Basic HTML Version
06
magazine
www.binfo.co.uk
agenda
Surface appeal
Diehards who haven’t sold their soul to
Apple will have greeted news of Microsoft’s
entry into the tablet market with great
excitement – and the fervent hope that
the Microsoft-made products do better
than the Zune media player or Windows
Phone (to date). The Surface tablets look
great and come with a full-sized USB
port, built-in kickstand and a 3mm
protective cover that incorporates a
pressure-sensitive keypad for faster
typing. A slightly thicker (5mm)
version features moving keys for
a more traditional feel. The
bad news is Surface PCs
won’t be available
until after
the release of
Windows 8
andWindows RT in
the autumn at the earliest.
www.surface.com
Almost one third (31%) of Brits are unwilling
to share personal data, such as their age or
address, with any third party and only four
in ten (42%) say they trust their doctor/
health service with their private information,
according to a new survey by Pitney Bowes.
Pitney Bowes marketing director Phil
Hutchison said trust was being eroded by the
tendency of businesses to deluge customers with
data requests and adopt an over-familiar tone
in communications as they seek to market more
personalised products and services.
He advises businesses to limit information
requests to data that is clearly relevant to the
product or service offered.
“Customers are likely to be wary of agreeing
to information requests that they don’t
understand. If a retail loyalty scheme starts
asking you for your height and weight, or a bank
asks about your family structure you can only
wonder why!,” he said.
To keep customers on-side, Pitney Bowes
recommends the following six steps:
1. Ensure compliance with data legislation: one
slip can undermine or seriously damage your
reputation;
2. Get the basics right (name, address etc.) before
trying to develop the relationship further;
3. Be clear about your intention. Say why you’d
like to know more and explain the benefit to
your customer;
4. Understand the limits of your brand. Do
customers come to you because you do a
simple service well? If so, don’t attempt to
create a bigger ‘customer experience’ where it
isn’t necessary or valued;
5. Don’t let data defeat you. Technology and
support exists at every business level;
6. Close the loop on communications. Use
what comes back from customers to fuel
further conversations and provide payback to
customers who’ve given you their data.
www.personallypb.com
Employee health
assessments for SMEs
The UK’s first independent staff well-
being programme for SMEs with 50-1000
employees is to be launched by Inspiring
Business Performance (IBP) and vielife.
The online service monitors workers’ sleep,
nutrition, stress and physical activity levels
enabling an employer to identify areas of health
that they can target for improvement, hopefully
leading to increased productivity and reduced
absenteeism.
vielife Online is already used by large
multinational organisations such as Pepsico and
Ashland.
The SME version can be purchased from IBP
at a cost of around £2,500 for 50 employees.
www.vielife.com
Up on the roof
One of the attractions of the Chelsea Flower
Show, for
Business Info
at least, lies in
spotting office products amongst the blooms
(sad, I know).
Following last year’s Basildon Bond garden
and Canon’s eye-catching wide format
decorative prints, 2012 brought us Toshiba MFPs
in Aralia Garden Design’s RooftopWorkplace of
Tomorrow andWorking Solutions’ striking digital
displays in the silver medal winning garden
created by Second Nature Gardens for Leicester
children’s hospice Rainbows.
The former, kitted out with an LCD sports
screen, tablets, laptops and Toshiba MFPs – all
connected viaWi-Fi – aimed to demonstrate
how an unused rooftop space can be turned into
an inspiring working environment.
A more imaginative use of technology could
be seen in the Rainbows garden for hospice staff,
parents and children. It featured an interactive
installation developed by Leicester-based
Working Solutions that uses profile recognition
technology to trigger a series of digital
projections selected according to a person’s age
and gender.
Personal data no longer safe
European consumers have little
confidence in the ability of businesses
to safeguard their data, according to
an ICM survey for Canon Europe. The
Consumer Attitudes to Data Loss
study
reveals that just one in 10 consumers
(12%) believes organisations do enough
to protect their data and three out of
four say they would take their custom
elsewhere if a business leaked their
personal data. Even so, two thirds of
respondents (63%) said they rated cost
more highly than data security when
choosing a supplier.
Over-disclosure likely
Almost nine out of ten (87%) UK businesses admit
they would be unable to identify individuals affected
by a data breach within the EC’s proposed 24 hour
time-frame. In a OnePoll survey of 200 IT decision-
makers for security specialist LogRhythm, 13%
claimed it would take them between one week and a
month; and 6% doubted they would ever be able to
pinpoint customers whose data was affected. Seven
out of ten (72%) feared that the 24-hour notice
period would put them at risk of ‘over-disclosure’ by
forcing them to notify every individual who might
have been affected by a breach rather than just those
who definitely were.
www.logrhythm.com
Unjustified personal data requests erode trust of UK consumers