Posted on May 12 2021 by Paul North | Comments Off on With the easing of lockdown, what kind of connectivity will business customers need as they return to work?
As the UK gently eases itself out of lockdown and with more businesses taking a hybrid approach to home and office working, what will the impact be on connectivity and bandwidth. Paul North, Head of Regional Sales at CityFibre considers the possibilities.
As the past year has demonstrated, it has been possible for most businesses to operate successfully with staff working from home. But what happens when lockdown restrictions begin to ease and offices potentially open back up? The reliance on reliable connectivity and good quality video conferencing tools has soared and their use has become second nature now to many of us. So, is there cause for businesses to adopt a permanent working from home culture? Or is a new hybrid approach more realistic?
As we move to an increasingly digital Britain the way the nation is consuming goods and services is changing at pace – which means the need for businesses to be forward-thinking and look for faster and smarter ways to operate is key – what underpins this digital revolution is ultra-fast and resilient full fibre connectivity.
The recent woes of household retailers like HMV, Toys R Us and BHS serve as the perfect illustration of the consequences when companies are slow to embrace digital change. The Royal Mail’s 2018 Delivery Matters UK Report also highlights that proportion of UK shoppers choosing to spend their money online is now 87%, meaning there is less place than ever for slow and ineffective connectivity in our modern e-commerce driven economy.
The UK’s connectivity market is seeing exciting times as the country fibres up to meet the needs of modern commerce. Leading the charge in this digital revolution are those service providers that adopt a forward thinking and innovative approach to their business.
Our channel partners have an incredible opportunity to make the government’s ambitious target of connecting 15 million premises to full fibre by 2025 a reality, and significantly grow their own business in the process.
Entanet works with a wide range of partners bidding for more complex network solutions – these highly profitable opportunities open up the chance to package a complete service including data and voice connectivity, firewalls and hosting, all from one supplier.
In this highly competitive and rapidly evolving connectivity landscape, Software Defined Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN) has emerged as an alternative corporate network technology to MPLS, but in reality the direct comparison is false because whilst both solutions link sites together the underlying technologies behind them are very different.
Apprenticeships have been in the media spotlight in recent months as the Government’s introduction of the Apprenticeship Levy in 2017 to help businesses fund the training of apprentices has struggled to help in its ambitious target of creating three million apprenticeships by 2020.
Criticism about the complexity of the levy and the still widely held perception by many employers that apprenticeships are only useful for more ‘hands on’ jobs have seen the numbers of new people taking up apprenticeships plummet over the last year.
Despite these negative headlines, we believe apprenticeships have had a hugely positive impact on our business. So much so, we’ve recently been shortlisted in two prestigious national awards (UK National Call Centre Awards and Comms Dealer Sales and Marketing Awards) for our apprenticeship programme.
Customer retention is a key part of any business, it is important to take care of existing customers as well as new business. How much time do you have to focus on retaining customers? At Entanet customer retention is one of our most important activities.
It can be a difficult balancing act. On one hand, you don’t want to lose contracts that are coming to an end and you’re keen to proactively remind your customers of renewal opportunities. On the other hand, you’re wary of reminding them in case they start to look elsewhere in the market. Right?
How do you differentiate your business from your competitors? As connectivity markets become increasingly competitive, focusing on price alone is risky and could see you inadvertently enter a spiralling price battle that you are simply unable to sustain. That’s why more and more providers are choosing to focus on the quality of their service departments to help them stand out. But, how do you ensure you have a successful service department and how do you monitor its performance?
In our latest eBook you can read about several key metrics we use to monitor the performance of our own service departments and how we interpret those figures to ensure a superior level of customer service. But we also describe the importance of aligning those metrics and targets with the business’ overall objectives and the essential role your staff play in achieving all of this.
The industry has an all new, exciting and free-to-attend exhibition, Channel Live. It’s brought to you by Swink Events – the people behind Comms Business and the previous Convergence Summits (North and South), but this year it’s a single, centrally located event held at the NEC, Birmingham and it’s all taking place on 12-13th September. So, what’s new and why is it an event not to miss?
In terms of what’s new across the entire event, you can get all the details at www.channel-live.co.uk but to summarise, it offers an ideal opportunity to meet suppliers across the communications channel as well as a compelling seminar and panel debate programme. Entanet and CityFibre are both key ‘must see’ participants in the programme – on Wednesday 13th at Noon, Entanet CEO Elsa Chen will debate ‘value’ in the changing landscape of wholesale network providers with industry peers; while at 2.15pm, in a session that’s sure to be standing room only, CityFibre CEO Greg Mesch will sit alongside Openreach to discuss the building of wholesale networks in a digital world.
No matter what industry you work in, GDPR (or General Data Protection Regulation) should be top of mind right now. It’s certainly big news for business facing journos at the moment. Yet despite the constant coverage there still seems to be a lot of confusion surrounding GDPR – this article aims to put common misconceptions straight and help you protect your business from potentially hefty fines.
Misconception #1 – It only affects companies based in the EU
Although GDPR is an EU law, it doesn’t just affect EU based companies. It affects any company that stores and uses information relating to any EU citizen regardless of where the company is based. It’s the first global data protection law.
Therefore, if your customer is based in an EU country or you hold any personal data (the definition of which has been expanded – see our free eBook for more info) of any EU citizen it will affect you and your business. The fact that the UK is in the process of leaving the EU also has no impact on our need to comply with this law.
The only way you don’t need to comply is if you can 100% prove that you do not hold or use any information about any citizens of any EU country.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), also known as ‘Social Impact’, isn’t just throwing a few quid to a charity each Christmas or sponsoring the Sales Manager’s half marathon, it’s much more than that and if implemented correctly, can have a truly positive effect on your business from improving staff motivation and productivity, through to reducing costs, improving public perception, reducing risk and increasing sales. Perhaps that’s why 64% of CEOs increased investment in Corporate Social Responsibility in 2016.
Our updated eBook explains how implementing a CSR strategy could make a positive difference to your business and the key considerations you need in place to ensure it works effectively.
Whilst we’re on the subject of CSR and charitable activities – 25 members of the Entanet team are undertaking the Tough Mudder Challenge this May to raise more than £6,000 for Sands (Stillborn And Neo-natal Death Charity). If you’d like to support #teamenta please donate via our JustGiving page and use #teamenta in the comments section. Thanks for your support, we – and Sands – appreciate every penny!
