Pareto Principle as it applies to sales; 80 per cent of business typically comes from 20 per cent of customers.  In fact, research suggests that a five per cent reduction in business lost can generate anything between 25 and 85 per cent additional organisational profit.

It’s perhaps the strongest argument for hanging onto those hard-won customers but is it also a cogent argument for interacting and engaging them on their chosen communications platform?

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