latest trends in IT – roundtable 19


This Roundtable was hosted by communications integration provider Content Guru in conjunction with The Business Magazine, and discussed the latest information technology trends from BYOD to Big Data, Cloud to CRM, Telephony to IoT and onwards. But frankly, IT for some businesses can be a time and resource-sapping problem, and the constant challenge is …


Making IT an efficient competitive advantage


Participants


Colin Blumenthal: Co-founder and MD, Complete IT


Steve Clarke: Co-founder, Freeman Clarke, provider of part- time IT directors


Greg Harris: Co-founder and sales director, Cloud Distribution


Chris Sykes: Chief executive, Volume, global provider of digital content


Sean Taylor: Managing director, Content Guru


Tim Walker: Managing director, Taylor Made, IT managed services provider


Eamon Wynne: Commercial director, Furniture Village


David Murray: Managing editor and publisher of The Business Magazine, chaired the discussion


Lined up to debate: our Roundtable team Journalist John Burbedge reports the Roundtable highlights


Can all businesses be cloud-based?


The real question the Roundtable quickly confirmed, is not ‘can they’, but ‘should they’. As with many aspects of the information technology world, it is the suitability of the IT to the operations of a business that should determine its adoption or not; and the correct and optimum usage of the IT that will determine its value to the business.


Tim Walker explained: “It depends on what the company is trying to achieve and the procedures and policies that are right for the organisation. Some very large businesses now operate largely in the cloud, and it can also be cost-effective for some small businesses, using Salesforce.com or running Microsoft Office 365, because that can be a low monthly operating expense.”


Taking that type of IT into the mid- market organisations, with more complex requirements, could be more challenging. “Certainly in some sectors, such as professional services, the chance of them wanting all their IT infrastructure mainly in public cloud services is rare due to


THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – MARCH 2015


concerns around data sovereignty and security concerns. A move towards UK-based more localised providers, offering a more customised private cloud service is preferred by most professional services organisations who are moving their IT out of the offices.


“Our recommendation is always for the organisation to define what it wants to do, and to have a clear IT strategy, before it starts picking off cloud services for its business.”


Colin Blumenthal agreed: “All organisations nowadays are aware of the cloud, and it is up to us as IT professionals to explain to them the benefits and pitfalls. But, I think most businesses now realise they will at some time commence their cloud journey.”


He revealed that around 100 of his company’s 370 clients were now on that ‘cloud journey’. “So a significant minority is now dipping a toe into the cloud.”


Wariness about the adoption of a new IT system was natural – people may have had IT problems in the past – but, “. . people are now on the cloud journey and it would be naive for us to believe that in the next


five years there won’t be much more cloud usage by everybody”.


David Murray asked if there were sectors or organisations that would not necessarily suit the cloud.


Professional services were mentioned again and Blumenthal suggested there may be no strong reason to adopt cloud for “organisations where most IT users are in one location, don’t need to be mobile, and geographically the Internet connectivity is not strong.


“There is also a misconception that the cloud is cheaper, but for many business scenarios it isn’t.” On-premise, hybrid and full cloud were all valid options, he added, although cloud prices will begin to reduce over time.


Greg Harris felt that ‘hybrid cloud’ was probably the way forward – “a lot of the people we work with now have all or part of their IT solution in the cloud”. Even though Harris is the co-founder-owner of Cloud Distribution, he accepted that cloud


Continued overleaf ... www.businessmag.co.uk


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