internet of things joins fight to save the...
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computerweekly.com 21-27 July 2015 1
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The rise of artificial intelligence – and its threat to humanity
How the internet of things could save the honeybee from extinction
Bet365: A company betting on its own technology innovations
Law firm rolls out IT strategy based on single platforms worldwide
Editor’s comment
Opinion
Buyer’s guide to log management
Managing customers’ multi‑channel service experience
Interest in cloud‑based financial applications is rising across Europe
Downtime
computerweekly.com
XX-XX MONTH 201521-27 JULY 2015
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Internet of things joins fight to save
the honeybeeThe IoT is beginning to show its
true value by playing a key part in a project to save the honeybee and safeguard
worldwide food security
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Home
News
The rise of artificial intelligence – and its threat to humanity
How the internet of things could save the honeybee from extinction
Bet365: A company betting on its own technology innovations
Law firm rolls out IT strategy based on single platforms worldwide
Editor’s comment
Opinion
Buyer’s guide to log management
Managing customers’ multi‑channel service experience
Interest in cloud‑based financial applications is rising across Europe
Downtime
Anyone still running Windows Server 2003 is now at risk IT departments now face the pros‑pect of supporting the Windows Server 2003 operating system, knowing that Microsoft will no longer issue security patches. Approximately 11 million machines are still running Windows Server 2003 around the world and 400,000 UK businesses still use the outdated Server 2003 operat‑ing system, according to application migration specialist Camwood.
Collaboration key to defeat cyber threats, says Cert-UKCollaboration is the main way cyber security threats will be beaten, according to Chris Gibson, director of UK national computer emergency response team (Cert‑UK). This approach is the driving factor behind Cert‑UK’s cyber security information sharing partnership, which is aimed at jump‑starting greater collaboration around cyber threats in the UK.
Nokia may seek to re-enter smartphone market next yearAs Microsoft prepares to make a series of job cuts and swallow a $7.6bn impairment charge relating to the mobile devices and services businesses it acquired in 2014, the business’s former owner and partner Nokia has given its clearest hint yet that it may re‑enter the smartphone market. “The right path back to mobile phones for Nokia is through a brand‑licensing model,” said Nokia spokesman Robert Morlino.
Engineering, science and hi-tech sector needs highly skilled staffNearly three‑quarters (74%) of companies in the engineering, sci‑ence and hi‑tech sector demand highly skilled workers to re‑balance the economy, according to a CBI/Pearson education and skills survey. In the survey of 310 UK companies, the engineering, science and hi‑tech sector had the highest demand, followed closely by construction (73%) and manufacturing (69%).
IBM squeezes more out of chip technology with 7nm breakthroughAn alliance of IBM and Samsung researchers have produced the semiconductor industry’s first 7nm (nanometre) node test chips with functioning transistors. The breakthrough follows the $3bn investment into chip technology IBM made last year.
❯Catch up with the latest IT news online
THE WEEK IN IT
IBM
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Home
News
The rise of artificial intelligence – and its threat to humanity
How the internet of things could save the honeybee from extinction
Bet365: A company betting on its own technology innovations
Law firm rolls out IT strategy based on single platforms worldwide
Editor’s comment
Opinion
Buyer’s guide to log management
Managing customers’ multi‑channel service experience
Interest in cloud‑based financial applications is rising across Europe
Downtime
The obstacles to software as a service in banking
THE WEEK IN IT
Defra could face a further £370m in penalties if CAP reform failsThe Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) has estimated it could save itself from fines of up to £370m in the next six years if its reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is success‑ful. A report by the National Audit Office said Defra has been consider‑ing ways to avoid further fines.
Apple Pay contactless iPhone payments hits UK high streetsApple Pay is now available in the UK around eight months after its successful US debut. UK users of Apple’s iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus can now make contactless payments using their mobile phone.
GDS creates outcomes framework for digital inclusion A Digital Inclusion Outcomes Framework has been launched by the Government Digital Service (GDS) to help track digital inclusion in the UK.
UK to invest £45m in digital research and skills centresThe UK will invest £45m in research centres around the country to drive research into the UK’s digital economy. Six centres will be developed, with £23m investment and support from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and a further £22m from other UK bodies.
IaaS adoption to soar as more IT infrastructure moves off-premiseThe European infrastructure‑as‑a‑service (IaaS) market will enjoy a compound annual growth rate of nearly 40% between now and 2019, as enterprises wind down their on‑premise datacentre investments.
Land Rover praised for recall over software security bugLand Rover has been praised for its decision to recall more than 65,000 vehicles affected by a soft‑ware flaw that could be exploited to unlock vehicles. n
.❯ Huawei to implement 4.5G network for Shanghai Disney.
❯ PwC outlines steps to tackle the sprawl of shadow cloud.
❯ Android users not securing devices, survey shows.
❯ Vodafone scheme to help SMEs get online.
❯Catch up with the latest IT news online
Source: Forrester
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computerweekly.com 21-27 July 2015 4
Home
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The rise of artificial intelligence – and its threat to humanity
How the internet of things could save the honeybee from extinction
Bet365: A company betting on its own technology innovations
Law firm rolls out IT strategy based on single platforms worldwide
Editor’s comment
Opinion
Buyer’s guide to log management
Managing customers’ multi‑channel service experience
Interest in cloud‑based financial applications is rising across Europe
Downtime
The rise of artificial intelligence – and its threat to humanityGeneral-purpose artificial intelligence could eventually mark the end of human innovation, writes Cliff Saran
Autonomous cars, automated trading and smart cities are among the great promises of machine intelligence. But artificial intelligence (AI) promises much more –
including being man’s best friend.BigDog was a robot developed in 2008, funded by the US
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the US Army Research Laboratory’s RCTA programme. It was designed to walk and climb – skills humans master instinctively at an early age, but which cannot easily be programmed into a machine. Instead, researchers applied AI techniques to enable it to “learn”.
Imagine a computer that can think better than humans; that can make profound cognitive decisions at lightning speed. Such a machine could better serve mankind. But would it?
“AI that can run 1,000 times faster than humans can earn 1,000 times more than people,” according to Stuart Armstrong, research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute. “It can make 100 cop‑ies of itself.” This ability to think fast and make copies of itself is a potent combination – and one than could have a profound effect on humanity.
“With human‑level intelligence, plus the ability to copy, it could hack the whole internet,” Armstrong warned. And if this general‑purpose AI had a body, he said, “it could walk into a bar and walk out with all the girls or guys”.
But far from being a super hacker – or master pick‑up artist – Armstrong argues that, were such machines to become powerful, the world would resemble their preferences. For instance, he said they could boost their own algorithms.
ANALYSIS
“Were it programmed to prevent all human suffering, the solution
could be to kill all humans”Stuart armStrong,
Future oF Humanity inStitute
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The rise of artificial intelligence – and its threat to humanity
How the internet of things could save the honeybee from extinction
Bet365: A company betting on its own technology innovations
Law firm rolls out IT strategy based on single platforms worldwide
Editor’s comment
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Buyer’s guide to log management
Managing customers’ multi‑channel service experience
Interest in cloud‑based financial applications is rising across Europe
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Beware of extreme machine intelligenceSocially aware, general‑purpose AI could scan the web for infor‑mation and, by reading human facial expressions, it could deliver targeted speeches better than any political leader, he said.
Taken to the extreme, Armstrong warned that it is difficult to specify a goal that is safe: “If it were programmed to prevent all human suffering, the solution could be to kill all humans.”
In his book Smarter than us, Armstrong laid down a few points humans should consider about general‑purpose AI: “Never trust an entirely super‑intelligent AI. If it doesn’t have your best inter‑ests at heart, it’ll find a way to obey all its promises while still destroying you.”
Such AI remains a long way off. Armstrong’s closest estimate of when such intelligence could be developed fell somewhere between five and 150 years’ time. But it is a hot topic, and London‑based DeepMind recently demonstrated how a machine used reinforcement, learning to take what it had learned from playing a singe Atari 2600 game and applying it to other computer games.
DeepMind is not general AI, according to Armstrong. It is nar‑row AI – a form of artificial intelligence that can undertake tasks people once said would not be possible without general‑purpose AI. IBM’s Watson – which won US TV game show Jeopardy – and Google’s driverless car are applications of narrow AI.
Gartner analyst Steve Prentice said narrow AI is a machine that does one task particularly well: “The variables have to be limited, and it follows a set of rules.” For instance, he said an autonomous vehicle could be programmed in a way that could prevent cycle road deaths.
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SDarpa’s BigDog uses artificial intelligence to learn
how to walk on a number of difficult terrains – such as
on ice, (above)
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The rise of artificial intelligence – and its threat to humanity
How the internet of things could save the honeybee from extinction
Bet365: A company betting on its own technology innovations
Law firm rolls out IT strategy based on single platforms worldwide
Editor’s comment
Opinion
Buyer’s guide to log management
Managing customers’ multi‑channel service experience
Interest in cloud‑based financial applications is rising across Europe
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Robots could rule the worldIn the Gartner report, When smart things rule the world, Prentice argued the case for CIOs to start thinking about the business impact of smart machines that exhibit AI behaviour. He noted: “Advanced capabilities afforded by artificial intelligence will enhance today’s smart devices to display goal‑seeking and self‑learning behaviour, rather than a simple sense and respond.”
For CIOs, Prentice regards autonomous business as a logical extension of current automated processes to increase efficiency, rather than simply to replace a human workforce. “For most peo‑ple, AI is slanted to what you see on screen. But from a business perspective, we are far away from this in reality,” he said.
In fact, he said there is no reason why a super‑intelligent AI machine could not act like a CEO or manager, directing humans to do tasks where creativity or manual dexterity is important.
This may sound like a plot from Channel 4 sci‑fi drama Humans but, as Armstrong observed in Smarter than us: “Even if the AI is nominally under human control, even if we can reprogram it or order it around, such theoretical powers will be useless in prac‑tice. This is because the AI will eventually be able to predict any move we make and could spend a lot of effort manipulating those who have ‘control’ over it.”
So back to man’s best friend. Armstrong is not afraid of the metal‑clad robot with an Austrian accent that Arnold Schwarzenegger depicted in The Terminator. For him, a super‑intelligent machine taking the form of a dog and biting the pro‑verbial hand that feeds it is a far more plausible way in which machines could eventually rule the world. n
ANALYSIS
❯Online grocer Ocado is supporting a civilian robot research initiative
Super-intelligent CIOs could mark the end of the
HR department: ‘AI will eventually be able to predict
any move we make,’ says Stuart Armstrong
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How the internet of things could save the honeybee from extinction
Bet365: A company betting on its own technology innovations
Law firm rolls out IT strategy based on single platforms worldwide
Editor’s comment
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Buyer’s guide to log management
Managing customers’ multi‑channel service experience
Interest in cloud‑based financial applications is rising across Europe
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Could the internet of things hold the key to saving the honeybee from annihilation?Gemalto is developing an ambitious machine-to-machine communications project, with agricultural science firm Eltopia and the University of Minnesota, to save the honeybee (and humans) from extinction. Alex Scroxton reports
In a report on the internet of things (IoT) in 2014, the UK government’s chief scientific advisor Mark Walport warned against “trivialising” the potential of the technology.
Walport said talk of fridges that order milk online and washing machines that book their own repair jobs was damaging to the fledgling industry, and distracted attention from the true value of the IoT – to universally improve the standard of living.
But now it has found a place in the fight against colony collapse disorder (CCD), the condition that has decimated honeybee pop‑ulations worldwide. And the IoT may not just be on the verge of saving the honeybee, but humanity itself.
CCD occurs when most of the worker bees in a colony vanish, leaving behind food and a small cohort of bees to care for both the immature larvae and their abandoned queen.
It is a long‑observed phenomenon and has gone by many dif‑ferent names, but it came to prominence in the middle of the last decade, when a sudden rise in occurrences in Europe and North America brought the condition to worldwide attention.
CCD is arguably one of the gravest and least understood envi‑ronmental threats. Bees pollinate more than two‑thirds of the 100 most important crops that feed around 90% of the world’s human population. In the US, the crisis has become so severe that, every spring, millions of bees are bred and shipped to California, where 80% of the world’s almonds are grown, to pollinate a single crop.
If the honeybee were to become extinct, it would have devastat‑ing consequences for agriculture, which would no longer be able feed the human population of more than seven billion. In short, without bees, many millions – if not billions – of people could die.
The role of the Varroa mite in CCDIn light of this prognosis, scientists around the world have been racing to find an answer to the problem.
One of the main causes of CCD has already been identified as the presence of a mite named Varroa destructor. The mite can only reproduce in colonies of European honeybees (Apis mellifera) and Asiatic honeybees (Apis cerana).
ANALYSIS
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Varroa mites feed on haemolymph, the insect equivalent of blood in mammals. They transfer a number of viruses to the bees, including the ominously named “deformed wing virus”, which is an RNA virus – a group of fast‑evolving viruses that includes Ebola and Sars. Should a major mite infestation occur, it would probably wipe out the colony.
How technology can address the problemVarroa can be treated with pesticides, but because pesticides are also thought to be a factor in some CCD cases, Marla Spivak, distinguished McKnight university professor of apiculture and social insects at the University of Minnesota, wanted to develop a non‑chemical way to control it. She turned to agricultural communications firm Eltopia and machine‑to‑machine (M2M) communications specialist Gemalto to help do so.
Gemalto specialises in digital security services and networks. The company builds secure software and operating systems that are embedded in a number of connected devices or objects, including SIM cards, bank cards, tokens, electronic passports and ID cards – all basic components of the IoT. It has previously been involved in environmental projects, supplying the Brazilian gov‑ernment with solar‑powered modules to detect and alert authori‑ties to illegal logging in the Amazon rainforest.
According to Manfred Kube, Gemalto head of marketing for M2M, the company highly values corporate social responsibility, and Kube has been looking for projects that put its technology to good use outside its traditional applications around business processes and logistics.
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Colony collapse disorder occurs when the worker bees in a colony vanish; there has been an upsurge in Europe
and North America in recent years
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The MiteNot projectWorking alongside Spivak and Eltopia, Gemalto helped in design‑ing and deploying MiteNot, a smart beehive frame designed to monitor and manage the internal temperature of the hive.
According to Kube, temperature is important because it can help control the mite problem. “When you heat up the beehive at the right time of the mite breeding cycle, you can effectively sterilise them and keep them under control.”
In fact, the idea of heating up beehives to combat Varroa destructor, but leaving the bees and their broods undisturbed, has been around since the 1970s, when it was developed in East Germany and Czechoslovakia.
“However, this process must be closely monitored and, because beehives are often remote and certainly have no Wi‑Fi, M2M came to mind,” says Kube.
MiteNot is a biodegradable and compostable frame – essen‑tially a screen‑printed circuit made of renewable materials such as cornstarch, and covered in wax. It is camouflaged and designed as a traditional frame a beekeeper might use for bee reproduction.
Gemalto and Eltopia have embedded sensors in the frame to monitor 32 different aspects of the hive that indicate the status of the brood and the mites’ reproductive cycle.
A controller then sends this data to Gemalto’s rugged Cinterion PHS8, one of the slimmest M2M communications modules avail‑able. Each module provides a gateway onto a 3G mobile net‑work to feed the data back to Eltopia’s application, BeeSafe. They include two antenna pads to guarantee more consistent speeds, currently around 14.4Mbps down and 5.7Mbps up.
If the sensors indicate preset thresholds have been met, BeeSafe will then command the Cinterion PHS8 to tell the controller to elevate the heat levels.
MiteNot incorporates a full range of M2M features and func‑tionality for all current 3G technologies, including High Speed Packet Access+ (HSPA+) and five band Universal Mobile Telecommunications Services (UMTS), says Kube.
“This means the bees could watch high definition movies if they wanted to. We also wanted to give Eltopia a migration path to 4G for when the US sunsets its 3G networks,” says Kube.
MiteNot is set to launch later in 2015 as a commercially avail‑able system, subject to the completion of successful trials.
“Eltopia’s MiteNot project is the most innovative and holds more promise to turn the bee crisis around than any other idea that has come along in a very long time, maybe ever,” says Spivak.
There are many other suspected causes of CCD besides the presence of the Varroa destructor mite in a hive, some of which might act synergistically to exacerbate the problem.
At the time of writing, various experts have highlighted the presence of neonicotinoid pesticides and fungicides; selective commercial breeding, which results in a lack of genetic diversity in the honeybee population; malnutrition; increased electromag‑netic radiation; fluctuations in the climate; and genetically modi‑fied crops as theories to explain CCD.
But if MiteNot proves a commercial success, we may well be on the way to beating CCD once and for all – and the IoT will have proved its worth in safeguarding worldwide food security.
Which must be worth more than a connected fridge. n
ANALYSIS
❯Oxford gets a local early warning flood system through the internet of things
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Bet365: A company betting on its own technology innovationsWhile many sites make great use of agile development, run in the cloud and are built on Java and JavaScript, Bet365 is doing IT its own way. Cliff Saran reports
An open‑source functional programming language and middleware – originally designed by Ericsson to support distributed, fault‑tolerant, real‑time software in telecoms
switches – is behind Bet365’s sports betting app.Alan Reed, head of systems development and support at
Bet365, runs a team of 65, which develops the user interface and supports the middleware for the company’s core products. Reed is responsible for ongoing development of sports betting products across the Bet365 websites, across desktop, mobile and tablet.
He says: “We use functional programming rather than procedural programming, because the problems we face are similar to the problems historically faced by the telco industry.”
As a result, in 2012, the company decided to replace Java with a programming language called Erlang.
Erlang was developed in the 1990s by Ericsson for telephone switches. For Bet365, the problems telephone switch providers had to deal with the in 1990s are very similar to the kind of
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Bet365 head of systems development Alan Reed says the betting firm uses the best parts
of different methodologies to develop its software
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problems in running a sports betting website, with issues of reliability, scalability and simplicity.
Erlang enabled Bet365 to build its Cash Out product, launched in 2014. This allows users to close a bet early, before an event has finished, requiring substantial calculation of odds in real time.
Keeping up with innovationThe back end of the Bet365 site has been engineered to handle large volumes of transactions, written as generic code, while the front end is about consistency. “We tend to have a very light‑weight product and keep the front end very small, and our code as portable as possible,” says Reed. But supporting different devices requires a balance between creating a consistent user interface while supporting native features of the device.
HTML5 has allowed Bet365 to create a common product with a small amount of device customisation. “HTML5 has allowed us to write common code,” says Reed.
“We may not have 100% visibility on all the devices around the world, but we can make our code as portable as possible. The app has allowed a certain differentiation.” For instance, he says: “If you are on an iPhone, we’ll try and support certain gestures.” While buttons across different smartphone devices will look different, he says Bet365 tries to give a native feel while at the same time retaining its brand.
Reed adds: “We try to differentiate where technology dictates.” As an example, Objective‑C is used to build the iPhone app, which supported embedded video. Similarly, native Android code is used where features are unsupported in HTML5.
Like many sites, Bet365 uses JavaScript but, rather than give developers free reign to write their own scripts, Reed says the company uses TypeScript, the open‑source scripting language from Microsoft, to generate JavaScript. He says: “It allows us to create quite clean code with a larger team, producing Java in a prescribed format, which means you have fewer problems.”
Creating standard code is extremely important for the website, according to Reed. “One of the challenges we face is, because code is live for a long time, maintenance becomes a larger part of what we do. With more standards, you can reduce maintenance,” he says.
The Bet365 wayRegarding agile software development, Reed says: “We tend to use a proprietary methodology, which has worked well for us.”
CASE STUDY
“because code is live for a long time, maintenance becomes a larger part of What We do.
With more standards you can reduce maintainance”
alan reed, Bet365
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Strictly speaking, Bet365 is using what Reed describes as “the best parts of the different methodologies”.
He adds: “We’re quite open about our development practices, and take the most suitable ones for us.”
Reed says a lot of the challenges the company faces in soft‑ware development are unique; new recruits are taught the Bet365 way.
But the company’s code development does borrow from agile. “We release code pretty much every day and update continually, but you can’t beat a technical specification and a formal require‑ments document,” Reed says.
So the company needs to balance the need in the mobile for continual improvement – where, historically, a waterfall meth‑odology was not suitable – with work that better fits formal
methodologies. “Our demands don’t quite fit 100% agile or waterfall,” says Reed.
Technology oddsIt is surprising that Bet365’s infrastructure is hosted in its own datacentres, rather than in the cloud.
Reed says: “We prefer to do things in‑house, because it is a strategy that has worked for us.”
In many ways this is reflected in the choices the company has made in software development. Its own development methodol‑ogy, basing its back end on Erlang over Java; and standardising JavaScript work using TypeScript, which Microsoft introduced in Visual Studio 2013, serve as examples of how Bet365 is punting on its own technology, rather than following the crowd. n
CASE STUDY
❯Microservices and DevOps are changing software development
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own technology, rather than following the crowd, to get
ahead of competitors
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Law firm rolls out IT strategy based on single platforms worldwide Ashurst head of IT Bruna Pellicci tells Mark Samuels about the firm’s global plan for its core business areas
The best way to interview a CIO is over a cooked break‑fast. True to this principle, Computer Weekly meets Bruna Pellicci, global head of IT at Ashurst, at a café on the
Bethnal Green Road, a short walk from the legal firm’s head office in Liverpool Street, London.
Her family – just as they have since 1900 – runs the café in ques‑tion, E. Pellicci, a grade II‑listed London landmark and an institu‑tion beloved by east London’s builders, hipsters and celebrities. As we talk, family members and morning regulars come over for a chat. Pellicci is the one sibling to have ventured beyond the art deco panelling of the family‑owned café, but she still calls in every day for her early morning cup of tea. And this morning, the pick‑me‑up is very welcome.
A jet‑lagged Pellicci has recently returned from a two‑week trip to Australia. “It’s a beautiful place,” she says of her visit to Sydney. Yet Pellicci’s trip was for work, not pleasure. In September 2011, Australian law firm Blake Dawson combined its Asian business with Ashurst. Full financial merger of the two firms followed in November 2013, with Blake Dawson renamed Ashurst Australia.
INTERVIEW
Pellicci: “Distributing work around the globe is not a straightforward task, but
we try to give our people a global remit”
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While on the other side of the world, Pellicci worked along‑side Frank Baliotis, the recently appointed head of IT for Ashurst Australia. As well as face‑to‑face catch‑ups, Pellicci says the two technology chiefs are in constant communication, be it through email, phone or video chat. “He has the autonomy and I know he’ll make things work,” says Pellicci, who believes effective staff engagement is critical to the modern technology organisation.
“Successful IT leadership is all about having a great team,” she says. “Without your people, you can’t do anything as a CIO. I’m lucky, because I’ve got good people stretched around the organi‑sation and across the globe. My trips to Australia are all about maintaining that connection and ensuring the staff there always feel like they’re part of a much bigger business.”
Building a global technology teamPellicci’s focus on engagement is not just concentrated on interactions with Australia. In June 2014, Ashurst announced it would become the first international law firm to establish a legal and business support services office in Glasgow. The initia‑tive provided an opportunity for Pellicci to consider whether the structure of the IT team was right for the needs of the business. She used the change to create three geographically separate, but highly connected, work hubs.
The London team deals with projects that are close to the busi‑ness, such as project management, core application support and IT architecture. The team in Glasgow, on the other hand, deals with business‑as‑usual systems, manages the service desk, and works on software development and testing. Finally, the team in
Australia focuses on projects associated with Pellicci’s recently signed‑off IT strategy.
Having an Australian IT base also allows Pellicci to consider alternative forms of service provision. By creating one service number around the globe, Ashurst employees can have their IT request fielded by staff in Australia or the UK at any time.
Pellicci continues to refine the working model in relation to how employees in each location develop, manage and run the firm’s global projects. She points to the work of one project manager who runs global initiatives from his base in London. Pellicci also makes reference to a similar individual in Australia, who is work‑ing on an initiative that relies on business sponsorship from an executive in London. In a further attempt to increase integration, Pellicci is looking to appoint a global delivery manager.
“Distributing work around the globe is not a straightforward task, but we try to give our people a global remit,” she says. “Our people have to expect some early starts and late finishes, but the reward is flexibility in regards to when and where they complete
INTERVIEW
“our people have to expect some early starts and late finishes, but the reWard is flexibility”
Bruna Pellicci, aSHurSt
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Opinion
Buyer’s guide to log management
Managing customers’ multi‑channel service experience
Interest in cloud‑based financial applications is rising across Europe
Downtime
their work. And our IT team gets to work on some exciting pro‑jects that are implemented on a global basis. We’re using our approach to the division of work to upskill people.”
Pellicci meets with her global IT leadership team early every Wednesday morning. London‑based executives attend the hour‑long session. Senior employees who are away from the firm’s Liverpool Street base in London call in via video, includ‑ing workers in Glasgow and Australia. “It’s a chance for us to sit down as a team, to talk about what’s happening and to discuss whether we’re being as effective as we can be,” she says.
Creating a strategy for business changePellicci continues to run a broad range of IT projects which draw on her 20 years of experience as a technology profes‑sional. Pellicci joined Ashurst as head of applications in October 2007. Eighteen months later, she assumed her current position as IT director at the firm, which now boasts 28 offices across 16 countries.
Pellicci presented her new IT strategy to the Ashurst board last summer, the aim of which is to deliver a cost‑effective and high‑quality IT service to the firm’s lawyers and clients. The strategy focuses on a broad range of areas but attention is directed towards the creation of a single platform for three core business areas: practice management, taking advantage of Elite’s 3E business software; customer relationship management (CRM), where potential systems are currently being evaluated; and new business intake (NBI), working alongside legal software specialist Intapp.
So, what would Pellicci liked to have achieved by the end of the year? “We’ll be almost finished in terms of those three big projects,” she says, adding that she expects to put the finish‑ing touches to a global approach for CRM in early 2016. “We’re spending time evaluating right now and we have to make sure we have the right strategy,” she says.
“There’s only so much change you can run at one time; push too much transformation and you’re in danger of suffocating the business. You have to take time and reflect on your choices and that’s what we’re doing right now in regards to CRM.”
The three big transformation projects – practice management, CRM and NBI – will provide a strong foundation for further change. Pellicci says some of the decisions regarding the next cohort of programmes are currently being finalised.
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Pellicci is in discussion with the firm’s finance chief and other senior executives about which potential projects are valued and sustainable.
“There’s loads that we want to do in terms of IT,” says Pellicci. “But the reality is always about cost and making sure the money spent helps the business meet its priorities. When it comes to the next set of IT projects, it’s all about the rest of the business making decisions in regards to what kind of flavour of digital technology they would like.”
Focusing on security and mobilityOne key focus remains information security. Pellicci recognises, like so many of her peers, that defence remains a moving target. CIOs could potentially spend every penny of their IT budgets on preventative systems and techniques. Pellicci says the modern focus on security is in sharp contrast to the early days of her career. “When I started working in IT, you didn’t need to worry about people hacking your systems,” she says.
“Now, the cyber threat is a huge concern for CIOs. It’s always the number one priority for legal IT directors. People looking to attack our business could be doing it for fun or they could be doing it to put our clients’ information at risk. Good security isn’t just about IT, either. You have to pay attention to physical areas, like entry gates and people sifting through printouts. You can always do more to make your company feel less vulnerable.”
Mobility is another important area for Pellicci. She aims to make the organisation mobile by default, giving employees an opportunity to work safely from mobile devices and from any
location. Microsoft Lync has been deployed globally across the business. Pellicci is evaluating the best way for the business to make the most of mobility. She says many workers at the firm still use BlackBerry devices, although iPhones have started being approved.
“Technology changes so quickly, so the thought of a model that allows people to choose their own device is potentially great. But that simple strategy can be complicated by the choices people make – what if someone wants to use more than a single device, and should we give these employees access to their corporate information across a range of devices?” asks Pellicci.
“If people use their own devices, you have to make sure poli‑cies are in place to allow you to wipe the technology remotely. You also have to be very careful about charges and the costs that will potentially be picked up by the business. The chal‑lenge is to create flexibility, maintain control and keep costs in check. And like many other CIOs, I’m still searching for the best possible model for mobility that allows us to address all those business concerns.” n
❯The Law Society advises legal industry’s IT teams over cloud computing
“the challenge is to create flexibility, maintain control and
keep costs in check”Bruna Pellicci, aSHurSt
INTERVIEW
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UK broadband needs to be fair and shared
Telecoms regulator Ofcom has put the future of BT’s Openreach subsidiary into play – and hence the future structure of the UK’s critically important broadband infrastructure.
Over the coming months, you can expect to see some robust opinions from broadband providers such as TalkTalk and Sky, backed by smaller rural networks, about why BT’s network infrastructure should be fully split away from the telecoms giant’s ownership.
Expect also to see an equally robust defence from BT about why retaining Openreach is the best option – but also some compromises on BT’s behalf to address justified concerns about what Ofcom called BT’s “incentive to discriminate” against competitors.
By creating Openreach 10 years ago, Ofcom helped to create the most competitive broadband market in Europe at a consumer level – at least, for consumers in reach of BT’s network. The move has stimulated demand and turned broadband into a utility. BT points out that, by the time its superfast broadband roll‑out has completed, it will be available to more households in the UK than the gas network. But we need to make changes at a wholesale level too, to make the next step.
BT will continue to get as much performance out of its copper network as it can – but inevitably, at some point in the future, the UK needs fibre. That copper asset can be sweated for all it’s worth, but a world‑leading digital economy is going to need the capacity that only fibre can offer.
The Openreach network is a national asset. It will never come into public ownership and never again should. But it should be owned by the industry, with shared risk and shared investment.
A shared network, with shared investment and shared profits, is fair to all players – fair to BT which as market leader would still be the largest shareholder, and fair to rural broadband firms who can take a small share and be protected by stock market rules that prevent discrimination against minority shareholders.
It would be a hugely progressive statement from BT if it were to propose such a solution. It would be a test of BT’s rivals if they were willing to stump up the cash to buy a share. The future of the UK’s digital infrastructure is at stake, and the big players need to find innovative ways to improve it. n
Bryan Glick, editor in chief
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The final negotiations in respect of the proposed European Union (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) commenced between the European Commission, the
European Parliament and the European Council on 24 June 2015. These three‑party negotiations, known as the trilogue, are
expected to conclude by the end of 2015 with the adoption of the regulation, which is intended to introduce a new European data privacy law fit for the digital age, and will have a significant impact on businesses and IT professionals.
At a press conference following the first trilogue meeting, all three European institutions reiterated their resolve to reach an agreement by the end of 2015 and have set out a series of meet‑ings over the next months to finalise any outstanding points.
The GDPR will apply not only to businesses based in the EU but, more importantly, also to businesses outside the EU that process personal data collected through offering services or goods to citi‑zens in the EU or from monitoring their behaviour. So the regula‑tion will apply, for example, to a business in the US that through its website collects personal data on its EU customers.
The European authorities want to make sure that businesses comply with the detailed data privacy requirements under the GDPR, and have proposed fines of up to 5% of annual worldwide revenue for non‑compliance. Data protection authorities in EU countries will remain responsible for enforcement, including fines,
OPINION
EU General Data Protection Regulation comes into sharper focusEuropean authorities have reiterated their resolve to reach an agreement by the end of 2015 on a new data protection law that will reach beyond Europe, says William Long
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with the GDPR adopting a so‑called “one‑stop shop” approach where a business will be subject to the supervision of a lead data protection authority in the EU country where it has its main establishment.
With only a few months to go before the expected adoption of the regulation, it is important that businesses both in the EU and outside it get an understanding of how the GDPR will affect them.
Some of the key requirements under the proposed regulation include the following:n Accountability – Core to the GDPR is an obligation on busi‑
nesses to demonstrate compliance with data privacy require‑ments through the adoption and implementation of appropri‑ate policies and procedures.
n Right to erasure – A business will be required to erase an indi‑vidual’s personal data, without undue delay, where the indi‑vidual withdraws their consent or objects to the use of their personal data – subject to a limited number of exceptions.
n Profiling – Profiling is very broadly defined under the GDPR to mean using data to evaluate personal aspects relating to an individual, including predicting their performance at work, economic situation, health, interests, behaviour or location.
n Data breach notification – Information security continues to be a key issue for both industry and many regulators. The GDPR not only imposes requirements to implement appropri‑ate security measures, but also makes it a mandatory require‑ment to report a data breach to the relevant data protection authority.
With the proposed regulation expected by many to be adopted by the end of 2015, businesses should start to consider now its impact and what steps they will need to take to deal with its requirements. n
“With only a feW months to go before the expected adoption
of the eu general data protection regulation, it is
important that businesses get an understanding of hoW the
gdpr Will affect them”William long, Sidley auStin
OPINION
William Long is a partner at law firm Sidley Austin.
This is an edited excerpt. Click here to read full
article online.
computerweekly.com 21-27 July 2015 20
Increasingly, logs can be used to review information security. Unfortunately, complex IT systems have hundreds, if not thousands of different log files, each comprising substan‑tial amounts of data, which may or may not be relevant to
the operations and security of the business. Log management is a content management and big data issue. Everything from Win‑dows to firewalls to servers generates them, which makes collect‑ing and studying the vast amounts incredibly difficult – especially when insights are needed quickly. IT administrators often ignore these automatically generated logs – until the system goes down, when the log files are scrutinised forensically
According to Mike Gillespie, director of cyber research and security at The Security Institute, logs could be used by the secu‑rity manager to build security resilience by tweaking or hardening policy or enforcement and measuring the effectiveness of current methodologies; possibly to expand them to other areas. Logs pro‑vide a useful way to identify training needs or influence decisions relating to content filtering and appropriate access to internet, social media or areas of the network that should be handled sen‑sitively, he says, and help IT and security chiefs identify time‑outs for unattended workstations and allow for increase or decrease in time elapsed as appropriate.
He says: “You can use log data to analyse patterns in behaviour, such as checking to see if users are logging off at the end of their working day or just locking their screens, so any system changes, patches or updates may not take place. Encryption will be ren‑dered useless and the machine is at risk of breach. A pattern of this behaviour or sudden change could be a security warning flag.”
Making the most of logs Most IT systems produce log files to help developers identify how
they behave, writes Cliff Saran – and network administrators can use the data from these to automate security systems
BUYER’S GUIDE TO LOG MANAGEMENT | PART 3 OF 3
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Logs for securitySecurity information event management (SIEM) offers an automated way to tie together all the log data from the network and its security tools, then condense it down into something manageable.
“SIEM tools are a practical way to enable security teams to detect, respond to and prevent incidents in a fast‑moving, data‑heavy environment. They provide a way to detect anomalies and attacks on a network, by comparing current traffic to the average in real‑time. Notifications can then be sent to security personnel to respond and rectify,” says Adrian Davis, managing director for Europe at (ISC)2.
SIEM functionality can be extended to automate actions. He says: “If the SIEM detects an abnormally high amount of traf‑fic going out of a PC (a symptom of exfiltration attacks), it can learn this pattern of traffic and automatically stop it if the issue is detected again in the future. This process can be completed much quicker than a human and improves overall security.”
A log management and intelligence programme could benefit incident response, moving from reactive to proactive. “I believe in creating a forensic‑readiness plat‑form that would leave no system behind, while ensuring that protec‑tion and defence is enabled across the whole landscape,” says Ramsés Gallego, international vice‑president of ISACA, and security strategist and evangelist with Dell Software.
Gallego has experienced projects where certain regulations and legislation have been mapped to the volume of data (or correlated data), to find non‑compliance situations. He says: “I have been fortunate enough to work in forward‑thinking pro‑jects where attacks have been prevented through predictive analysis.”
How and when to respond to risk reportsTim Holma, international board director at the Information Systems Security Association and CEO at 2‑se, says: “If we use software to collect and display this information in a meaningful way, analysts can make informed decisions as to the serious‑ness of a log event in a matter of seconds, and their ability to detect and respond to harmful events improves dramatically. “
Holma says log management must be part of the network infra‑structure to protect against blended threats: “The way to manage log data lies in the ability to look for user behaviour or attitude changes, plus the ability to monitor activity and report on segre‑gation of duties, dual controls and access violations,” he says.
Holma argues that knowing the identity of individuals who access unauthorised data is important, but IT departments and the CISO must ensure the information is correctly organised and correlated to avoid falsely accusing an individual of ille‑gally accessing sensitive data.
“the Way to manage log data lies in the ability to look for user
behaviour or attitude changes”tim Holma, 2-Se
BUYER’S GUIDE
❯How companies analyse server and security logs to
tackle cybercrime and internal fraud, and optimise the user
experience.
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Peter Wenham is a committee member of the BCS Security Forum strategic panel and director of information assurance con‑sultancy Trusted Management. He says that, as with any tool, it is in the setup and configuration that success or failure is born. Reports need to be meaningful and generated on a regular but not too infrequent (or frequent) basis. For instance, he says inactive accounts can be reported monthly but the top 10 users should be reported weekly.
“Strange or anomalous behaviour – such as modifying or delet‑ing a system file, detecting malware on a server, unexpected export of a file, heavy use of resource such as CPU or internet bandwidth or multiple user authentication failures, systems unex‑pectedly going offline – should be defined and issued as an imme‑diate alert,” says Wenham.
Another consideration is storage. He says: “Retention time for log/audit data needs consideration as there can be large volumes of data generated and for a typical business a retention time of around three to six months is recommended.” All parts of an IT system need to have their clocks synchronised to a single central source – and that synchronised to an external atomic source.
BUYER’S GUIDE
Three basic types of logging
n Boundary logging: Set logs at strategic points in the net-work – such as checking intrusion detection and prevention systems and early-warning systems.
n Insider monitoring: Monitor employee and other insider activity to manage insider threat. This includes logon/log-off activity, file shares and the amount of network in use. It gives rise to trend analysis, so behaviour out of the ordinary can be pinpointed.
n Diagnostic: Gather information to measure peak usage, trough usage, disc space and CPU capacity. Much of this will be used for diagnostic and trend analysis in order to forecast the need for additional components on the network.
Source: Mike Gillespie, director of cyber research and security at The Security Institute
“for a typical business a retention time of around three to six months is recommended”
Peter WenHam, BcS Security Forum
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Having good quality alerts issued to an appropriate set of per‑sonnel will greatly assist in incident response, as will the avail‑ability of time‑stamped log and audit reports. By holding log and audit files in a dedicated log server(s) – rather than on each server or device – will assist in any investigation, and making the log server write‑only will protect the files from unauthorised access
and modification. This will allow forensic investigations to take place, Wenham says. Good quality logs, analysis and reporting will feed into the process of improving security after an incident.
But, says Davis: “Log management and SIEM tools have huge potential to make the lives of security staff easier, but they also have an inevitable impact on user privacy. All devices that gen‑erate logs will have an IP or MAC address that is traceable to a user depending on the identity and access management system. Security departments have the ability to go extremely deep into the data, so the practicalities must be balanced with privacy.” n
BUYER’S GUIDE
“security departments have the ability to go extremely deep into
the data, so the practicalities must be balanced With privacy”
adrian daviS, (iSc)2
Log management is a content management and big data issue
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T he adage “the customer is always right” has evolved – now it’s “the digital customer is always right”, reflecting that organisations must provide excellent service in whichever channel a customer chooses.
Today, less than 15% of customer support happens on a mobile device, but by 2017, 35% will take place on a mobile, according to analyst Gartner. However, the human touch will still be important, with one‑third of all customer service interactions still requiring the support of a human intermediary.
Organisations that fail to ensure a seamless customer experience in this multi‑channel environment risk destroying customer loyalty, damaging their brand and losing business. Digital customers are sharing their bad experiences via social media, blogs and reviews. A negative tweet can go viral – and deter thousands of other potential customers.
Managing your customer’s multi-channel
service experienceCustomers expect the same levels of service however they contact you – by phone, in-store, on the web or from mobile. Lisa Kelly looks at how to
deliver the best multi-channel experience
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“Generation D is coming. Digital is changing everything and the next generation don’t question technology – they have grown up with it and they expect everything to be instantaneous and use platforms such as Twitter to express their views,” says Sheila Malone, an expert in consumer psychology at Lancaster University Management School.
Sharing experiencesOrganisations are already interacting with technology‑enabled customers who carry powerful gadgets, such as iPads and smartphones, with which they can instantly share their experi‑ences. Ofcom figures reveal that more than eight in 10 (83%) adults go online using any type of device in any location.
“We are now in the sharing economy where consumers collabo‑rate with each other and on the platforms they use there is little governance. Consumers have a lot of power and can voice their opinions instantly and expect an instant response,” says Malone.
This is a challenge for companies as the traditional customer service approach of relationship management has died. Power is now with the customers who want to interact when and how they choose and from whatever device, on their own terms.
“In the 1990s, organisations strove to attract, attain and main‑tain customers and focused on developing and holding onto relationships with customers, but in the digital era the rules are changing, with a shift in power to the consumer,” says Malone.
Digital customers are mobile and expect digital customer service to be as good as its traditional face‑to‑face equivalent. But Gartner predicts that by 2018, the lack of in‑line contex‑tual knowledge or support in mobile applications will reduce customer satisfaction by 5%. There are still gaps in knowledge within organisations, which affect their ability to ensure positive customer engagement.
For example, Gartner found that 90% of IT leaders did not know if the mobile applications used by their customers had adequate
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levels of customer support built in – yet an estimated 60% of inter‑net users would prefer mobile cus‑tomer service applications as their first option.
A cultural shiftTo deliver a customer‑centric experience in the digital world, organisations should involve all departments, because this requires a cultural as well as a technological shift.
“The entire organisation should act collectively as everyone should understand the strength and power shift to the consumer,” says Malone.
Companies that deliver great service in‑store and at every touch‑point reap rewards when customers spread a positive message.
“Look at Apple. Organisations can turn their customers into advocates, not just customers, because they have a strong affilia‑tion with the brand,” she says.
Social media tracking tools can help monitor and manage what is being said – the aim should be to track trends in real time to respond quickly. A disgruntled tweet about poor customer service vents instant frustration, without the cooling‑off period involved in going home and writing a letter of complaint. This new dynamic means organisations need to reciprocate and engage effectively and rapidly.
“Companies that can respond to this phenomenon will do very well. For example, a Virgin Trains passenger tweeted he needed toilet roll and an employee delivered it. That really is the definition of personal customer service,” says Malone.
But it is not advisable to jump into every channel and adopt all the tools without knowing which are likely to work and how customers may respond, says
Ian Campbell, an experienced interim CIO, who has worked at the Highways Agency, Value Retail, TUI Travel and Transport for London.
“Customer expectations are based on where they had the best experience. Look how First Direct did telephone banking. It was a roaring success because there was always someone to pick up the phone. The principle is often lost because too many compa‑nies will launch a new channel, such as putting up a website, but fail to estimate the volume of interactions they will receive. Get a prototype out early and test it. If you don’t get it right, the cus‑tomer is only one click away from a competitor,” says Campbell.
He agrees with Malone that any approach must be company‑wide: “This is too big to just hand over to the marketing department; the board should be talking about customer service.”
RETAIL IT
“When a virgin trains passenger tWeeted he needed toilet roll, an employee delivered it. that
really is the definition of personal customer service”
SHeila malone, lancaSter univerSity management ScHool
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Seamless omni-channel focusCampbell says that even if an organisation offers self‑service, as many banks have done with online banking, other channels cannot be dropped. Customers require live agents for urgent enquiries such as fraud, or they might want face‑to‑face reassurance about a major transaction.
“The next generation will not think of queuing in a branch to do their banking, but many people still value branches. The focus has to be on omni‑channel and making it seamless,” he says.
Different channels are suited to different transactions and a consumer is likely to use them all, but they expect the organisation to know who they are at every touchpoint. Organisations need an accurate knowledge base where companies can link information from other channels, including peer‑to‑peer interactions, web self‑service and communities, to share with customer service agents.
“If a consumer buys online and is not recognised when they contact the callcentre, they are going to be dissatisfied,” says Campbell.
According to Malone, customers want to move between channels while retaining context, which requires a connected strategy to link processes so data is accurate.
“Getting customer service right is very dependent on knowing exactly who your customer base is and thinking about how they want to communicate, but the experience across channels has to be holistic. Organisations can’t afford to take their eyes off any one mode; they need to integrate every touchpoint with their customers,” she says. n
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Interest in cloud‑based financial applications is on the rise in Europe, as chief financial officers (CFOs) recognise the benefits the applications can bring in terms of reduced costs and improved efficiency.
“Cloud is not the dirty word it once was for European CFOs,” says Andy Wilton, CIO of UK‑based managed service provider Claranet. He adds that this change is partly due to huge advances in cloud security and the delivery model quickly growing in maturity.
While there are still some fundamental concerns about the use of the cloud, including data security, Wilton says many CFOs cite a greater need for higher levels of performance and availability.
Security, performance and availability According to the findings of a recent Claranet survey of 900 IT decision‑makers in Europe, 40% of European IT directors con‑sider security the most important factor in the delivery of finan‑cial applications. Yet 29% of respondents name availability as most important and 31% cite performance. “This is where cloud comes in,” says Wilton.
The survey also shows that data sovereignty remains a key issue for the hosting of financial applications. “Until the EU Data Protection Regulation comes in – and perhaps well after
Financial applications in the cloud are multiplying
CFOs in Europe are embracing cloud-based financial applications following improvements in security and delivery, says Anne Morris
CLOUD-BASED FINANCIAL APPLICATIONS
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Interest in cloud‑based financial applications is rising across Europe
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– in‑country datacentres are likely to remain the preferred method of hosting financial data in the cloud,” says Wilton.
Overall, the research shows 46% of those sur‑veyed use third parties to manage and host their financial applications.
David Parry, director of the management consult‑ing division of KPMG, points out that the number of companies using what he describes as “true” software as a ser‑vice (SaaS) for financial applications is still very low, commenting it is “literally in the tens in the UK”.
Parry notes that take‑up has focused on hosting legacy applica‑tions in the private cloud to save on infrastructure costs, and on hosting niche products, such as financial reconciliation tools.
CFOs still testing the waterDaniel Kimpton, co‑founder and business manager at Statement‑Matching.com, a cloud‑based application for automating sup‑plier statement reconciliation and accounts payable auditing, largely agrees with Parry’s assessment.
“Although we are not seeing a wholesale migration of core ERP [enterprise resource planning] financial applications to the cloud, we are witnessing CFOs dipping
their toes in the water by trying out bolt‑on finan‑cial applications for specific processes, such as supplier statement reconciliation,” says Kimpton.
Parry believes true SaaS that offers “wall‑to‑wall financial functions” in the cloud is the more excit‑ing area, promising real opportunities for a com‑pany’s financial operations in the future.
The potential perceived benefits are pro‑found, and range from a reduction in total cost of ownership by up to 40%, a reduction in the speed and risk of implemen‑tation as a company is forced to adopt standard products, and increased agility.
Overcoming the problem of shadow ITIan Finlay, chief operating officer at cloud computing specialist Abiquo, adds that investing in hybrid cloud – a mix of private
and public cloud – as a business strategy, rather than having to deal with the problem of shadow IT, where business teams use pub‑lic cloud resources autonomously and bypass the IT department, ensures the business can prop‑erly evaluate and measure return on investment.
Challenges remain nonetheless, such as ensuring data is secure and complies with different regulatory
CLOUD-BASED FINANCIAL APPLICATIONS
❯For advice on working with SaaS applications and financial management, this
guide showcases three success stories.
some 40% of european it directors consider security the
most important factor in the delivery of financial applications, While 29% name availability and
31% cite performance
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regimes, overcoming the complexity of integrating legacy sys‑tems with cloud‑based applications, and accepting the standardi‑sation inherent in SaaS products means a company is forced to change its business – not the product – to accommodate them.
Greater automation means better productivityDespite the challenges, surveys continue to show that interest in cloud‑based financial applications is high.
In research from finance controls and automation software spe‑cialist BlackLine, 80% of the 250 UK financial decision‑makers questioned share the view that the greater the level of automa‑tion, the greater the level of productivity.
Meanwhile, 89% of financial decision‑makers say they want their teams to use cloud‑based applications, compared with 28% of respondents who say their teams are already doing so.
“The finance department isn’t historically seen as an innovative part of business, but this is beginning to change as CFOs wake up to applications that can streamline back‑office processes and give them more time to work strategically and ensure data secu‑rity,” the BlackLine report states.
Clive Grethe, vice‑president of sales in Northern Europe at Canopy (the Atos Cloud), notes business leaders increasingly regard the journey to the cloud as an important issue.
“We carried out research and found 75% of CFOs think their businesses are missing out on revenue opportunities by not having the right cloud applications and infrastructure in place to support digital business transformation. As a result, 70% of CIOs and CFOs fear their business will become uncompetitive,
CLOUD-BASED FINANCIAL APPLICATIONS
Surveys show that interest in cloud-based financial
applications is high
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with the majority [76%] estimating this will happen as soon as the end of 2015,” says Grethe.
Companies seeking cloud benefitsFrance‑based construction materials group Saint Gobain is one company looking to the cloud to streamline its financial opera‑tions. It has deployed a SaaS sys‑tem from BlackLine.
“Because of our unique situation, where we have 16 different ERP sys‑tems and 28 different instances, it proved to be a great opportunity to consolidate our balance sheet rec‑onciliations,” the company says.
Another is Third Financial, which has migrated its wealth management software, Tercero, to Claranet’s managed applica‑tion hosting service, placing it in a secure, fully virtualised environ‑ment. Claranet takes responsibility for every aspect of the live appli‑cation environment, including the security of the data held in Tercero applications.
“Compliance is the big issue wealth managers worry about, especially when they entrust their data to a third party. We need to assure our clients their sensitive data would be safe with Claranet for two important reasons: so they can reassure
their own customers, and to satisfy compliance regulations from the Financial Conduct Authority,” says Stewart Foster, CEO of Third Financial.
Specsavers has also moved financial applications to the cloud. Matt Buckley, group planning and reporting lead for finance at Specsavers, says the optician had been “living in a world of Excel
silos” before it decided to make the leap to the cloud by deploying a system from Adaptive Planning, which provides SaaS‑based cor‑porate performance management software for financial planning, forecasting and budgeting.
“Budgeting and planning had become a version control nightmare among numerous stakeholders and contributors, and inaccuracies increasingly threatened to throw business goals off course. We were in desperate need of a single version of the truth on which we could base current and future budgeting deci‑sions,” says Buckley.
Now, Buckley says the company has visibility into its key perfor‑mance metrics, all through a single pane of glass. “It has allowed us to drive discussions based on a single view of the entire busi‑ness, giving us the historic picture that allows us to look forward based on real trends,” he adds. n
CLOUD-BASED FINANCIAL APPLICATIONS
“some 75% of cfos think their businesses are missing
out on revenue opportunities by not having the right cloud
applications and infrastructure in place to support digital business transformation”
clive gretHe, canoPy (tHe atoS cloud)
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Interest in cloud‑based financial applications is rising across Europe
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Vaizey and Campbell in technology spatThe prospects for light‑hearted political point‑scoring were high at last week’s TechUK annual dinner in London, with Conservative digital economy minister Ed Vaizey and former Labour spin doc‑tor Alastair Campbell guest speakers at the black‑tie bash.
First up was Vaizey, who suggested that Campbell was only there to plug his new book. Campbell took to the stage later to chide Vaizey over the fact that the digital minister has a meagre 27,600 Twitter followers to Campbell’s 314,000.
Campbell then recounted his experience in government of the security services’ paranoia about mobile phones, telling the assembled IT industry leaders how he had to give his phone to his
security detail every time he went to another country on govern‑ment business. The Labour man then turned to Vaizey and said: “So Ed, given you’re sitting next to an executive from the Ministry of Defence, I wonder what they think about the fact you’ve left your phone charging behind the stage!”
Campbell went on to tell a story about the first text he ever received from former prime minister Tony Blair. “All it said was: ‘This’. A few minutes later I got another, which said, ‘is amazing’.” Then another that said: “You can actually send words.” Before one final SMS saying: “On a phone”.
This, from the prime minister that commissioned the notori‑ously disastrous £12bn NHS National Programme for IT. n
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