Business Info - issue 147

BULLETIN businessinfomag.uk magazine 08 FLEXIBLEWORKING EXTENDED HYBRIDWORKING BRINGS FREEDOM TO ‘LOCKED OUT’WORKERS An increase in hybrid working could bring 3.8 million people previously unable to work back into employment, including 1.5 million disabled people, 500,000 carers, 1.2 million parents and 600,00 unemployed, and enable part-time workers to increase their working hours. So claimVirgin Media O2 Business and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) in a new report that highlights the possible impact of more flexible working on the number of hours worked by the unemployed and part-time workers. n 45% of those currently unemployed say they would be able to start work again if they could do so remotely, including unemployed carers (52%), parents (49%) and disabled people (40%); n nearly half (43%) of the UK’s 8.6 million part-time workers say they would work more hours if their employer would let them work remotely. On average, hybrid working would enable part-time employees to work 5.1 more hours each week, putting up to £3,600 extra in their pockets every year and leading to 1.27 billion more hours worked; n informal carers say they could work up to 7 additional hours per week, earning them an additional £92 every week, or £4,800 annually. Overall, cebr estimates that greater flexible working could boost GDP by £48.3bn every year – equivalent to a 2.4% uplift in GDP – from extra hours worked in hybrid roles. On top of this, the report suggests that greater investment in technologies that enable hybrid working could add an extra £76bn to UK GDP by 2025, driving an uplift of £236bn by 2040. Jo Bertram, Managing Director, Business andWholesale at Virgin Media O2, said: “Covid-19 means hybrid working is no longer a nice to have – it’s become an expected and essential part of modern work which boosts the business bottom line while creating opportunities for nearly four million people currently locked out of jobs. “By unlocking a deeper pool of talent and creating opportunities for more people, hybrid working offers businesses and society the opportunity to bounce back stronger. Organisations that embrace it will sprint ahead by attracting the best people, boosting productivity and creating a more diverse and inclusive workforce.” STATIONERY STAEDTLER STREAMLINES ORDERING PROCESSWITH SWIFTCLOUD Writing instruments company Staedtler UK has strengthened its digital presence with the launch of a new B2B app powered by SwiftCloud. Created by Software as a Service (SaaS) provider Adventoris, the SwiftCloud app enables Staedtler’s customers to view thousands of products, communicate with the company and place orders 24/7. Staedtler UK Managing Director Philip Wesolowski says that the new ordering system is a vast improvement on the old one, which was heavily reliant on email and phone orders and visits from sales representatives. He said: “Before SwiftCloud, our trade sales channel operated with manual order capture and order entry which was very time consuming for both sales and customer service staff. Manual processes also led to errors resulting in credit notes and a less- than-perfect experience for the customer. Some of our customers would also wait for a visit from their sales rep to place an order, meaning they placed orders sporadically. “Introducing the SwiftCloud app to our organisation has not only allowed our customers more freedom to order from us whenever suits them, but it has also enabled us to provide up-to-date product information and a whole host of marketing materials to support them too.” www.adventoris.com CLOUD FOUR OUT OF FIVE ENTERPRISES INCUR UNNECESSARY PUBLIC CLOUD COSTS More than four out of five organisations (82%) with workloads running in public clouds have incurred ‘unnecessary’ costs, according to a recent survey of 350 IT and cloud decision-makers in the UK and US by Virtana, provider of the industry’s first unified observability platform for migrating, optimising, and managing application workloads across public, private, hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Key problems highlighted in The State of Hybrid Cloud and FinOps report include: n Disjointed tools: 72% of respondents say they are fed up piecing together disparate management tools to monitor and manage everything from infrastructure performance to cloud cost and migration readiness; 62% cobble together multiple tools, systems and custom scripts to gain a global view of cloud costs. n Silos: 68% of respondents say their teams operate in silos, with 70% admitting that limited collaboration hinders their ability to adapt quickly and improve business outcomes. n Unexpected costs: 82% of respondents have incurred unnecessary cloud costs, which can eat into budgets needed for other areas of transformation. n Lack of programmatic cost optimisation: 56% lack programmatic cloud cost management capabilities, which can mean either that teams are spending too much time managing cloud costs or that cloud waste is allowed to fester. n Lack of visibility across hybrid and multi-cloud environments: 84% of respondents run workloads in multiple public clouds. Yet 86% are unable to get a global view of cloud costs within minutes; 71% agree that limited visibility across the hybrid cloud environment hinders their ability to maximise value, creates inefficiencies and wastes time. n Risk and pressure on IT: 66% of respondents find it hard to gauge whether they are delivering the service levels the business needs; 65% agree that when there is an issue, they are hard-pressed to identify the business impact. Three quarters (77%) cite increased performance issues as one of the reasons pressure on cloud teams continues to rise. Virtana’s findings are consistent with a recent Gartner report, which predicts that 60% of infrastructure and operations (I&O) leaders will encounter public cloud cost overruns that negatively impact their on-premises budgets to 2024 (www.gartner. com/smarterwithgartner/6-ways-cloud- migration-costs-go-off-the-rails). virtana.com/state-of-hybrid-cloud-and- finops-2021 Survey Report The State of Hybrid Cloud and FinOps ©2021 Virtana. All rights reserved. www.virtana.com September 2021 Jo Bertram