Death of the credit card....

Credit and debit cards may soon be a thing of the past, as newer, more efficient ways of paying emerge. All technologies must adapt to the changing demands of users, and payment methods are not immune to this. But as card payments are used so frequently by so many, the implementation of a new process will not be easy.

There have already been some exciting and innovative ideas for how to move the payment system forward. Back in 2004, an approach was trialled in which fingerprints were linked to bank accounts – meaning items could be purchased using just fingers and thumbs. However, not enough key high-street players were prepared to invest, so it fell by the wayside.

More recent times have seen the launch of mobile wallet apps, which hope to speed up online purchases by ‘digitising’ customers’ credit and debit cards. It’s looking promising too, with over 100 retailers having agreed to accept payments from O2’s app service. As this is a relatively untested technology, security is the main stumbling block for implementation – although personal details, such as pin codes, passwords and other financial data, are held on remote central servers rather than on the mobile devices.

It’s not just the end users that are affected by impending changes though – certain types of businesses will feel the impact the most.

In the UK, retailers are currently required to use Chip-and-Pin to authorise card payments. The problem with this is the cost for vendors: because the terminals handle the encryption of data, they are more expensive than the old magnetic card readers. This can price out smaller retailers from accepting card payment – which may equate to substantial revenue losses.

A new form of payment that negates this encryption charge could be excellent news for the estimated 20 million companies that are currently priced out of accepting card transactions.

The mobile wallet technology could also be of great benefit to tradesmen, such as plumbers, decorators and electricians - who are disadvantaged due to not being able to accept card as a form of payment. Customers could simply use their phones to transfer the money on the spot.

At Intrinsic Technology, we are acutely aware of the importance of efficient service and customer satisfaction in the retail sector. As customer demands for mobility and flexibility increase, the security required also alters – so our solutions must adapt.

By staying ahead of the curve and improving our understanding of upcoming technologies, we can better serve our customers with the bespoke support they need.

Never miss a tweet: Social media and the contact centre

There are some conversations that organisations cannot afford to ignore.

Social media is one of the internet’s most powerful innovations. Conversations across sites like Facebook, Twitter, blogs and forums have an enormous impact – spreading news, making products and videos go ‘viral’, and allowing customers to engage with businesses as well as with each other.

Comments about products and services are more visible and more swiftly disseminated than ever before. It is critical for organisations to be able to access these comments, to respond where necessary and to engage with both criticism and compliments.

Disengaged companies are all too likely to be accused of being stuck in the past, of not caring about their customers, of being irrelevant and outdated.

But with millions of conversations taking place every day, and content relevant to particular products or companies being generated every minute, keeping engagement simple is a real challenge.

It is not enough to simply open a Facebook page and let an intern create a stream of tweets.

Converged solutions are becoming more important than ever before.

For most organisations, the point at which engagement with social media can best take place is the contact centre. This is the hub of more traditional customer interaction channels, such as telephony.

At Intrinsic Technology we have long been specialists in the deployment and management of contact centre technologies. We are now increasingly seeing organisations requesting solutions, which manage social media alongside telephony, and which actively seek out content as well as waiting for it to arrive. Avaya’s Aura Contact Center, for example, integrates social media monitoring with text, email and other communication channels.

The social web is an open and complex place, and our role is not merely to connect organisations with it, but to make the process smooth and simple. Our expertise can introduce companies to a new era of customer engagement whereby you keep abreast of what your customers and would-be customers are saying across multiple channels. We help you to quickly identify the social media conversations most relevant to our business, analyse that date and respond appropriately all through a centralised contact centre.

Spending to Save

The public sector has a matter of weeks to tie up the last of this year’s budgets. Unspent money allocated for IT investment will not be carried over.

It should go without saying that money should never be spent purely for spending’s sake. Organisations with remaining budget to allocate before the new financial year should not be blindly choosing one-off purchases, but seeking ways of spending to save.

It might sound oxymoronic. But all good IT solutions should drive efficiencies, and that means making cost savings.

This could be in the shape of unified communications solutions that streamline communications between services and end users. It could mean video conferencing tools that negate the need for travelling to meetings, a server virtualisation project that cuts energy expenditure, IP telephony that reduces phone bills or a pre-pay services plan. It could even mean investing in flexible, agile IT that grows and develops with the organisation it serves, or cloud computing that enables a move to managed or hosted services.

In the current economic climate, return on investment is the hottest phrase on IT managers’ lips, and rightly so. In the public sector, where IT budgets are fixed in advance and spending is transparent, it is absolutely crucial.

At Intrinsic Technology we have extensive experience working with public sector organisations of all shapes and sizes. We have relationships with colleges, health authorities, emergency services and local governments. These projects have achieved a range of goals, but the common denominator is always a healthy return on investment.

As the new financial year approaches, and public sector bodies clamour to finalise their budgets, it is important to view return on investment as an ongoing strategy, not a standalone issue.

Budgets next year are only going to get tighter. Clever use of the remainder of this year’s will put the public sector in a position to maximise their 2012/2013 money and strengthen their services.

Bring your own.....

With the festive season over, manufacturers can reflect on bumper sales of smartphones, tablets and laptops. Tablet sales grew by over 250% throughout 2011.* Sales figures released in January by many retailers, from John Lewis to Argos, were bolstered by sales of personal computers and other consumer tech products.

Millions of people worldwide are the proud owners of shiny new mobile Christmas presents. On their return to work, these devices have gone with them. IT managers might be afraid, but there are real business opportunities.

‘Bring-your-own-device’ (BYOD) policies aren’t new, but they are becoming increasingly common.

An interesting point is that businesses are starting to realise that there are more benefits to these schemes than simply keeping employees happy.

Citrix launched a BYOD programme three years ago and has already achieved its targeted 20% IT cost savings. Other businesses are enjoying increased flexibility, as more employees can work remotely or out of hours.

Less tangibly, but no less importantly, employees who can choose which device to work from are happier, more efficient and more productive.

The concern is, of course, security.

As BYOD schemes multiply, those of us in the business of deploying desktop virtualisation tools are in a great position. VDI is the backbone of any BYOD policy, ensuring that everything from a corporate issue laptop to a brand new Christmas iPad can connect safely and securely to the business network.

53% of IT professionals in the UK have implemented desktop virtualisation tools to support the influx of employee-owned devices – an encouraging figure.** It underlines how mainstream VDI is becoming – but leaves plenty of space for new deployments!

As Christmas presents bring a fresh influx of employee demands for BYOD policies, it is great to be able to deliver the tools that make them safe. BYOD and VDI projects can work together to create better businesses.

*Latest figures from market research firm NPD DisplaySearch.

**Independent survey of 1100 IT professionals by Vanson Bourne.

Flexible working requires an enhanced IT support model

Home working policies, hot desking and flexible hours mean it is no longer the norm to see people at their desks throughout the working day. Laptops, tablets and smartphones have made it easier than ever to work remotely, and much more likely that work will takeplace out of normal hours.

Flexible working can have great business benefits – but it is also placing new demands on IT support staff.

Email, access to shared networks and corporate infrastructure are no longer just business critical from 9 to 5 and within a company’s walls. They are essential out of hours and remotely, even for the smallest businesses.

For IT support staff, this means that the environments they are supporting and the hours they are expected to cover have expanded enormously.

Who will take a call when the chairman or CEO cannot access email on his BlackBerry on a Sunday afternoon, or if the sales director cannot access a file for that important presentation because his password has expired? If servers go down or passwords need resetting out of hours, it is no longer enough to wait until the morning.

The old mechanism of a chain of calls to the CIO, then the IT director, then the IT support staff no longer works – it is inefficient, costly, and out of hours, often impossible. Monitoring the corporate IT environment 24/7 is a growing challenge, and one that many in-house IT departments cannot afford to meet.

At Intrinsic Technology we are being approached by more and more companies seeking to outsource their IT support. They are looking for proactive monitoring of their IT infrastructures on a 24/7 basis, and for level 1 and 2 support out of hours.

Our flexible, bespoke solutions provide levels of service that can be impractical or unaffordable for in-house IT departments to deliver, but essential to support the new mobile workforce.

End of Sale for Cisco Catalyst 3560G, 3560E, 3750G and 3750E products

Cisco is about to announce the End of Sale for the following products:

- Catalyst 3750G
- Catalyst 3560G
- Catalyst 3750-E
- Catalyst 3560-E

The official End of Sale notification is not yet posted on Cisco's website, but is expected to be released shortly.

The recommended products moving forward to replace these are:

- Catalyst 3750-X to replace the Catalyst 3750G and 3750E series
- Catalyst 3650-X to replace the Catalyst 3560G and 3560E series

The X-Series products allow either 1Gig-E or 10Gig-E uplinks to be used depending upon the module inserted in the front, along with the appropriate SFP or SFP+ modules. In addition, both the 3750-X and 3560-X support Cisco's new Power Stack technology, allowing power to be shared across a stack of switches. This feature makes more efficient use of power within the stack, whilst improving resilience.

The Catalyst 3750-X switches are stackble using StackWise Plus, in the same way as the older Catalyst 3750G and 3750E products, providing a 64Gbps backplane connection across the stack, which can house up to nine switches.

By ordering the X-Series switches, end users also benefit from a Cisco Enhanced limited lifetime warranty with next business day advance hardware replacement, and 90 day access to Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC) support. This enhanced warranty was not available on the G-Series and E-Series products.

Ethernet storage: When will FCoE gain traction in data centres?

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