Download article as published in Housing Technology magazine, March
2011
Jonathan Sharp, Sales and
Marketing Director at Britannic writes about his visit to the
Housing Technology Conference. If you would like a meeting so that
we can share these ideas with you, please call 08448 666 100 or email enquiries@btlnet.co.uk
I recently attended the Housing
Technology Conference in Nottingham. Professor Morris Pentel
began proceedings talking about the future of Technology in
Housing. He was followed by excellent breakout sessions from
suppliers and HAs alike where, not surprisingly, looking for
innovative ways to deliver better value was a common theme.
Listening to the various presentations and talking with delegates
throughout the day, what struck me was the desire to deliver an
excellence of service both internally and externally to tenants,
whilst managing and developing complex and mixed technology
infrastructures and service providers within typically fixed annual
budgets, which are now under pressure!
There was a clear willingness to
innovate and embrace new technologies to support the changing
demographics of the tenant community and changes within the UK
economy, whilst meeting staff expectations and objectives passed
down from the board.
Unified Communications
empower a more efficient workforce
The role of effective use of
technology in this sector cannot be underestimated. I heard
examples of pressured and stressful environments whereby staff
could not effectively deal with tenant questions which resulted in
inefficiencies and poor service to those tenants. In
contrast, there were great examples of where the latest unified
communications technologies had empowered staff at the sharp end to
excel and deliver efficient and personalised service, by easily
collaborating with back office and field staff through automatic
access to supporting information and systems, to provide a
right first time every time culture.
Without question the housing sector
has undergone many changes over recent years following the large
scale transfer of stock from government to new and emerging housing
associations. There has been a great deal of change and
consolidation recently through the process of mergers, which have
formed some 'super powers' in the housing sector.
Today we embark upon the next phase
of change and development. The UK economy is experiencing
high rates of inflation, twice the government targets. This
follows one of the deepest recessions of recent times.
Government have set their targets to eliminate the deficit and
consequently a new period of austerity has emerged. The
Housing sector is not escaping. Housing grants and subsidies
have been cut and HAs are seeking ways to reduce their expenditure
wherever possible, with a target of 25% being cited.
Government have also unveiled plans to introduce a single
"universal" payment as part of the shake up within the benefits
system. Consequently the risk of debt increases and so too
the demands to manage rent collections and arrears more
effectively.
Shared
Services
We have also seen the emergence of
the "shared services" model, for example 24x7 support, outsourcing
of repairs and care of the vulnerable. This will undoubtedly
increase, in an attempt to achieve greater cost savings and
economies of scale. This combined with the prospect of many
front line services being reduced / eliminated by the government
leaves HAs questioning who is going to deliver what services to
citizens within the new "Big Society"? Does this create
additional burden, or opportunity for housing associations, with
the demand for new services - such as benefits advice?
All these changing conditions and
budgetary constraints create a real paradox for the sector.
How can it still deliver accessible, personalised high standards of
service with the requirement to cut costs? The easy answer,
it needs to do more with less. But how can this be achieved,
without causing a detrimental effect?
New agile
technologies
Positively, there are new
technologies and models available which support this new agile,
collaborative, cost conscious and service driven economy.
Cloud computing, Virtualisation
(voice and data), SIP trunking and Unified Communications have all
emerged to provide cost savings, improved management, greater
flexibility, 100% availability, personalised service and much
more.
At Britannic Technologies we work
with our clients in true partnership. We have an in-depth
understanding of the sector and the challenges Housing Associations
face and importantly we have a clear vision and tried and tested
strategies to enable them to continue to serve the community whilst
achieving automatic continuity, cost reductions, improved
management visibility & control and planning for the future
with confidence.
We have many examples of where we
have helped the sector benefit from our expertise, market leading
portfolio, innovation and partnership approach. This was
recently summed up by Saul Stevens, IT Director of Family
Mosaic:
"Britannic have worked very
closely with Family Mosaic. They are very capable, very happy
to work with and support organisations such as us.
Britannic are very technology
savvy, very responsive, they have great technical resource and over
and above everything else they have really listened to what we want
and are helping to shape our technology roadmap for the
future."
Delivering better
value
In summary, one of the questions
which resonated with me from the conference is:
What can suppliers to the
housing sector do to deliver better value?
By working with award winning
Britannic Technologies, Housing Associations will be able to
benefit from an organisation that recognises the importance of this
sector, has 25 years' experience in telephony and contact centres
to draw upon and is leading the way in new wave technologies such
as SIP, Telephony virtualisation, Unified Communications, WAN
Governance and Systems integration.
We will help achieve significant
costs savings by as much as 50%, increase management visibility and
control and reduce the management burden of ICT. We will
support greater efficiencies, provide personalised customer service
and adopt a flexible managed service framework for changes,
additions and enhancements without the need to increase
budgets. We will provide clarity out of the confusion
across the telecoms sector with tried and tested strategies that
will deliver cost savings, greater business agility, automatic
business continuity and demonstrable benefits for tenants and HAs
alike and identify how and where technology can effectively be used
to support the desire to attain 3 star and excellence.
We will provide good value from the
offset with a competitive single tariff for the housing sector.
Sound too good to be true?
Call us today on 0845 056 2000 and
find out how we do it! We look forward to the opportunity of
partnering with you.
Tags:BritannicHousing
The latest edition of the newsletter is now available.
Download
newsletter
This issue is a Convergence Summit Special with articles focused
on enhancements to the IT and Telecoms infrastructure to make
it less complex, more cost effective, secure and
simple to manage.
Articles included in this issue:
7th Annual Convergence Summit overview
Professor Morris Pentel, Chairman, Customer
Experience Foundation
Aligining Technolgoy with Customer Contact Strategy
Tim Stone, Marketing Director
Collaboration, Europe, Cisco
The Workspace of the Future
Don Smith, Chief Executive Officer, Mitel
Your Future is Virtual and Mobile - Make it Happen Now
Roger Jones, EMEA Business Development
Director, Avaya
The New Avaya - The Future of Unified Communications
Eddie Cronie, Sales and Marketing Director,
THUS
Enabling the Enablers
Nigel Pink, Vice President & General
Manager, Ipanema Technologies
The WAN Governance Business Advantage
Jonathan Sharp, Sales and Marketing Director,
Britannic Technologies
Optimise the Journey from CPE to Cloud with New World
Communications
Tags:Convergence SummitBritannicNewsletter
Britannic Technologies and its strategic partners
reviewed the latest strategies for converged communications,
virtualisation & next generation networks and outlined the
future direction of the ICT marketplace.
Britannic Technologies' 7th Annual Convergence Summit on
November 24th attracted a full house, world leading line
up of speakers from across the industry and exceptional feedback
from those who were fortunate to attend.
The event was held at Twickenham Stadium, attracting almost
400 guests and 20 exhibitors, providing a unique networking
opportunity with peers and influencers within the industry.
This year's summit reviewed the evolution of convergence within
the communications market place and the virtualisation of
technology, centralisation of services and availability of next
generation networks.
Throughout the day there was a clear message as to how the
communications market is now at a point where it can firmly align
technology with business strategy.
Communications can be simplified and more easily managed,
reducing costs and delivering operational improvement, whilst
supporting the growing demand for business continuity.
Delegates were presented with a comprehensive strategic review
of the communications marketplace, underpinned with a clear
strategic vision for the future. The audience heard how
the leading players are releasing technology in line with current
market trends and opportunities.
Professor Morris Pentel, Chairman of the
Customer Experience Foundation, set the delegates thinking about
the way in which they communicate with their customers and the
changing demographics and demands introduced through new
generations and social media.
Tim Stone, Cisco's Marketing Director
Collaboration, Europe surprised the audience by commenting that in
a recent survey 66% of employees said they would take a job with
less pay and more flexibility in device usage, access to social
media, and mobility than a higher-paying job without such
flexibility. He discussed the changing workplace and the need
by employers to embrace new technologies and new ways of working
along with the real business benefits of collaboration.
Don Smith, CEO of Mitel explained how we are
going through a major re-invention of business communications. The
latest mobility solutions are transforming the traditional office
into a more mobile and cost effective environment.
Roger Jones, EMEA Business Development Director
of Avaya delivered an interesting perspective on the green element
of telephony as he discussed the journey to fully unified
communications.
Eddie Cronie, Sales and Marketing Director for
THUS discussed the conflicting agendas in business management and
encouraged simplification of networks and key enablers to deliver
and manage these converged networks.
Nigel Pink, Vice President & General
Manager of Ipanema Technologies raised the question of how much
bandwidth business critical applications use and what the cost is
to the business. He talked of the importance of WAN governance and
how in this changing world, a holistic approach to network
management is essential.
Jonathan Sharp, Britannic Technologies' Sales
and Marketing Director and host for the day concluded the
presentations with a review of Britannic's vision, how they work
with their technology partners and clients to align technology
systems and investment with operational requirements and business
strategy, citing a number of recent projects such as Grange Hotels,
Family Mosaic and Trailfinders. He discussed the importance of
supply chain management and the need to migrate to new technology
at a pace that fits the customers' business.
A key component of Britannic's solution is its managed services
and the implementation of tools which enhance management of the
network and environment. These include netCONNECT, the latest
in CTI middleware technology (which delivers CTI capability out of
the box for most major CRM and Business System software and all
major PBX systems, complimented by a free SDK for software
companies / developers); netMANAGER, a new approach to WAN
management utilising Ipanema's carrier class platform, which is
provided as a service via Britannic's Network Operations Centre and
netX, Britannic's carrier class SIP Exchange platform helping to
support business continuity and deliver significant cost reduction
and great flexibility.
Jonathan announced the arrival of netPBX, Britannic's hosted PBX
platform that is entering into trials with two major channel
partners to deliver a hosted telephony solution to their
customers.
After the presentations delegates attended the technology
exhibition where they were given the opportunity to experience
technology first hand and discuss specific projects and
requirements with Britannic and their partners. The
exhibition showcased the latest technology across a wide range of
technology manufacturers and services providers, including: Avaya,
Britannic Technologies, Cisco and Tandberg, ComputerTel, Gamma
Telecom, HP, Intercept IT, iomart Hosting, Ipanema Technologies,
Kelder, Keysource, Mitel and their affiliates, Nimans, Nouveau
Solutions, Oak, Redbox Recorders and THUS.
Over all the day was a great success, as Britannic Technologies
Convergence Summit continues to go from strength to strength
providing a unique opportunity for visitors to hear from the
industry leaders in one place hearing about their strategy and
vision, supported with access to the latest news, views, technology
and technical experts.
This was a view reinforced by delegates and partners alike and
in the words of Cisco director Tim Stone, "The Convergence Summit
attracted more attendees than any other event of its type this
year, due to the impressive list of exhibitors and conference
speakers from across the industry. This is the must attend
educational event for any company looking to improve communications
and collaboration."
Videos of the presentations are available at BritannicTech.tv, while PDFs
of the slides can be viewed here.
Tags:Britannic
Last night (18 November) Britannic Technologies was presented
with a major industry award, "Converged Reseller of the Year."
The award was presented at the CRN Channel Awards in
Battersea park in front of over 1500 industry peers. This was
a highly contested award and recognises the great efforts and
achievements made across our business over the last year in our
objective of delivering the best converged technology design,
implementation and on-going management thoughout the ICT industry
as a whole.
Converged Reseller of the Year - Britannic
Technologies
Britannic is a well-established business with an enviable
reputation that demonstrated in its entry a keen awareness and
ability to respond to customer requirements. The judges were
impressed by how it enables its customers to adopt new technologies
that bring voice and data together, reduce costs and maintain the
highest standards of quality and service.
We were in competition with well respected organisations 2e2,
Maxima and
Arrowdawn, as well as being shortlisted in the mid-market reseller
of the year category.
This is a very timely award, given that Britannic Technologies is
holding its 7th Annual Convergence Summit next Wednesday 24th
November. If you were undecided as to whether to attend, what
better testament could you need?
Tags:BritannicAwards
Britannic Technologies has received "official" notification from
Mitel SIP Center of Excellence that it has successfully completed
Mitel-Compatible Test (MCT) certification between the Britannic SIP
Trunking solution netX and the Mitel 3300 (MCD
4.1) platform.
As a result of this successful certification
netX will be listed in the Mitel Global Solutions
Catalogue.
Britannic Technologies' Carrier Grade SIP Trunking Platform
netX has been extensively developed and rigorously
tested to ensure reliability, flexibility and interoperability in
this complex communications environment.
netX is a "business class" SIP exchange
platform which has direct connection into the BT network for the
large scale routing of IP telephone calls. This has enabled
our customers to work towards a strategy of moving towards a single
standardised network infrastructure.
Reliability
The netX infrastructure is fully
resilient both physically and virtually and the network is
controlled end to end to guarantee carrier-grade quality.
Backup trunks are available over a number of access methods.
Security
Every call made through netX is
authenticated and transported across private network links; each
session is kept separate to ensure privacy. Transport Layer
Security (TLS) is available on request.
Features
netX supports multiple protocols,
support for any SIP codec, it provides full NAT support and is
integrated with Microsoft's OCS platform and BriPORTAL gateway
support for backwards compatibility for TDM. It provides full
disaster recovery options.
Flexibility
Numerous access methods are available across a
multitude of interconnect models and channels can be added
incrementally.
Cost savings
These can be achieved through consolidation of
lines and lower cost call routing via SIP.
Tags:BritannicnetXMitel