industry news
Secure IT
Environments
survey finds 46
per cent unclear
whether data centre
energy efficiency
has improved in
two years
Secure IT Environments has released
the results of its most recent data centre
survey. The survey found that 46 per cent
of respondents did not know whether
their data centre had improved in energy
efficiency over the last two years.
Forty-seven per cent were however
clear that their data centres had
improved in efficiency over the last two
years. Only seven per cent admitted
that the efficiency of their data centre
has declined.
Chris Wellfair, projects director at
Secure IT Environments, commented, ‘It
is surprising that so many organisations
do not understand the energy usage
and efficiency of their data centres,
because it can tell them a lot about
their infrastructure. Regular monitoring
of key performance indicators across
the data centre can not only improve
efficiency, but lower costs, identify
failing equipment, and improve
maintenance regime.’
The survey asked about the biggest
ICT worries respondents have over the
coming three years, with the top concern
(47 per cent) stated as the ‘lack of budget
available for data centre management
and/or infrastructure upgrades’. Energy
efficiency was next with 33 per cent
stating they were concerned about
their ‘ability to demonstrate improved
ICT energy efficiency’. Joint third place
(30 per cent) was budget allocation for
software and systems developments, and
finding/recruiting qualified ICT staff.
The survey was conducted amongst
100 UK IT decision makers and C-level
executives with responsibility for data
centres. It was conducted in Q1 2017.
10 | April 2017
Increase in cloud adoption providing
improved customer experience,
flexibility and cost savings
Organisations are striving to offer a customer experience that has the
flexibility to respond quickly to changing customer demands while
controlling costs and remaining competitive. As cloud adoption rates
continue to grow, Aspect Software believes continued cloud adoption in
contact centre environments is critical, as businesses cannot afford to be
left behind in the face of increased customer expectations for seamless and
frictionless engagement with brands.
According to the Cloud Industry Forum’s (CIF) latest research paper,
Cloud: Driving Business Transformation, the overall cloud adoption rate in
the UK now stands at 88 per cent, with 67 per cent of users expecting to
increase their adoption of cloud services over the coming year. CIF predicts
that by 2019, 93 per cent of organisations will use at least one cloud service.
The research paper also revealed that by 2020, 70 per cent of
organisations expect to have adopted cloud for their Customer Relationship
Management (CRM) applications and 57 per cent for their customer contact
centre. Eighty-three per cent of cloud users have successfully improved the
reliability of their IT through their use of cloud based services, 85 per cent
have increased the speed of access to technology and 17 per cent have seen
an improvement in their customer engagement.
Chris Streete, senior director of cloud solutions, EA at Aspect, said, ‘As the
advantages of cloud mature and make themselves clear, businesses are losing
their initial fears of security and costs. The technology is well established in
many customer service environments, because cloud computing has become
imperative to elevating contact centres into fully fledged, omni-channel