Are we powerless without power?

Our staff member Henny Boonen was caught up in last week's Newcastle storms, where 20,000 of the original 200,000 people are still without power one week after the storm began.

Said to be one of the most devastating storms to hit the region in 80 years, a spokeswoman from Ausgrid said the storm caused more damage to the electricity infrastructure across the Hunter than any other weather event, including the 2007 Pasha Bulker storm.

For those not directly affected by roof losses or falling trees, residents without power found themselves cut-off from every communication medium they usually take for granted. With no power, no internet, non-operational mobile phone towers and smartphones with flat batteries, schools had no way to inform parents not to send their children to school and many businesses were unable to operate.

Those supermarkets who did had power restored could not order or receive deliveries which meant no fresh milk, dairy bread or produce. Once the goods were selected, shoppers received another shock. No EFTPOS facilities. And the nearest ATM?  Also without power.

You see the problem?

It makes you think doesn't it?  While we think we could do without light and internet for a few days, we forget that it affects the way businesses purchase goods and how we pay for them. Many businesses don't think of something as simple as a power outage in their disaster recovery planning.  But it's something to be seriously considered as we rely more and more on electricity to support all of our basic human needs.

Telstra launches vision for a more connected healthcare system

Telstra launches vision for a more connected healthcare system

2020... what's to come?

I've been in the IT game for more decades than I'm willing to share, and from my observation we have been blown away by innovation after innovation over this time, and invested capital into these advances to get the promised returns that technology leaders told us were possible. The end result is that many business and IT decisions were made purely for their perceived value, rather than a strategic purchase, and each built upon each other so that many times we needed to “rip and replace” earlier investments just to keep up.

The CEO of a leadership company, Mark Barrenechea, CEO and President of OpenText, has given us the opportunity to look ahead more than a decade, and ask the questions “where is all this going” and “what will it mean for businesses”?  Rather than continuing to flit from technology to technology, in his whitepaper he has given us a glimpse into the future, with a look at 3 major innovations that will be in place by 2020 and how we can use this knowledge to plan ahead.

These innovations are:

1. Disruptive Technologies

Some of these new technologies that will impact businesses are 5G, holographic TVs, nanobots, wearable technologies, 3D printing and the Internet of Things.

2. The “Generation Z” workforce

This will be the first generation that grew up with easy access to the Internet and will expect unlimited access to information. 

3. Mass Digitalization

The delivery of software, video, audio, games and other media will all be delivered digitally. Mark Barrenechea concludes that CIOs will need to transform from a record keeping focus to one of engagement and outlines tools that will allow companies to take these steps in preparation.

To read more download the agenda here.

Time to flick the switch from your old copper to NBN?

Post election, the country seems to have gone silent about NBN.  But while the media has finished talking about it for now, it is still being rolled out around the country, and quite a number of our customers in the Wollongong region are now looking at their copper network being switched off, their work having been completed around 2 years ago.  View the NBN video.

What a lot of people don’t realise, is that once the copper is switched off, consumers and businesses will have to “switch” their services to an NBN one.  While an easy response might be to just sign up with one of the major providers, it’s worth considering other players, particularly when the increased data speed can provide consumers with a much broader level of choice.

One such example is the cloud PABX.  In demand for an Australian cloud PABX solution needed for an Australian environment, CPS Technology Group have developed Jingl, a hosted PABX solution which is suitable for all types of users, from individuals or businesses including tradespeople, business services, not-for-profits, sales offices and engineering firms all the way up to corporate branch offices and government organisations. How it works.

 View Plans

Cheaper call costs

With Jingl you can really save on existing phone bills. JINGL offers much lower call rates, as well as untimed local and STD call charges. 

PABX alternative

Organisations can now weigh up the costs of running an in-house PABX against a cloud based service, which can often provide a much greater set of features with much lower running costs and no CAPEX expenditure.  The enhanced list of features available includes:

• Music on Hold
• Auto-attendant IVR
• Queuing of incoming calls
• Call forwarding
• Voicemail
• Call Recording
• Fax over IP
• Full reporting too!
• 
  

So if you've received the letter about switching, please give us a call on 1300 659828 and let us offer you a great alternative.

Learn more about the benefits. 

Wholesale enquiries welcome

If you're interested in adding Jingl to your suite of products, please contact us.

Don't lose sight of the customer in your quest for an app...

In the race to provide customers with an app for their smartphone or tablet, some organisations are forgetting the driver behind the need… which is to provide their customers with an enhanced level of customer service.  And the end result can be apps that do not deliver, or prove to be poorly designed which unfortunately can have the opposite effect.

Organisations have to take a step back, and address their mobile strategy from a customer service point of view.  Will the app integrate with back end systems?  After all, an app is really just another customer service touch point. If the customer is experiencing problems with the app, will the customer service agent they contact be able to see what went wrong?  In order to do this, organisations must develop mobile applications with tight integration to the contact centre.  So when a customer who is using the app encounters an issue, the customer support process is driven directly from the app. The app’s integration to the contact centre means that there is no need for customers to go through a lengthy query and response session with an IVR to categorise the call.  But, the app shouldn't just place a call. The entire history of the customer’s session on the app should be forwarded to the contact centre so that the agent will know precisely who the customer is, their entire purchase history, and what they were trying to do so that any issues can be resolved quickly.  

Interaction Mobilizer

Interactive Intelligence have built a toolkit that will allow businesses and organisations to generate one application to run on Apple iOS, Android and Windows Phone devices along with social media sites like Facebook.  By using this approach, the full range of back end interface capabilities means that all manner of functionality can be built into an app.  Companies can allow customers to place orders, query about shipments, or change their profile settings and preferences — in essence, whatever services companies choose to give customers access to. View the video

For more information, visit our website.

All we want for Christmas is... Presence

Okay, I don’t mean presents, but for companies, presence can equate to the same thing, with productivity gains and increased customer satisfaction, both of which equate to improved business profitability.

We've all heard the term “presence” bandied about, and we all have our own concept of what it means in our working lives.  You may be surprised to learn the term has been around since 1980, derived from the term telepresence, which at that time meant the manipulation of objects in the real world through remote access technology.  (Thanks Wikipedia).

So, in one way, not much has really changed.  Today, presence is simply when you and your employees are not only contactable wherever you are, but others have full transparency of your contactability status. Or more simply put, it allows users to determine personnel availability to perform the work in real-time.

Presence and Collaboration for improved Productivity

Microsoft Lync, Cisco Jabber and IBM/Lotus Sametime uses presence in synch with your calendar, which combined with user settings means people in your network can tell at a glance who is willing and available to communicate, where they are, and how they are able to be reached.

As well, Microsoft Lync, Cisco Jabber and IBM Sametime extend this ability to mobile users, by offering smartphone apps that provide all the presence and messaging capabilities, with Cisco also delivering conferencing, using an escalation to the Cisco WebEx Meetings application on the iPhone.

Presence for enhanced Customer Service

The Interactive Intelligence platform takes it one step further, by synchronising the telephony system with messaging.  In the past, one of the challenges with integrating applications such as Microsoft Lync with existing telephony systems had been managing presence, since both systems had their own concept of presence.  Interactive Intelligence enables administrators to configure mapping between the differing values to enable bi-directional synchronisation of presence.

All users have an active status. Depending on the status a user selects, he or she can set details including status notes, forward number, and date and/or time they will become available. The date and time information the user enters is played for all their incoming calls while in this status.

This presence management assists operators to ensure calls are transferred with accuracy thus avoiding lost and unanswered calls and improving customer satisfaction. In a contact centre scenario, other agents are able to monitor real-time presence of staff to ensure there is always someone available to take a customer service or support call.  Staff can monitor the calls and jump in to let callers know when their call might be taken prior to placing them in the queue. 

And for staff in the office using the Interaction Client, they can easily see if a person is available to take a call or to make an interaction.

To find out more about Presence, and how it can benefit your organisation, contact us.

How can mobility positively impact your business?

With all the buzz of mobility in the workplace, and the phenomenon of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), many employers and businesses are left scratching their heads and wondering how it will impact their workplace. While they might be feeling they haven’t caught up with the technology yet, employees are one step ahead. More and more staff are bringing their devices into the workplace and finding their own ways of increasing productivity to better utilise their time.  

A Cisco-commissioned study by Forrester Consulting gives a very good analysis into the Expanding role of Mobility in the Workplace.  The study showed immense productivity benefits in: increased employee responsiveness and decision-making speed (76%), and faster internal issue resolution (59%); increased worker productivity (47%) as well as a marked improvement in Customer issue resolution (46%) and improved customer satisfaction (43%).

The Expanding role of Mobility in the Workplace study concluded that mobility initiatives are a key component to overall strategic initiatives, and that businesses should prepare to support employee owned smartphone and tablet devices and broaden the range of mobile applications and services deployed to employees.

So it may be time to stop wondering, and actively start investigating how mobility is going to be used in your workplace.  The first place to start is to look at your employees, what they do and how they do it. You could begin by assessing:

1. How are employees spending their time while in the office?  Are they always at their desk or are they away from their desks for extended periods?
2. When out of the office, how much time do they spend away?  How do they use this time?
3. What type of work are they doing and what type of tools are they using to do it?
4. What tools are available to employees when out of the office?

Just by going through these exercises on a department by department basis, you may find that it is viable to consider giving staff more access to mobile applications and collaboration.  By doing this, not only will you keep your employees happy, but you will receive productivity and customer satisfaction benefits as a result.

There are an enormous range of mobility options for businesses and organisations of all sizes.  CPS Technology Group represents all the top vendors who are leaders in the mobility field. To help you understand the technology and make the right decisions, we can consult with you to determine the best applications and services that suit your particular needs.  

If you would like to receive a copy of the study, you can download it here. And if you would like to know more about how CPS can help you harness the power of mobility in the workplace, please use our contact points here.