Improving customer success in the IT sector: The power of partnerships

In all areas of business, customers are expecting more. The typical vendor-client relationship is a thing of the past, becoming a partner to your customers is the new norm. However, this is not an overnight process, rather one that takes time, effort, and cultivating.

Of course, growth is important, and organisations always want to acquire new customers. Yet, in order to grow, existing customers must be retained, remain loyal, and continue to be happy with the service they...

Allison Cerra, CMO, McAfee: On education and mindfulness in removing cybersecurity complexity

If you’re going to write a playbook around cybersecurity best practice, as a leading executive of one of the major security companies, then it may be a wise idea to deal with any skeletons in the cupboard before dispensing the pellets of wisdom.

Thankfully Allison Cerra, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at McAfee, does so in her new book with integrity, grace, and no little...

Case study: Why ERP solutions for the food industry must do more than ensure compliance

ERP functionality should help solve the challenges that many different types of food businesses face. It must ensure high quality, resource-efficient production and distribution, providing product innovation that has profitability potential while helping a business stay up to date with the latest customer demands. This is how food companies can meet food safety regulations, reduce waste and gain flexibility in terms of the ingredients and raw...

Why you need to be able to trust your SD-WAN platform

Imagine a scenario when an IT network manager settles into the task of remotely provisioning and configuring an SD-WAN edge router that’s located in a distant branch office. The router appliance was shipped from a supplier’s warehouse to the branch, unboxed, and plugged into power and Ethernet by a local non-technical employee.

Before this new connection to the corporate WAN can be brought...

Case study: How the National Crime Agency looks to squash the cybercriminals at source

Ben Russell, head of cyber threat response at the National Crime Agency (NCA), wants to get one thing clear. “We’re not a regulator – we’re not here to dish out fines,” he says. “We’re here to support businesses, investigate the criminals and try and catch people in order to help.”

The agency is not here to judge, or enforce anything in particular, but to...

The self-service portal selfie: Up and running in a flash

Case study It’s only been six months since William Schrikker Group (WSG) started using its self-service portal, “Selfie.” After a tremendously successful start, WSG leaders want to expand the portal’s capabilities. The level of commitment within the organisation was great, and even before the self-service portal went live, several department leaders expressed their wish for their own portal.

Don’t let your next big idea die: How the CIO can use low code to be innovation’s biggest champion

You’d be hard pressed to find an executive who’d disagree that the speed of innovation is a critical success factor in modern business. In the face of such pressure, businesses know innovation needs to be a focus and many talk a lot about the strategic importance of innovation to secure their future.

But the unavoidable truth is that most businesses produce dozens, if not hundreds, of new...

How smart companies are using information to become more competitive and profitable

(c)iStock.com/sorbetto

Insights analysts are typically charged to perform analysis and discover new insights that can generate new business by identifying new customer and market trends or generate cost savings by discovering the root causes for inefficiencies.

If insights are discovered in a timely manner, they can create new opportunities for monetization by revealing new customer needs, new customer segments for targeting, emerging consumer behaviors and purchasing trends....

How Eurostar improved efficiency and saved employee costs through mobility

(c)iStock.com/Johnny Greig

Eurostar has slashed employees’ mobile bills by 50% and improved maintenance times through a mobility initiative with enterprise mobility management (EMM) firm MobileIron.

The railway firm worked alongside MobileIron and Qolcom, the wireless and enterprise mobility provider and UK partner of the Global Enterprise Mobility Alliance (GEMA), to secure and manage both corporate owned and BYOD devices.

A key part of the rollout was giving...

Jonathan Reichental, Palo Alto CIO: On changing CIO roles and building smarter cities

Picture credit: reichental.com

According to a recent research study from IDC, 40% of CIOs view themselves predominantly as ‘custodians of operational infrastructure’, compared to 25% who believed they were ‘business technology innovation officers’. We’ve all heard it before; CIOs need to move from being chief information officers to chief innovation officers, heavily prompted by digital transformation and the technological change about to hit...