Talk About IT #3

‘BRITISH’

SUMMER 2017

The cloud is your friend When you are properly equipped

Phishing Tackled The dangers lurking within your email

What a year 1988 was A trip down memory lane to the year we started

OFFICE 365 • ISO 27001:2013 • GDPR COMPLIANCE • LEGALEX 2017

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Contents 04

Latest News

06

Phishing Tackled The dangers lurking within your email

08

Space: the final frontier Our technical consultants needed more room

09

Why ISO 27001:2013 matters Letters and numbers that inspire confidence

10

The cloud is your friend Why now is the time to consider a hybrid solution

12

Quiss People

12

Who else is using your business phone?

06

The growing threat of telecoms fraud 14

Time for a team talk?

Discover just how Office 365 can improve efficiency

15

Excellence through experience excels at ExCeL Find out how we got on at Legalex 2017

16

10

15

Effective backup? Are you Azure?

Why backing up your data online makes sense

17

Profile: Paul Tozer

18

Skype for Business gets more serious Learn more about the underappreciated software

19

Email and GDPR compliance

21

The new regulations around data protection 21

What a year 1988 was A trip down memory lane to the year we started

22

Quiss donates to help schools in Africa How we helped support IT education in Africa

23

Clients in the spotlight: Bluebird

24

A day on the Quiss helpdesk We follow one of our employees for a day

25

Arrivals: Simon Hartshorn Meet our new Head of Service Delivery

26

Case Study: Prestwood Software Ltd

22

Quiss Technology has been delivering IT support services since we were founded in 1988; the early years of the information technology revolution.

To discuss content or to be part of our next edition, please contact the editor, Tracy Armstrong. t. 0333 222 4334 e. enquiries@quiss.co.uk w. www.quiss.co.uk

QuissTechPLC Quiss Technology plc

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CET enhances business continuity solution Quiss is providing business continuity solutions for CET Structures Ltd, one of the UK’s leading providers of services to the infrastructure, civil engineering, construction, property and insurance industries.

This enhanced BC solution is in addition to the comprehensive support we provide for the IT systems and infrastructure the firm relies on to deliver its services.

Recent incidents like the unexploded WW2 bomb in Birmingham that denied local businesses access to their offices for a few days, has focussed attention on what impact such a restriction would have for CET’s customers.

Recognising the risks, they chose our tailored BC solution. Should an incident prevent CET employees accessing their offices, their entire callcentre team can re-locate to one of our recovery suites in Tamworth.

CET’s IT Manager Scott Hughes explains: “This was a relatively simple solution to implement and offers even greater confidence that it’s business as usual should our office be unavailable for whatever reason.

“Quiss has plenty of capacity to accept all our people, who will simply roll up in Tamworth, switch on the machines and phones provided to start work as normal, with no interruption to the service we provide to our clients.”

Cross Country

contracts Quiss

Cross Country Trains is the latest transport brand to choose Quiss to support their private wireless network, used by staff throughout the UK. The network is critical to its users, as it allows them access to applications essential for rail services to run safely and efficiently.

Cross Country Trains, is now supported by our dedicated team of helpdesk engineers, field service engineers and network specialists, ready to resolve any issues, even those that arise outside office hours.

Happy Mundays on song with renewal Our reputation in the legal sector has received another boost, as UK top 200 law firm Mundays LLP recently renewed its contract with Quiss to provide a fully managed outsourced IT solution.

Mundays operates from offices in Cobham and London, with over 100 staff delivering a comprehensive range of legal services to both businesses and individuals on a regional and national basis.

Our Operations Director, Clive Taylor commented: “There is no better testament to the quality of our service, or the value clients recognise in our Qworks fully managed service

than a contract renewal.

“There are a number of projects in the pipeline that will help Mundays collaborate and connect more easily with their clients, as they strive to strengthen the relationships on which their continuing success is based.“

The proactive consultation included in a Qworks contract helps businesses like Mundays shape their IT systems and infrastructure to improve efficiency, productivity and resilience.

Devonshires Solicitors joins our legal roster Quiss pro-actively monitors 24/7, the wireless controllers, a multitude of access points and the connectivity between them. We also handle hardware repair or replacement, dealing with third-party manufacturers to resolve any warranty issues.

Our growing reputation in the legal sector, has secured a managed IT support contract for Devonshires Solicitors, a law firm based in the City of London with 16 core strengths from Housing Management to Private Client.

Our Qworks solution, which covers each of the firm’s 200 plus users, was agreed following a comprehensive audit that highlighted a number of issues, including the need to upgrade equipment, introduce better storage and re-configure their network to increase performance.

Mark Day Director of Practice Development at Devonshires said: “Qworks delivers everything we need from an operational and strategic

perspective, with the hybrid Cloud solution ensuring our business is well placed for growth and expansion into new regions.

“With improvements under Quiss and the support of their helpdesk analysts, including out-of-hours emergency support, we will be better able to support agile working as we seek to improve the service we provide to our clients.”

Supporting another law firm demonstrates our ability to address the challenges faced in the sector and how our support offers clients a breadth and depth of technical knowledge and resources that few in-house teams could match.

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Phishing Tackled The dangers lurking within your email The mass ransomware attacks that recently brought chaos to the NHS and a huge number of other organisations across the world, once again focussed attention on the dangers of phishing attacks via email.

The threat is very real, with 1 in 10 individuals likely to fall victim and cause untold damage to the organisations for which they work.

More than 90% of hacking attacks follow a phishing or spear-phishing email that unwittingly delivers access to protected systems.

With system security so high, cybercriminals believe the weak links in the security chain are the unsuspecting employees that can be targeted with ever more sophisticated email attacks.

How many times is enough?

What the cyber-criminals rely on, is complacency. No one thinks they will be caught out; everyone in the business has had their training and knows what to expect and what to do when a phishing email is received.

Regardless of how many times people are warned of the dangers, they quickly forget even with all the regular updates and refresher training. It is this complacency that can lead to a security breach, one from which the organisation may struggle to recover.

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One new way of highlighting the problem to employees is to subject them to regular phishing attacks, like those possible with our new service, ‘Phishing Tackled’.

Specific groups or individuals within an organisation can be targeted at different times, with different emails, some of which can have fake toxic attachments.

Phishing tackled this way does not test physical security, a firewall, or system security, but tests an organisation’s security culture and whether every employee understands their role in keeping the organisation safe.

It is designed and regularly updated, to catch people out by replicating the favourite attack methods of the real criminals.

But these ‘spoof’ phishing attacks will result in nothing more damaging than a red face, a word or two of warning and some more training.

Measuring and reporting

This new approach to security relies on simulated phishing attacks that will test the security awareness and reaction of all employees, who are unaware they are being tested.

It’s not just about testing, but measuring the results to show who responded to the simulated attack and what action they took; opened, clicked links, revealed secure information etc.

Working closely with the client, credible emails tailored to the organisation are created that appear to come from likely contacts to help lower someone’s guard – the attack reflects the emails the real criminals will send.

Products like our own ‘Phishing Tackled’ deliver comprehensive reports that identify areas for improvement, along with which individuals need some additional support to prepare them for the growing cyber threat.

The first tests undertaken will deliver a failure rate close to 33%, which should scare you. But after subsequent staff reminders and ongoing training, we would expect to record a failure closer to 5%, which is still worrying.

We are unlikely to ever achieve a success rate of 100% because even the best trained will still make the occasional mistake.

Training and retention As part of our proactive Phishing Tackled service, we offer training that explains all about phishing attacks, what to do and what to avoid. But until an employee experiences a ‘real’ phishing attack, you do not know how they will react.

When those that are caught out are shown the potential results of their actions, they better understand the importance of increased vigilance every hour of the day; in the office, working remotely or working from home.

Our training team helps clients defend against cyber-criminals, with regular sessions on security best practice, covering topics like creating strong passwords and how to protect data on the move.

and continually fail tests. You can concentrate more training budget on these individuals or take steps to ensure they are unable to jeopardise the organisation.

If you would like to know more about Phishing Tackled and why it needs to be part of your security armoury, then please get in touch and stop pushing your luck.

Phishing Tackled is a modern solution for a modern security threat. It will help identify employees who are more susceptible to phishing attacks or who do not care

Be more cyber safe Everyone knows they could do more to protect their organisation against cyber-criminals, but it starts with ensuring everyone in the organisation understands security is their responsibility – from boardroom to reception desk.

• Could you respond quickly and recover from an attack?

What would be the long-term impact of a successful attack? What would be the impact of your data being stolen and released?

Safety requires a shift in culture throughout your organisation. There are practical changes you can make to protect your organisation to prevent its precious information from being stolen, copied or ransomed.

• Are your suppliers and customers taking cyber security seriously? A successful attack on any of these might increase the chance of a successful attack on your organisation, perhaps using compromised email accounts.

Here are a few points to consider, on the journey to making your organisation more secure and more resilient to an attack:

• Engage with every department in your organization; talk to IT, security, corporate communications and HR heads, to plan a clear response to a cyber-attack, with everyone knowing what they have to do.

• Does your cyber security awareness training cover the latest attack methods? Do your employees know what to look out for?

• Discover if every employee, whatever their role, always has the correct information available to them, to ensure they make the right decision. Ask questions and question answers!

• Find out how resilient your organization is to cyberattacks. Could an attack be identified and stopped at source, before any damage is done?

• Assess whether vital information and systems are protected, then backed up appropriately so the organization can recover quickly in the event of an attack.

If you find there are those within your organisation not taking cyber-security seriously, they are a risk to the future of your organisation and action must be taken.

If you need to prove the point, we can spoof phish them and show the dangers lurking on email.

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SPACE THE FINAL FRONTIER New business is good; it’s the lifeblood of our business. But once the elation has subsided, the reality sinks in. Resourcing the service.

Support for the majority of our clients starts with a call to the helpdesk. And thanks to a growing number of calls, because we have more clients not more problems, we need additional helpdesk analysts.

pays to keep the servers, application and data on premise, with utility-based applications like Office365 in the Cloud – the perfect hybrid mix.

But a hybrid cloud solution needs field service engineers to resolve issues

The helpdesk operates without a call queueing system and endeavours to answer all calls within three rings - great for our clients, but a problem for us. Recruiting and training the right people is only half the battle; finding space for them all is another story altogether.

The growing helpdesk has begun to impinge into the engineering team’s space, leading to border disputes and bruised elbows – think cinema seat armrests with your siblings!

Which is why we recently moved the entire engineering team into a new larger office downstairs with plenty of space to expand. This team is also growing, thanks in part to the increasing interest in hybrid cloud.

When manipulating huge amounts of data, 3-D modelling for example, it still

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with legacy on-premise hardware, which happily poses no problem for us here at Quiss.

COLLABORATE TO GROW Clients also now see beyond problem resolving and expect us to collaborate with them to ensure IT is a driver for growth and efficiency, not a stumbling block.

The ever-changing IT landscape and pace of change demanded by business, ensures we work closely and constantly with clients to deliver significant projects against their strategy, throughout the lifecycle of the contract, not just when they come onboard or go through a refresh.

Recently we have implemented infrastructure to support new bespoke applications, consolidated time recording systems, evaluated and recommended third-party security apps. We have also helped three clients migrate part of their activities to the cloud to help improve efficiency and productivity through Hybrid delivery. In some cases, moving some functions to a utility (PAYG) service.

However, security is the big driver of change as the threat of cyber-attack grows. Our engineers are skilled to integrate security applications/ hardware to prevent malicious activity/ attacks and work closely with clients to improve mobile device management.

We also help train employees to

recognise phishing attacks and ransomware (among others), and how to effectively respond as per the Quiss Priority 1 incident process.

The engineering team now includes, system engineers, network specialists, application and desktop engineers and dedicated project specialists, to say nothing of our cloud services team.

Why ISO 27001:2013 matters As you read this Quiss Technology will have completed the rigorous process that comes around every three years, to ensure we retain our ISO27001:2013 certification, the internationally acclaimed standard for information security management accredited by UKAS.

LIMITLESS SPACE WITH AZURE As the benefits of Microsoft Office 365 become clearer to a growing number of clients and prospects, we now regularly find ourselves managing the migration of their data, increasingly to the new Microsoft Azure data centres in the UK. And of course, O365’s expanded service portfolio, including Skype for Business, Teams, Planner and Sway adds to our team’s workload implementing them and optimising systems to ensure users can exploit the full potential of these innovative apps.

Happily, we now have a Head of Talent Management who ensures every person in our business has their career mapped out, with plenty of support and incentives to increase personal qualifications and achieve recognised industry qualifications, especially with a focus on Cloud Services.

All of which ensures we are able to promote from within to fill many of our senior specialist roles, as we continue to expand the teams that deliver the high-quality service our clients demand. Now where did we put that catalogue covering mezzanine floors and sky hooks?

And for those of our readers who are customers, this is really important.

It demonstrates the importance everyone within our business places on the security of the information we handle for our clients and the quality of service we deliver.

Three years ago, almost to the week, many months of hard work and an intensive audit culminated in Quiss becoming the first IT services provider in the UK to achieve ISO27001:2013 certification.

But the effort required in the intervening years has proved this is not just a standard you achieve and forget. It requires that we continually improve the information security management system we have developed, but isn’t just about data security.

The standard looks at the business as a whole, considering our financial strength and any commercial risk to our clients, whilst ensuring everyone in our business understands their responsibility in protecting the data of our clients.

aspect of our business is covered by the certification from the way we operate our stores to our data centre and our helpdesk to sales operation; and that sets us apart from many who hide behind the ISO27001:2013 certification of a data centre.

Often businesses will display the ISO certification for the data centre they use, ignoring the fact that their own operations have not been exposed to the exacting scrutiny of the ISO auditors. And to be honest, achieving certification for a secure data centre is child’s play in comparison to achieving the required standard for your entire business.

No one is suggesting this is done to fool clients, but it requires further investigation on the behalf of prospective clients to ascertain the extent to which the entire business has been assessed and not just the data centre.

Anyway, I’m glad I’ve got that off my chest and next time I’ll go into a little more detail of what’s required, for those of you considering working towards achieving this important standard. There is little doubt it will become increasingly important in the years ahead, particularly if you want to work with government departments, public bodies and large commercial organisations.

Given the growth of Cloud solutions and movement of large volumes of sensitive data over the Internet, it is imperative that clients can have complete confidence in the ability of service providers like Quiss to manage and store data securely – all of it, everywhere.

It’s important to note that every

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The cloud is your friend The cloud is often viewed with suspicion by those that have spent years developing a sophisticated and robust on-premise infrastructure, but it has much to offer and is more friend than foe.

It is difficult to ignore the lure of the cloud and for those still assessing its benefits alongside their still-capable on-premise infrastructure, we believe we have three compelling reasons why now is the time to consider a hybrid solution to develop your datacentre.

Reason 1 for cloud – think enhancement not replacement

1. Disaster recovery and backup – improve business continuity provision through better protection of data and applications.

• A great first step in adopting cloud technology • Protect apps and data against equipment failure and natural or manmade disasters • Your business data will be accessible from just about anywhere 2. Identity – cloud lets you manage user identities and access more efficiently, wherever they are.

Choosing to adopt cloud services to extend, rather than replace your existing infrastructure can increase reliability and performance, whilst expanding your capabilities.

• You can provide access to cloud apps with single sign-on • Empower users to self-manage by resetting their own accounts and passwords • New security technology and updates automatically applied

Cloud will help you deliver secured mobile apps anywhere you have users, whilst reducing the time and effort you expend on the edges of your IT responsibilities.

3. Datacentre extension – no building work or significant investment needed to expand capabilities.

Now, within the first of our three reasons, we need to highlight four areas that we believe will benefit significantly from you embracing cloud technologies to enhance your onpremise resources.

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• Add enterprise-grade virtual machines quickly to meet growing demand • Connect new virtual machines to existing on-premise infrastructure • Demand-led capacity can be switched off and on as needed

4. Database and SQL as a service – apply hyper-scale tools on demand to cope with big date needs • Scale-up or down easily without waiting days to implement new hardware • Converge different data streams from separate platforms • Manage high volumes of data more quickly and more easily Okay, if that’s still not enough to convince you that cloud is your friend and you should discuss next steps with us, let’s take a quick look at another couple of reasons why cloud offers what you need.

Reason 2 for cloud – it’s the future and you’re not King Canute Hybrid is recognised as a viable solution to the challenge of a mobilefirst, cloud-first world, but don’t just take our word for it.

Leading global market research company IDC delivered the following view of 2017 in its ‘Worldwide Mobile Enterprise Applications Predictions’ report: • 25% of IT software budgets will cover mobile app development, deployment and management • 75% on internal core business apps

will be optimised for mobile • 100% of customer-facing core business apps will be mobile optimised By choosing a hybrid future, you have the best of both worlds.

Your on-premise architecture delivers fast local access to large files and lets you closely control access to sensitive information. It also ensures compliance with industry-specific regulations, where appropriate.

And the cloud offers improved data storage and backup, combined with ondemand hyperscalability. It also delivers secured

distributed access to mobile apps; what’s not to like?

That’s two reasons down and one to go, but now it’s going to get personal; we’re going to talk about you, in a good way.

The cloud is not a threat to the role of IT professional, but a great way for mundane day-to-day activities to be delegated and free up your valuable time for more important activities. You will have sufficient time to ensure IT is an enabler for growth of your business and not a stumbling block.

Your on-premise architecture gives you a lot to do. You have to source, purchase and implement hardware, then maintain the infrastructure, systems and services. You must identify and replace outdated equipment, clean infected devices and update software. And we know almost all of your activity goes unnoticed by the wider business.

business. You will be central to helping groups in your business with new applications and projects, not just broken equipment and missing files.

You and your IT team, supported by specialist service providers like Quiss, will help increase productivity and efficiency throughout the business, whilst managing services more effectively as the needs of the business change.

Being able to spend more time on analysis and less on maintenance, you will identify new opportunities by charting data flows and business process information – you will become invaluable to the future success of the business. You’re welcome.

If pressed, we can probably come up with a few more reasons why now is a good time to adopt some cloud technology to develop your business, so get in touch and we’ll talk you through a few more.

Embracing cloud to deliver a flexible and adaptable hybrid solution puts IT front and centre in every modern

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QUISS PEOPLE New starters To support our growing engineering team, we have appointed Dan Mackrill as Technical Consultant (Networks), Andrew Briggs as Senior Technical Consultant (Systems), Martin Batt as IT trainer, James Wattis as Lead Helpdesk Analyst and Alex Catana as Helpdesk Analyst.

In other areas of the business, we have recently welcomed Gerald Martin as Professional Services Manager, Liz Denton as HR Advisor and Simon Hartshorn who has joined us as Head of Service Delivery.

Promotions Luke Purchase and Matt Jones have been promoted from helpdesk support to Associate Technical Consultants, to further strengthen our growing team of engineers.

Tom Hughes and Karolis Vitkus have both been promoted due to their dedication and commitment to solving our client’s problems.

Denise Bamford began life at Quiss as a consultant and testament to her hard work and commitment, she has now been appointed as Business & Systems Co-ordinator.

Qualifications Dave Willetts - Smith and Paul Tozer passed the Microsoft 70-417 exam, upgrading their skills to MCSA WS 20102. Matthew Jones and Luke Purchase passed the MS 70-410 exam. Both Simon Smith and Tom Hughes have gained the CompTIA A+ 901 qualification with Tom also passing the CompTIA A+ 902 exam.

Steven Porter has also passed the MCSA Office 365 exam. Well done and keep it up Quiss people!

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Who else is using The cost of telecoms fraud is currently estimated to be almost double that of credit card fraud, but with businesses keen to protect against brand damaging stories, few get to hear about the crimes and more importantly how to combat them.

Here in the UK, there remains a growing and costly risk to the security of business communications that is largely being ignored. Many businesses are still falling prey to telephone system fraud and many will not yet have realised.

The problem only really comes to light when an unexpectedly high telephone bill arrives and by then it’s too late.

Hackers have already accessed the phone system of the target business and run up huge bills, generally for overseas phone calls, without anyone being aware.

The crime is toll fraud and because the system owner is contractually obliged to pay the bill, whatever the amount, there is little chance of redress if your system is hacked. There is also little chance of catching the criminals, which explains the growth in activity.

proving their skills to an organized fraud netting criminals, huge profits.

The worry for SMEs is that criminals are now turning to smaller organisations, which are seen as easier targets, with lower security standards. There has been huge publicity to encourage businesses to secure their data networks, but the telephone system remains something of a blind spot, with even cloud-based systems just as vulnerable to attack.

Your passwords need changing Even the largest organisations can struggle to manage their phone system effectively. The setting and regular changing of voicemail passwords is often overlooked and for smaller firms, it can be even worse, with no one detailed to manage the system.

Unfortunately, users will typically pick easy to remember passwords or PIN to protect their voicemails and these will often be guessed by hackers, who are often only seeking to steal minutes; but a lot of them in a short time period.

The phone fraudsters are adopting new approaches, just like their phishing counterparts to make detection and prevention more difficult. A recent trend that has come to light, is for fraudsters to make many small frequent attacks that are unlikely to trigger alarms or hit credit limits, with the thefts able to go unnoticed for a long time.

Phone systems can be remotely accessed to allow system administrators to change the configuration and alter settings. This is convenient, but there is growing evidence that some unscrupulous installation engineers are configuring hidden ‘backdoors’ into the systems and even employees are coerced into revealing passwords for money, to allow undetected access.

The crime has become more sophisticated, transforming from a low-level crime committed by technically proficient individuals

Once a fraudster has gained access to a system it is relatively easy to set up a call forwarding feature.

It allows anyone in the UK to call

your business phone? the compromised system at a local or national rate and the call will be forwarded to a foreign destination at the expense of the organisation that owns the hacked system.

Hackers also target obsolete extensions on a host system, crack the voicemail code and force the system to dial international premium rate phone numbers, typically owned by organisations in league with the hackers.

Education and prevention are key.

There is a lot that can be done to secure phone systems and significantly reduce the risk of being defrauded. The first step is making everyone within your organisation aware of the threat and the potential consequences.

The next step and one that must be repeated regularly, is the changing of passwords and ensuring they are robust and hard to hack. A good idea if you never or only rarely make overseas calls is to ask your service provider to bar calls to international numbers and country codes – this will undoubtedly lessen the damage should a system be hacked.

The same is true for premium rate numbers, which are unlikely ever to be called from a business phone, so get them excluded.

Some of the features of phone systems like call forwarding are a benefit, but a security audit will highlight weaknesses within the system and its set-up. If you’ve never had an audit, speak to us and we’ll help you determine the useful features and those that are not used and present a risk.

fraud-detection capabilities, all of which will help keep you safe from hackers.

But whatever you do, don’t ignore the problem and your next bill might take your breath away.

If you’ve not made the move yet, consider switching to a cloud-based business VoIP service. These are costeffective and provide monitoring capabilities, account controls, offer built-in security and

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Time for a team talk?

Everybody knows what they get with Office 365, with familiar apps that most organisations rely on heavily, like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Skype and Outlook. But what about the features that keep getting added, with little fanfare, which offer huge potential to help improve efficiency and productivity?

The intention is to reduce the delays, log-jams and misunderstandings that can slow communications and derail projects. But it’s not just sitting on your desktop waiting to be launched; although free to subscribers, you have to ask for it to be added.

The latest of these recently added features is Microsoft Teams, a chat-based workspace designed to combine people, conversations and content, with the tools they need, to improve collaboration and achieve more.

The concept was born out of the realisation that organizational structures are much flatter these days, to allow an easier flow of information. Teams delivers an open, digital environment that makes work more visible, integrated and accessible by the entire team, to keep everyone in the loop.

How it all works Firstly, for the modern organisation that might integrate workers at different locations, remote workers and freelancers, into a single project, it works across any mobile device.

It’s easy to create teams from different departments and allow all members to work together using the different apps available within Office 365 and collaborate via SharePoint.

Setting up Teams is simple and only requires a team name and a short description before members can be included.

Driven by an intuitive menu The app has the familiar Microsoft feel and the menu allows users to choose what they want to do: Activity: Shows recent activity that each individual was notified about.

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Chat: Used for one-time conversations with another single team member, which are saved so everyone can review them later.

Teams: Shows group conversations, including the individual channels of each team.

Meetings: Syncs with Outlook calendar and shows meetings in the coming week. Also allows users to create meetings with team members.

Files: Lets users find files that have been used and stored in Teams, OneDrive and Downloads, with a recent tab to check documents being currently worked on.

There is one note of caution as Teams, by default, syncs with OneNote, SharePoint and Planner, which could frustrate experienced users who discover new groups are being created in multiple apps automatically – it can be turned off in admin, so not a massive headache.

When team members chat, the

conversation is saved, so other team members can catch up on developments at any time. Members of the team can reply to a specific individual during group conversations to help reduce any confusion that might occur – like a whispered comment in a meeting.

Although conversations can be seen by the whole team, it is easy to make any discussion private when required. And it’s not just about typing messages, with Skype integrated to allow team members to collaborate in voice and video conferences.

Team members can also add a little of their own personality to the digital workspace using emojis, stickers, GIFs and custom memes to make it their own.

Remember, if you want to get Teams started and start reaping the collaborative benefits, you only have to get in touch with Paul Tozer and he’ll talk you through the next steps.

Excellence through experience excels at ExCeL Regarded by many as Europe’s most influential legal event, Legalex at ExCeL London on the 28th & 29th of March, proved a big success with record numbers of visitors, many of whom made it onto our stand.

Overall the show was busier than last year and it was interesting to see firms of all sizes and all areas of the UK represented in the footfall.

We joined almost 150 of the world’s most innovative legal suppliers, to explain the benefits of our almost 30 years of experience in managed IT services and associated technology.

Interest in our managed IT services offering was high; both outsourcing and integrating services with in-house IT teams so they can offload more mundane activities to concentrate on driving growth and productivity gains.

Growing interest in our hosted voice service, expertly presented by our Telecommunications Manager Terry Faria, was likely to have been sparked in part, by BT’s decision to decommission its ISDN infrastructure by 2025 – now is the time to consider alternatives.

Interest will have also been driven by the desire of law firms to cut costs, whilst improving productivity with closer collaboration through communication flexibility across multiple locations.

One visitor summed up the issue nicely when asking; “could the implementation of hosted voice technology be cost neutral?”

The answer that over the course of a typical three-year deal, there is potential to make savings and productivity gains equal to or greater than the cost of the necessary equipment and hosting services, certainly ensured a longer conversation and site visit.

Whilst you always expect a number of souvenir hunters, looking to re-stock their stationery cupboards at events like this, the overwhelming number of visitors seemed intent on finding practical solutions to the challenges they face in an increasingly competitive and scary world for law firms.

Falling into the ‘scary’ category, would be the rise of cyber-crime and particularly the targeting of law firms, with the impact of GDPR next year running a close second. We were running seminars at

Legalex to explain that the response to both issues requires a three-pronged approach.

Firstly, it’s essential to get policies and procedures in place to mitigate the risk of attack. Secondly, it’s vital not just to train staff about the dangers of cyber-crime, but to regularly test how employees respond to a phishing-style attack.

The last piece in the jigsaw is to ensure the business is insured not just against a cyber-attack, but also for the potential swingeing fines levied under the new GDPR regime following a data breach.

Although for the most part it was an interesting and entertaining show, our experience of the show demonstrated there are a lot of serious issues keeping law firm Managing Partners, Office Managers and IT Directors awake at night; productivity and efficiency have been joined by cyber-security training and testing as priorities for the modern law firm.

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Effective backup?

Are you Azure?

In amongst all the noise generated by the high profile WannaCry ransomware virus and the British Airways computer system problems (to put it mildly) in May, one fact that has emerged is for every organisation to have a good, accessible, recent back-up of their systems and data.

We all now operate in the information age; big data rules, but only if you recognise its value, protect it, keep it safe and know how to use it, without anyone or anything else compromising it.

There has never been a greater risk to the security and integrity of all this information, which is why backing up data safely and securely should be an integral part of any effective long-term business strategy.

Azure Backup is the answer Whether you call it back-up, backup, BackUp or Backup (it’s this last one), this offering from Microsoft Azure is a simple, cost-effective backup-as-aservice (BaaS) solution that delivers protection for your data wherever you keep it.

Whether you have data on your servers, on your clients, in the cloud or any combination thereof, this entirely scalable and available solution does what you need it to do, without any upfront investment.

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16 | Talk About IT

most of the Microsoft app stable it is available on subscription; pay the monthly fee and you’re ready to go.

Azure Backup combines minimal maintenance with cost efficiency, consistent tools for off-site backup, unified application availability and protection for all your data, everywhere you might have it – except memory sticks down the back of the sofa.

Your data is stored safely for easy recovery when you have problems, thanks to Azure Backup, with Azure Site Recovery on hand to replicate, fail-over and recover workloads, so that they remain available when failure occurs.

Azure Backup provides comprehensive protection for applications, including SharePoint, Exchange and SQL Server.

And it also protects all files and folders, whilst also providing effective backup for Windows servers and clients, along with Azure infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) virtual machines.

Tapes are so last year Driven by the needs of the organisation or for compliance requirements, data must be kept safe and protected for years, with the amount of information needing to be stored, growing significantly every day.

And it shows no sign of letting up.

For many years, tapes have been the favoured option for long-term retention of data; if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, being the standard defence for those eschewing change.

There is now a cost effective solution, so it’s time to drop the tapes and choose Backup, with its shorter recovery times and almost a century of safe retention in UK-based data centres if required.

There are likely cost savings too, with lower prices for the amount of backedup data combined with cheaper high bandwidth connections.

Backup as a service The process is simple and secure. Your data is encrypted before leaving your datacentre, then transfers via a secure connection and is encrypted again on arrival, to be stored in Azure. Three copies of your data will be made and

Azure Backup in brief • Simple and reliable cloud-integrated backup • Daily, weekly, monthly or annual protection schedules • Protects data on-premises and in the cloud • 99.9% availability guaranteed • Efficient incremental backups • Data encrypted in transit and stored • Geo-replicated backup store • Centralised monitoring and reporting

Profile: Paul Tozer Head of Cloud Services

all of these will be stored in different locations within the data centre.

Microsoft is opening data centres in England and Wales, which ensures that three more copies of your data can be stored at another datacentre entirely, hundreds of miles apart to satisfy even the most exacting compliance requirements.

At least 99.9% availability (nothing is ever 100% guaranteed) of the backup and restore functionality of the Azure Backup service delivers complete peace of mind for all those who choose this very modern cloudbased solution.

Not only efficient but cost-effective Once the initial backup is complete, to reduce the flow of data, only incremental changes are made at scheduled times, rather than complete new backups.

These incremental changes can be specified as daily, weekly, monthly etc., depending on how much data you can afford to risk losing.

It’s a simple equation. Backing-up more regularly will cost more, but with less data lost in the event of an

incident, recovery will be easier and cheaper.

Conversely, occasional backups will be much cheaper, but you risk losing a lot of data, when things go wrong – to say nothing of angry passengers at check-in desks!

Azure Backup is the Swiss army knife of back-up solutions. It comes with built-in features to improve efficiency, including compression, encryption, longer retention and bandwidth throttling, which all comes as part of the attractively priced package.

Easy in easy out With Azure Backup, it’s a simple payas-you-go model with no termination charges. You just rent the storage you require on a monthly basis, paying only for what you use, when you use its.

To show you just how easy and costeffective it is, a backup instance of 250 GB is likely to cost less than £14 per month, when hosted in one of Microsoft’s UK regional data centres.

If you would like to know more and find out how much Azure online Back-ups might cost, please contact us at enquiries@quiss.co.uk

This is our go-to cloud man, Paul Tozer, who unsurprisingly is the font of all technical knowledge, with an unrivalled grasp of all things cloud.

He joined as a Senior Network Specialist, but soon demonstrated an inspiring aptitude for every aspect of hosted services.

Paul is responsible for developing our growing hosting facilities and helping clients along every step of their journey from on-premise to hybrid to full cloud – he is an advocate of ‘whatever works best for the client, not necessarily what’s fashionable’.

He is also responsible for ensuring adherence to ISO 27001 policies and procedures within our data centre, whilst maintaining its technical documentation, together with resource planning for our cloud services.

Although a self-confessed technophile, Paul believes highquality client services will remain central to our continued success.

When away from long hours in the office, this dedicated father of two enjoys Karate, helping out his local scout group and growing vegetables.

Talk About IT | 17

SKYPE FOR BUSINESS GETS

MORE SERIOUS It’s been around for years, but it still feels like its potential has never really been appreciated, or indeed exploited.

However, that situation is about to change, with the growing number of Office365 users recognising Microsoft is serious about making Skype for Business the only phone system a business needs.

Already offering a range of calling features, Skype for Business Cloud PBX subscribers now have Auto Attendant and Call Queues as part of their service. These recently added features, not only makes it easier for businesses to handle incoming calls, but makes Skype for Business a serious alternative to traditional telephone hardware.

Auto Attendant – this automatically answers and then directs calls to the relevant individual or department. It’s easy to set up where calls are directed and uses advanced speech recognition to understand callers’ requests shortening the time to reach the right contact.

Call Queues – this feature is designed to improve customer satisfaction by forwarding calls to the next available live attendant in the order calls are received, to significantly reduce waiting times for those calling busy businesses or departments.

Skype for Business allows organisations to replace traditional phone systems. It allows employees to organise meetings, and make, receive and manage calls within the familiar Office 365 environment, using any

18 | Talk About IT

device, anytime, anywhere they have broadband.

Add Cloud to blue Skype thinking Also, ready to change the way businesses think about their voice and video communication is Skype for Business Cloud PBX, which includes call management within the Office 365 admin console, which allows communications to be managed alongside email, content and collaboration.

Operating a business phone system in the cloud, eliminates not only the need for traditional phone system hardware, but the associated maintenance costs.

Skype for Business does all the standard phone call stuff as well as any traditional phone system, but shows its strength by allowing users to transform a basic voice call into something more productive with text, video, and desktop sharing all possible in the same call.

Skype for Business Cloud PBX includes some great features to improve call handling: Call and answer - answer calls with a touch and make calls by dialling the number or clicking a contact in Skype for Business or Outlook.

Call history - keep track of all your communications, from IMs and phone calls to meetings, everything is logged in your call history and stored in Exchange.

Call transfer - easily transfer calls from PC to IP phone, mobile device, or tablet and any combination of devices for greater convenience.

Camp-on – If the contact you’re after is unavailable, tag them and receive notification when their presence changes and they’re available for calls.

Call forwarding and simultaneous ring - never miss a call by creating forwarding rules so your calls follow you anywhere, or forward calls to colleagues or voicemail.

Do-not-disturb routing and call blocking – when busy, it’s easy to control inbound communications with presence and block all except those you want.

Music on hold - when you place a call on hold, callers will hear music and know they are still connected, which is still better than silence!

Voice mail - all voice mail messages can be stored in an Exchange mailbox and made available through Skype for Business on a user’s PC, mobile device, and IP phone.

There can be no doubt that Skype for Business, in its many guises, offers a new high-quality communications experience for even the smallest business and is probably worth discussing with us today to unlock the potential within.

Email and GDPR compliance GDPR - four letters greatly misunderstood, but already beginning to deliver sleepless nights for many.

Coming into effect on 25 May 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation contains demanding obligations, with potentially crippling financial penalties for any organisation that breaks the regulations.

These new regulations will deliver increased protection for the rights of individuals through the way their personal data is processed. Anyone who suspects an organisation holds data on them will have the right to know what data about them is held, with access to it in certain circumstances, which must be corrected if proved wrong.

Some business sectors are particularly worried by the new right to restrict certain aspects of data processing and an individual’s right to object to their personal data being used in direct marketing campaigns.

The focus is largely on processing and storage of personal data, but it’s important not to ignore email security and governance when assessing the compliance requirements. In preparing for the new regulations, it’s email that’s often overlooked when in reality, nearly all email servers and archives will contain a multitude of personal data.

The new regulations will therefore require organizations to manage backup and archived copies of emails and the personal data typically contained within them. And this is where some pain will be felt, by those sensible organisations that maintain backups of their data – the new regulations could mean all data relating to an individual must be located and erased.

Reducing the time for which emails are archived could help mitigate the potential burden, but it will be important to find the right details to delete without affecting the remaining emails.

Risk of a data breach The problems could really start following a data breach, when every individual contained within the email archives might have to be notified that their personal data has been compromised – not just the send/ receive emails, but potentially all those individuals included in email chains!

work to resolve, if the process is not automated. It can be and even small organisations might decide now is the time to address the issue, with plenty of time to get organised before the new regulations are implemented.

At Quiss, we continue to stress the importance of training our clients’ employees how to recognise and react to a phishing attack, but strong search and e-discovery abilities will help reduce the risk of a crippling workload in the event of a breach.

We do not claim to have all the answers to the combined challenges of GDPR compliance and cyber-crime, but we have a lot of practical solutions that can be tailored to the needs of every organisation, whatever amount of personal data you process or store – ready to talk?

And any such breach could attract a huge number of requests for personal data to be deleted which need a huge amount of administrative

Yes, every archived email The problem is the definition of personal data, which includes personal email addresses, phone numbers and other data commonly managed for marketing purposes.

Talk About IT | 19

Obituary Nicky Brown When Nicky Brown arrived for her first day of work in the Summer of 2012, we immediately knew we had a ‘find’. From day one, she got stuck in, with passion and dedication, soon becoming an invaluable member of the Quiss family.

As many of you know, in December 2015, Nicky was diagnosed with cancer. Despite a valiant fight, she was simply unable to beat the disease as it spread so it is with great sadness that we have to inform you that Nicky passed away on 2nd July.

We have lost so much with her passing. A truly strategic innovator of working solutions, Nicky was committed to the mentoring and advancement of all around her. Her mantra of ‘we are a customer services company, so the customer comes first’ was frequently and deeply drilled into her team

Many of you will have had cause to come to know Nicky and I am sure will remember just how staunch she was in finding a full resolution to the issues that inevitably arise as part of the Helpdesk function. She handled everything with grace and humour and indeed this could also be said of her life outside of Quiss.

A keen horsewoman and dog lover, Nicky’s life was full to brimming. Of course though, her chief love was her family, her husband, two children and extended family who are at the forefront of our thoughts at this time.

So please raise a glass in memory of Nicky; she will be sorely missed.

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20 | Talk About IT

WHAT A YEAR 1988 WAS Easily the most important event in 1988 was the founding of managed IT services provider Quiss Technology, but what else happened in this momentous year?

its initial public offering and increased market capitalization from $1,000 to $85 million.

Believe it or not, in February of this year, Lenny Henry went to Ethiopia as the centrepiece of the very first Red Nose Day telethon. More than 150 celebrities and comedians participated in the event, which raised £15 million for UK charities, with 30 million viewers watching on the BBC.

Creative Labs introduced the SoundBlaster sound card for the PC and Intel released the 80386SX processor, a low-cost alternative to the original 386 processor. Although the 80386SX chip lacked a maths coprocessor, it still featured 32-bit architecture and builtin multitasking, available with clock speeds of 16MHz, 20MHz, 25MHz, and 33MHz – now that’s impressive. Not.

This was also the year when we said goodbye to the pound note, which ceased to be legal tender in March and saw the average house price approach £60,000.

The mighty NTS XT130 launched this year, offering state-of-the-art computing with a 30MB hard disk, a monochrome monitor, MsDos 3.3 and eight expansion slots, for just £995!

Before we get on to our favourite subject of technology, we’ll have a look out on the roads. Iconic models launched the same year as Quiss, include the Alfa 164, Lancia Delta 8v Integrale and the Aston Martin Virage.

Rover Group was sold to British Aerospace, the third incarnation of Vauxhall’s Cavalier appeared in showrooms, VW built it’s 50 millionth car and petrol heads everywhere mourned the passing of Enzo Ferrari, aged 90. It was also sad to lose another motoring legend, Alec Issigonis, who played such a huge part in the creation of Britain’s most recognised car, the Mini.

And on the technology front, just four years since its launch, Dell completed

League Champions and favourites Liverpool. The 1988 UEFA European Football Championship’s, held in West Germany saw the Netherlands crowned as European Champions.

Stefan Edberg won the Wimbledon men’s title and Steffi Graf was the ladies champion, whilst Seve won the Open at Royal Lytham & St Annes. Rhyme ‘n’ Reason won the Grand National and the Formula One World Champion was the incomparable Ayrton Senna.

Portable computing took a leap forward thanks to the Amstrad ALT-386SX Laptop, which offered 16MHz speed, 1Mb of RAM and a 40Mb hard disk.

But with a tiny 640 x 480-pixel screen and a weight of 7kg it could only really be considered portable by the truly dedicated.

Kylie Minogue enjoyed five weeks at number one with ‘I Should Be So Lucky’ and ‘The Only Way Is Up’ by Yazz and Plastic Population was the year’s other big hit. The biggest hit at the box office was Rain Man, which secured Dustin Hoffman the second of his Oscars, with Jodie Foster winning the Best Actress Oscar for her role in ‘The Accused’.

Other big IT names to appear in this year alongside Quiss were: memory card manufacturer SanDisk; peripherals manufacturer Archos; network equipment manufacturer LinkSys; scanner maker Mustek and sound card specialists Digital Audio Labs – yes, we’re that old.

We know it was also a terrible year of tragedy and loss, but we hope this gentle trip down memory lane has brought back some good times for our older readers and shed some light on the mythical 80’s for those who were not fortunate enough to live through this glorious decade.

In sport, it was a fascinating year, with underdogs Wimbledon FC, inspired by the ‘Crazy Gang’ in their 1-0 defeat of

Talk About IT | 21

Quiss donates to help schools in africa Following a number of recent contract renewals, Quiss has once again been able to donate used IT equipment to IT Schools Africa (www.itschoolsafrica. org) which is helping transform IT education in African schools.

IT Schools Africa is a UK-based charity that relies on individuals, schools and businesses donating computers, laptops, IT hardware and monitors.

It has received equipment from us in the past and once the

equipment is refurbished it is then distributed to schools across southern Africa.

Our latest batch of equipment has joined that of other donators to help the Franciscan Convent Boarding School in Luanshya, Zambia; Kitwe College of Education in Kitwe, Zambia; Nabusunga Primary School in Kabwe, Zambia; Nelson Mandela Secondary School in Lusaka, Zambia and the Nyanje Day Secondary School in Sinda, Zambia.

Two schools in Malawi also benefitted from recent donations; the Mulanje Secondary School in Mulanje and the Namikasi Secondary School in Blantyre.

Ian Harrison, Customer Services Director here at Quiss explains our involvement: “When negotiating new contracts and specifying new equipment it is easy to take for granted the technology available

so readily in the UK, where service is perhaps more important than hardware.

“It is good for businesses like ours to be involved in such worthwhile projects and recognise the positive impact even well-used computer equipment can have on the lives of people eager to learn, when given the opportunity.

“This is a fantastic use of old equipment that once we have shredded the hard drives, would probably sit and gather dust for years, with just the odd spare part being removed. It is far better for it to remain intact, with a hard drive added and have a new lease of life elsewhere in the world.

“As a business, we are committed to ethical and environmental causes, so were keen to offer our support to an organisation driven by the same dedication and we’re always happy to help increase the scope of ICT education.”

50,000

1,500

750

9

3 million

computers to Africa

schools equipped with computers

teachers trained

new computer labs

children given access to I.T.

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clients in the spotlight In this new feature, we take a look at one of our clients and the work they do, thanks in part to the support of our IT services.

Bluebird offers innovative office support, delivering a range of services traditionally undertaken by personal assistants to busy lawyers, professionals and executives.

Tasks range from simple transcription of digital dictation and PA services to document formatting and social media marketing.

The firm is headed by Jayne Smith, who has spent almost her entire working life in the legal profession, progressing from legal secretary to document specialist at international law firm DLA Piper.

Jayne explains the focus of her business: “Large UK law firms have entire departments of document specialists, all tasked with creating, formatting, and policing the firm’s house style and brand.

“With such expertise rarely available in smaller law firms, it is common for them to be less familiar with the advanced features of Word and this can easily lead to ‘broken’ documents.

“Small problems can quickly escalate when there is collaboration on agreements between different organisations, particularly when working with documents created by another organisation.

“We are document repairers, amongst other things. We provide the expert care and attention documents need.

We ensure professional standards are maintained, repairing broken numbering and applying consistent formatting and house styles.

“Outsourcing document formatting allows feeearners to concentrate on what really matters and spend less time asking Google (or worse, colleagues) how to add crossreferences or footnotes consistently throughout a document.”

something more important.

Which is good news for Bluebird and its experienced typists. They are ready to work with a client’s existing technology and learn their systems to integrate Bluebird services as far as possible, so support is at hand and importantly, only paid for when it is needed.

The business operates under the ISO 27001:2013 system, the internationally recognised standard for Information Security Management, with data and access to it, strictly controlled – it all remains within UK jurisdiction.

Technology is transforming the legal sector, with voice recognition making inroads into the traditional dictation and transcription relationship, for • Dictation Transcription outsourced service • PA Services providers like Bluebird.

• Document Formatting • Training Services However, there is • Social Media Marketing little training offered

Summary of Services

in the art of dictation and many younger fee-earners struggle to get the document they want, finding transcription of recorded sound files by a human, typically delivers quicker, more accurate work – while they get on with

Bluebird tailor all their plans to suit the needs of each client. The price for services reflects a range of criteria like, required working hours, turnaround time for transcription, maximum time to be spent on tasks etc.

Bluebird has offices in London and Liverpool, but offers a nationwide service to businesses of every size, across all sectors, with the legal sector an area of specialism.

Talk About IT | 23

A day on the Quiss helpdesk (it’s not all tea and toast) For most users, everything runs as it should, files are found, passwords are remembered, reports print and IT problems are something suffered by others.

But when it goes wrong, who you gonna call?

Our clients call the helpdesk and a team of dedicated individuals, who sit on the frontline in the battle to keep clients’ systems running and performing optimally, swing into action.

onto their machine and ask the caller to type http://help.quiss.co.uk into a browser. This opens the Quiss Support Portal where by clicking my name they allow me access to their machine.

It might just be a password re-set or a connection issue, but to the user whose work is delayed or interrupted, our helpdesk analysts are the re-assuring voices that offer salvation and a quickfix – hopefully!

8.03am – machine accessed, the user now explains process to try and print troublesome report. The other reports printed fine, but I can see this one is defaulting to ‘save as pdf’– printer selected and it can be heard springing into life.

Highlights of a typical day for helpdesk analyst Jade 7.40am - arrive and swipe in. Kettle on, bread in the toaster then head up to the helpdesk.

7.50am – forgotten mug of tea and buttered toast delivered to my desk by one of the network specialists. Logged in and headset on, but sat reading through email detailing issues from previous 24 hours that we need to be aware of.

8.00am – first call accepted. I open new call log and enter details of the caller and their issue. I provide the caller with the reference number for their issue and advise it will also be emailed to them after the call.

8.01am – user explains they cannot print a report from within their bespoke app. I need to shadow

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8.06am – waited on phone until the user retrieved printed report.

8.07am – while waiting I notice a particularly tricky issue for another caller has at least three specialists crowded round a monitor next to me, as they try a series of different solutions.

8.09am – user was happy and ended call. I resolved and closed incident in new call log, with a detailed summary of the actions and resolution. User is then emailed with details and call reference number.

The log ensures any helpdesk analyst has access to the entire call history for each user, which can help us spot recurring issues that

might require further investigation.

The Quiss helpdesk support is rare, if not unique in its approach to solving problems, with no call queueing. We have the same three rings to answer rule now, just as we had almost 20 years ago when the helpdesk was set up.

We invest in people and ensure they have the skills for 90% of issues to be fixed by the analyst who answers the call – we employ problem solvers, not call handlers.

More of the same until…

12.03pm – call accepted and new call log opened for a user who has forgotten a password and is working remotely.

12.04pm – log filled in as before and I shadow onto machine. I find the users account, but cannot re-set password without first challenging them for security purposes.

12.05pm – user is able to provide selected characters from her memorable information, which allows me to re-set their account with a temporary password. They will have to change it to something memorable once they have logged in.

12.07pm – incident is detailed in call log and summary email sent to user with call reference number.

Side-note – in this particular instance, if the caller was unable to provide characters from their memorable information, we would not unlock the account. We’d send the email detailing the issue and the call reference number. Typically, the caller will have to re-set their memorable information with the help of their HR team or system admin, who will then notify us of the changes.

The user will then need to re-contact our helpdesk and pick up where they left off, using the original call reference number we supplied – which ensures any of our 35-strong team can pick up the call and resolve the issue.

More of the same and then….

15.37pm – new call log opened and caller details filled in, with description of the issue. In this case, user cannot access a programme they need urgently.

15.39pm – as before, I shadow onto their machine and check all the usual suspects; map drives, locked account etc.

15.44pm – the problem is not obvious and I know it must be escalated for a more detailed investigation.

15.45pm – after popping the user on hold, I chat the problem through with the 2nd line team. Because of the urgency, the call and session are transferred for the network specialist to take over and resolve.

15.50pm – it transpires the issue concerned was a set regarding issue with Peppermint which is quickly resolved, granting the caller access to the programme. As before the call log is updated and the summary is emailed to the user, along with the call reference number.

Okay, so it’s not exactly Jack Bauer in 24 and whilst this brief glimpse at a typical day on the helpdesk fails to capture the intense noise and energy evident in the room, hopefully it helps you visualise the room and the team coming to your aid.

Arrivals:

SIMON HARTSHORN Hello. My name is Simon Hartshorn and I’m the new Head of Service Delivery here at Quiss. I’m not just new, but the first to hold this position, created through the continuing expansion of our helpdesk team.

Calling on my 20 years’ experience in the telecommunications and IT sectors, I’m adding a little more structure to our growing helpdesk operation with a look at how we answer support calls the top of my ‘to do’ list.

The first-line helpdesk team have a good first-fix rate and the approach to escalation is equally good, with just a single call guaranteeing results – my role is about making the incremental changes we need to turn our service from good into great.

There’s no doubting our success in selling our managed services solutions, but I’ve already discovered this is not a business to rest on its laurels, which ensures improving our service delivery is key to our ongoing success.

My formative years were spent in the British Army, as a Senior Technical Supply Specialist for the Royal Corps of Signals, which introduced me to the concept of efficient delivery of technology through disciplined processes – a perfect foundation for my work here at Quiss.

and Transition Management before I made the move into management.

My experience gives me an excellent all round view of ITIL, which ensures we continue to align our own IT services with the needs of our growing business.

It also means I understand the drivers behind the changes our clients are looking to make to their IT systems and infrastructure to improve efficiency and productivity.

I believe Quiss recognise my ability to manage contracts, transitions and projects, ensuring consistency throughout every aspect of the service, working with organisations of all sizes, in all business sectors.

Something of a cliché I know, but I really am a geek and proud of it.

When I get a little free time, I enjoy gaming or reading a good sci-fi novel and I’m also a long-suffering Bolton Wanderers fan.

I’m also a big festival fan and try to get to Glastonbury every year, if I manage to navigate successfully through the nightmare of the ticket purchase!

I’m ITIL and Prince 2 Practitioner qualified and have worked at all levels of service delivery including, Incident Management, Problem Management

Talk About IT | 25

Case Study: Prestwood makes the jump to cloud Prestwood Software Ltd provides comprehensive Financial Planning software. It includes client facing and practice management modules which interlink to show a client a projection of their financial future, opportunities and challenges.

Many of the UK’s most successful lifestyle financial planners, leading networks, accountancy firms and legal practices feature amongst the company’s impressive client list.

Prestwood continues to pioneer innovative, accurate and user-friendly products to extend the functionality, flexibility and compatibility of its software.

Cloud with a silver lining The software that had been developed over many years by Prestwood, was designed as an on-premise solution, installed by each customer on their own servers or individual machines as required.

The task of supporting the servers on which the software was installed was becoming an obstacle to supporting the software itself.

The senior management team at Prestwood recognised the benefits for their clients, of transforming the

26 | Talk About IT

software into a web based application.

This would allow users to access the application using a dedicated URL, simply entering a secure user name and password to get instant access.

reached by Prestwood spending a lot of time and money re-writing their entire software range specifically for the new hosted environment.

Moving to the Cloud is an important step in our growth strategy and has perhaps come to fruition quicker than expected, thanks to the innovative approach to hosting offered by Quiss.

Ritchie Walton, Managing Director Prestwood Software Ltd. The switch to a cloud-based solution would importantly allow users to access the product with any device, from anywhere, at any time.

Prestwood were equally clear on what they did not want; expensive servers sitting in customers’ offices, ongoing hardware maintenance or the need to undertake regular internal backups.

The intention was to ensure all Prestwood clients have exactly the same user experience, but without having to make any changes to their IT infrastructure.

Hassle free switch to hosted platform To achieve the right solution and satisfy the company’s ambition, the desired outcome could have been

However, given the need to transform their offering quickly, to remain at the forefront of providing financial planning software without an interruption to the service, a practical alternative was sought.

Following a period of intensive investigation and consultation, with considerable time spent to understand Prestwood’s business, we recommended that they switch from their current on-premise solution to an Application Deployment Platform (ADP).

This would allow them to host their applications and make them available to clients, without users having to make any changes to their own infrastructure.

Quiss helped us with every stage of the process and ensured it was a quick and simple process.

The platform would make the software available as it currently exists, without any re-write or new code having to be added. And it allows the transition to a hosted environment to happen very quickly.

are happy acting as the ISV Partner and allowing the client to determine their own level of costing, or we can become the ISV and provide fee income or even white label our services as the ISV’s own solution.

Prestwood can now spend time and resources continuing to develop their innovative software, rather than just re-writing it as it currently stands, helping consolidate and streamline its processes to improve efficiency.

A flexible service that suits ISVs

Like most of our services, we are happy to tailor everything to help clients achieve their desired outcomes; if it’s not on the list, it’s because no one has asked yet!

Thanks to our ability to ensure access to our hosting service has the look and feel of each client’s application, the new hosted Prestwood application is identical in appearance to the original on-premise version.

Independent Software Vendors (ISV) like Prestwood, require hosting partners that not only provide the infrastructure capable of delivering their applications, but offer the flexibility of service that allows a dedicated or shared solution dependant on the ISV’s preference.

We design each solution to address a different set of unique needs, mixing public, hybrid and private hosting.

A dedicated infrastructure can be created for the sole use of an ISV to enable them to slice and dice for its customers, or if preferred, they can utilise our shared infrastructure to deliver the same applications.

Hosting helps sales not just users The installation of a web based application to replace the existing hardware system has helped Prestwood change the way they work and improve the service they offer their customers. It has not only made the company’s software easier to sell, but easier to use and easier to manage.

A simple upload to the Quiss platform, ensures all the necessary changes are implemented for every user, without them having to lift a mouse.

This provides end-users with confidence and means no training is required as they will notice no change in the application environment or user experience when logging into the new system.

We expect to help many other successful and ambitious ISVs like Prestwood make the successful move to the Cloud, addressing their unique needs with a dedicated mix of public, hybrid and private hosting solutions.

Software as a Service (SaaS) typically lends itself to the shared infrastructure model, purely because user counts can be increased or decreased without any further capital investment.

As you might expect, our approach to working with ISVs is very flexible. We

Talk About IT | 27

Quiss Technology plc.

Claymore Tame Valley Industrial Estate Tamworth B77 5DQ

28 |

Tel: 0333 222 4334 Fax: 01827 265 001 Email: Talk enquiries@quiss.co.uk About IT