Technology Reseller - v10

technolog y reseller.co.uk BULLETIN : TRENDS 5 Consumers paying price for Brexit Consumers are paying the price for Brexit uncertainty as businesses pass on increased costs in the supply chain to consumers. In a survey by The Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS), 60% of UK businesses with EU suppliers say that currency fluctuations since the vote to leave the EU have made their supply chains more expensive to manage. Nearly one third (32%) of UK businesses with EU suppliers have already increased their prices following the Brexit vote, with a further 41% planning to do so. In addition, 23% of UK businesses plan to reduce the size of their workforce to offset Brexit-related costs, while 11% of EU companies have moved some of their workforce out of the UK since the Brexit vote. www.cips.org UK organisations unprepared for cloud outages The majority (77%) of UK organisations have not fully evaluated the cost of a cloud outage to their business and are ill prepared to deal with its consequences, warns Veritas in its The Truth in Cloud report. The survey of 1,200 global business and IT decision- makers also highlights confusion over who has responsibility for ensuring critical business applications are adequately protected in the event of an outage, with 76% of organisations ‘incorrectly’ believing that responsibility for backup of workloads running in the cloud lies primarily with the cloud service provider. www.veritas.com Full fibre roll-out could add billions to economy The widespread construction of full fibre networks could unlock billions of pounds of productivity, innovation and employment benefits, claims a new study commissioned by digital infrastructure builder CityFibre. Researchers examined ten sectors of the UK economy likely to benefit from full fibre roll-outs and quantified their likely impact on 100 UK town and city economies over a 15-year period. They found that access to full fibre could unlock £4.5bn in business productivity, innovation and access to new markets in these locations. A further £2.3bn in growth could be achieved through new business start-ups, while companies’ greater ability to support flexible working could add £1.9bn. Full fibre is an essential platform for the roll-out of 5G, which has the potential to unleash £28bn in benefits, as well as for the Internet of Things and Industry 4.0, where £10bn in benefits can be expected. Wider Smart City enablement, from infrastructure and services to smart energy networks, could add as much as £5bn in the 100 locations examined, while technological improvements in the delivery of healthcare services could be worth £1.1bn. The report suggests that the network roll-out itself would drive £2.1bn of direct economic growth and create (at the height of deployment) close to 7,000 jobs in the construction and civil engineering sectors. CityFibre CEO Greg Mesch said: “The UK economy is crying out for a shot in the arm and this report clearly demonstrates that a national full fibre roll-out would give just that. This is a discussion about far more than just broadband; it is about the digital infrastructure set to power our economy for decades to come.” He added: “CityFibre’s roll-out across 42 towns and cities is underway and we are on track to deliver our goal of full fibre in 100 towns and cities. Given the size of the prize for the UK, all players (industry, government and Ofcom) need to focus on setting the conditions needed to deliver the maximum possible coverage in the shortest possible time. Only then will we unleash the full economic potential of full fibre.” www.cityfibre.com Billions of hours lost through Internet outages UK businesses lost almost 82 million hours to internet outages in 2017, according to research commissioned for business internet service provider Beaming. An Opinium survey of 500 UK firms reveals that last year UK businesses on average suffered two internet outages that prevented them from trading or accessing vital services online. Although businesses suffered twice as many outages in 2016, the severity of incidents was much worse in 2017. Overall, there was a 4% increase in the amount of productive time lost. Last year, it took an average of 12 hours to restore service to businesses with fewer than 10 people, up from 8 hours in 2016, and an average of more than 10 hours to restore service to companies employing 10-49 people, up from 7 hours in 2016. Sonia Blizzard, managing director of Beaming, said: “Smaller businesses suffer the most from internet outages because they are more likely to rely on broadband services designed for household use. The service level agreements on consumer packages tend to permit longer periods of downtime and don’t provide rapid access to technical experts who can address problems quickly.” www.beaming.co.uk Greg Mesch, CEO, CityFibre Source: Beaming and Opinium 2018 Solo 1 person Micro (2-9 people) Small (10-49) Medium (50-249) Large (250+) Businesses suffering downtime 2017 33% 54% 57% 55% 68% 2016 62% 73% 75% 83% 88% Average outages per business 2017 1.4 2.1 1.9 2.1 3.1 2016 2.8 3.9 3.7 3.7 4.6 Average downtime per business (hours) 2017 12.6 24.8 19.7 6.9 28.5 2016 16.7 30.7 25.8 18.2 46.4 Average service recovery time 2017 9.0 11.8 10.4 3.3 9.2 2016 6.0 7.9 7.0 4.9 10.1 Productive hours lost across population 2017 50,885,370 26,709,878 3,862,769 181,979 188,273 2016 55,518,736 18,766,598 3,810,042 326,476 291,230