Author: mj

Live showcase of cutting-edge technologies aims to help progressive retailers grow their customer revenues across online, mobile and in store

Dublin, Tuesday, 17th November 2015: Leading cloud services provider and connected retail specialist, MJ Flood Technology today announced the launch of the country’s first Connected Retail Lab, located at its headquarters in Baldonnell, Co Dublin.

The lab is a showcase for cutting-edge retail technologies, where retailers can explore opportunities to personalise their customers’ purchase journey from the high street, to online, in store and mobile in a live demo environment.

Visitors to the lab can experience first-hand the power of Cisco Wi-Fi solutions, smart signage, interactive touchscreens, augmented reality retail entertainment and deep customer analytics.

Connected Retail is the linking of consumers, devices and data to create more personalised shopping experiences, boost basket values and increase overall customer revenues.

Market research analyst Forrester estimates that by 2018, 44 per cent of all in-store retail sales in Europe, or €920 billion, will be influenced by online research, pointing to the importance of a digital presence even if the final transaction isn’t completed online.

Commenting on the launch, Keith Hanley, connected retail lead with MJ Flood Technology said:

“No two customer journeys are the same and as online consumers we have come to expect a high degree of personalisation through consumer-centric communications. We can now carry this personal journey right through to the ‘bricks and mortar’ store and use a host of innovative technologies that positively influence individual purchase behaviour and amplify that through social networks.

“This translates into higher basket values and deeper customer loyalty for retailers,” he said.

Some of the technologies on show at the Connected Retail Lab include high performance wireless networks from MJ Flood Technology’s partner Cisco, as well as facial analysis and profiling software, which generates in-depth customer analytics based on eye tracking, emotion recognition, age, gender, ethnicity, head pose, mood and clothing style.

When combined with digital signage, these triggers deliver relevant advertising content in real time and are a powerful mechanism to measure advertising effectiveness.

Interactive touchscreen and mobile applications as assistive application platforms for the consumer are also on display with an emphasis on helping retailers to develop mobile apps and feature sets that drive conversion rates, increase loyalty sign ups and boost order values.

To help retailers in their journey towards innovation, Hanley and his team will support proof of concept pilot projects and a number of these have already been successfully deployed for leading retailers here.

“We’ve decided to take this one step further through proof of concept projects for retailers who see potential in using selected technologies,” said Hanley. “This will allow them to test the various technologies, engage all stakeholders and develop a prototype in a low risk and low cost environment.

“This proof of concept opportunity can include the supply and support of hardware devices, assistance with pilot software development, and access to consultants and finance should solutions make it to deployment status,” he said.

By Jonathan Finglas, enterprise account manager,  MJ Flood Technology

As of January 2016, Ernst and Young (EY) have announced that a university degree will no longer be an essential requirement for successful application to their workforce.

In addition, one of the UK’s top law firms, Clifford Chance have introduced ‘’CV blind interviews’’ giving the assessors no insight into the background of the applicant. This gives every young, ambitious and driven applicant an equal opportunity regardless of background, education or experience.

Why are such industry giants defying convention and radically changing their recruitment policies?

It’s simple. EY have found that this approach provides a more robust and reliable indicator of an applicant’s ability to succeed and flourish within the profession and company. And it’s backed by solid evidence through an 18-month study in which they evaluated their own internal continuous assessments and numeracy tests over previous gained qualifications.

So how is this all relevant to me (and you perhaps)?

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to go to University. However, like so many school- leavers at the tender age of 17, I was unsure of my desired profession for the rest of my life. I based my choice of third level accounting on what I enjoyed in school. The stark realisation soon hit me (as it did many of my friends and colleagues) that just because you like a subject in an academic environment, does not mean you will enjoy it long term or as a profession.

So I abandoned the degree and moved to business development in 2011. I was lucky enough to get a job with cloud specialist, MJ Flood Technology at the backend of a bleak recession for the technology sector. And over the past four years I have worked in numerous positions both in the UK and Ireland benefiting from the tech boom we have all seen in that time.

My hard work and commitment was acknowledged with selection (as one of only two staff members) to attend the Cisco Sales Associate Programme this summer in Amsterdam. I had a valuable if not daunting three-month opportunity to escape the sales floor that had become so familiar and enter the unfamiliar realms of the classroom, which seemed like another world to me at that stage.

Together with some a diverse mix of people, spanning 30 different nationalities with backgrounds in every university course I can think of, I experienced targeted sales and technology education directly relating to my profession.

Much like working professionals that complete evening courses and evening degrees relating to their industry that I have spoken to, I found this approach so worthwhile and rewarding. It allowed me to absorb both technical and sales training in an academic atmosphere while being continuously assessed in topics that I would be living on a day-to-day basis.

It opened my mind to thinking like a university student, to absorb information, study it and apply it, not only with a view to passing a graded exam at the end of an academic year, but to using my knowledge in a profession where I would be evaluated on tangible results for the company that had invested in me.

Very few organisations will take their staff out of the field and send them on training for a three-month period. It incurs a significant opportunity cost and a heavy financial investment. But MJ Flood Technology also see beyond the limitations of a CV and are willing to invest in me and their staff, providing them with the motivation and tools to take their careers to the next level.

It’s easy perhaps for people like me without a third level degree, to welcome this approach from my own employer. But I would encourage non-degree holders to look beyond the obvious career paths and explore other opportunities. Bright, enthusiastic, street smart individuals can flourish in many walks of life. With some encouragement and foresight from the right employer, you too can reach your career milestones, even if that early university degree has eluded you.

Where do you stand on the education versus experience debate? Are you recently graduated and feel that a shift to an experience-based application model is undervaluing your academic achievements? Are you similar to me where you feel it’s beneficial to have past experience and on the job assessment when climbing the workplace ladder?

by Paul Caffrey, senior cloud solutions consultant, MJ Flood Technology

I have spent the last six years of my IT career in MJ Flood Technology, providing white glove, pre-sales Microsoft consultancy to a large telecommunications company (telco) and its clients in the UK.

During this time, I have seen a dramatic shift of mind-set from clients towards the cloud, and witnessed first-hand the declining revenues of the telco industry, contract resign after contract resign.

Clearly, clients see the business value in moving infrastructure, apps or other services to the cloud. Many choose their trusted IT service provider to do this for them but more and more, they are turning to their telco as a one-stop-shop for help and advice to address all their communications needs – including cloud.

It’s difficult for telco’s to compete in this space, moving from a traditional model of selling mobile or fixed line connections to more complex ICT services. But it is possible and time and time again, three critical success factors consistently emerge, that help telco’s compete and beat traditional IT companies to win lucrative cloud service contracts.

Sometimes they are exhibited by one individual and on larger projects these skills are demonstrated by a few members of the engagement team.

• Excellent account management is a must
  In the mid-market space, a telco is at nothing if the account isn’t well managed. It doesn’t matter if the client badly needs the service and if the telco is looking to heavily subsidise it. No technology solutions will be considered unless the mobile account is managed correctly.
• Authoritative pre-sales consultancy and value proposition required
  Once the account is in order, the second hurdle that must be jumped is the actual value proposition of the service and the credibility of the solution design. This is the role that I provide as a pre-sales consultant with my current telco.The value proposition we provide is industry leading and our ability to design complex solutions and deliver migrations from any environment lends tremendous credibility to our offering, allowing us to compete against the largest IT companies in the UK.When discussing businesses infrastructure we can talk with authority, whiteboard sound solutions and provide reference calls when needed.
• Strong negotiation skills to make the deal valuable to both parties
  Getting a deal across the line in the telco world is interesting, as a traditional mobile contract gives a little more hardware credit than the previous one and also offers better packages at a reduced price. The difficulty faced in this is that many businesses expect services heavily discounted or free from a telco, which is clearly unsustainable in the world of ICT. The industry has created this problem thanks to how handsets are funded when provided “free” over a two year contract.This means that you need a strong negotiator to work with a client to get a deal agreed that provides value to both parties. This can be either the account manager, the pre sales consultant or sometimes a third sales specialist who will discuss the contract with the customer and get an agreement that is good for everyone.

Every day that passes, sees telco’s get better and better at providing technology solutions to their customers. These three distinct skillsets blended together will help them better serve their customers.  However, there is still a long road ahead until this is a reality throughout the entire industry.

Connect with me on Linkedin, Follow me on Twitter:  @PaulMMCaffrey, MJ Flood Technology

Why moving to the cloud can transform your business to a modern one?

In recent posts, we’ve explored cloud and mobility and how they are transforming the business world in which we live and work in every day.

And more often than not, the majority of companies looking to cloud and mobile solutions are drawn there by a technical need rather than a need for business transformation.

When I started to think about this it made me realise that even some of our long-term cloud clients are only now beginning to see the value of their investment. Why is that?

It’s quite simple: they just didn’t plan for the type of business transformation that cloud and mobility delivers. They focused on using the technology to tackle a particular short-term challenge but missed the bigger picture of how these closely connected technologies can fundamentally transform the way in which we do our jobs, day-to-day.

The cloud will transform your daily operations. It will increase productivity while stabilising costs. Add mobility to that and you now increase productivity even more and in turn can set more aggressive growth targets that can be achieved organically.

Customers get very excited about the possibilities that cloud and mobility can deliver but oftentimes, they don’t realise the tangible benefits from the solutions we design for them. And the reason for this centres on a lack of planning around internal process change and combining that process change with the cultural ethos of the business.

But that’s why we are here; to help clients identify these gaps and put in place the steps to allow them continue on their journey towards business success.

Most companies start their journey towards business transformation when an email server needs to be replaced, or they have collaboration requirements.

Enter Microsoft Office 365 as a collaboration tool, but buried in that service is so much technology it would make your head spin. Finding applications for all of that technology is where the challenge lies.

For example, many SMEs don’t realise that these cloud services open up to the world of “Big Data” or data analytics, which allow you to drill down into operational or financial data and use it to inform better decision-making, decisions that are made on cold, hard facts and not simply a hunch of the CEO.

Transforming to a modern business is the order of the day, not just to survive but to thrive in the new world order that we live in. And to make sure that this happens, consider your plans around the following:

• Think mobile first: if you’re not thinking about mobilising your workforce and enabling them to work form anywhere they wish, you are seriously hampering your ability to grow your business. In Ireland, we need to physically see our employees to know that they are working but this needs to change.We have to encourage a level of trust in our staff and measure them on business outcomes and not just on hours spent sitting behind the desk, ostensibly working as hard as we want them to.
• Cloud is here: if you’re not using it already you need to get using it now. It supports workforce mobility and almost guarantees productivity increases, but it also enables new, more flexible and responsive ways of working with each other and your clients.
• Use the cloud for data analytics: this is the really big one. With cloud on your side, you can now drill into your data and make more informed business decisions. The growth of CRM this year will be huge as more companies look to the cloud for these services due to the built in business intelligence tools that are now part of these offerings. Critically, they allow businesses of all sizes to review real time business information and make informed decisions based on accurate metrics and figures.

The modern business is not a sales pitch. It’s a new way of thinking about how you run your daily operations and how you can enable your staff to deliver the most that they can. Embracing this new way of working might seem alien now, but once adopted, you will quickly realise that any alternative was foolhardy.

When you embrace the three core areas above, you might even look back and wonder how you ever managed your business without them.

Dublin, 30th September, 2015: Leading cloud services provider, MJ Flood Technology today announced its entry to the Swiss market, thanks to a six-figure contract for Microsoft support services with the country’s largest private telecommunications provider.

Sunrise Communications AG has contracted MJ Flood Technology to assist with its launch of Microsoft Office 365 to the Swiss market by providing multilingual activation and support services to its Small Office Home Office (SOHO) customers.

This brings to 165,000, the total number of Office 365 users supported by MJ Flood Technology across Ireland, UK, Germany and Switzerland.

The initial phase of the contract focuses on supporting OneDrive for Business, part of the Office 365 suite, which offers users up to 1TB of secure online storage.

Office 365 is Microsoft’s successful cloud-based productivity suite for business, consisting of email, document sharing, online conferencing and cloud data storage.

Commenting on the deal, James Finglas, managing director with MJ Flood Technology said:

“We’ve built a strong reputation among European telcos for business process outsourcing around the Microsoft Office 365 stack. By choosing to use our Office 365 Centre of Excellence, telcos can reduce time to market, achieve higher than average license activation rates and boost their traditional telephony services with new revenue streams based on cloud services,” he said.

Cloud services are a big part of the Sunrise business strategy, according to Teresa Martinez, business development manager for Microsoft’s Cloud Solution Provider program with Sunrise:

“As a telco, a key part of our business strategy is to offer cloud services. But the most important factor for us is that they are connected to our carrier services, with innovative, cost-effective mobile tariff bundles that offer real value to our customers,” she said.

“We’re operating in a mature market so the only way we can differentiate ourselves is to base it on service or operation fulfilment. The majority of our SOHO aren’t fully aware of the potential business benefits of the cloud so we are making an investment in a high level of service and dedicated support to accompany them as they start their journey.

“Having multilingual support in German, French, Italian and English is crucial for us to deliver the best service experience.”

Brian Murphy, director of cloud services with MJ Flood Technology believes it’s vitally important that telco customers are successful in the launch and delivery of cloud services throughout the entire customer journey, from sale through to activation and post-sales technical support.

“Sunrise has done a great job of understanding their customers’ journey which in turn has led to very high sales volumes, activation and adoption rates,” he said.

The main channel for reaching SOHO customers is through Sunrise’s network of 94 retail stores, staffed by up to 500 sales advisors. OneDrive for Business does not have strong brand recognition in Switzerland but retail staff can easily explain the benefits of the solution, which is ideally suited to mobile business owners, sales professionals or field-based employees.

“In some ways, this segment is similar to consumers as many work from home or are in start-up phase,” said Martinez. “They start to develop business needs and as they grow and add employees, they need to share business information. OneDrive for Business is ideal for that. Customers have to get used to this way of working instead of having everything stored on the desktop.

“We chose MJ Flood Technology for our Office 365 launch as they offered the best service and had the added experience of working in the telco market. We could have easily chosen another organisation to provide support but the team demonstrated real understanding of our processes and operating environment and this gave us confidence in them,” said Martinez.

Sunrise will look to launch the full Office 365 suite to its SOHO customers in early 2016.

Ends

About Sunrise Communications AG

Sunrise is the largest private telecommunications provider in Switzerland that covers the full range of telecommunications: Mobile, landline network, Internet and digital TV. Sunrise focuses on its customers’ needs and satisfaction to delight them with innovative products and services.

Sunrise has the aim to be the most innovative and most customer friendly telecom company in Switzerland. Therefore we live the values of transparency, fairness and customer orientation.

About MJ Flood Technology

MJ Flood Technology specialises in total ICT solutions. Its business includes a full communications portfolio incorporating network infrastructure and security, content management, disaster recovery, and cloud-based managed services. MJ Flood Technology is part of the MJ Flood Group of companies, a wholly-owned Irish operation established in 1935. Its team of technical professionals are accredited to the highest industry standards and the company is a Microsoft and HP Gold Certified Partner. MJ Flood Technology has its headquarters in Dublin with eight regional offices. For more information, see www.mjf.ie

by Guido Marchetti, cloud solutions specialist, MJ Flood Technology

Following the end of the world’s largest BETA testing program, Microsoft has announced that as of 29^th July, 2015 Windows 10 will be available. And here’s the really nice part – it’s FREE.  Take a minute to reflect on that. Microsoft are actually giving away their latest and greatest operating system for free with no hidden costs into the future.

This is part of the ‘new look’ Microsoft and believe me when I say there is no reason that you shouldn’t take them up on their offer. Anyone using Windows 7 or 8/8.1 Pro will be entitled to download and install Windows 10 for free, inside a 12 month windows of its release. After that, upgrades to Windows 10 will be charged.

Microsoft have never done anything like this before, and whether it’s seen as a rather clever ploy to capture significant market share in the mobile device space or a blatant attempt at complete world domination, the fact is that the majority of us use Windows and should take full advantage of the offer as it could be a one-off.

Here are eight reasons why you should upgrade to Windows 10 now.

1. If you’re already a Windows 7/8.1 user and have made investments in hardware and software, you won’t want to simply throw that away, and rightly so. But your existing device will run Windows 10, and not only that, it may even run a little better as I have already experienced with some of my own devices. It’s not a panacea for aging hardware. Don’t expect too much performance improvement if your device has an older profile, but if it’s a relatively recent purchase you may see some noticeable differences. With Start Up and Shut Down for example you go from in most cases 40 – 90 seconds to in some instances an 8 – 12 second boot up of Windows 10 which is mightily impressive.

2. The apps that used to live in the start screen or Metro of Windows 8/8.1 can now live in your Windows desktop. So if you want to bring Netflix in to watch that TED talk while you are creating your slide deck and be inspired, you can now do that.

3. For the first time also a Windows OS will be mobile agnostic. So your iPhone and Android devices will work and integrate with your Windows device via a new phone companion, and with Cortana the personal assistant going to be built into Windows 10, you will also be able to install a Cortana App on your iOS and Android device to sync with your desktop. With these features, Microsoft is clearly trying to make itself relevant in the syncing of devices, and I would imagine that One Drive for Business and personal use will become a key part of that strategy.

4. If you are a serial multi-tasker, you can also run separate desktops to manage your workloads easily. My only advice here is to upgrade your current devices to Windows 10 for now, but when the time comes to really change how you work on your laptop/desktop, consider purchasing one of the new touch enabled devices designed for Windows 10. You’ll be surprised at the impact it has on your productivity.

5. The Start Menu is back. Yes. For those of you who missed it, it’s back with a new section that brings the tiles layout from Windows 8 with it, but it’s not as scary as in the past.

6. Cortana your personal assistant is here. (If you’re like me and partial to the odd computer game you may recognise Cortana from Halo). She has been living on Windows phone for some time now and with Windows 10 she will also live on your laptop. (Note: you will have to change your regional settings to United Kingdom and your keyboard settings to enable her on both phone and laptop as alas the Irish accent is a difficult one).I have used Cortana for some months now, and not only is it useful for setting reminders, but it will, if you allow it, start to pre-empt your requirements. For example, I allow Cortana to access my GPS services via the phone and from this I can get information on traffic incidents between home and work. With access to your calendar, Cortana will advise you when you should leave for your next appointment, which is a clever touch.  You can even ask her to recommend a place to eat and using Yelp services you will get a list of restaurants. Every Tuesday I need to put my bins out and more often than not I forget which drives my wife mad. But now with Cortana I ask her via my laptop before leaving the office to remind me to put the bins out and she does, just as I pull into my driveway. It’s not necessarily a business benefit but it does help you to organise your life a little better. Apple users will say that Siri does that and she does of course, but Siri doesn’t live on all your devices, nor will she sync over them all.

7. Wi-fi Sense is another new feature in Windows 10 that also makes life a little easier. It essentially automatically connects you to Wi‑Fi networks around you that it knows about by crowdsourcing networks that other people using Windows have connected to. These are typically open Wi‑Fi hotspots you see when you’re out and about. It can also automatically connect you to Wi‑Fi networks that your Facebook friends, Outlook.com contacts, or Skype contacts have shared with you after you’ve shared at least one network with your contacts. When you and your contacts share Wi‑Fi networks with each other, you give each other Internet access, but don’t get to see each other’s passwords. No networks are shared automatically. When you first connect to a network that you decide to share, you’ll need to enter the password, and then select the Share network with my contacts check box to share that network.

8. Microsoft Edge is the new web browser and it is very slick. It has a reader view which removes all the HTML clutter and just leaves text which is very useful, and the way it uses the entire screen with no border is very aesthetically pleasing.On the downside, plug ins are in some cases unavailable so that’s a bit annoying, but I have a Surface Pro and I just love the ability to edit webpages and then share them to my colleagues. Microsoft took their snip tool and made it easier to use and more fun. It takes a small bit of getting used to but it’s a vast improvement on IE 11.

All in Microsoft have done a great job getting back to an OS that is hardware agnostic and delivers a great end user experience. What are you waiting for?