New partnership aims to bolster performance

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A digital operator has formed a Finnish alliance to improve user experiences.

Newcastle-headquartered whyaye is working with Helsinki’s HappySignals. Bosses say the partnership will help the firms align IT systems and processes to optimise user outcomes and personnel performance.

Maureen Robson Norman, whyaye chief executive, said: “We believe in using a collaborative, transparent and honest approach to achieve real results.

“Working with HappySignals will give us a deeper insight into user experiences and this will enable us to drive change more effectively throughout the businesses we support – and embed new ways of working into the DNA of organisations.”

Sami Kallio, HappySignals’ chief executive and co-founder, added: “We need partners who are engaged and can dive deep into the experiences of end users and help manage customer outcomes.

“Our truly collaborative approach will bring happiness to many customers.”

Act Now – Cyber Threat Level Heightened

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The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has suggested that UK organisations should act amidst heightened tensions. Net Defence outline the simple steps you can take to help protect your business.

 

Following Russia’s further violations of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, the NCSC has called on organisations to bolster their online defences.

While the NCSC is unaware of any current threats to UK organisations, it is important that steps are taken to improve cyber resilience in the event of an attack.

Ransomware attacks almost doubled in 2021, that along with the current uncertainty that Russia’s recent actions have caused the NCSC a call to action for all Organisations to review and strengthen their online defences.

There are some simple steps you can take today to ensure you are better protected under the current heightened threat, and any new threats that may emerge.

  • Check your systems for patching and updates.
  • Review and verify access controls, in particular admin and privileged users.
  • Test and review your current defences.
  • Review your monitoring.
  • Review and test your backups and recovery.
  • Information Security and Phishing training for all employees.

 

Net Defence offer many of these actions as a standard part of their Information Security Assurance Services and can also offer an independent health check of your IT infrastructure and environment.

Net Defence – Information Security Assurance – A structured security plan (net-defence.com)

Who We Are:

Proudly part of the Ogilvie Group, Net Defence is a third-generation family-owned business providing Managed IT, Information Security Assurance & Telephony services with trust, transparency and ownership.  Serving the North East of England and Scotland, we believe that these services should be affordable, attainable and accessible to all and offer a structured service and plans to match your organisation.

What We Do:

We protect, support and help to keep your business compliant. Our Information Security Assurance service provides the mechanisms needed to provide certainty, confidence and trust that your IT & Comms infrastructure is secure, reliable and protected.

 

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

Levelling Up Digital Connectivity in the North East

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In the Government’s outline for Levelling Up the United Kingdom, one of the twelve ‘missions’ concerns digital connectivity. They sate that the UK will have nationwide gigabit-capable broadband and 4G coverage by 2030, as well as 5G coverage for the majority of the population.

This mission is motivated by the fact that the Covid-19 pandemic demonstrated the importance of digital infrastructure, and that digital connectivity has the potential to drive growth and productivity cross the UK, as well as widen job opportunities through remote working. There are significant spatial disparities in the quality of broadband and mobile networks across the UK, with rural areas more likely to experience worse digital connectivity than urban areas.

In this post I summarise the mission’s policy programme and what it could mean for the North East.

 

Gigabit-capable broadband

In 2020, the UK Government published the National Infrastructure Strategy, committing to providing £5bn in public funding to roll out gigabit broadband to at least 85% of the country by 2025, and subsequently to as close to 100% as possible, working with the private sector. Public investment will target premises that are hardest to reach, and which would otherwise not be provided for by the private sector.

Gigabit coverage has already increased massively over the last couple of years. Across the UK, there was an increase from 10% to over 60% in less than two years. This increase does not exclude the North East, with Gigabit broadband coverage increasing massively from 2% in November 2019 to 66% in January 2022. By 2025, it is forecast to reach 70-80%. With the current speed of growth, it may indeed be possible to reach nationwide gigabit-capable broadband by 2030.

The North East was among the first areas to benefit from Project Gigabit last year, prioritising buildings that had the slowest connections in the local authority areas of County Durham, Darlington, Stockton, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland, Sunderland, Gateshead, South Tyneside, Tees Valley and parts of Northumberland. The Levelling Up report states that Project Gigabit is still going ahead in Durham, Tyneside, Teeside and Northumberland.

It is also worth mentioning that the Towns Fund, which is investing over £172m across seven towns in the North East, will include a revitalisation of Darlington which will incorporate town centre WiFi.

 

4G and 5G coverage

The Government has also agreed a £1bn deal with mobile operators to deliver the Shared Rural Network programme. This will see operators collectively increase 4G coverage to 95% by 2025.

There is an opportunity to improve the North East’s 4G coverage greatly. 2021 figures show that the North East’s 4G coverage is lower than 70%, which is lower than every other region in England, as well as Scotland. The report’s figures forecast roughly a 15% increase in coverage Post-Shared Rural Network programme. More work will be needed in the region, then, in order to reach nationwide 4G coverage by 2030.

Meanwhile, regarding 5G, the Government aims for the majority of the population to have access to a 5G signal by 2027. They state that 5G “has the potential to radically change the way people live and make businesses more productive and competitive.”

5G is currently live in some regions across the North East, but often with only with one or two providers.

Since 2017, the Government has provided £200m in funding for 5G Testbeds and Trials, supporting over 200 startups and SMEs across a range of sectors in order to better understand how to use the technology to develop new solutions and services.

In 2022, the Government will publish the Wireless Infrastructure Strategy. This will review how far the private sector will go to deliver wireless infrastructure – including 5G – across the country, and determine whether there are any market failures in places that need to be addressed, and how the Government could tackle these.

 

Digital Skills

The report points out that the economic benefits of gigabit-capable broadband will only materialise if businesses and workers have the skills to take advantage of improved infrastructure. So, we must ensure that people have sufficient digital skills to reap the benefits and prosperity arising from the digital economy. 

In 2020, the UK Government introduced a new digital skills entitlement, giving adults with low or no digital skills in England free access to new digital skills qualifications based on employer-supported national standards. They state that they will continue to work with local leaders to develop Local Digital Skills Partnerships. These collaborative partnerships are now operating in seven regions across England, but none are in the North East.

I would argue that the North East is almost certainly deserving of a Local Digital Skill Partnership. In September of last year, IPPR North produced a report on Addressing Digital Exclusion in North East England. You can read my summary of the report here. The report explained that digital exclusion exists on a spectrum, and is not just about a lack of connectivity. It highlighted that a lack of access to devices, lack of skills and confidence, and lack of inclusive digital design is just as important when considering digital exclusion.

Although it cannot be definitively said how many people in the North East are digitally excluded according to this definition, particularly because there is a lack of data available on digital exclusion at local and regional levels, there is evidence that the North East has higher levels of digital exclusion than the rest of England, particularly in rural areas.

The Government states that it will work with devolved administrations to consider how best to share the insights and evaluation of the programme to help build digital skills capability across the UK. Because digital exclusion is deeply intertwined with other inequalities and deprivation, and the North East has some of the most deprived neighbourhoods in the country, we must hope that specific support will be given to these areas to target the specific forms of digital exclusion that they face in order to truly level up the region.

 

Freya Thompson

Knowledge and Research Executive

@NEEChamberFreya

 

Photo by Georgie Cobbs on Unsplash

Intelligent Customer Acquisition to Drive Performance

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Marketing has changed. In increasingly competitive markets, where barriers to entry are narrowing through technological change, the ability to attract and convert profitable customers to fuel your future growth is becoming increasingly challenging. Just being seen is no longer enough. Customer acquisition campaigns of the future need intelligence, insight and creativity if you want to outperform your competition.

In this workshop, our expert panellists from Mediaworks explained how you can use data to identify and optimise spend towards the most valuable customer types, supercharging your return on investment through profitable customer acquisition across relevant and measurable platforms.

They discussed why the right combination of search engine optimisation, paid online advertising channels, the production of educational and informative content marketing, and managing your digital PR & online reputation, will ensure you outperform your competition, and driving performance beyond today.

SPEAKERS:

Brett Jacobson, Mediaworks CEO.

David Norris, Mediaworks Performance Marketing Director.

Customer Experiences. Digital Design for A Lifetime of Loyalty

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Customer-centric experiences that harness the power of data, creativity, and the latest technologies are gradually becoming the norm as consumer expectations rise. Potential disruptors know this and use it to their advantage to drive successful business performance.

In this workshop, our expert panellists from Mediaworks explained how you can use data, creativity, and the latest technologies to create a future proofed digital experience. How immersive web and digital experiences can support commercial objectives and audience needs. These can be blended to reimagine your customer experiences, drive business efficiencies, and deliver exceptional customer experiences.

SPEAKERS:
Chris Coulson, Mediaworks Marketing Director.
Luke McLeary, Mediaworks Head of COnversion Rate Optimisation.

Harnessing your Digital Intelligence to Fuel Future Growth

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We live in a universe driven by digital. The rapid pace of technological innovation and evolving user behaviours have increased the need for intelligent data-driven decision making to drive business performance.

In this workshop, our expert panellists from Mediaworks discussed how to embrace digital to transform and drive performance beyond today. They explained why using your own data, in combination with the latest technology, can help you develop and formulate a transformational roadmap to fuel your future growth.

SPEAKERS:

Brett Jacobson, Mediaworks CEO.

Daniel Hoggan, Mediaworks CTO.

Rachel McGuigan, Mediaworks Head of Insight and Innovation.

Adopting Amazon Web Services (AWS) for Success

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Intelligent IT solutions company Perfect Image specialises in helping businesses adopt cloud technologies. In this article, their head of managed services solutions architecture Andrew Rigg shares three case studies on how cloud technology can be used.

When it comes to cloud infrastructure, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a market leader, holding roughly a third of the UK market – and for good reason.

The cloud computing platform goes beyond IaaS and SaaS capabilities to offer additional value to businesses across the globe.

We’re seeing more new and innovative ways to use AWS than ever before as businesses and organisations take advantage of the possibilities it offers. Here, we explore some of the most groundbreaking ways UK businesses and organisations are using AWS.

1.      Availability and disaster recovery – case study: Bellway Homes

Operating in the fast-paced and highly competitive property market, email and system uptime is critical for Bellway Homes. Even an outage of a few minutes could see the business lose thousands to its competitors.

Bellway had been experiencing storage and reliability issues for its emails, which was hindering its ability to carry out and close critical business deals. It was reliant on a virtualised platform that provided shared storage, and it needed a more reliable system.

Through working with managed AWS services partner Perfect Image, Bellway Homes was able to migrate to an AWS platform that offered greater reliability, scalability, and a much faster disaster recovery option. Previously, recovering the email system could take up to eight hours with a chance of failure, but the new AWS solution allows it to be recovered in just 15 minutes with an almost 100% success rate.

As well as near-100% availability, Bellway Homes has also benefitted from AWS in a number of different ways. With no hardware required to scale the solution, less manual maintenance, no physical backup requirements, and a flexible pay-as-you-go contract, the business has dramatically reduced its infrastructure costs.

2.      Unparalleled scalability and innovation – case study: NHS Digital

It goes without saying that the NHS has been under extraordinary pressure over the past 18 months. Not only were hospitals bursting at the seams with COVID-19 patients, but the National Health Service was also required to innovate at breakneck speed.

NHS Digital, which provides technology services to the health service, was required to not only push out new solutions quickly, securely, and effectively but also scale and extend its existing services. The 111 triage service, which was used to support people with a myriad of COVID-19 queries and support, was rolled out quickly and effectively thanks to the flexibility allowed by AWS.

In addition to these new services, which also included identifying and contacting clinically vulnerable patients and vaccination service systems, NHS Digital also needed to scale its existing services. Early in the pandemic, the peak load of one system was 95 times higher than it had ever been. Availability of 99.999% was essential for success, and NHS Digital relied heavily on the strict security protocols around AWS due to regulatory patient confidentiality.

According to NHS Digital CEO Sarah Wilkinson, the “elasticity” of AWS was critical to meeting this demand: “AWS has made much of this possible over the past year. We’ve been building out our AWS estate for many years, and many times we’ve reflected on the value of the AWS environment in which we operate those services today and the extraordinary power it gives us in terms of extreme scaling and deployment.”

While the AWS platform helped NHS Digital create and scale digital services at a pace that has never been previously required, the technology is also being used as a platform for future innovation and digital transformation. Wilkinson continues: “In terms of our AWS relationship, I have absolutely no doubt that what we’ve achieved in this environment to date is a tiny fraction of what we’ll achieve in the coming years.”

Future plans for the AWS platform include leveraging centralised control of hospital devices, which could range from radiology equipment to IoT devices on hospital beds, to organising, structuring, and making sense of its mountains of unstructured but essential patient data.

3.      Efficient deliveries and employee satisfaction – case study: Deliveroo

UK-born business Deliveroo operates in a saturated market, so a competitive edge is essential. With a presence in 12 countries worldwide including its UK base, the company caters to multiple markets, all with differing needs and fluctuating demands.

By using AWS and Amazon SageMaker, Deliveroo is able to differentiate itself from its competitors through its efficient dispatch services. Instead of using only geo-location data to assign a driver to an order, the company now uses an intelligent AWS machine learning system that will take into consideration driver pickup and delivery timescales, as well as a meal prep estimate.

The intelligent use of machine learning not only helps Deliveroo to maintain a high level of customer satisfaction but also keeps its drivers loyal and dissuades them from defecting to competitors. This is because it allows them to be more efficient, delivering more orders during their shifts and earning more money.

Deliveroo first implemented AWS in 2017, but the technology came in especially useful during COVID-19 lockdowns, which saw demand for deliveries triple in the face of 80 per cent of restaurants closing. The company decided to focus on immediate cash flow instead of growth and was empowered to do this through the flexibility of AWS. Deliveroo scaled back resource-heavy features like auto-generated restaurant suggestions because they were being used less, allowing the business to focus on its most profitable features.

Most businesses have now migrated at least some of their workloads to the cloud, with cloud computing becoming the norm. Many cloud platforms offer hosting and storage, but solutions like AWS go beyond these basic services to offer an outstanding opportunity for businesses to do more than ever before.

Andrew Rigg is the Head of Managed Services Solution Architecture at Perfect Image, a UK based managed AWS services company. With expertise in Microsoft Azure and AWS cloud technologies, Andrew works closely with the delivery teams to generate solutions and ensure planning & development is architected and delivered at the level each customer requires.

https://perfect-image.co.uk/

Sources:

https://perfect-image.co.uk/bellway-homes-aws/

https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/deliveroo-case-study1/?did=cr_card&trk=cr_card

https://www.cloudindustryforum.org/content/uk-cloud-adoption-rate-reaches-88-finds-new-research-cloud-industry-forum

https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/nhs-digital-psso-keynote/?did=cr_card&trk=cr_card

Photo by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash

North East Business Fringe – Connected North East: Access to digital

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Our Connected North East debate explored the digital divide impacting the North East. We discussed the need for greater access to technology, better digital connectivity and a growing call for comprehensive learning in digital skills for both businesses and the wider North East population to allow for the same opportunities available elsewhere in the UK.

Chamber and Mediaworks join forces to boost companies’ digital skills

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North East England Chamber of Commerce has teamed up with Mediaworks, one of the region’s largest marketing agencies, to support North East business through their digital transformation.

Mediaworks will deliver a series of four events hosted by the Chamber of Commerce, that will outline how businesses can capitalise on the power of data, technology and creativity, to set out a market strategy to fuel the growth of North East business through customer focused technologies.

Chamber Partner member, Mediaworks, will be sharing its extensive expertise from its work with their global clients such as Puma, GAP and Cath Kidston in addition to more local businesses that includes work with Home Group, Newcastle University and Northumbria Water.

The first of these events will underline how business can capitalise on better understanding the data accessible through their existing digital platforms. The session will show how understanding customer data and applying smart persona techniques is key to developing a successful digital roadmap.

The second workshop will outline why a powerful digital brand is key to supercharging sales growth online. It’s increasingly critical for all businesses to stand out from their competition and protect their business from future disruption.

The third session will focus on retaining and growing customers by utilising digital platforms to create immersive online experiences that match the rise in customer expectation.

In the final session, Mediaworks will set out how the right combination of search engine optimisation, paid online advertising, relevant content production, and digital PR and online reputation, accelerates new customers wins and increases market share.

Brett Jacobson is CEO and founder of Mediaworks and will host the Chamber events. His company now has more than 150 digital communications specialists and in the last 18 months has expanded to launch successful operations in Leeds, Edinburgh and Dublin.

Brett says: “This is a region we proudly call home, so we’re honoured to be in the position to step up, alongside our friends at the Chamber, to meet the collective responsibility to improve the understanding of the transformational business opportunities that exist online.

“The need for a successful digital footprint has accelerated at a frightening pace in the last 18 months. We’re really looking forward to the forthcoming series of events that’ll equip our business leaders with the tools to own their digital futures.”

Jonathan Walker, Chamber policy director said: “We are delighted that Mediaworks will be sharing in-depth expertise on how to use digital technology to market a business effectively. These webinars will be invaluable to learn how to use data and on-line sales techniques to really increase business growth. The speed of Mediaworks’ own growth over recent years is testament to how successful these strategies are in the marketplace.

“It is so important the North East not only encourages and supports the growth of its tech sector as with success stories like Tombola and Sage, but also makes sure traditional businesses embark on their own digital transformation journey. We need companies here to be able to exploit the opportunities digital technology can bring or risk falling behind.”

These events are part of the Chamber’s digital campaign and commitment to work with partners and experts to digitise the region’s businesses.

Chamber launches digital hub to support business growth

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North East England Chamber of Commerce research showed a huge potential for digital technology to boost regional business growth and has launched a digital hub to help as a result. 

The work was led by the Chamber’s digital steering group, chaired by Gill Hunter, managing partner who is a specialist in technology law at Square One Law, with information from the Chamber’s quarterly economic survey and roundtable discussions with business leaders.  Findings revealed that almost all participants and respondents believed digital transformation was more important for them following the pandemic. Results also showed the reasons for this view was to improve business agility, customer experience and operation efficiency. 

Gill Hunter said: “The last 18 months has been meant that businesses have really appreciated the differentiating role technology can bring to their business. This has led to increased focus on the business’s digital strategy, ensuring it aligns with their overall business strategy. From the conversations I have had, it is clear business leaders are grappling with a multitude of issues, so this initiative is to sign post relevant information to business leaders to support their digital transformation and develop their digital leadership skills.” 

The research also showed 40% of business respondents are currently forming a digital transformation strategy. 25% already have a strategy in place which is being followed but 25% are only implementing digital transformation on an ad-hoc basis and have no formal strategy.   

As part of its campaign to help create a well-connected and Stronger North East the Chamber’s digital hub on its website will have tools, tips and advice on how a business can grow, or create efficiencies using technology. It will also include links to digital skills and leadership training resources, funding available and businesses who can help. There will also be case studies detailing how companies have overcome challenges with the help of digital technologies. 

Amber Burney, Chamber policy and engagement executive said: “We believe it is ever-more important companies are encouraged to adopt technology and digital processes. They play such a significant role in increasing business productivity, reaching customers, reducing a carbon footprint and futureproofing businesses to make them more competitive.”  

Simon Michie, chief technology officer, Pulsant said: “The UK is in the midst a major technology transformation that is creating new opportunities for businesses is the North East of England. It used to be that businesses closer to technology hubs in the Southeast were at an advantage but the emergence of edge computing is breaking down the barriers of location. We’re now seeing regional businesses leverage UK-wide edge computing platforms to gain immediate access to the cloud-based services they need to innovate and grow.” 

The Chamber will be running a campaign on social media from mid-September to showcase the digital hub and businesses which can help with digital transformation. 

Visit the Digital Hub here.