Member Article

Technology’s new frontiers - problems or opportunities?

Fifteen years of growing a successful business in the fastest-moving sector in the world is no mean feat. Garry Sheriff, managing director of Gateshead-based data centre experts ITPS, takes a look at the pace of change and how the Internet of Everything is transforming the business world.

When we established ITPS in 2000 it was the year of the Millennium Bug, predicted to cause worldwide computer malfunction and the collapse of society. Cloud computing was in its infancy and the launch of the app store was eight years away.

The world of IT has come a long way since then, changing how we communicate, gather and manage huge amounts of data, and underpinning every facet of our lives. Big data is big news, with figures showing that data-driven enterprises outperform peers by up to 6% and are up to 26% more profitable.

Data has become power. It has also become our greatest asset, underpinning the shift towards Internet of Things (IoT). This sees everyday objects equipped with sensors, identifiers and wireless connectivity so they can communicate via the internet without the need for human intervention. For example your car could now message your dealer to flag up a service visit, triggering the service desk to automatically text you an appointment.

Take that a step further and you have The Internet of Everything (IoE), which adds in a people element, using networks to connect them with processes, data and things to create intelligence on product, service and customer response. IoE is ushering in many firsts, but its worth will be measured in the ‘lasts’ it creates—the last energy blackout, the last product recall, the last traffic jam.

While a business chain equipped with embedded intelligence means better real-time feedback about performance and how it can be improved, it needs a resilient IT infrastructure that can handle data demands and is based on a robust backup and recovery plan that is regularly tested and reviewed.

IoE is increasing the connectedness of people and things on a scale that once was unimaginable and little of today’s functionality was possible back in year 2000. But we had the same simple aim that we have now - a passion to deliver IT services differently, utilise the best available technology and help clients to squeeze IT budgets while maintaining a flexible, responsive and resilient infrastructure.

It might sound odd but in our years of growing ITPS to a £17m turnover company employing over 100 staff we have never started a conversation about technology, it always starts with what the customer wants to achieve. Maintaining that fundamental principle has paid off, with 94% of clients staying with us for a decade or more, through some monumental shifts in how we all work and live. We see IT as a utility where the client is in the driving seat, while we become their IT conscience by offering insight and bringing new ideas to the table, and monitoring and improving performance to help to boost performance and ROI.

Like any successful business we have seen competitors come and go, and if I had a top tip for other businesses, it would be to focus on honest relationships. When businesses are looking to improve a mission-critical function such as their IT infrastructure, they want to deal with people who they feel have their interests at heart and who are working alongside them as partners.

With so many opportunities and threats around the world of technology you need to be able to trust your IT partner and look under the hood just as you would if you were buying a car, so you understand exactly what you are getting. A dealer would not tell you that you are buying model X then supply model Y, but make the wrong choice of IT partner and you could find yourself buying something that is not what you asked for or what you need. The recession saw some IT companies focus heavily on cost reduction, pushing that as the only driver for change. Lowering costs can be good, but a wiser spend is much more effective in the long term.

Another tip would be to always add value for the customer. Last year we invested in a third data centre, a £4m Tier 3 operation with a 10G communications infrastructure giving clients the fastest connection in the North East plus access to a wide range of flexible, scalable services including build and project space, and fully equipped workspace recovery seats for use in the face of interruption or to temporarily ease pressure on office accommodation.

We built our data centre services around what clients told us they wanted, and with other data centres in the region standing empty through lack of adding in products and services that add value to clients’ businesses, the success of this approach speaks for itself. Working with top partners such as Cisco, the world leader in leader in networking that transforms how people connect, we are constantly able to push the boundaries of what is possible, and look at new ways to add value.

Cisco believes businesses can benefit from IoE if they embrace a digital business model and create the infrastructure to support next generation applications. At Cisco Live 2015, senior vice president Carlos Dominguez urged attendees to become gurus for IoE, saying: “In the last 25 years, we’ve had the birth of the Internet, social media and mobile. None of these things existed then and we’re so dependent on them. Before these technologies, we lived in a very local world. Today in a global world, when anything happens anywhere at all, we’re immediately notified.

“What we’re beginning to see is that technology and connectivity are the enablers.”

His quote illustrates the fundamental principle behind building successful ICT partnerships, which is to look beyond the technology and focus on the desired outcome, and then create an infrastructure that will get the client there.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by ITPS Ltd .